This just in...

I just spent 18,000F CFA (almost $40) and an hour and a half getting the perfect dress for new-year’s eve. Do I regret any of this? Only a tiiiiny bit. It would be good if I were better at saving my money and not spending it. But, hey, I’m stimulating the economy. And I was assured that a tourist who Doesn’t come back to the same boutique after an hour and half and laugh and chat with the same salesman in his native language would have been charged 28,000F CFA. Plus, it’s a great dress and I’ve had my eye on it for over awhile actually. But here’s the great part of the story:

While looking I went to a boutique I’ve only been in once before, with my parents when they were here. It was a one room place with just a few racks. They’ve expanded to over twice the size, with a fabulous collection of women’s, men’s and kids clothes and home furnishings. Here’s the problem with all these boutiques: great fabric, great clean lines and stylish design, but there’s Very limited sizing, and the clothes are all meant to be baggy! I know, there’s a place for that, but it’s not new years eve. And every store? Come on. Okay, back to the point. It’s owned by a French woman, but the salesman was a lovely Sereer guy who speaks perfect Wolof. And we conversed. Like, naturally, fluidly, talked and laughed. Come to find out, it’s a fair-trade operation that works with ten villages in the Diourbel region. The local proceeds go to building forages (think clean water from running taps) and heath posts (basic doctor’s offices in the bush). I was already a touch high from just running around “shopping” and chatting with a bunch of shopkeepers (a good Wolof day get’s me a bit high), and when he told me all that, I kind of lost it. Like, almost started crying, but laughed long and loud instead. I told him, “you don’t understand that’s my dream!” Well, it’s definitely one of them. “And you guys already did it! What should I do now?” He very rationally pointed out that it’s only ten villages. So I continued looking, but like I said, it was all baggy, not what I need for tomorrow. And when I left I realized I wasn’t really sold on that idea.

Here’s the thing. Yeah, it’s doing good things. But is it encouraging local culture? Did the local artisans say, "hey let's build a forage with this money!" Is it teaching any of the local artisans anything about taking development or even business management into their OWN hands? Maybe it is, and that would be great, but in theory not a smart “business” move as it would eventually make the French woman unnecessary (she wasn’t particularly kind about my inability to get my mouth to make words in her language. But hey, it’s not her country, right?) Also, maybe it’s doing good things for the source communities, but it’s doing so within the context of the “consumerism is good” mentality. I think I’ve heard something in economic theory about increased consuming being good to increase the middle class, and thereby increase economic stability for the whole country. But, this just seems so old-hat to me. “Lord knows, there’s got to be a better way.” What song is that from? Sure within a business model, if you look at national economies like different businesses, it’s good to get the little guys to play the big guys’ game and get some redistribution of wealth the process. I’m all for that, in theory. But can’t we be working for something better? I think we need a gamechanger. But I don’t know what it is. 2012, any suggestions?

This literally JUST happened. So, I’m sure I’ll be milling it over for the next while. Plus, if I did a boutique like that we’d have cuter clothes in a wider variety of sizes. And we’d be super nice to people who only speak Wolof. Or even only speak Dutch, though we’d have a hard time talking to them…

First let me say: cold season, WTF?? Sorry to use that language. My skin is PARCHED, I’m starting to wake up chilled under my SLEEPING BAG, it’s almost impossible to shower, and people are going to bed early to escape the cold. Just when I adjust… Anyway, there are some serious positives to this. Like, mostly it’s positive. Curling up in bed under a sleeping bag is like… o******c (awesome). Hot coffee, wonderful. Sweater and scarf (THANKS JOSIE!!!!), yes please. Doing yoga again makes sweating feel like a gift. Lower electricity bill. MUCH fewer bugs. Gardening has become a possibility in my mind, because being in the sunshine doesn’t feel like death anymore. So, yeah, yay for cold season! But, just for a point of reference, last time I went to Saint-Louis I showed up in the AM in a sweater and scarf. By noon I pulled the sweater off, checked the temp online, and saw that it was 86 degrees…

Here’s something I know you guys want to know about: WORK! Things are starting to move. At least one of you (thanks Zach) wants to hear more about the library opening. Well, it was an amazing event. Have I mentioned how much I adore kids? Here’s a cultural difference for you: In school here, when the teacher calls out for an answer from the class, everyone responds. Even if they don’t know the answer, it’s better to appear ready to participate than to not respond. So, when trying to do anything with the kids, everything is like a bum-rush. Which is … overwhelming… but awesome. Thankfully Madame Fadima Fall is not only an awesome work partner for this project, but has become a good friend. The teachers are authority figures. Me, not so much, though they get a kick out of it when I put on my “I’m serious!” face. Well, so the opening day was two weeks ago now. I read a book to the kids, Madame Fall laid out a whole plan for management of the library, featuring one representative per class to keep records of the lending, and then it was a free-for-all. Everyone wanted a book, and everyone scrambled to get one. I ended up on sentry duty making sure no one took a book out without having their name written in the notebook, and standing on the front porch pulling one after another of the small kids up from the ground to the 2.5 foot high step. Over and over and over. Bonding. Sweet, fun, exhausting.

So, we’re still going on the library. I made a set of library cards for the kids that will hopefully be an effective record-keeping system. We’re encouraging the kids to write a simple book report for each book they read, and encouraging them to do so with the promise of gifts. Amazingly, Madame Fall has a partner school in the states who sent her a whole big Rubbermaid Tupperware full of American notebooks, ruler, scissors, crayola markers and crayons, Elmer’s glue. So, perfect gifts there. Hopeful that this will encourage literacy in the younger generations and nurture a passion to read.

I’ve also just gotten started working with the women’s group to re-start their garden (I was repeatedly told to wait until the work in the rainy-season fields was over.) So, we all gathered there the other night to clear the land, get rid of all the dried tall grasses. It was amazing fun watching the women work, tease each other, laugh, and work along-side them playing in the dirt-I mean sand. After we got about half-way across the field digging and raking, someone was like, “Hey, let’s just set it on fire!” Well, I wasn’t so into the idea… not sure environmentally friendly… but it was one against about 40. So, we cleared a three foot path on all sides of what was left, and then lit it up. So, imagine a rectangle of dry brush, enclosed on three sides by a wire fence. Now, the leader of the women’s group grabbed some burning brush and started walking down one side, into the fenced in area. So, by the time she got to the first back corner, the fire had spread half way across the front end. There was a lot of shouting and laughing as her face turned to amused shock and she broke into a run to get out the other side before getting trapped in there. We slowly exited the fenced area and stood downwind of the fire to watch it burn. Oh my, my, my. Here’s a chance for a sensibilization waaxtaan (an educational conversation).

Good stuff. Buying seeds today before heading home, hopefully getting it all planted in the immediate future. Then just watering and watching it grow.

In personal matters, I’ve been here for nine and half months. Which just… is unbelievable to me. But I’m already having trouble distinguishing between stuff that I’m long-term habituated to (like, before I got here), and what’s really uniquely Senegalese and would be new to any of you who haven’t lived here. Yesterday I told my family about making Fattaya in village and was genuinely shocked for a second that they didn’t know what I was talking about. (It’s a fish-filled fried dumpling with onion sauce. Yum). But, frankly I now recall my first glimpse of fattaya in Mboro… Even names here, I can’t distinguish between which ones are new to my life here and which ones I knew in the states. Did I really never know a Seynabou or a Fatou before I got here? Really? And my sense of style… well, I’ve always been willing to be a little off-beat on that one, but the color here was once kind of “WOW” almost overwhelming to me, in an enchanting way. And now it’s all just the norm. So, hmm. ::shrug:: not much to say there, just interesting. I still love blue-jeans like nothing else, and frankly thing the young men here look better in them than traditional Senegalese pants. So, that’s not new.

Yesterday was Christmas. Had a lovely pizza dinner with friends, skyped for a long time with my family in the states, mostly my dad, but otherwise it was just another day in Saint-Louis. I almost wanted to grab people on the streets and be like, “Why aren’t you celebrating? It’s Jesus’ birthday!!” But, that’s irrational…

Everything is lovely. I kinda like it here… If only there were free teleporters so I could be here AND be close to my family and other loved ones in the states…

Best cake ever, best day ever (Forgive the superlatives. I'm just in love with my life.)

I guess I’ll start with Thanksgiving, since it was the first major holiday I’ve celebrated away from family. Frankly, the weather is largely so non-American-November-ish it doesn’t feel like it could possibly be the date it claims to be (tomorrow is December!!) Also, without cardboard turkeys in pilgrim hats and shiny shoes with buckles posted in the boutique windows, … I just never got super geared up for it. Also, right before Thanksgiving I spent nearly a month in village. So rather than going to Ndiom for the big Peace Corps volunteer celebration, I opted to stay in the then vacant Saint-Louis apartment for some mostly solitary noppalu. I ascended and slept ‘til I could stop falling asleep every time, then did some more. I crocheted and ate yummy breakfast bean sandwiches. For the day of Thanksgiving I cooked scrambled eggs with Lots of zucchini, green pepper, onion, tomato, and Edam cheese (a break from Ementhal…) which I ate with a friend Senegalese style—tear off bits of bread to grab some yummies. The next day, four of us tried to make a real miniature version of Thanksgiving dinner. I cooked an incredibly yummy (and unhealthy) Tropical dump cake:

1 20 oz can of pineapple in syrup
4 large bananas
1 6(ish) oz can of coconut milk
1 cup of almonds (hey, lots is good, and pecans are probably better)
2 sticks of butter, and…

Cake Mix:
1.5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Put the fruit and coco milk in the bottom of a pan. Put all the cake mix on top, spread as evenly as possible. Cover with the butter all cut up into slices. Add nuts. Lots and lots of nuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. YUM!

