My Puppy Fell Down the Douche, March 2014

Douches are wonderful things.  Think about it; they're low maintenance, they're where the term 'douche bag' originates from, and they solve sanitation problems!  And open deification is a terrible problem.  In fact, I plan to work on a douche-building project to address the negative health effects of open deification.  But douches also pose a security threat.  A threat caused by an overly large douche-hole and an inquisitive puppy. 

The scene was set when my puppy, named by my brother after the famous Senegalese singer 'Youssa-Ndor,' decided to run away the night before I embarked for a month-long set of trainings and conferences.  Figuring the pint sized bundle of inquisitive energy would either re-embrace his origins in the African bush or realize that making it in the real world is hard and thus return the next day for dinner, I left my village unconcerned.  The trouble announced itself when I took a call from my host father as I was boarding public transportation in a distant town.

Saliou: "Yassine, your dog returned."

Erin, hearing the puppy barking in the background:  "Great!"

Saliou:  "There's a problem, he fell down the douche.  What should we do?"

Erin: ........... "Get him out?"

And then the public transportation took off and the ensuing cacophony made it impossible to hear the rest of the phone call, or any of my thoughts beyond 'ohhhhhh....shit. Literally.'

For those of you who may be curious how my puppy fell down my toilet or why I thought this was an unsolvable problem, let me acquaint you with some basic knowledge about douches.  I have one of the cheapest version of douches, pictured here.

It's covered in a lot of dust, so you probably can't see the particulars too well.  It's just a pit dug out of the ground covered with a concrete cover with a hole, covered by a bag, where I'm able to do my business.  On the plus side, I've gotten very strong legs from so much squatting.  On the downside, this version poses several hygienic and  structural security risks.  As my puppy found out all too well.

From what I've asked my family and some basic deduction on my part, I learned that my puppy took his favorite game of 'tugging-the-burlap-bag-filled-with-sand-which-covers-the-douche-hole' a step too far and removed the bag, and then fell down into a mixture of my excrement and trash.  Thankfully, I haven't been using my douche for too long so it wasn't an actual sea of waste for my puppy to drown in... not a pleasant way to go.

Nonetheless, I was pretty concerned that my puppy would suffer from the buildup of gasses in the douche (it smells pretty bad), starvation and lack of water, or just bake to death beneath a concrete roof in 100 degree weather.  In typical fashion, for the first couple of days I decided I wouldn't call my dad.  This was two months ago and my lack of confidence in my language skills led me to believe that, even if I did manage to think of some brilliant method to save the puppy, I wouldn't be able to communicate it in Wolof.  And I didn't want to hear that my puppy had died in the douche.  So I traveled with my friends to Thies and Dakar, and I must say that listening to their suggestions, sympathy, and comments did not make things better.  My friends could not think of a single way to get the puppy out of the douche- and we Peace Corps Volunteers are a pretty resourceful lot!  One friend reminded me that, even if they got the puppy out of the douche, my problems wouldn't be over.  My family would either create a major health risk by letting a feces-covered dog run around the village or lock a feces-covered dog in my room for a month.  Gross. 

Deciding that I needed to warn against these possible scenarios, I tried to call my dad.  Every other day for three weeks.  First, his phone was dead.  Then, his phone was out of credit.  Then his phone was dead again.  Finally, I was able to get through to my dad and, after greeting every adult in my family, asking about work and children, commenting on the weather, explaining when I was coming home, etc. I was able to ask about the fate of my pet.

"Oh, your 15 year old brother got him out..."

Um...how?

"It was very hot..."

Yeah.... but, how?

"Very hot, the dog whined a lot.  The puppy cried..."

Yes, well if you fell into a pile of poop that was bigger than you I think you'd cry too.

"See you when you get home!"

Once home, I found the puppy clean (how on Earth did they manage that?!?!?!) and was unable to get the specifics on how the rescue operation occurred.  I suppose it will always remain a mystery.  I'm about to start my douche-building project and I'll be enforcing some strict safety measures, such as having the douche-holes no larger than the size of a coffee can so that children and puppies cannot fall in.  Otherwise, they'd be in deep.... well, you get the idea.       

  

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.

