HIgh Adventure in the Land of the Genies

A couple of weeks ago my friends Marielle, Ben, CJ and I packed up our bags and set out on a great journey. Our destination was an unbelievable collection of giant rock cliffs called The Spires. They loom quite menacingly over the big mountain ridge that separates Guinea and Senegal, beautiful as could be and almost totally inaccessible. And, according to local legends, they’re inhabited by genies.

View of the spires from far far away


So, despite the mostly bemused objections of our villagers (‘lemme get this straight- you not only want to visit the spirit inhabited, toubab eating spires, you want to sleep there in toubab houses?!! (tents)’) we set off to climb these crazy cliffs and, inshallah, stay the night up there. Getting there was as much an adventure as actually climbing the mountain. Marielle and I cut down back paths from my site to meet with Ben and CJ. This entailed crashing through 6 foot high grasses that covered the path, gettin’ eaten up by tsetse flies but in turn eating some cooked straight on the coals corn with some friendly villagers along the way. Eventually we emerged from the mass of grasses, found our comrades and turned up back paths towards a town at the foot of the ridge called Dunkita. There we befriended a Jalunke man who offered to keep our bikes while we continued the rest of our journey on foot.
Next we climbed straight up the mountain to Marougou, a tiny Jalunke village at the foot of the spires. Marougou looks like, as Ben put it, a model West African village one might find in a cultural center or National Geographic. It is extremely poor but beautiful, a tiny cluster of huts and mango trees rimmed by the mountains of Guinea and the Spires. We found the village chief, gave him kola nuts, and asked if we could stay the night there. Our explanation of toubab houses really confused him but eventually he got the point and found a nice place for us to set up tents. As soon as we made camp though we were hit by a terrifying rain storm. Ben and I jumped in the tents to keep them from blowing away and Marielle and CJ were nearly hit by lightning as the rain through the rain on the way back from pulling water.

All of us with the Marougou villagers


As the clouds cleared the Chief’s son, Sory, invited us into his hut to dry off and make tea. We passed the rest of the evening in there, drinking tea and swapping stories about Genies while the sun set over Marougou. We had brought rice and given the villagers some money so they could make us dinner, and finally an old woman came into the hut with a tiny little bowl. We opened it up and found fonio, a delicious West African grain, and peanut sauce. Though the portion was tiny we ate gratefully, thankful for anything they could give. This turned out to be just round one though, and as soon as we were done another woman came with another bowl of fonio. Then came dinner number three, fonio again, dinner number four of the rice we brought, and more fonio for dinner number five! Amazing! It turned out that all the women in the village were making us little dinners to welcome us, fattening up the travelers with true Senegalese hospitality.
The next morning we woke up early. And, with some kind prayers from the elders and thank you’s all around (‘I nin walli’ in Jalunke) we headed out. Some little boys from the village took as far as they dared to go and then we veered off into the bush, cutting a line through the bush with a machete. It took a few hours to reach the base of the spires but then the real work began. Two times we tried to summit, crashing our way through fields of stinging nettles and clamboring over boulders only to be stopped dead by the sheer, insurmountable walls of the cliffs. After the second time we figured we had maybe one more attempt left in us before exhaustion and our alarming water shortage got the best of us. So after eating soggy bread (soaked in the rainstorm the day before) and sardine sandwiches we set off. Eventually I crested a ridge and there it was, a high grass valley nestled between two huge but potentially climbable peaks. Marielle and I took one side and CJ and Ben took the other. CJ and Ben found a way up and eventually we all were at the top of the highest point in Senegal, the flatlands of Senegal stretching out forever into the horizon far beneath us. It was beautiful.

Victory!