We were each in charge of one dish, essentially, so there was squash-roll dough rising while patas (a white sweet potato) was cooking on the stove to go in a delicious looking casserole involving apples, raisins, honey and cinnamon, and then the gas ran out. At this point me and another volunteer were on a run to the fast-food restaurant to get a chicken, so we searched for boutiques with gas (not easy to find, especially at 7 PM). We found some, but it (of course, thank you Senegal) did not fit the attachment we had at the apartment. BUT, when we opened the chicken bag, there was bread, and a small mixed salad, and the chicken itself was wrapped up with French fries and onion sauce (of COURSE! THANK you Senegal!) And we ate the casserole anyway. Then we all said what we were thankful for, closing our laptops temporarily to really honor each other’s presences. J

I’ve been back in village for … (why is this always so hard for me to figure out anymore??)… Four days. Three of those (consecutively) have been without electricity. Or, I promise, I would have done this sooner. Just found out this morning, that the reason may or may not be that some guys wanted to watch more international football games by splitting the cable line. Well, they got the wrong line, fried and power station and fried themselves. Or maybe just one guy. I don’t know if this is true… its tragic, if so, and also somehow… nearly Darwin award worthy, right? … Ugg…

In other news, I’m doing the World Wise Schools program through the Peace Corps, which partners me with an American classroom to write letters back and forth. I really wanted to get the kids at my local school involved, especially because my correspondents are in a French class. Yesterday was truly one of the best days of my life. Why? Kids. Crazy, ridiculous, beautiful, silly kids. I spent four hours going from class to class to ask what questions they wanted to ask their new American friends. It always always started with “Is America cool?” Other questions were “Do you have to sweep your classrooms and clean the bathrooms?” “What are your names? Your mom’s names? Your dad’s names? Your brothers’ names? (you see the pattern here…)” “Do you try really hard in school?” My very favorite question was about our President “Does Barak Obama do good work for the people?” but that was kind of tied with “Do you have cows at your houses? Chickens? Sheep? Goats? Donkeys?” P.S. my correspondence class is in Chicago…

Why exactly was this experience so magical? I mean, beyond these beautiful glowing smiling faces (I know I’m crazy in love with the kids here) that just really wanted to participate in this conversation with me. Well, the youngest class conversation ended with a dance party. And, it is just NOT possible to explain the adorable-ness of these little 5 and 6 year olds getting their groove on. For one of the older classes, I was demanded to sing before I left. I have a really miserable cold right now, which I tried to play as a cop out, but they weren’t having it. So, I had a thought. “You guys sing me your national anthem, and then I’ll sing mine.” When it came my turn, I dove into “Ooooh say can you seeeeee” and then forgot the words!!!!! Oh, the SHAME! It kinda came back to me, and after I stumbled over the first verse (and later realized I left out a stanza), I ended with great patriotism and feeling! Oh man. I’m a little afraid of what the teachers think of me now. Every class I entered was sitting quietly doing their work, and was a raucous party scene by the time I left… It was Glorious! I’m grateful for THAT!

Tabaski in four parts

Day one of Tabaski; 1:00 PM. Yesterday was all preparation. I got my hair did a couple days ago. Yes, I’m rockin’ corn rows. It looks surprisingly good on me, I think. I did some fuddan on my hands, painted my nails, shaved my legs, ready to party! I got up late today because last night the whole neighborhood was up ‘til two to welcome a new bride next door (we ate “dinner” at 1:00 AM). Did my morning stuff, put on a fancy outfit and did my makeup only to walk outside and be chastised for not getting out earlier to cut up potatoes and onions. Also, there was a goat hanging from the tree, being skinned. Well, so I changed out of my fancy clothes and jumped in to help.

I think I just consumed about 1,000 calories. First lunch was served. Apparently there’s a second. First lunch was rough cuts of meat without the fat trimmed off and surprisingly delicious liver, swimming in oil and caramelized onions. Sooooooo good. My standards for meat have changed. The meat is freaking delicious; I mean, this sheep was killed a few hours ago and immediately cleaned, butchered and cooked. I helped. With the butchering part. And it was in the midst of that activity, sitting surprisingly like an amazed child while I looked at the surprising texture and color of the lungs, felt the hardness of the heart muscle and stuck my finger in the aorta, that I was called to eat. So, I washed my hands. With water. With water only. See, I really, really wanted to use soap, but I was offered freshly poured water, and beyond that I would have had to contaminate a clean water source to get water to rinse the soap off with… What to do when faced with this dilemma? I’m sure my dad and brother, and probably everyone else are squirming while reading this, but… As it is I was sitting next to my brother as he chopped through leg bones. I just saw the seven-month-old Aida grab and bite a chunk of raw meat. Oh, God, I hope I don’t get sick. Part of me is screaming to bathe in and clean everything I own with straight bleach, but… I won’t.

Day 2: Sheep Head Soup, it’s what’s for dinner. Literally. You know that whole bit about no matter what the waitress brings? Well, I tried, man. I really did. I ate brain. I ATE BRAIN! And I’m pretty sure some tongue, and at least one gland-looking thing… I did not vomit. But I did not eat until full. Tropical trail mix chaser, thank you Very much Grandma and Grandpa Striley. Otherwise, food has been gooood good. Macaroni, potatoes and meat, actually enough to go around, cooked in onion sauce for lunch.

In other news, Tabaski seems to be the fete of doing nothing all day other than cooking, eating, and dressing up at night. Which is fun, for sure. But for me it’s been a sort-of bi-polar experience, slinging me between being a star and an outsider. When I wear Wolof clothes, they love it. When I carry the lunch Seynabou cooked to the neighborhood lunch spot on my head, they love it. But for most of the day, it’s just nothing to do, not sure where to go, not sure who it’s appropriate to go spend time with. And now, the big event for the day is a Jang. The word means to learn and also to read. So, it’s some guys with a microphone singing religious songs, or reading the Koran. I’m not sure which. But it’s so loud it literally hurts my ears, and it’s actually pretty cold to just be sitting outside until midnight. Hence, here I am. I’m about to go back, just needed a break. So Tabaski. Hmm. I can definitely see why they love it. Its great food and no working (except for the women who still have to cook, get water, clean the house, etc.) Again. Hmm. No seriously, I had a lot of fun yesterday. And today my emotional state is definitely questionable. So, this is NOT a scientific account of the experience. Just me… talking…

Day 3: (actually written on day 4) Spent the day in Mpal at my turrando’s house. Her daughter got married yesterday, and a good part of my neighborhood was there. It was a tedious, boring, and emotionally chaotic day for me. So, sorry, but I’m gonna just leave that alone. After the event, we rode home, a 25 minute charette ride through the dark, which was actually lovely. And I saw that there was a tent set up in the village clearing with a DJ playing music. The young people were having a party. After eating dinner I decided to find some friends. I needed the comfort. It’s been a surprisingly lonely couple of days for being a holiday. I found them, and they immediately cheered me up with a slap on the butt, and grappling moment of dancing that almost landed two of us on the floor. These were my grown-up women friends. Not invited to the party. See, here, I don’t really have peers. I’m not a “xalee” (young) or a “mag” (old). I’m not a man (duh), but I’m not quite a woman here. When attaya is served, there’s a hierarchy and it’s always interesting to see where I fall. After the older men, before the younger men, always before the other women. Which bothers me. It’s also because they still consider me a guest (after six months, right?). I get invited to the tours which are only for the married or older-than-me single women, and I don’t get invited to the tours of the xalee, except once when I really just accidentally showed up at the one my good friend was hosting. And the young people claim me sometimes, like for this party, or to go to the final football match (soccer), but not always, obviously. So, yeah… usually this doesn’t bother me, but I was told on the first day of tabaski that the entire afternoon was for going to drink attaya with whoever invites you. Well, no one invited me. I know. Start the sad violin music. It’s kind of exhausting being excluded and not knowing what to do with yourself. I want to participate fully in this community, in this event, but I can’t be an attaya crasher, right? Mmmm… Anyway, back to the story. I went to the dance party, and my young friends claimed me (thank GOD. I needed it.) Dancing felt amazing for about 2 minutes at which point it was just too akward to have all the young people stop dancing to watch how the American dances. So, I went and lingered outside where a good number of my friends were milling around. It was 11:20 by this point, but they all assured me the party had yet to begin. So, I stood and talked with them.