I got a puppy... and Giardia, January 2014

January was a month that alternated between moments of staring at the top of my hut in extreme boredom and busy moments like the village wide presentation I helped give to start our local cashew tree project. In the midst of learning to cope with the heat, the Senegalese diet, gardening, and all the other aspects of village life, a puppy happened.

In the (slightly) cooler evening, I walked to the well to begin pulling water for myself when I saw a small bundle of fur right beside the rope to pull up the water.  I decided to ignore it because I knew that if I touched it I would both fall in love with it and it would follow me home.  Obviously a bad idea because it's ferocious bush-dog mother was probably waiting three feet away in the grass AND I was struggling to perform basic village-life functions by myself without the added stress of a puppy.  Not to mention that dogs are not considered good animals for pets by most Senegalese people.  So I just stood a ways away and waited for the puppy to wander off, a brilliant plan!

My brilliant plan was thwarted when my neighboring girls came to pull water and were terrified of the ball of fur that was looking up at them with loving puppy eyes.  Not the best of problem solvers, the girls decided to make the ferocious puppy move away from the rope and pulley by hitting it with a giant stick while simultaneously cutting off all routes of escape by standing in a circle around it.  This lovely chain of events led to a terrified, shaking puppy being beaten ferociously by pre-teen girls.  I broke.  Breaking the group of girls up, I scooped up the puppy and began comforting it.  Pretty soon the entire village came out to see the white girl comforting what was considered a dangerous animal.  At one point, the men laughed and said "Sanu toubab dafa dof!" or "Our white person is crazy!" I decided to put the puppy down so he wouldn't get attached or its mother wouldn't eat me (when really she should have eaten the crazy girls with the big stick), but the moment I started walking away it followed me.  This led to everyone at the well bursting out laughing and pointing.  I walked faster.  The puppy started to lope happily beside me with his tongue sticking out.  In a nut shell, it followed me home.  Failed plan.

Knowing that most Senegalese people are scared of dogs, I didn't want to saddle my family with a puppy that they would have to take care of when I was away from my village.  When I asked my Senegalese host dad if I could keep the puppy, he said that it was a great idea because my 15 year old brother always wanted a dog and I could teach him how to take care of a dog.  So this actually turned out perfectly, I share a blond and white bundle of fur with my brother.  It has led to several frustrating moments- including the time the puppy ate my banana tree.  It has led to great moments- like when I was able to first successfully have an angry tirade in Wolof because a child teased my dog.  My brother and I have grown quite a bit closer because we spend hours together with our puppy, whom my brother has named "Yussa Ndor."  And I feel pretty accomplished because I'M TRAINING MY DOG IN WOLOF.  Pictures are on the way!    

The last week in January, I traveled to Tamba for a week-long language seminar.  I was able to reunite with some of my stage mates (those of us who trained together) and ask all our language questions to a Peace Corps language teacher.  As traveling long distance can be difficult (see my last blog post), I decided to break my travel into two days and spend the night between at my neighbor/ friend Sara's hut.  After a fun day of chatting, working in her garden, and playing with her dog the two of us decided to have a salad dinner  her family had prepared.  We gobbled fresh lettuce with onions from her family's garden and prepared to go to bed.  While Peace Corps volunteers are not supposed to drink local water or eat anything that's been washed in local water, sometimes that is hard to follow because the only food available was washed in local water, or you want to be polite, or you really want to eat some fresh salad.  I'd eaten salad a couple of times before, so it didn't even occur to me that I might have digestion issues from the delicious vegetables I'd eaten... until 4am when I woke up so nauseous that I felt like the room was spinning.  I was up the rest of the night with the symptoms of giardia (look them up) with one of the smallest douche holes in all of Senegal.  It was quite an adventure.

The next day, I traveled to the neighboring region's capital and we started our week of language classes.  There was city food (including burgers, shwarma, chicken, and stores to buy other food), alcohol available, and many other draws of the city but I wasn't able to enjoy them since I was violently ill for several days.  After not being able to keep down food for FOUR days, I started having 'sulfuric' burps- the dead giveaway that you have giardia.  So I called the Peace Corps Senegal medical office and they told me which medicine to buy at the corner pharmacy.  Thankfully, I was able to make a 3 minute trip to the pharmacy, take the one dose of medicine, and start keeping food down that night.  Hence the story of my first parasite!

A puppy and parasites, I've started the year of with a bang!