That night we played cards, rationed our tiny water supplies, and went to sleep early. We awoke in the middle of the night to a terrifying roar. Perfect Storm number 2 had rolled in and an unbelievable wind was tearing around the cliffs and making a noise like a dragon. It and the rain hit our tiny tents at the same time with incredible force. We all were starfished on the floors, praying that the wind wouldn’t pick up the tents and fling them off the edge of the mountain. The genies or whatever energy is found on the Spires were angry, but Alhamdoulilahi the storm finally passed and we lived through the night. We awoke the next morning to the sound of a million bees (genies round two?) but we hit out in our tents ‘till they had mostly flown away.
And thus ended our spires adventure. We climbed back down the mountain, greeted the Marougou villagers who all were quite happy to know we had survived the night, and then headed down the ridge to retrieve our bikes in Dunkita. For the Dunkita family who guarded our bikes we promised to bring children’s cloths and we’ll be printing pictures for our lovely Marougou hosts next time we pass through. For as crazy and fun as it was to climb the spires, the thing that has really stuck with me after our grand adventure was the kindness and hospitality of the people along the way. It is one fine fine place I am living in.

The Last Few Months: Ramadan, Camp, Nets and Mandolins

Greetings to everyone! I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I last wrote. The internet odds have been against me lately though. In the first place our regional house in Kedougou is a lightning magnet, and our poor defenseless router (maybe 3 of them actually!) have suffered greatly during the rainy season. Too, I’ve been a busy man, doing work at my sight and around Kedougou. It’s been a good thing- I’ve loved working and I’ve been building lots of good fodder for a blog post. But, it hasn’t left much time to actually write one. Alas! I’m back in Kedougou now though, hoping to get one typed up before I bike back to Missirah tomorrow.

I think last I wrote was in July- we had just got done a long, tedious, but quite informative In-Service-training. So, catching up where I left off, I left IST and headed back to Missirah Dantila for August. My arrival coincided with the month of Ramadan. So I jumped write in to Sunkaro (fasting month in Jaxanke) and began fasting with my family. During Ramadan no one (except pregnant women and sick people) eats or drinks from sunrise to sunset. This is quite exhausting, and though people kept working and farming life really slowed down. At the same time though there is a great comraderie that develops, especially when people realized that their local adopted Toubab was fasting too. “Fode Mady! I be sundin? Iyo? Tonya??? Allah mu a to soneyala.” – something like: “Fode Mady, are you fasting? (me- yes indeed!) ‘Really? Amazing! May god make the rest of your fast easy/peaceful’.

Each day I’d get up at 4:30, roll myself out of bed to go break fast with my brothers. It was always pitch black, the milky way often brilliantly lit across the sky. In my brothers hut we’d all plop our sleepy selves down on the mat and crack sleepy jokes while we at left over rice and sauce and waited for the water to boil. Then we’d have coffee (as always with an absurd amount of sugar) and bread, occasionally even mayonnaise or jelly. That sounds kind of pitiful writing it now, but bread is a special thing in village, a kind of expensive treat, and something like jelly most people have never even seen. Afterwards we’d load up on water in preparation for a day of thirstiness and then head off to bed again or out into the fields, all before the sunrise.

Ramadan was difficult- tiring for the body and mind, especially when I got a terrible stomache sickness at the end of it all. But, at the same time, it was really rewarding. A sort of we’re all in this thing together thing, and my villagers really appreciated my willingness to give it a try. So, though I’m considering a nice vacation around August or so next year, I’m real glad I did it this time. And, at the end of it all, every one puts on their absolute brightest cloths, parades into the wilderness for a prayer, and then spends the rest of the day eating amazingly. So, I’m gonna make sure to be back for Korite next year!

All of my villagers in their Sunday best, out praying in the woods for Korite


As for work, I spent all of august conducting a baseline survey on health attitudes, knowledge and practice in my village. I went around, sometimes accompanied by my younger brother Karamba, asking people a whole barrage of questions about demographics, water and sanitation, malaria, HIV, pregnancy, and nutrition. The idea of a survey sort of confused folks, but mostly they were happy to chat, blabbing on about the crazy plant medicines they use for cuts or how they received mosquito nets last year but their cousin stole two of them. The information that I obtained is a little overwhelming but really interesting. 84% of people, for example, get their drinking water from the river. And, while almost 90% of them filter the water with a cloth, only 10% or so actually add bleach or other purifying tablets. In the end I will use these data to help inform future projects, but also to help evaluate their effectiveness as the projects progress.