Day 4: This is a false break in my stream of consciousness. We just finished lunch which I helped cook. The tabaski stable here: macaroni, potatoes and sheep cooked in onion sauce. Yum. I’ll eat anything with onion sauce. And, apparently when I help cook, they want me to eat more. It’s kind of a beautiful thing, because I haven’t (surprisingly) eaten much the last couple of days. Yesterday lunch was waaay late, and due to my really weird emotional state, I didn’t have much of an appetite. Going to buy bread for breakfast hasn’t been possible (it doesn’t come during tabaski) and I’m out of oatmeal, so I’m going on a handful of trail mix for breakfast. And then dinner, well, the brain stew thing happened, then last night was a small cup of ceere (millet). So, man, I just at the **** out of some tabaski yumminess, despite the meat being cut three days ago, hung on a line to dry, then cooked for a long time in lots of water today. Is that safe? We’ll see!

Note: I know I keep hinting at this emotional weirdness, and it provides me the opportunity to add what I consider to be an interesting footnote to my blogging experience. It is necessary (right?) to somewhat censor what I write. Why? Well, that’s the thing that interests me. The whole point is to share my experience, but due to some arbitrary cultural boundries (American culture, Senegalese culture, Peace Corps culture, my personal self-viewing-windows), what I write is censored. I haven’t told you that [some content removed] or that […] is great, but it’s super […]. So, I will say this about this current emotional stuff. I did a stupid thing that started as an accident and then sunk it’s hooks into me. I watched a horror movie in village, at night, alone at my house. STUPID!! I didn’t know it was a horror movie until it was too late. So, yeah, I’ll never do that again. But, it strangely has given me a gift. It raised a lot of fear issues in other areas of my brain to be looked at and let go of. Associatively, the idea of having a large, winged guardian at my beck and call to keep me safe came up, and I had this strange realization that I AM that large winged guardian, that energy is a part of me, and there is nothing at all to be afraid of ever. Just a twist on an old meme, still a thought, I know, but the point is, I’ve been having a lot of movement, and no one to talk to about it. So, a lot of that came to a head yesterday and due to my lack of invitations to attaya, I intend to ascend a lot today. Wanna hear the coolest part? Yesterday I was sitting with people but totally isolated in my head crochet to pass the time, just really wanting the day to end, when I started beating myself up for that desire. I was irritated with myself for not making the most of those moments. But, I thought, how can I possibly be happy and chatty and dancey right now, like I should be to make the most of a wedding party? Well, that’s when I was hit with this beautiful re-understanding of surrender. To make the most of the moment, you just dive in to whatever that moment carries. So, if it carries depressive, lonely, heart-breaking confusion, so be it. And it continued to do so, but the word carries is perfect. Because under or around that emotional energy was just still peace tinged with a hint of the strangest bliss. And I began to ENJOY exactly what was happening. On that note, I’m gonna go close my eyes for an hour.

P.S. My dear ascenders, I miss your company terribly, your presence, your direct words, everything, but it’s a huge comfort to remember that the thing we experience when we dive in is INSEPARABLE, and to know that what I’m doing here, what I’m keeping as my first goal in life (sorry Peace Corps, but even you are secondary), that you are doing that too over there across the water. And all you other spiritual seekers, dreamers, creators, lovers, everyone. Nothing is separable from THAT. OOOoooooh what a tingly gift that is to re-realize over and over and over.

Impromptu Astronomy

                Last night was one of the greatest nights of my time in Africa thus far. I did what I consider to be important work, teaching a valuable subject, in a way that inspires further discussion and hopefully a nice dose of awe, in a completely casual and spontaneous context. I truly think some of my most valuable contributions occur in this exact way. So, what happened? At about 10:30 I decided to go find people to sit with. As the nights are getting “cold” (what? It’s like, cool enough that my skin is cool to the touch, but only occasionally light-sweater-cold), fewer and fewer people are out this late. But I found a group of young men from my neighborhood and sat with them. They’re lovely boys, and this may be pushing a cultural boundary, but, well, ::shrug::. For whatever reason, my friend Pape Gaye asked me “do they have the moon in America?” This led me to explain that the earth is a ball that the moon spins around, so yes, they have the moon everywhere. Rather than simply “ahh”-ing and shrugging it off, it peaked their interest. Which got me all excited. So I explained how the moon reflects the light of the  sun, and sometimes the earth gets in the way and casts a shadow, which accounts for the phases of the moon, approximately once per month. They talked amongst themselves, and I picked up “So, the earth doesn’t move, but the moon goes around it.” Oh, but wait! I thought. So, We got into the whole solar system. The sun is the only one that doesn’t move. I needed another friend to give me his hand to be the sun while I used my two hands as the earth and the moon to explain. Having taken all this knowledge for granted for so long it was amazing to realize how complicated it was to explain. The earth has two kinds of rotation: around the sun, and once every day around its axis, which is why we have day and night. For this my hand was the earth, my thumb Senegal to indicate day (facing the sun) and night (facing away.) Lovely! Oh my gosh, I was having such fun, and they were so into it!! They asked about the stars, I explained they were all like the sun, some bigger, some smaller. So, why are some brighter than others they asked? Well, ‘cause they’re all much much further away than the sun, but some are closer and bigger than others. And SOME, I continued, are NOT like the sun, and are much closer than other stars, and these are other planets. Try explaining that in a language you aren’t yet fluent in… But I think they got the jist. They even started their own conversation about it, like, oh, I think there’s one you can see just after the morning prayer call (5 am) in the eastern sky.  So, they must have heard something like this before, or just be making somewhat educated guesses? I dunno, I’m never up that early, and frankly can rarely tell the difference myself.

Again, for whatever reason, Pape then asked me, what’s with the water than falls on the grass at night when it gets cold? So I got explain the different states of water! That when it’s hot, it has more energy and is lighter, and when it gets cold it loses that energy and gets heavier (waaaay oversimplification, I know, but my Wolof vocab does not include particle bonding and such.) I used boiling water as an example, that it bubble because of that extra energy, and wonder of wonders, another of the young men (my sun-hand-helper) took over and added his own so awesome bit: you know when you boil water and it rises up and then when it cools it gathers on the lid and falls back down. YES! That. Exactly that.

Next question? Y’all ready for this? Why doesn’t the sky all just fall down on us? WAAAAHH!! Gravity. My cell phone took a beating on this one as I explained that smaller, less heavy things are drawn to bigger, heavier ones. That’s why my phone falls to the earth, and why the earth circles the sun and the moon circles us. Even our air, here on earth, is full of stuff like oxygen and nitrogen (didn’t get into the atmosphere that keeps it here…), but way out there, all that black and dark blue space out there, has NOTHING. It’s completely empty. So there’s nothing to fall. Gravity and mass. Oh man, we should do a basic astrophysics course here! They’re so into it!!

Okay, so, obviously, it was really really fun to explain all this stuff, to challenge my Wolof, challenge my own ability to teach about things I take for granted as known. However, the greatest joy of this experience was their interest! They listened so intently to everything I said, helped explain it to each other, asked each other questions related to what I had said to further understand and relate it to their everyday experience. Oh man, oh man, it was frickin’ delicious.

So, why do I think these are some of the best contributions I can make in my time here? Because I’m realizing something about this work. And it’s something that I think get’s a lot of volunteers down, because it’s somewhat disillusioning. Here it is (it’s kind-of a duh): I am not going to stop the Sahara from spreading or this land from drying up. I am not going to be able to mitigate the interaction of modernization in the cities and traditional country life. I can’t solve their water problems. There are a lot of things I cannot do. BUT maybe I can broaden their horizons a little. Inspire a little awe for the environment here and the world at large that will encourage a greater persistence in pursuing education. Because, frankly, the world is changing, and it seems that the people who are able to interact with the forces that shape that change are educated. And in my opinion the most important change that could be made in the whole development scheme would be for the people affected by “development” to have some say in what it looks like.

PS, because I’ve talked so much about it over the last few months, it’s 8:40 AM, I’m wearing a sweater and wrap skirt over my pajamas and am still comfortably cool. I woke up cold in the night, wrapped tightly in my sheet and curled in the fetal position. This, my friends, happened without a fan. Lovely things are happening to the climate here J

Reply...

As you cannot comment on other people's comments on Blogger, I will comment here in response to my mom's comment to my last blog post. I hear you. This information web is totally valuable, and sometimes numbingly overwhelming. I also think it's an admirable goal to put laptops, particularly with internet access, in the hands of children in developing countries. However, before this could possibly do any good, we must ensure that these children can read and encourage them to be the principal actors in the development of their own lives and communities. That is, we must do these things in order to further my personal agenda of having their lives be lovely in one of the ways my life has been lovely. In other words, you are also completely correct that this is not implicity necessary to having a beautiful and full life. However, I believe that there is no stopping the change of the world. No stopping the "development" of the world. I would love it if the directors of that development were the people it affected rather than the people profiting from those it affects, and for that reason, I would like the people of my small village to be able to read and access the network of information so widely shared in the world in the form of books and internet sites like wikipedia.

The Inexorable March of Technological Advancement

As the economic gap widens, leaving the poor relatively poorer and the rich relatively richer, with a shrinking middle class, and as technology leaps forward at an ever increasing rate, where does that leave people like my Senegalese village friends?