Holiday Travels, Dec 2013

FIRST INSTALLED, FIRST IMPRESSIONS

After the grueling two months of cultural, language, and basic agriculture training I installed at my permanent site on December 5th.  My village is the smallest Peace Corps Senegal site, with a booming population of 117 people including the new 'Mama Yassine Ndjaye' (me).  I was named after a much beloved and recently deceased grandmother, so I am called 'Mama Yassine' or 'Granny Yassine' by both young children and the elders of the village.   

Village life in rural Senegal has completely reoriented all aspects of my life.  Academically, my classes have discussed how language reflects culture and lifestyle, and I have found this true time and time again when I realize that Wolof and English do not directly translate to one another.  Examples of language (and thus culture) diverging include;

                        American English                                                       Wolof

Times of Day

            Morning (approx. 5am-12pm)                                                 Suba (4am-1pm)

            Afternoon (approx. 12pm-5pm)                                              Becheg (1am-4pm)

            Evening (approx. 5pm-8pm)                                                   Ngoon (4pm-9pm)

            Night (approx. 8pm-12am)                                                    Guddie (9pm-4am)

Seasons

            Spring (March-May)                                                               'Cold' Season (November-Feb)

            Summer (June-August)                                                             Hot & Dry Season(March-June)

            Autumn (September-November)                                              Monsoon Season (July-Nov)

            Winter (December-March)

Other basic culture differences I struggled with were 1) different word orders (are you stressing the object or the pronoun?), 2) everyone eats at a bowl on the ground with no chairs, plates, silverware, etc. in sight, and 3) privacy is not even a word in Wolof. 

At first, I struggled with the change in my diet to straight Senegalese village food, leading to a month-long bout of diarrhea in a situation where my outdoor douche is 10 feet away from the village gathering spot.  So I try to have the quietest bowel movements possible at all times. 

My final first impression was of my daily greetings.  Every morning I walk to every hut and have this conversation with 117 people;

-Hello

            -Hello

-How are you?

            -I am fine.

-How is your morning?

            -My morning is in peace.

-Did you sleep.

            -Yes, I slept in peace.

-Did you eat breakfast?

            -Yes/ No.

-COME!  EAT!

            -I'm full (even if you said you haven't eaten yet).

-Are you in peace?

            -Peace only.

-Praised be to God.

            -Praise be to God.

As I am not a morning person, sometimes this is difficult for me to do but the daily inducement of village coffee usually gets me up and making the rounds!

CHRISTMAS

For the holidays, I planned to visit my nearest regional house and celebrate with friends.  In each of the regions, which are the rough equivalent of states, volunteers share a house in the regional capital.  The houses are used to have region-wide work meetings, as a place for volunteers to relax, and as a place to get in a little piece of American life.  The houses usually have sleeping accommodations, a semi-Western kitchen, internet, and other volunteers. 

I planned to travel on December 23rd, which to me was the day before Christmas Eve but was the day after the local holiday Magal Touba.  On the 22nd of December, all cars in Senegal were in the city of Touba along with 50% of the country's population.  On December 23rd, all the cars were streaming away from Touba to bring everyone back home after the holiday.  My problem was that I wanted to go towards Touba the day everyone was going the other way.  I spent an entire day sitting by the dirt road by my village watching a grand total of two cars go the wrong way.  Oh, and there were several donkey carts going the wrong way too.    

On the 24th, the only car that went by my village was a very full 'mini car.'  Mini cars are light-duty Toyota trucks with two rows of wooden benches in the back and a metal luggage rack above the benches.  This truck had 3 people in the cab, 15 people on the two benches and floor in the back, 2 people on top, so much luggage strapped on top I thought the vehicle was sure to topple over, and a goat.  I was desperate to celebrate Christmas so I clambered in, squished myself between people and the goat, and settled in for the dusty 24 km ride to my road town.  'Road Towns' are what we volunteers call the roads nearest our sites that are on the paved road to which goes to big cities.  Once my mini car pulled into the road town's garage, I was on to the next step in my transportation, a sept-place.  Sept-places are named from the French "seven places" indicating how many spots there are in the car, and they normally just go from one city to another (no bush driving).  Once you barter for your spot, you wait until all the seats are full and then take off.  I was lucky and only had to wait 45 minutes, and then worried for the hour-long drive about my only line in the upcoming interaction.... "I'll get out here."  One hour later, I delivered my line with what I considered great poise and panache, and arrived in Kaffrine to celebrate the holidays with my friends. 