September, though it started off a bit crappy with the giardia I mentioned, turned out to be an amazing, really exciting month. I started it off in a town called Dindefello helping out at a youth camp that Peace Corps hosts every year. The camp was a funny combination of regular old summer camp- trips to the beautiful waterfall, challenge courses, art- mixed in with development activities like making enriched porridge for undernourished children and making home-made bug cream to prevent malaria. I helped out all around, in porridges, challenge course, egg toss and sports. But my main activity was teaching creative writing/story telling.

Patrick teaching the Challenge Course at camp!

I was a bit apprehensive about this, not sure how it would go teaching this to kids who do almost solely route memorization in school. But it turned out amazingly! The kids were really receptive, and some came up with stories worthy of a children’s book. And, I just heard from another Volunteer Larocha, histoire creative was a bunch of her villager’s favorite activity. Yes!
After that it was off to Saraya to help with a mosquito net distribution. The distribution was part of a Universal Mosquito Net Coverage campaign that was actually started write here in the Saraya region a couple years ago. Its goal is to provide free nets to every bed in every village so every person sleeps under a net, with the end result of reducing malaria incidence and prevalence throughout the region. It has since been adopted by all of Senegal and is moving out across West Africa. Strangely though, Saraya and the neighboring zone of Khosanto themselves never received nets . Though this was too bad it meant that this year I had the lucky chance to be part of the Universal Net Coverage campaign as we finished up Saraya.
A lot of the prep work was tedious as could be – all day long trainings for the health workers who would do the community censuses and distributions, and a continuous logistics nightmare trying to make sure we had the right number of nets. But we kept each other sane with many a bean sandwich from the local bean sandwich lady and making a hilarious radio show about the distribution. And, when the days of the distribution actually arrived, it was a huge success. Each day we would ride out to different villages, monitoring the distributions and net education activities, interviewing people and making sure folks knew how to attach their nets and what they were for. You had your occasional malcontents for sure, but for the most part people were really happy and thankful. And, as another volunteer Jessie pointed out, soon you will be able to watch the rates of malaria deaths fall in the villages that were covered. Pretty amazing!

Me with a villager in Bembou, helping out at the net distribution

And that brings me to now. I am busily doing a bunch of computer stuff- too much actually- but gonna go back to site. There I’m hoping to start some individual education projects which I will detail next time I write. I also am helping get the grant and logistics for a training of midwives in my region, so more about that next time as well. And, last but certainly not least, I’ve recently acquired a mandolin and am hard at work learning it. Life is good!

Hope all is well,
Ian

Startin' Up Work

My brother Cheik and I- best Koto Ke (older brother) in the world

I’m back in the bright bustling of city of Thies, trying to take advantage of the abundance of power and internet access to write a blog post before we head back to Kedougou. We came up here along with all the other new(ish) volunteers from our stage almost two weeks ago for IST- In Service Training. IST consists of a whole bundle of trainings and sessions on actual technical skills, project suggestions and design, and development theory. The days are long- we start sessions at 8 am and usually aren’t done till 6 or so in the evening. But, disreguarding a couple particularly tedious sessions, they have generally been extremely helpful and informative. I find myself now at the end of this IST full of project ideas, perhaps a bit overwhelmed, but most of all ready and excited to return to site and start work.