Most of them Literally do not have the means to complete anything beyond an elementary education, and even that has only been available for about a decade. Many of them cannot read or write, and the basic mathematical skill of addition is a struggle. Though nearly every family has one television and at least one cell phone between them, they get two channels on a good night (reception of whatever-waves is sketchy at best), and frequently can’t afford to put credit on their phones (yes, they’re pay-as-you-go). So, while in America we’re discussing whether we should save up for a new flat-screen real-color display television, and if we’ll be able to buy a new iPad when the prices go down just a little bit, here, most people have never touched a computer and don't even own any books other than the Koran.

What, then, are the implications of this lag in technology? As the speed of technological improvement advances, the developing world lags ever further behind in their ability to share in our world of rapid information exchange. What impact does this have on their ability to self-determine their development, or to experience development at all? I can only speculate, and all speculation comes from a firmly grounded culturally instilled belief that knowledge is power and there is no greater human gift than that of new insight. I’m scared of Kindles because I believe the printing press was the greatest invention of all time, and books are a divine gift to humankind. So, please, give a moment’s thought to what it actually means to be illiterate—to be unable to share in the vast amounts of information exchanged through the printed (or typed) word.

...(This is a pause for you to stop reading, clear your mind, and Really think about what that would be like.)...

...(Seriously, take a minute :) )...

What can we do about it? I’m not sure. Part of my mind is screaming “HEY AMERICA! SLOW DOWN!!! Give people a minute to catch up!” But of course, slowing the progress of technology won’t happen, nor is this a reasonable solution. What is?? Promoting literacy, promoting education, promoting the exchange of new ideas (if you’ve never heard of it, check out TED. Google it. Great stuff). How will this impact my work here? Stuff’s-a-cookin’. It’s hard enough to work with the local kids to encourage them to fight for their right to be educated, but to convince the older members of society who have rarely left the village in their lives that the world IS changing, and for Senegal to be a part of that they MUST be proactive in seeking to increase their literacy and education opportunities… See, what they see is that in America and France, everybody has a computer, everybody has more money than them (I know, its not true, but its the media image they receive), and when development forces have come to their village before Peace Corps, it has been to dump some money to build something-or-other (needed stuff, mind you), the get the * out of dodge (dodge is a hot, buggy place, of course), nowhere in that schema has the idea been conveyed that you must BE the change you wish to see in the world. That no one can help you until you help yourself. And if you don’t know how to help yourself, you look into it. You learn about how other people have gone about helping themselves. You SEEK KNOWLEDGE. But where do they have to look?

Mmmm… I fear this is a self-centered view point, and obviously just a baby idea that has not been so well thought through as to be entirely coherent, but I think there’s some serious seed of truth here.

So, thoughts? I plan to talk to other PCV’s about this at our Summit, starting tomorrow, and perhaps organize literacy classes in my village, perhaps even try to organize a literacy campaign in the north with other volunteers culminating in a book distribution funded by YOU GUYS (that’s how Peace Corps money actually works, turns out) through Books For Africa. For more information about that aspect, google Books for Africa or Peace Corps Partnership funds. I'll keep you guys posted.

Sending Love to my waa Amerik, always.

Happy Birthday to me!

In a week, I will have lived in village for five months. As of now, I’ve been in country for seven. Wolof comes more easily now, though I am still far from fluent. I can carry a pan of water on my head at a quicker pace now, without spilling. And the coolest thing to me, right now, is that I’ve seen baby Aida learn to sit-up and now to crawl (walking unaided doesn’t seem far away), and a few days ago little Djibi said his first full, clear sentence to me. I brought candy back for the kids (this is a fun diversion, occasionally), and he said to me, “Rama, may ma tangal” (literally, Rama, offer me candy). I flipped a little, and told everyone. It’s also nice to see everyone putting a little weight back on after slimming down during Ramadan. It was a gradual but noticeable change, and everyone already looks much healthier after a month of eating.

So, two days ago was my birthday. I think a totally of five people wished me a happy birthday, two young students at the high-school in the city, and one friend who I told literally four times, “just say the words ‘happy birthday.’” It’s not that they don’t care about me, it’s just a foreign concept to even know your birthday past a certain (young) age. In fact, a lot of people don’t even know what year they were born, or if they do they aren’t sure how old that makes them. So, despite all that, my good friends Ami Kole and Maguette decided I should have a party. I went along with it, cause hey, why not. After changing the date/time twice, it was set for yesterday at five. Here’s a little story about time in a Senegalese village. At five, I closed my door to take a shower, just after one woman came by to say she had to go to her field, but would come later. At about 5:15 I opened my door and Seynabou was getting ready to help by cooking the shrimp chips I bought (surprisingly a common party food here). I went to buy ice to make kool-aid-like stuff. When I got back, Ami Kole and Maguette were here along with my community counterpart who was cooking the shrimp chips. We made the drinks, they finished the chips, we put them all in my room, and then they all left again—to get ready for the party. People started showing up at about 6:00, and the party began about a half hour later. Maguette and Ami drummed beats on overturned metal bowls while the women took turns dancing. Senegalese dancing, which is like, keeping your core strong and still at a 45 degree angle to the ground while flailing (in time to the complex beat) all four limbs, and getting a good butt-jiggle going on. In the company of friends, I humiliated myself trying to learn. It was a blast! After pretty much everyone had shown up, kids and women only (none of my male friends came, not sure if that’s a cultural thing I’m not clear on…?), and after much Amazing dancing on their parts, I showed them my American dance moves. They loved it! I loved it! Cannot express how much I’ve come to love dancing… Funny that for all those years through middle and high schools (even some into college) I convinced myself that I wasn’t into it, to ignore the fact that I was too shy. Well, ::shrug:: now it’s now, and Man! Mmmm… So, just at sunset, we served the shrimp chips and boissons, under the condition that if you don’t dance (or, okay, drum), you don’t get snacks (my rule, lovingly enforced by my lovely party hostesses). Fun fun fun J

Now it’s down to work. The school has just opened, and I met with the teachers and director this morning. They’re lovely people, and I consider a couple genuine friends, and I think the meeting went well. It gave me an opportunity to teach them the three goals of the Peace Corps (for those of you who don’t know, 1.Send people to teach people to teach their countrymen/women things, 2.Learn about another culture and share what you know with Americans, and 3.Share American culture abroad), and emphasize that giving them money to buy things is not on the list. However, as it is a possibility, and some good things can be done that way, I will (inshalla) be doing some of that. BUT the most important work I think I can do has nothing to do with money. For example, yeah, it would be cool to have a computer room at the school. But in a community where not everyone even finishes elementary school, is it a priority? I’d rather focus on ways to teach people the importance of an education so they can prioritize spending 100 cfa on a pen rather than on four pieces of candy. This is obviously a VAST oversimplification of development, but ya dig? Anyway, I’m really excited to start working with the kids here, particularly with a group of girls to encourage self-confidence and creative problem solving through crafts like crochet and design. So, as always, onward!

Two-fer shorties

9/26/11

This is a day that deserves a party! This is a day that deserves a new outfit and a feast of yapp! But I’ll settle for a pint of orange juice and a bag of cheetos in a pair of jeans and a ¾ length sleeve tee. Hence the party! Its fricking COOL!! It rained from about 5 yesterday ‘til about 11 this morning, and it looks like it’s not done. Having not rained for ALL of September until now, the heat had become exhausting. I was so excited to get back home from the University and have my fan to keep me cool while I slept (note, I got bedbugs somewhere along the way, so am itchy Everywhere, and it was so hot there, with no air movement, that I barely slept for the week) but last night, it was so cool having the fan on required a sheet and pants!! Freaking AMAZING!! I passed out at about 9 while “ascending” in bed, and slept until 9:30 this morning. No joke.

Being back in village is lovely as usual. It’s impossible to keep the grin off my face as I walk around greeting people, seeing the smiles on the kids who still call me “Rama toubab” ::shrug::. Yesterday I told a few women about my bed bugs and showed them my riddled sides. Strangely enough, they seem to think that when I get bit by bugs it’s hilarious… This began when some kind of small ant wasp bit my inner thigh while we were sitting on mats during Ramadan. It hurt! Aaaand they were keeled over in laughter, unable to catch their breath.  Of course, in that case, I think the humor was more from the location of the bite… Then, last week when we were standing around at night something bit me on the butt. Yet again, location related humor… especially as I shook out my skirts violently and spent the next five minutes rubbing my butt where it burned to a radius of five inches. This bed bug situation however has nothing to do with location. They’re Everywhere! And itch like fire. This is so much worse than mosquito bites…  Maybe not… maybe it’s just like having hundreds of mosquito bites all over your entire body… Yeah. It’s awesome.  ANYWAY, Bintu has decided I’m a comedienne of bug bites. Awesome. And true to the warning that everyone in village knows everything about me, as I walked around this morning, random people requested to pull my shirt up and look at and touch my bites, which, duh, makes them itch!  Yikes. Silly. Fun morning…

9/29/11

Today I had a realization of how magical this job is. I’m still doing my baseline research in order to develop an action plan that will actually be valuable to my community. Last night I realized I have yet to reach out to the local Imam’s (religious leaders), so I made that my goal for today. I go to one of the imams houses regularly because his daughter-in-law sells ice (chyeeeaaaaaahhh…), but have yet to talk to him for any length of time. Right now, pretty much everyone spends their mornings in the field unless engaged in some other form of labor, so I wasn’t sure I’d find anyone there when I went. But sure enough, as I approached his neighborhood, out paths crossed. He was just returning from the field with a large pile of bissap leaves perched on his head, somehow balanced on top of a “pulaar hat” (like a Chinese straw hat, woven to a point). We did the whole formal greeting thing, he asked where I was headed, so I just told him: actually I was headed to your house. He gave me the single chair in the compound and sat on a plastic brick (insisted upon it), and the conversation began as 10 or so other family members crowded around to listen. Turns out he’s a totally nice guy. Aside from the chair thing, he was all smiles, all “as long as you try, whatever you do will be great.” So, he approved of my plans, mentioned that it might be nice to have a well added, as there isn’t one near their house, and that was that! This was an overdue visit, and I’m grateful that I finally had the realization that I needed to spend some time there.