A couple of days of bean and egg sandwiches, a delicious American style Christmas dinner, internet, friends, and card games ensued.  And then I started the adventure of traveling back to site.  My neighbor Peace Corp Volunteer and I traveled back to our road town together in an 'Al-hum.' Al-hums are the nicknames for various sized buses which stop whenever flag it down or people bang on the side to get out and have 'praise be to God' or ' alhamdulillahi' painted on it.  After arriving in our road town, we waited for eight hours for the infrequent rides back into the bush.  We stopped at the post office, visited my neighbor's Senegalese friends, browsed at the market, sat around, read, and... waited.  The two of us went our separate ways as I headed back to my village in another mini car.  About half way home, I was staring at the darkening sky and stars when the car shuddered to a stop and someone said "the car's on fire."  I shot out the back of the car faster than would normally be possible, and waited in a peanut field for the next 30 minutes with the other passengers while the engine was fixed.  After starting off again, we dropped off some acquaintances in the village next to mine.  I hung out the back of the truck, trying to discern the familiar landmarks in the pitch black dark of the moon-less night.  Convinced we had passed my village, I convinced my driver to stop and let me hop out.  I gained a deep appreciation for how dark it can get when there is no electricity and no moon.  Even with the flashlight on my phone, I was hardly able to see the dirt road I was walking on.  It turns out I got out of my car a little early, but I luckily heard the ladies of my village and were able to follow the voices of my new, dear friends back home. 

NEW YEARS

"Erin, my family is going to cook meat and oily rice.  Get.  Over.  Here."

That was the text from one of my Peace Corps neighbors when she heard her family's plans, and thus began my plans for New Years.  I packed an overnight bag, biked through the bush for an hour, and commenced eating and talking.  My neighbor, Sara, and I have quite a bit in common so we chatted about everything from Peace Corps projects, American families, music, and book recommendations for two days.  We visited the local market, hospital, a USAID funded women's garden (hopefully a future place for me to work with), and Sara's friends.  And we ate.  Beans and bread for breakfast, oily rice for lunch, chicken for dinner, and an extra dinner of salad and duck!  After a month on the village diet, we were ecstatic for all the food!  We stayed up until midnight, collapsed from staying up late, and I biked home a happy, fully volunteer.  What a great way to start the new year.

Teaching Russian in Wolof (Nov 30, 2013)

The past two and a half days we Peace Corps trainees hosted the 'Counterpart Workshop' at the Training Center.  Each Peace Corps Volunteer has at least one local national they work closely with, known as their local counterpart.  So we essentially hosted over a hundred Senegalese men and women who would be working with us.  The two and a half days held sessions about the Peace Corps' mission, how the different projects would be working together, and cross-cultural work.  It was a weekend of constantly trying to keep track of over two hundred people as well as many, many awkward moments.   

Many of us trainees experienced these awkward moments with our future counterparts.  We've been learning the languages for the past seven weeks, but that by no means indicates that we are able to communicate well with strangers.  Although I'd met my counterpart several weeks ago when I visited my future site, I renewed our relationship with quite the awkward moment.  First, I missed when my counterpart arrived.  In my defense, counterparts were arriving in a ten-hour window so it was a long time to sit in the sun and wait for someone to arrive.  I was sitting inside with some friends when my counterpart walked in looking for some water.  Once I realized who he was, I had to come forward somewhat awkwardly and say hello.  And how is your family?  And how was the travel?  And are you in peace?  And then he responded with a very thick bush accent that I couldn't understand.  To give some perspective, imagine you are learning English for the first time and you've been studying in the American Midwest, then someone with a British, or New England, or Texan accent tries to speak to you.  The difference an accent can make is astounding!  So, it felt like the past seven weeks I actually hadn't learned much of the language.