And, whilst on the subject, I wanted to write about the beginnings of my work back in ol’ Misirah Dantila.  Somewhere around the beginning of July all of us health volunteers organized a Neem Cream tour throughout the Kedougou region. Neem is a miracle tree (though I think it’s actually invasive in Senegal) whose leaves have a myriad of magical anti-bug properties. It is used in gardening as both a prevention and a treatment for all sorts of pests. And, happily, it can be used to make a really effective mosquito repellant lotion! This is, or at least has the potential to be, a godsend in the fight against malaria in Senegal and throughout Africa.

Leah and a wonderful woman from my village stirrin' up a batch of neem lotion

Malaria is particularly endemic in my region of Kedougou, and cases have been sky rocketing now that rainy season and its accompanying mosquitoes have arrived full force. Despite universal bed-net coverage all sorts of people (siblings, villagers, even our nurse) have been falling ill. Tragically a little girl in my compound died a month or so ago from malaria and severe pneumonia. Her name was Sokxna- she was beautiful and cute as could be. One night I was playing music for all my villagers when my brother told us to knock it off cause Sokxna was sick. The very next morning I found out she had passed away in the night. The funeral had already taken place and the period of mourning already passed (grief is expressed by women screaming and crying at the top of their lungs. For little children, though, only a few hours or a night of crying is acceptable- testament to the frequency of infant death in developing societies I suppose).  This event and making sense of it afterwards was extremely upsetting. But I include it here in the hopes of showing a concrete example of the often too abstract nature of our work. We work in big generalities- fight malaria, improve maternal and child health- but it boils down to specifics like preventing this tragic and avoidable death.

Thus in July we organized a big regional Neem tour where we went from village to village teaching folks, especially women, how to make this homemade and quite affordable Neem Lotion.  Leah, a second year health volunteer, and I kicked off the Saraya region part of the tour in a tiny town near mine called Touba Kouta. We bicycled in to Touba Kouta in the morning of the 10^th (I think), finding the friendly village health worker and not a single woman to do the demonstration with. Slowly though they began filtering into our little shade structure and pretty soon we had a big, enthusiastic crowd.

 We began with a petite causerie (not sure the word in English- means a small, informal information sharing session) as to what malaria is, who knows how you get it, why it’s bad, etc.. Then we moved on to the neem making demonstration. We divied out tasks, some women cuttin’ up soap and some stirring the boiling water, Leah and I slowly explaining each simple step in Jaxanke. Pretty soon the women had themselves a huge batch of this frothy, creamy mosquito repellant (it looks kind of like lemon mousse- ah, how delicious would that be!). We doled it out so everybody could get a sample, smearing some of the leftovers on our arms and legs to demonstrate how to put it on.  Everyone clapped afterwards and were so thankful and enthusiastic, all energized about Neem and fighting malaria and so on. Leah and I left with huge smiles and happy hearts, basking in the success of this prototypical Peace Corps causerie.

Some of the women at the Misirah Dantila demo, pre-chaos

This basking turned out to be quite short lived though, cut down by the ridiculous chaotic failure of our next demonstration in my village! Back in my village two more volunteers, Kate and David, showed up and my brother Cheik put out a call over the loudspeaker at the Mosque for all the women of the village to come to my compound for the demonstration. Though there was by no means every woman at the causerie, we probably ended up with 70 women and 100 people in total! Given these numbers, the initial rounds of the talks and demonstrations were surprisingly peaceful. Everyone was very interested, quiet and interactive, all lending a hand and helping out with the triple batch of neem that we were trying to make.

When it came time to dole out little samples (every women who came was supposed to get a little bit) all hell broke loose! Women started shouting and grabbing, clinging at my arms and trying to block out each other in hopes of being first in line for Neem. I looked over and Leah was in similar straits, her bucket of neem held out over her head as a million crazy little ladies surged forward and tried to climb up her. I yelled at her to jump ship and we just dropped our spoons and neem, abandoning the mob to their own devices. This unleashed still more chaos! Some women got whole buckets dumped down their shirts as they played tug of war with others, and one crafty woman even stole a bucket and jumped a fence in hopes of escaping her outraged pursuers. Ha! It was pure craziness! In the end just about nobody got anything, the majority being spilled on the ground or on women themselves. As soon as there was nothing left to fight about, though, everybody calmed down and it was as if there had never been a near riot. Everyone was laughing and thanking us, back to their regular ‘peace only’ greetings and life.