Here’s where Peace Corps, working here in Senegal, is soooo much cooler than a similar job in America. In America, if for my work I had to meet with a higher-up in the institution within which I was working, it would have likely been talk, get the business over-with, maybe offer a glass of water or coffee, then out and on to the next piece of business. But not here. Next they brought out the beans! Where in America, people often offer to share while internally hoping you will politely decline, which you often do even if you’d rather take them up on their offer, because it’s the “nice” thing to do, it’s the opposite here. The polite thing to do is eat, even if you’re already full, you’re supposed to eat at least something to show appreciation of the teranga (hospitality. Senegal is, remember, the Land of Teranga). So I ate. And ate. And when I considered stopping, I was told that I had to eat until the bowl was empty.  YIKES. But yummy… Fortunately this was before lunch. Once I went to visit a friend’s house after dinner, and literally ate beans until I hurt. Ooooh Senegal.

P.S.

After spending an hour trying to fix my background, trying to use a picture of Khatete, unsucessfully, I resorted to this.

Girls Camp and stuff...

Fun times in Saint-Louis. I just got back to the apartment from running some errands. Just as I left the bank I saw a fellow volunteer, and as we were talking a cab stopped by us. I was thinking, “should I tell this guy I don’t need a ride, or just ignore him?” But as we finished our conversation, I looked at the cabbie, which was by then shouting to me. It was a friend from my village! There are several men from Khatete who drive taxi’s and buses here in Saint-Louis, and I’m always scouting for them, but never seem to find them.  My friend gave me a ride for free to my next destination, and en route, we greeted a friends husband, and my drivers brother, another friend. Crazy! Wonderful coincidence! I’ve been away from site for six days, and I miss it. This always happens.  I was going to go home today, but might wait an extra day to get dinner with a friend here in Saint Louis.

So, the reason I’m here is because of our regional girls’ camp: Camp Gem sa Bopp (believe in yourself)! Definitely a good experience. We brought girls in from villages where volunteers did the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship (helping middle-school girls with good grades, motivation to stay in school, and financial need with the means to pay for school.) Hopefully over this year I can establish a relationship with the middle-school (college) in my road town to do the scholarship there and bring girls from my village/region. It was really a trip being there for the first day, because two things I’m quite familiar with—university campuses and youth camps—were placed in a completely different context. So many similarities with just enough of a difference to be unsettling. The dorms had decent beds, and there were toilettes (of the un-seated variety so common here in Senegal) electricity and running water, but there was no air flow in the building. So, at night it was stiflingly hot and I think I got about 3 hours of interrupted sleep per night. Still, there was a lovely garden right next to the cafeteria where I was able to lay on a concrete bench, still cool from the night, and ascend every morning. In the afternoons, there was  a well ventilated room with a ceiling fan to ascend and nap to make it through the day. And, though I’m not sure how much help I really was, with no official role but “helper-with-stuff,” it was an experience I am glad to have been a part of. We had speakers about women in business, female specific challenges in Senegal, and women’s empowerment in education, and visited a great volunteer’s garden in Saint-Louis. We also made friendship bracelets and tie-died. And, since its camp, and in Senegal, there was a decent amount of singing and dancing.

My favorite moment at the camp was yesterday morning when I and another volunteer led a yoga session. We agreed to have a ten minute meditation at the end. While the other volunteer was walking among the girls explaining what they should do to meditate, I was sitting up front. I tried to interject, but it didn’t work. No problem. But the girl right in front of me wanted to hear what I had to say. I told her: there are no good thoughts. There are no bad thoughts. They simply come and go. So, you will have a thought. Just watch it. It will go. Then there will be another, so again, just watch it. Dropping for that blessed moment into beautiful stillness, and feeling it burning in our eye-contact… So, ya know, that is what it is. It was lovely for me, and who knows, maybe it will plant a seed of awareness. It’s impossible to know. But we sat there. I kept my eyes closed and used my first ascension technique. After, another volunteer said she’d opened her eyes to see what was happening, during the meditation time, and all the girls actually had their eyes closed. They were into it! Pretty cool!

I also just finished reading “Half the Sky”, so my brain is all into gender stuff right now, and I feel like I’m seeing some pretty surprising stuff that I had just… immunized myself to? But also, I feel like I have a blockage to truly seeing some stuff that’s going on around me. Like, even at the camp, they did a session of theatre about women’s challenges here: young girls being sexually harassed by teachers at their schools, women being expected to marry at 14 and give up schooling, that sort of thing. Even the basic fact that girls are basically Cinderella-ized here… I fell like this wall pops up inside me when I think about these things or am faced with them. What is that?? Nothing to do but let it be at this point. Keep aware of it. Anyway, for those of you who haven’t read it, it’s an excellent book. One point I’ll pass along: people who care about the suffering and oppression of women should not be called feminists. They should be called compassionate. Humanists. We don’t call people who think the holocaust was an abomination Jewists. We don’t call civil rights advocates racists. Wait, that’s what we call the people who hate people because of race… Point is, the term feminist is a misnomer that creates a negative association. People who support the freedom and empowerment of women would support the same for men who are mistreated or enslaved. But the fact is, women make up about half of the planet, and in many many places are at worst enslaved, or at least marginalized to the point of disempowerment. Okay. So, read the book. There are depressing part, but the overwhelming sense of the book is one of possibility and the goodness of the human heart. The power of one individual to see injustice and do something to correct it.CHYA!

Learning about Love in Africa (not what you might expect)

I just finished “Awareness” by Anthony deMello. Challenging book. Great book. How do I talk about it? In talking about it I am just passing thoughts along, and not passing along his message. Or can I? I don’t know. I’ll just talk about it. It’s a challenging book because it is a ruthlessly compassionate reminder that to be free, you have to drop EVERYTHING. No exceptions. I seem to have compromised my freedom by getting caught in unawareness that instead of dropping concepts, I was swapping them. Maybe I was swapping little concepts for bigger ones, but a bigger box is still built of walls. It’s a challenge because it talks about that time Christ said you have to hate your father, hate your mother, hate your brother, to truly love God. And that time some zen master said If you see your father, kill him. If you see your brother, kill him. If you see the Buddha, kill him. Only then will you be free. This stuff used to really bother me. What is this all about? Is it not right to love your family? To love Jesus, love the Buddha, LOVE people?  Well, yeah, of course it’s all right. But it’s tricky. Just like any other concept, love can become an idol. And any defined thing is restrictive to the truth. deMello advocates an exercise where you visualize someone you love, someone you think you can’t live without, surely can’t be happy without, and to say to that person “I don’t need you. My happiness is not in you. You cannot make me happy.” And in doing so, you are free to actually enjoy that person. To renounce clinging. This is majorly challenging to me, as I’m sure to most people. How could I live without the support of my parents? How could I live without the love of God? But the fact is these questions reveal the presence of expectations! The real question I have is, how could I live without the Approval of my parents. How could I live without the love of God looking exactly like this, or like this, as my little needs are in any given moment. And that “need” kills my freedom. And it’s false! It’s a lie!  deMello also reminds that Eternal Life is NOW. It can’t be eternal if it’s not. … It’s like, I know that true joy, true happiness, true peace, whatever word it is, even those are restrictive and misleading, lies only in complete surrender to God, and still I buy into these little thoughts of what I think I need specifically to make myself feel whole. What I need in order to rest into the Eternal NOW. It may sound like I’m being hard on myself, but I promise I don’t feel that way. I’m not having any negative judgment of myself in saying these things. In fact, I feel GREAT saying them. For whatever reason, whatever past associations I formed, I have formed a groove around what Love is. And if God is love, that means I’ve decided what God is. And That leads to suffering in moments when I think it’s real, but MAN, the FREEDOM when I see through it!! deMello mentions that he did his “I don’t need you” exercise with GOD. WOAH, right?? But I mean, in doing this exercise, you’re addressing a concept. I tried it with love. And seriously, I’ve considered myself a hopeless romantic for I don’t know how many years. Sure, an exceptionally enlightened one, but … okay, I hope you’re laughing with me-at me for that one. I know.  Okay, so that’s a lot of mental activity surrounding what I read about awareness. 