This awkwardness continued when we were supposed to take our counterparts on tour of the Training Center the next day and show them some of the techniques we were using.  First of all, the agricultural counterparts are experienced farmers who know a lot more about Senegalese ag techniques than I do (I'll be learning more in February during my second bout of training).  Secondly, I don't have the language skills to really explain drip line irrigation quite yet.  So I walked him around the center saying, 'this is lettuce' or 'this is a mango tree' or 'look at all this compost!'  I was pretty proud of myself when I was able to comment on the fact that the vegetable nurseries had been dug by us stagiers, amended with compost, ash, and charcoal, and the nurseries in the shade were doing much better than those in the sun.  (Quite the long sentiment to express in Wolof!)  My biggest failure though was when I tried to explain aloe vera- I said the sun was bad for my skin, and then the aloe was good for it... there were a lot of hand gestures involved.    

The classes we attended were fascinating from an organizational point of view.  At times, classes had to be divided based on the sector of service (agriculture, agro-forestry, or Economic development) while at times they were divided by language (Wolof, Mandinka, Pulafounta, or Pular).  Those that were divided by language only had to be translated once, like from Wolof to English for us trainees, but those classes divided by sector had to be translated into upwards of four languages.  If anyone ever wants to claim that colonialists were right and Western Africans aren't smart, they should sit through a class where over half the individuals are speaking three or more languages!  From a political point of view, it is easy to see the challenges that arise from a multilingual country.  A two day conference was headache enough, organizing policy would be extremely challenging and I can see why French is used as the national language, though it separates policy making from the majority of citizens.  (A debate I'm sure I'll continue to have with myself over the next two years.)

One of the classes we had was about the difficulties of language learning and working in a different language.  One of our language instructors facilitated the class, asking our counterparts how long they thought it would take us to learn our languages.  Some wonderful comments were brought up, such as how different accents would be difficult to learn and that our host communities should help us learn.  Then they started debating whether it would take several months or  just a couple of weeks to learn Wolof.  The final consensus of the new counterparts was that we should be pretty fluent in Wolof after two weeks at our permanent sites.  TWO WEEKS?!?!?! 

Thankfully, we had a little activity to show them the difficulties of language learning.  All the language classes had one trainee teaching a foreign language for ten minutes.  Friends of mine taught Korean to the Pulars, Vietnamese to the Mankinkas and Pulafuntas, and I taught Russian to four Senegalese Wolof speakers.  In our ten minute lesson, I taught them to say the responses to the following:

Hello

Hello

How are you?

I'm fine.

What is your name?

My name is ______.

Where are you from?

I live in Senegal.

As instructed by my language teachers, I began the class speaking only in Russian.  After spewing about 30 seconds of my credentials and why I was teaching them this language (in Russian), they all were staring at me in horror and confusion as they didn't understand a single sound that came out of my mouth.  And the entire class laughed at them.  We spend the next ten minutes working on pronunciation, having the entire class (or 4 students) and the individuals repeat the words over and over.  One woman had obviously learned languages before and was picking it up very quickly.  Whenever she would say something correctly, the larger class would clap.  Whenever anyone got anything wrong, the larger class would laugh.  At one point, I saw sweat absolutely running down the face of one of my male students, but my language teachers told me to continue to teach and not try and comfort him.  By the time we ended the class, my brain was hurting pretty bad from thinking in English, teaching Russian, and speaking Wolof. 

The ten minutes were pretty funny, and I ended it by mixing some Wolof in with the Russian so that everyone laughed.  When my 'students' were allowed to return to their seats, we had comments about how language learning actually was difficult.  Some of my favorite comments were as follows;

"How do you ask what a word means when you don't understand the other words in the language?"

"When everyone laughs, it makes it harder for me to learn. "  (Which brought on a whole discussion about how Senegalese culture involves lots of laughing and we've been laughed at a lot, and how to limit laughing at us.)

"I was only sitting there for ten minutes and sweat through my shirt, I don't know how you have done this for seven weeks!"

So all in all, it was a great tool to show that, in fact, a language cannot be learned in two weeks.  Learning languages is hard and takes a long time.  Speaking of which, I have my final language exam on Monday so I'd better sign off and start stu

Miscommunication Station (Nov 18, 2013)

Having just finished the long sixteen-day visit to my host community, I'm forced to look back on how I feel about Kerr Sadaro and my experiences.  My host family and people I have interacted with are the most patient people I have ever met, always willing to help me with language.  As I've grown more comfortable with them, and my language classes have continued, I've been communicating more and more.  Sometimes my attempts at communication are successful... and sometimes not. 