The next day we forged on, on to a bunch of other communities and just as many stories. Over all it was a great, amazing experience. To be sure, I learned things that I will do differently next time, but we reached a lot of people and found a lot of interest. Too, I personally felt so good to have started work, experienced my first round of successes and failures, and to recognize that my language skills are getting to the point where I can comfortably, if still falteringly, do that work in Jaxanke. And now at the end of IST, armed with lots more knowledge and some good ideas, I am ready to head on back and keep on going.  

Ben and I in our Patriotic finest at the Fourth celebration

My favorite picture from IST- Chelsea and a baby kitty who was born here at the center during our PST- it's gotten so big!

Tambourines and Elephants!

This blog I actually wrote a couple weeks ago, so the timing is a bit off. Indeed it is now july 6th, which means I've been at site for about seven weeks. We just had a fantastic fourth of July party. All of the volunteers in Senegal came down to Kedougou to celebrate. We cooked 4 pigs (two of them in banana leaves in the ground), danced all day, and sent fourth great big joyful shouts of love towards ol' Amerique. Twas such a time! Now back to my out of date blog post-

Two cute little girls from my compound, both named Fanta!

June 22nd, 2011: I am back in Kedougou now, celebrating the end of my first five weeks at site. We were challenged to spend these five weeks without coming in to the regional house. Forsaking the big city charms of the house here (a kind of commune-esque series of huts actually) is supposed to make us all better volunteers in the long run, tougher and better equipped to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous village life fortune. For now, though, it seems like the Kedougou house itself is the true arrow slinger. Volunteers are fallin’ ill left and right, besieged by stomache issues and fevers and whathaveyous. I thankfully got my bout of sickness out of the way before coming here- spent four or five days lying around my hut with a high fever. But I maintain that it was not me that brought this plague to everybody else, for I had (mbe Allah tantoula) nary and intestinal problem during fevery days.

Overall things have been very good for me. With each passing week I find myself more and more comfortable in my village. I have been makin’ friends with folks and slowly learning the vocabularly to hold my own in absurd, loving and good natured insult matches: ‘You’re greedy and without manners!’ ‘Yeah? Well you lie and you are a perpetually joking woman’. ‘yeah, well ibe hoohoorin!’  I’m not exactly sure what hoohoorin is, but I think it has something to do with eating a lot (or my villagers just taught me a made up word cause it sounds so funny).  I explained to them Santa Clause, how he’s jolly and eats a whole bunch and says Ho Ho all the time. We concluded he must be hoohoorin as well.

I am slowly beginning to get a sense of the health situation of my village and opportunities for future projects.  Of course, malaria is one of the most immediate, grave problems.  It is particularly prevalent in our region of Kedougou, and will be coming in full force now that the rains are here.  Thanks to the recent volunteers Kedougou pioneered a universal bed-net distribution, so everyone should have a net to sleep under. There is still a lot of work to be done though, as many people use them improperly, claim they never got them, or refuse to use them at all. We also have a big push to teach people how to make and use neem lotion. Neem is a miracle plant that proliferates around here, the leaves of which can be used to make, among other things, a very effective bug repellent. Soon I will help conduct a big neem tourney in or Saraya region where we’ll be going from village to village teaching how to make the stuff.