Here’s a fun moment I had with it. I was journaling last night about my experiences with just watching. And I wrote the sentence: Awareness is hard… blissful… some other descriptive words, and then immediately noticed awareness, realizing it was absolutely none of these things. These were the things I was observing. The things I was aware of. Awareness itself had not changed in the slightest. Is completely uncharacterizable. It’s not even alert! You can have an alert experience of awareness, but it is not that.

Hmmm… So, some background? I was having a hard time finding peace, and thinking a lot of things were wrong with that, wrong because of that. Thinking a lot of “I need” kind of thoughts. I turned to my parents. My dad advised taking two days at site to be in retreat. To ascend as much as possible. To re-form the basis of connection with peace/silence/awareness in this context. So I did. And thank God for that. I remembered that I have the choice, when silence or peace presents itself to dive into it and rest there. Drop an attitude. Stay with it for as long as it stays. To nurture that awareness. Bjork said “I can decide what I give, but it’s not up to me what I get given.” Gandolf said basically the same thing. Yes, these are two great spiritual guides. Bjork and Gandolf.

So, as I’ve heard a million times, if you want to change the world, start with yourself. And as deMello and my dad say (among others, of course), if you want to change yourself, you just have to watch and stop trying to change anything. I got in a fight with a good friend here a couple days ago. Got Maaaajorly unconscious for that one (::shrug::) and the next day I was pretty down, registering problems with other people in village as real things (even when they had nothing to do with me), this or course on top of moments of feeling wretched about “myself” for the way I handled the argument. I didn’t know how to resolve it, especially in this cultural context. I was sitting, eating beans with my family, thinking “try to just watch. Try to just watch” (isn’t this hilarious?) when I was graced with a deep wave of stillness. And again, by grace, I was able to choose to give myself to that stillness. I said an attitude, stopped everything I was doing and sat with it. When I looked up I noticed a beautiful sky line. Gorgeous bird songs. The community of family and friends sharing a meal. Peace only. Jamm rekk. Only minutes later I had the chance to talk to the person I had fought with. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say there was only love and peace there in that moment. Throughout the day, I noticed things being perfect and only then realized that earlier in the day I had been projecting an imperfection on them.  What a gift. So, … mmm… wild. I was so sure I needed people! My brain is still saying “hold on, are you sure you don’t?” And ya know, I could probably argue both sides of that. I think it’s another paradox, where the meaning gets twisted by the word “need.” AND by the idea that people are these separate isolated entities that can either “do it” by themselves or not. One thing I really liked this deMello book is this line: “You aren’t even a dancer! You’re being danced.” There is no individual dancing. There is only the dance. So yes, sometimes part of that dance is people supporting each other. And sometimes part of that is being perfectly okay alone. Thinking you need something that is currently NOT a part of the dance is just a denial of the truth.

To give a fair representation of my experience I could share how I sounded when I journaled at the depths of my freaking out before my “retreat”. But… I don’t even want to read that again. Why would I share darkness instead of light?  Oh I can be so cheesy J

For a more practical update, my work is coming along. I’m developing my action plan, and let me tell you, it’s going to be a busy two years. Now if only it would cool off a little bit, I’d go plant some trees…

P.S. feel free to call me out in comments if there’s something in here that seems clear to you and seems unclear to me. Reflect me! Be my mirror! If you feel some truth, share it.

This is from about a week ago. Except the last bit.

It’s been raining for 24 hours. Pretty much solidly. Little breaks for about 10 minutes here and there. Everything everywhere is damp. I’m damp. My computer is slightly damp, which definitely worries me… I feel slightly trapped in my room, but frankly, I’m kind of grateful for that. My parents were just here for six days, which was a Magical vacation in so many ways. But coming back to village, immediately having a death in the village (a friend’s father…), has left me strangely drained. I think it was more the day and a half without my parents and without my village friends, as just another toubab on the streets of Dakar, which truly drained me. I saw some ugly things in Dakar and was called a bad, rude person by a man who was at best trying to get me to go to the bank and make change for him, and at worst trying to get me into a compromising and unsafe position.  I called him rude right back (I can be Sooo mature), sneered, and walked away. Anyway, I’m home now, where I’m Rama Niang, where the men don’t try to marry me, where there aren’t beggars, and where it’s a lovely 73ish degrees. One reason this constant rain is a lovely blessing.

Wanna hear a story? Last night my parents called to make sure I’d gotten back to village okay and was readjusting well (after a week of sleeping in air-conditioning and having constant loving support and familiar/l companionship…). At the end of the conversation my dad asked if I’d put down the lavender they mailed me (it’s supposed to repel scorpions). “No, not yet. I’ll go do that when we hang up.” So I walked into my room from the back door, and right next to my front door was a 3 and a half inch scorpion, dancing with an inch and a half long beetle, ¼ or which was pincers.  Froze with sudden adrenaline, I hoped maybe pincer-beetle would kill the scorpion for me. But no. The scorpion ran away from the beetle (!!!), straight under my bed. So, what could I do? No one was at my house or my cousins’ house next door, because they were still in social-all-day-funeral mode. So I called my friend Modou, who came straight over. He’s Always completely chill, and calmly pulled my empty backpack out from under my bed, shook it (carefully), and killed the thing when it ran out.  Ever since, I’ve been having guilt about getting it killed… I can’t explain, but it’s like I’m personifying the dang things. I mean, it probably just wanted to get out of the rain, and then was scared of a beetle, and then was running for its life when, Squish… But ya know, it just couldn’t stay alive in my room. Not acceptable.

Speaking of scorpions, my dad showed me that you can see all of scorpio on the southern horizon here. It was really nice to look at the stars with him and my mom, all three of us being further south on this planet than we’d ever been before (in Saly Niakhniakhal). We ate ridiculous deserts with whipped cream, house-made ice-cream and crème-anglais (yummmm). This is my family, guys; we eat a lot of really yummy stuff when we get together. Pizza with crème fraiche, yassa poulet, shrimp, curry, mafé, croissants, mangoes, frites with Senegalese mustard, all with a daily supply of fresh café au lait… I got the chance to externalize all my fears and stresses that come with this experience, like, being unable to survive the heat, being unable to do my job, unable to meet the expectations of my villagers, irritated with the expectations of my villagers, being lonely and making connections with people that have an expiration date (in a sense…), fear or mortality and isolation.  All of this stuff came out in floods of stress and emotion, and I definitely did the taboo thing of crying in public in Senegal a few times, the first of which was just when I first got to hug my mom and then my dad. Mmmm… Thanks for coming guys! It was perfect J

P.S. (added a week after initial writing, now that I have internet at will publish this now) I’m totally over that whole feeling bad for the scorpion thing. Two days later there was another one in my room. And ya know, it came in cause it wanted to be dry. Again, it was raining. But here’s the deal:  the power was out. Which meant I saw the thing with a headlamp, called my brother over from next door, and spent the next twenty minutes (before retreating to my mosquito net) frantically scanning in circles around me with my little lamp that could not be worn on my head because that would mean flying things in my face instead of just around my face. Scorpions, we are not friends, and as long as you stay in your zone, scribble around feebly like you do, like your body is too heavy and lopsided for your little legs, good for you. But if you enter my domain, you will die. And I will have no regret.

And while I’m on a roll, a quick additional word about the insects of the rainy season: there are at least four types of at least 3 inch long beetles. There are little brown beetles, big brown beetles, big black beetles, bigger black beetles, HUGE black beetles (but not quite at the 3” mark), giant pincer beetles, tiny black beetles that fall through my mosquito net, dung beetles (they’re pretty cute, pushing their perfect little balls like kids on a slow day. I imagine them meeting up in a corner with them building little dung-men). There are mantises! They’re cool with me. There are flying things that come out in terrifying swarms (plague style, I am NOT exaggerating, like better to sit in the half dark and risk the scorpions than chance even a cell phone light because you will be overtaken in seconds) to beat themselves into lights until their wings fall off so they can enter a crawling phase of their lives. Creepy. When I go to sleep with my fan pointed into my mosquito net, when I wake up there are literally dozens of dead mosquitos who have been held against the net by the force of the breeze. Gross. And then there are spiders. Oh the spiders… Frankly, my rule is this: If you aren’t a scorpion, and are under an inch long, you’re good to go. Just don’t get ON me. If you are bigger than this, you gotta go. And if you bite or sting, sorry, but you’re dead. You have trespassed on my space, and my sense of physical comfort and security is threadbare. At some point in my life I will probably feel bad about this, but it’s the best I can do right now.

A day in the life

Ramadan, man.  Wow.  So, they get up before sunrise to eat breakfast, then don’t eat anything or even drink water until the mosque sounds that the sun has gone behind the horizon. We break-fast with a date, then a cup of some kind of coffee and a beignet. I think most people eat bread, but my awesome cousin next door makes and sells beignets. Then, we eat Ceeb u Jeen (normally lunch stuff) for dinner at the normal time of about 9. My version is: wake up like normal and eat breakfast. Drink water often (must replace the copious amounts I sweat out). So far, I must admit, I’ve had a handful of cheez-its or trail mix and a couple Dove chocolates both days. But that’s it from about 9 ‘til about 7:30.  And it’s a trip!