Faux-pas #1: After a long day at a wedding, which included hours of gussying up with the other women in my family, I saw my aunt was looking tired.  When I attempted to ask, "Are you tired?" (Danga soon?) I instead said "You look funny" (Danga relu). 

Faux-pas #2:  We learned the words for "bless you" and "difficult" on the same day in class.  Thinking I'd mastered them, I started saying "bless you" when people sneezed.  Actually, it turns out I was saying "difficult" when people sneezed.  Which I guess is accurate, sneezing is... ACHOO... difficult.

Faux-pas #3: After a wedding, the bride will sometimes return to the house she grew up in and take ceremonial pictures with them.  A few days after my sister's wedding, I spotted her walking by the house in her finest garb.  My mother told me that after I finished my garden work, I needed to shower and then take a picture with my family.  I finished my garden work, grabbed my materials for the shower, and stopped to confirm with my mom.  "Tay?  Apres sangu?  Photo?"  (Today, after I shower, a photo?) I kept repeating, sticking to nouns as I didn't trust my shaky grammar to get the point across.  My mom confirmed that yes, today, after I showered, I needed to put on a specific skirt, a specific shirt, brush my hair, and take a picture with my sister. 

So I showered.  I put on the shirt.  I put on the skirt.  When I came out of my room with my hair and make-up done, my entire family was staring at me.  Nighttime is the time for comfy clothes, so when I came out with my finest garb I caused quite a stir.  My sister told me that my clothes looked very pretty, and my brother asked why I was wearing my fancy clothes. Looking around at everyone, including my mother, lounging about I answered, "I don't know."  They all exchanged looks of 'crazy American, what is she doing?'  So I sat there all night, and we never took a picture. 

There were several other faux-pas, but I have had some successes as well!  I am able to joke, play, get my most essential needs across.  My brothers like teasing me, and this is an example of me being able to respond. 

My joking younger brother: "Seneba, get me water."

Me: "Ummm... no."

Brother: "Seneba, I'm thirsty.  Get me water."

Me: "Do you have two legs?"

Brother: "Do you understand what I'm asking you?"

Me: "Yes, but do you have two legs?"

Brother: "Yes?"

Me: "Do you have two arms?"

Brother: "Yes."

Me:  "Do your legs and arms work?"

Brother, accompanied with eye-rolling: "Yes, Seneba."

Me:  "Demal jelal sa bopp ndox!" (Then go get your own water!)

Followed by laughing by all brothers present and my family repeating the story all day. 

End scene.     

Volunteer Visit (29 Oct 2013)

This past week has been quite exciting for all of us trainees as we found out our permanent sites and visited the Peace Corps Volunteers who we'll be replacing.  After a long day of classes at the training center, all of us trainees gathered around the basketball court which has the map of Senegal painted on it.  Staff members blindfolded us and then led us to the place on the map that corresponded with our permanent site.  Standing with my friends at the edge of the court, I could barely contain my excitement to find out where I'd be living for the next two years and which of my friends would be my neighbors.  Staff members led more and more of my friends away until I was one of the last trainees standing beside the court.  Finally, Youssafa took my hand and turned me in circles until I wasn't sure where I was on the map.  Since I'm learning the language most common in Senegal, I could have been placed almost anywhere in the country and the suspense was killing me.  After Youssafa told me to stop and handed me my packet with the information about my site, I stood there feeling around for who might be near me.  Several of my friends were close to me, and we joined the chorus of excited voices as we tried to guess where we were standing on the map.   After an excruciatingly long wait, we counted down and tore off our blindfolds. 

I'm going to be spending the next two years in a village of 120 people (50 of which are adults) close to the regional borders of Kaffrine and Tamba, and very close the Gambian border.  I'll also be working with 2-3 surrounding villages that are about the same size.  The volunteer that I'm replacing lived in one of the other villages, so I'll be starting a new site! 

A couple of days after finding out about our sites, we trainees were packed into Peace Corps vehicles and driven across the country to visit our future homes.  Those of us serving in the Kaffrine region were dropped off at our regional house and met the other volunteers who are going to be our neighbors and closest friends for the rest of our time here.  An interesting aspect about Peace Corps is that there volunteers around the country do not come in at the same time, but come in two waves a year.  This meant that people I met this weekend either were leaving, would be leaving in 6 months, had been here for a little under a year, or had just arrived six months ago.  Our new friends were so excited to meet us that they cooked an American meal of flatbread pizza, peanut butter banana bread, and fruit salad. 

