The Case of the Broken Computers, Feb 2014

February was a rare month of high-living for me as I had several conferences back to back which kept me in Thies and Dakar for an entire month.  I experienced good fun, good friends, and most importantly, good food.  Seriously, after two straight months of village food I'd lost approximately 15 lbs (though part of that may have been due to my recent bout of Giardia- see my last post), so good food was paramount! For those interested, my itinerary looked like this;

Work Zone Coordinators' Conference, 2 days
I'd been recently appointed a coordinator for the 6, soon to be 7, volunteers surrounding me.  All of the coordinators met to discuss cross-sectoral collaboration, how to organize the work zones, and how to better communication between PCVs and PC staff.

SeneGAD Conference, 1 day

The 'Gender and Development' conference for PC Senegal where I gained lots of information about gender-based projects I plan to do in the upcoming year.

All-Volunteer Conference 1, day

All 260 PCVs in Senegal were invited to Thies to attend a variety of presentations on work projects around the country and bounce ideas off one another. 

WAIST, 4 days

The volunteers all traveled to Dakar to spend a weekend living with gracious ex-pats who hosted us in their homes.  We volunteers were able to take a hot shower (the only ones we get all year), use fast wifi, unashamedly took advantage of the Western food our hosts offered us, and most importantly, used their washing machines!  The West African Intramural Softball Tournament is a tournament that the expat teams take quite seriously, but is seen as much more of a social event by us volunteers.  The tournament involved an AMERICAN STYLE BBQ!, a talent show (where PCVs made us all proud with group dances, traditional Mexican dancing, competitive jump roping, and original songs about Peace Corps Senegal girls), a bowling night, and a Marine-hosted dance.

My regional team in our costumes for the softball tournament.  PCV teams traditionally wear costumes, our theme was 80's cyclists.  All garb was bought at local thrift shops.

My friends and I about to eat ice cream for the first time in 4 months!

PST2, 14 days

The last bit of my training as an agricultural extension agent.  I now have pretty in-depth knowledge about integrated pest management, grant writing, permaculture, earthworks, malnutrition, teaching methods, seed extension, seed saving, soil fertility management, etc.

A view of my team's permaculture challenge, we did all the earthworks and planned where different vegetation would be most efficient.

Master Farmer Training, 1 day 

Learning how to work with our local Master Farms.

So overall, I gained a lot of experience and knowledge.  But I most gained confidence in my language skills.  After two months of living in village, I knew that my Wolof skills had gotten exponentially better but I had no bench mark to compare myself with.  When all my friends and I reconvened in Thies, I was able to see how much my friends' language skills had grown.  We were able to speak Wolof, Mandinka, various dialects of Pulaar, and Jahonke , but unfortunately most people in Thies and Dakar only speak Wolof.  So when my friends and I would go out, I was usually the token Wolof speaker who haggled for taxis, asked for directions, and ordered at restaurants.  The inefficiencies of a country that has so many languages aside, this was a huge confidence boost as I realized that my language skills had improved so much and I could actually survive (and occasionally thrive) in Senegal.  As I did in... 'The Case of the Broken Computers' (I've been reading far too many Agatha Cristie novels lately).

THE CASE OF THE BROKEN COMPUTERS

Travel and dust are hard on computers so by the time my friend Dana and I found ourselves in Dakar, both of our computer screens had broken.  Dakar is the only city in the country with computer stores, so we decided to try our luck at getting them fixed. 

Three of us decided to brave the adventure; Ian, Dana, and myself.  We figured between two different dialects of Pulaar, a Wolof speaker, and various levels of French we should be able to accomplish the mission.

Step 1: We heard that the Western-style mall had a store that fixed computers.  When we stopped in the mall before bowling and found out that, in fact, there was no longer any such store at the mall and it had apparently moved downtown near a hotel.

Step 2:  The next morning we piled into a taxi and took a 45 minute ride to the hotel downtown where we then walked inside what is perhaps the fanciest hotel in Senegal.  We thought we would blend right in, we had just taken hot showers that morning and even brushed our hair!  But everyone was wearing suits and we stood out with our hiking pants and village-style flip flops.  A quick trip to the concierge's desk gave us directions to the store.

Step 3:  The store wasn't well marked so we walked past it and had to stop in the building for the head of Senegalese banking to ask for directions again.

Step 4:  We found the store.  I explained our problems in Wolof.  The service lady told me that she could fix my PC but not Dana's Mac.  She wanted to charge me $130 and have it done in the morning.  We conferred and decided to ask if another store would fix the Mac.  Our lady was not pleased and told us about another store, gave us directions in rapid fire Wolof, when I didn't understand she yelled "Good Lord" in Wolof and stormed in the back.

Step 5:  The only part of the directions I understood was that computer store #2 was next to a famous roundabout.  So we stopped in the UNESCO Dakar office for directions, no big deal.

Step 6:  Walking through the downtown streets of Dakar to the roundabout, I was worried that we couldn't find the roundabout so I asked locals on every corner and every one of them told us to keep going strait. 

Step 7:  We continued going strait.  Found the store. 

Step 8: I explained our computer problems in Wolof to the cute Senegalese men.  They giggled.  So then I explained the computer problems in French.  They laughed... and responded in fluent English.  So after feeling so accomplished for explaining computer problems in TWO foreign languages we were able to decide on a much lower price for both computers and get them fixed in under 5 hours!

Step 9:  We spent the rest of the day seeing the sites of downtown Dakar, eating ice cream, returned for our laptops, and hopped in taxis to return to our lovely host families. 

I had thought that maybe the only way to get my laptop fixed would be to wait until a PCV I knew was going home for a visit and have them take my laptop with them to get it fixed at an expensive U.S. store... so needless to say I was pretty thrilled that I was able to explain our problems in French/ Wolof AND that we were able to get them fixed so well at such a low price.  Thriving in Senegal!

***Disclaimer, since this story has taken place many, many more faux pas have been made so I may downgrade this from 'thriving' to just 'surviving.'  I'll take surviving though!

The triumphant Dana and myself at the American style softball field.

My stage's "get well photo" for our friend who had to be medivaced to the U.S.