Yesterday was really hard, because I got word that my beloved baby Huxley passed away. He lived a long happy life and was an amazing friend to me, my parents, and his buddy the wonderful Nando. But just when I found out a storm was rolling in, so I went for a long walk, got soaked, tried to pick a fight with the clouds, but you know, they just aren’t very fighty. Not much more to say about that. It was hard, and it still hurts, but loss… yeah all that.

What I really want to talk about is life here. I want to explain today’s experience of Ramadan, which was kind of awesome. After that storm we had two more good rains before morning, so today was relatively cool (compared to yesterday’s hellish sauna). I did laundry from about 11-1, not super wise, seeing as it’s the hottest, sunniest part of the day. I sunblocked like crazy, but still got a little burned. I find doing laundry here totally enjoyable though. It’s just… kind of zen. Then I set out for my counterparts house, where my 9 year old cousin lives. Before I left for Thies, I promised her we’d paint our nails when I got back, so I brought my nail polish. I also brought a bag of candies I bought in Thies to give out to kids here. That was a great outing. I hit all the kids of Niangeen (my neighborhood), then went to sit with my small friend Ndeye-Baby (she’s really lovely) for a little pink toe-nail action. When we finished, the sleepiness hit. Getting hungry in the heat of Senegal leads to serious sleepiness.  So, just like yesterday, I found a spot on a mat under a tree with some friends and layed down. I wanted to ascend, and I did, but was asleep by the middle of the third sphere. Lovely nap. That’s one thing I seriously dig about Ramadan here. Everybody gets their work done early in the day, when breakfast hasn’t completely faded yet, then parks it under a tree or in their rooms for most of the day. I prefer the under a tree option. And at two o’clock when the mosque sounds it “yalllaaaaaah hu ak bar” (sure I spelled that all kinds of wrong), everyone does they’re prayers, and then lies down and passes out.  It’s kind of beautiful to see all these people laying together sleeping under trees… After doing a little clean-up in my room, I headed out to try to get ice. Ndeye-baby wanted to get the ice for me, but I wanted to go too so we went together. They were out of ice, but there were kids there I hadn’t hit yet.  So I left to get my candy. Ndeye came with. We were stopped three times and I was asked to sit and talk, but I was on a mission, and it was getting close to break-fast time. I got my candy, and played santa (or something) for awhile. I can’t possibly express how enjoyable this was. I mean, a bunch of not so young people asked me for candy, and I gave it to them, and somehow this was hilariously adorable to me. Why? Again, I can’t explain. Let me just say that the tiredness and hunger of Ramadan can lead to a state of slap-happy euphoria. That’s really the point of this story. Maybe that’s just as many people as say that Ramadan is hard say that it’s a good time. Mind altering hunger. Yay! HAH!  Well, so that’s that.

Here’s something I wish I could just show you a picture of, because explaining just won’t suffice. But my camera seems not to be sensitive enough to photo the stars here. My first night back, I was absolutely blown away by the sky. I mean, I’ve seen the milky way here before. And it’s beautiful. But this was different. This was CRAZY. There was a patchy stripe all the way across the sky, and everywhere was static, no blackness, just blue-sparkly (J). The milky, creamy strip of GLORIOUS also contained an even darker part than the most sparsely starred part of the rest of the sky.  Was this a hole it the disk of stars I was looking through? Or was is dark matter? I don’t know!! It was AMAZING though. Again, I’m sorry, words fail, but GOD I wish I could share this experience with everyone.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so AWE-some. And to top it off, there was a storm moving in, so intermittently there was lightning flashing across the edge of the sky, and the energy of it was palpable. OH man.  SO grateful to have been just there to stand and stare in awed wonder. There’s an inexplicable intimacy I felt with the BIG from being so small in it. Just wonderful…..  mmmmm…..

Tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan.  So, that means everyone in my village will be up before sunrise to eat a small breakfast, then will not eat or drink anything until the sun sets. For a month.  Except women who are menstruating, and theoretically nursing or pregnant mothers. Though sometimes women in these categories still fast. Several women in my village were fasting when I left for IST to make up for the days they would be menstruating (and therefore eating) during Ramadan. I certainly will NOT be giving up my water. That sounds like death, given how much I sweat lately.  But I am going to try fasting.  At least, getting up, eating breakfast (probably not before sunrise) and then not eating anything until break-fast.  I have no religious motivation for this plan, but since I’m all about ethnographic participant observation and cultural immersion and all that, I’ll give it a go.  Maybe I’ll even do a couple days full out (except the water part. Sorry. Can’t do it.)

Fortunately, my Wonderful parents are coming in just over two weeks!! So for the week they’re here, I will definitely be eating. And for a couple nights at least, sleeping in air conditioning!! Hooooray!! Also, oh my gosh, I get to spend some time with my parents! And ascend with them, and laugh with them, and talk about stuff like ascending and god and science and life and probably some mundane stuff too.  SOOO excited!!!

Meanwhile, its back to village for two weeks. Which I’m really glad about. Two weeks away is a long time and I miss pretty much everything about my life in village. Also, now that IST has happened, I have a much better idea of some of the work I can actually be doing. I’m thinking well improvements (adding covers to keep feces from blowing in when the wells aren’t in use), possibly starting a CARE group (getting a core group of women in the village to get together to practice better health or environmental practices and then teaching their neighborhoods what they’ve learned), tree planting, rocket stoves (hugely more fuel efficient with less smoke to damage womens lungs as the cook, made of locally available materials), some kind of school club for life skills and self empowerment, and next year building a school wall. It’s a start. Since it’s Ramadan, I’ll spent this month doing my baseline survey—which is so much more possible now that I know what work is possible here, and have spent two months getting an idea of what my community considers valuable and how they work together.  So, this first week I’ll get all my stuff together from IST and review the ideas I had there and what questions I need to ask specific friends in village. Then I’ll have a week to start the survey, then a week with my parents, then the rest of Ramadan to finish the survey. Sometime in September, my bosses will be coming to my village to see my two-year action plan. For this meeting, I need a committee of village members who have to sign off the plan. Unfortunately, it was explicitly put forth as the responsibility of my community counterpart to create this committee, and that has not happened. In fact… [censored]. Not sure how I’m gonna deal with that one, but I trust that it will work out perfectly. Whatever that means J

Also in September, we have our first ever Walo girls camp (the Walo is the eastern Saint-Louis region and the Louga region just beneath us). I didn’t get here in time to go through the process of getting girls from my village in on the fun, but next year I will, and I’m excited to help with the camp anyway. I mean, it’s a camp. And I love the chance to do something to encourage girls to stay in school and choose their own life-path, to emphasize that they don’t have to get married and have babies and do house work for the rest of their lives if that isn’t what they want. If it is, that’s okay with me to. I just think its important that they know they have the right to self determine.

On that note, here’s an interesting fact about the Peace Corps: a large number of projects here are funded by YOU GUYS! That is to say, we don’t get funds from the Peace Corps, we write up a grant, and through official Peace Corps channels, post it on the internet and ask for donations from anyone and everyone we know. There’s a chance that somewhere down the line I will ask for funding for a personal project, and I’m slightly hesitant to play that card so early in my service. Still, a little money goes a long way here. So, I’m going to ask.  This girls camp will cost us $5,000. That includes the space we’re renting from the University of Saint-Louis, food for everyone and cooks to make it, all materials for the sessions, and a small per-diem for our Senegalese counterparts who will be working as presenters and counselors. If you support the work we’re doing with these girls, please consider donating. Even a $5 contribution will help. You can donate at pcsenegal.org by clicking on the Camp Gem Sa Bopp link (the name of the camp means “believe in yourself!” There’s a picture of me on there too! Yay! Also, there’s a lot of other cool information about the work we do here on the site. Check it out!

That’s all I’ve got for now. I have spent way too much money these last two weeks, but had a great time with my friends from PST and am now completely ready to get back to normal village life. I miss pulling water from the well! What is that? So, onward!

Random

It seems like I should blog, and there’s a lot to say (there always is, really), but I’m not sure where to start. This will probably be pretty all over the place.

I’ll start with the most insane thing that’s happened lately. The other day I was on my way home, crossing the village, when I passed through the main family house at the same time my host sister-in-law was there saying something to my host mom. Her tone of voice was just slightly off, but it left me ill at ease. They walked pretty quickly towards my house, and I stayed just behind them.  Just as I was thinking something bad must have happened, but what, I saw Modou, my friend and host-cousin, literally running toward the house. Which of course, left me a bit freaked. Turns out, the horse bit one of the two sheep. The one who’s eyes I had stared into, just a cute lovely creature. The horse is ill-tempered. So, I wasn’t sure if I should go in to the animal area, but a bunch of the family had gathered so I went in. Modou was checking the sheep, trying to see what could be done. The other Modou, my host-second-cousin, showed up, and carried the sheep to a new location, away from the horse. It had been bitten in the back of the neck and was unable to stand. I’m guessing there was some spinal damage there… Anyway, the only thing they could do was kill it. One Modou gently held the poor thing in place while the other Modou slit its throat. Part of me wanted to be nowhere near what was happening, but I couldn’t leave, and felt like I should see. Like I should let myself reconnect to the “harsh” reality of the meat I eat. I’m glad I did, but it left me shaken and surging with strange emotions. I went for a small walk, literally just around the outside of the compound, but that didn’t do it. So, I got my pulley, my rope and bucket, my beignoir and scarf, and headed to the well.  Carrying one pan of water didn’t use up all that energy either. So, I helped my cousin Seynabou get a couple more pans. I tried pouring water from my head into a clay pot that holds water (the women here are masters at this) and only succeeded in pouring water all over myself. Then I went back to pull and bring back some more water. Somehow working ‘til my muscles were tired and my clothes were soaked and covered with sand felt perfect. Surely this is pretty simple psychology. Anyway in keeping with my desire to meet my meat, I went back into the livestock area. The two Modou’s had finished skinning the body, and were working on cleaning and cutting up the meat. After watching for awhile, I took a shower. And then ate my fill of delicious mutton in onion sauce for dinner. Talk about fresh meat, man, the taste is notably More.