After our lunch together, those of us living near one another on the outskirts of Kaffrine shared a sept-place back to our 'road-town.'  Since so many of us live in the bush, we all have what is called a 'road town,' or a town that is on paved roads and has transportation.  Luckily, one of my new neighbors lives only 5K from our road town and we were able to spend the night at her place.  After the drive, a stop at the post office, and a tour of my neighbor's hut, we went in search of dinner.  Although I live in the bush, at least a day's journey away from internet, I have the perk of excellent bean sandwiches.  For dinner, I experienced my first bean, cassava, and onion sandwich on fresh, dense baguettes. It was excellent!   

Toting our sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, the five of us (my three neighbors, the volunteer I'm replacing, and I) sat on the floor to start our feast.  After wolfing down enormous sandwiches, we ate the melted chocolate bars I had brought as gifts off the wrappers with spoons.  It was a great evening of chatting, tons of questions from me, and good food.  I personally think that chocolate bars are better when melted and eaten with a spoon.

The next day, my volunteer took me to the garage in my road town to get a ride to our villages.  We told the man in charge where we wanted to go, he sold us tickets to a truck that had wooden benches in the back and a rack on top to hold our bags, and told us to wait until all the seats had been bought and we could leave.  My volunteer told me that we would probably be in for a long wait, and that this would be routine for me.  Four hours later, we still had not left.  We've all waited for things before, but have you ever waited sitting under a small shade structure on hot asphalt with the African sun beating down, with nothing to occupy your time, and you sticking out like a sore thumb?  Well, now I can say that I have... and I'll be doing it regularly.  We finally piled into the truck and I watched the beautiful scenery flash by.  It's the end of the rainy season, so my future home was still green.  Green grasses that came up over my head, green crops being harvested in the fields, and green trees.  Shade trees, palm trees, and (my personal favorite) baobab trees.  By the time I move here in a month, the world will be pretty yellow and desolate, but give it another year and the green will return!  (Or so I've been told.) 

I spent the next couple of days being shown the villages I'll be working with and the community I'll be living in.  There is so much to tell, but thankfully, I'll have two years to learn and communicate more specifics.  Some of the areas that we visited that I've already started thinking of projects for are the regional school, local women's' gardens, and regional health hut.   One of the highlights of my visit was meeting my host community.  Within minutes of my arrival, a village meeting was called and all 120 people (or just about all of them) gathered around to meet me.  My host father gave me my new name, Yassine Ndjaye (pronounced 'Njie').  A Peace Corps regional official came to the meeting and told my host community about how I was going to be different since I was an American, what my job would be, and how they could help me be a part of the community.  It was touching to see how excited these people were to have me there and they all promised to welcome me whole-heartedly into the community. 

Transportation was the theme of my trip, and it continued to be an adventure my last morning.  To catch a Peace Corps bus that was coming through my road town that morning, my volunteer and I caught a local charette that was heading in the direction we were headed.  A charette is a flat cart drawn by horse or donkey.  You sit sideways on it and rest your feet on the side board.  It was about as picturesque as it could get, being slowly pulled along a dirt track from thatch-roofed village to thatch-roofed village while watching the sun rise.  I was soaking up the new landscape, sounds and smells when suddenly a rain storm hit... and I swear I soaked up half the rains in Africa.  Since the sun hadn't risen yet, the cold rains deeply chilled my volunteer and I.  After riding in the rain for about an hour, we stopped at the first village we came to and waited out the storm under a tin-roofed boutique.  I was worried that the roads were so rain-soaked that we wouldn't be able to continue, but our horse persevered and we arrived in our road town completely soaked.  I'm learning the lessons of Senegalese transportation pretty quickly, so I wasn't surprised that the Peace Corps bus I was hopping on (definitely one of the fastest methods of transportation in the country) was delayed by six hours.  So my volunteer and I explored the market (where I bought fresh peanut butter- one of the perks of living in the Peanut Basin), stopped at the post office, and ran errands in soaking wet clothes.  At the time, it didn't seem all that exciting, in fact, it felt pretty miserable.  But it makes for a pretty good story and I can say that I've lived through my first African adventure!