On a more pleasant note, I’m discovered the game of Kumpp. It’s a female-only afternoon in Nawet sport played in the penc, or community gathering area, with a tennis ball. To start, one girl drops the ball at one end and starts running. Others scramble to get the ball and hit the runner with it, as hard as possible. If you can’t realistically get anywhere without being hit, like if you’re the runner and the ball in the hands of someone between you and the goal, you put your hands  in front of your forehead as a target, hoping to catch the ball. Because once you’re hit, the woman who threw the ball at you starts running in the opposite direction. If you can catch the ball, you basically get to throw it right back at whoever threw at you, and hope to continue on your way. Sounds basic, but its major fun. Barefoot in the sand is a good place to start, and it’s hilarious to see who gets pegged, how trips on the sand and then gets pegged, who fumbles the ball, all the usual stuff that makes team sports worth playing. It’s also obviously a good way to show the community that I want to hang out with them and do what they do.  So, yeah. Kumpp. Although, I do Not understand why Kumpp season and soccer season are during the hottest part of the year. Does this make sense? There must be some cultural reason for this that I’m unaware of. I mean, it’s not like it Ever gets so cold here you can’t comfortably play outside.

What else… OH GRASS!!!  So, we’ve still just had the one good rain. We had a short sprinkling a couple mornings ago… Still, the little green things in the sand continue to grow. I rode a charette through the countryside this morning and again this evening, and saw REAL GRASS!! I mean, the little tree-lings growing here are lovely and wonderful, but I saw a full shade tree with a carpet of real grass beneath it, and my heart about stopped. I can’t wait to take a pagne out to one of these spots and just lounge! (There’s a lot of just lounging on pagne’s or mats here, especially from about noon-four (the hottest part of the day), but it’s always on sand.) GRASS, man!!

“Slowly, slowly you will catch the monkey in the forest.” This is a Wolof proverb. So, slowly, slowly, I’m getting to really know people here. Getting to know how to deal with every-day here. Getting a comfortable routine. But I’m still somewhat unsure of how I’m going to WORK here, and what exactly I’m going to do. Fortunately, we’re about to have our IST, where we’re supposed to be learning a bit more about that kind of thing. Plus, 2/3 of the goals of Peace Corps are cultural exchange only, which I’m definitely participating actively in. Another reason I’m excited about IST is that I get to see my friends from my stage! Almost all of whom I haven’t seen for two months. Time for an Hamburger Royale, and a Gazelle or two with my first friends in this country. Though I know that in two weeks away from here, I’m going to miss this place something awful.

Miin naa bu baaxa baax! Fi, dafa neeeeeex torop!

Today I looked into baby Aida’s eyes, and a freight train hit me.  I saw this perfect, ageless, endlessly wise, endless love staring from me into me… This momentary dropping of everything. We stared, we smiled… it was pure bliss.  So, I guess that’s what people talk about when they say they see perfect innocence in the eyes of children. We all have our moments (of perfect innocence, that is).

So, mmmm… sweet deepness. Bubbling ebullient life-force. Joy and the big empty.

How to blog with this experience…??

I want to talk some about my life here. About my experience, because it’s wonderful. I’m living this deliciously social life, with plenty of perfect time for myself as well. Time to ascend, time to sew and journal and crochet and shave my legs. Something I didn’t think I’d do here, but which I probably do more often than I did in the states. Why? Because when flies land on hairless legs, it tickles a lot less. And the flies here are majorly annoying. A horsefly landed on the wall right next to me a moment ago. It was just chilling, and so was I, and I had this conflict of feeling. Part of me was completely at peace, and happy to be in the presence of another perfect being. Part of me was like, this is a horsefly. They bite. That is bad. Make it go away. So, I did…. What would a perfectly enlightened being do? This question is kind of a joke….

I keep experiencing this beautiful synchronicity in my life. The perfect books have been finding me. Mating, by Norman Rush was first. Then Big Bang, then the collection of Rumi, then “Size 12 is Not Fat” (I know, but there were a few silly little things in it I needed to hear), and most recently “Holy Cow” by Sarah Macdonald. It’s one woman’s experience living and traveling in India, opening herself to the possibility of spiritual awakening in all the different religions found there, and concurrently living a “normal life.” I highly recommend all of these, except maybe Size 12, unless you want some fluff dancing with a touch of truth. The perfection of the world seeming to respond to my needs, presenting itself as a gift to be enjoyed and loved, with the (nearly) constant focus of GOD (is in charge, is the only true, truly important, real—ness, is my true love, is my-self, all that), with the (nearly) constant letting go of what I think my needs or desires might be, it’s pretty mind-blowing and definitely heart expanding.

I want to make these generalizations, to explain that my life here is peaceful and full of love and that I’m happy, cause that’s true. Right now, I have a cold, the flies are pestering my ankles (why do they love my ankles?) I’m sweating. Right now, there is an ocean washing through me. There is endless still peace. There are fears and desires dancing around, then they go. And there’s nothing. Beautiful, sparkling, deep blue, dark, bright, lovely stillness.  Thank God for this moment.

But I really do want to tell you all about my life here! I love the women of Niangeen (my “neighborhood,” where everyone is either a Niang by birth or marriage), I love all the children of this village. I love their temper tantrums and their joyful lolling in their mothers laps. I love the way Ndeye Sisse has treated my like family from day one, and the way Ami Sila always has something to say about everything, but when she’s done holds absolutely no grudge about anything. Life is back to “jamm rekk” as soon as the moment passes. I love the way they take care of, tease lovingly, and dote upon the children with mental disabilities. I love the way the men and even boys, love to coddle babies and play with children. I love that when kids get upset they get this look like “Fear my wrath!” then pick up a shoe, hold it in the air, and try to figure out what to do next. I love the way Busa, my new little friend, buries herself in my legs when I walk by, and the other kids tell her to let me keep going, and I tell them that she’s fine, to leave her alone. I love the way everyone looks out for everyone, and the way this system keeps everyone in line: if someone hits their kid hard enough to make a noise, its immediate public censure. All the women stare, scoff disapprovingly, and if necessary, Ami Sila can always get up in somebody’s face. I love the light dusting of tiny growing things that has sprung up where there was just sand and goat poo, all from one good rain a week ago. I love that I got one of the coolest sites in Senegal, and I have electricity! I love that Modou and Ngagne fixed the cracks in my concrete floor for free, because I don’t like the bugs here. I love onion sauce!!  

Okay, enough of that. You guys probably get the picture. All is well, I already feel like I’ve changed in ways I can’t explain any better than whatever you can get out of this. Currently getting a big lesson in innocence, for which I am Majorly grateful.  Jamm rekk, man.

Meanwhile: Nawet has come.  In other words, we’ve had our first big storm. I was actually in Saint-Louis for the event, but it moved in from across the desert and hit here after it blew through there. What an experience, first of all.  First there was a blast of violent wind carrying so much sand I thought the world might be ending. Also, it hit at night and knocked out the power, and I was all alone in the apartment. And it blew everything around in the kitchen and on the balconies, so I locked up and crawled into bed with a book and flashlight. The cocoon effect of a mosquito net is no joke.  When the rains did hit, it was glorious.  Buckets of rain, great rolling thunder and beautiful lighting, the kind that, frankly, is best appreciated without the lights on anyway.  So, that means nawet is upon us, even though it’s been a week and it hasn’t rained again yet. Every day I’m hopeful. Because already, my village is changing. The people here are all at work in the fields most of the day getting their peanuts, bissap and beans planted. And everywhere that was sand, is suddenly dusted green with tiny sprouting things. The live fences actually look alive, with new leaves growing from their funny leathery branches. It’s beautiful.   Unfortunately, that also means it’s bug season. There are still warawara a-plenty, but now I also fall asleep to the sound of a million mosquitoes trying to get to my blood. It’s like this terrible scream that sometimes makes me feel like I’m losing it. Also, there are now scorpions, beetles with giant pincers that can apparently survive with half of their back-section missing, giant dragon-fly-looking-things that bite, pretty, creepy gecko guys that apparently pee poison, and giant beetles as large as mice that, fortunately, do not bite. Lucked out on that one… Oh and I forgot to mention horse spiders. They’re great. About two inches long, have pincers that look like two scorpion stingers put together, and they’re hella fast. Oh, and they have ten legs.  What has ten legs!??!!?  Fortunately, being terrifying is all they do. They don’t hurt you (I’ve been told…)