Aerial view of Misirah Dantila, taken while repairing one of the roofs after a huge storm knocked off all the straw

Maternal and Child health is another huge focus of our work around here. Senegal, while blessed to have some really positive health indicators like a <1% HIV rate, has an extremely high maternal mortality rate. Too there are lots of opportunities and need to do childhood nutrition work. In Misirah Dantila and some of the surrounding villages I have been helping do baby weighing and vaccinations. Some kids are severely malnourished and every single one could use more vitamins and protein in their diets. Apart from that, I have begun to notice an inordinately high prevalence of cataracts in my village. So many old men shuffle around in their crappy flip flops (everyone in Senegal wears those cheap plastic beach flip flops), led around by a kindly child who acts as their eyes. I’ve heard stories of an eye clinic being set up here in Kedougou last year- Doctor’s from the U.S. actually came to work it. So I’ve told them I’ll do some snooping around and figure out if it’d be feasible to set up a traveling clinic in Misirah or another fairly central but way out in the bush town.

I should say that, though I’ve certainly been brainstorming and helpin’ out where I can, for the most part I’ve just been settlin’ in and hanging out these past weeks. At first it could be a source of stress, feelin’ like I’m not doing anything but chattin’ day in and day out when I should be working. But these first couple months are really meant for learning the language and the people and starting any serious projects is discouraged. So I’ve embraced the slow days and hanging out. I get up at 6:30, drink my mono corn porridge and go on my traditional round of greetings. I force myself to pass this one populated block of old, friendly, heckling women whose names are impossible to remember. And slowly I’m mixing up their last names less often,  but I still get a few wrong or have to sidestep my forgetfulness by claiming I’m in a hurry to greet my father.  After I make it to his compound and greet him and all the old, friendly, heckling men I am free. I hang out for a while and then take my leave. I slip back on my shoes (you have to take off your shoes to go into any important person’s house), point them in a direction, and see where the day takes me.

I almost always find some sort of adventure for my day- some folks will beckon me over to help them plant corn or a family will be repairing a hut and I lend my new found palm-rope making skills. This is cool, cause I always end up with new friends afterwards, and usually tea and invitations for lunch. I also spend a lot of time with the kids. We go on big searches through the bush for Saba’s- a green fruit whose yellow seeds taste incredibly like warheads. I also love to ask them about the animals around here. They will tell me a name of something- a Maloo for instance- that I have no idea. Then we will shift and maneuver language till we arrive at an understanding: ‘ it’s a huge, huge animal’ ‘An elephant?’ ‘No No- it lives in the river. It’s terrifying and dangerous’ ‘A crocodile? Does it eat people?’ ‘No it eats plants. And the smallest one is the size of a cow’ ‘Ah!! A Hippo!’. And so all of our conversations go about porcupines and hyenas and all manner of crazy sounding things that live around me.

I have also gone on a couple lovely trips whilst at site. Here is a picture of a trip to the waterfalls of Kafouri. My buddy Ben came off of his fungolimbi mountain and we met a current volunteer Jess there. So beautiful! I also have gone to see Marielle in Nafadji a couple of times. The last time I found a guy who claimed to play the djembe. After much goading he finally agreed to let me go get it, and pretty soon we had a big ol’ dance party going and kids were running in from everywhere. The coolest part, though, was to wake up the next morning and find all the little kids in her village making drums out of rusty coffee cans and scraps of cement bag paper. 

Misirah Dantila: My first two weeks!

It’s official: I have just completed my first two weeks in my new home of Misirah Dantila. They’ve been crazy, so so difficult but great overall. Each day seems to stretch on into an oblivion of faltering language learning, unsuccessful attempts to elude the overwhelming, 120+ heat, and just plain old exhaustion. I do fun things like hanging out under some palm fronds swapping English and Malinke lessons with my villagers for hours or trampsing off into the bush to cut down trees and build a bed with my brother/ work counterpart. But even in the simplest, most pleasant of events I am constantly floundering in a sea of unfamiliar language and culture with nary a soul to share an English conversation or perhaps an American meal with.  And indeed, the dislocation and lonesomeness that comes with this floundering has been intense. I miss my family friends something fierce, I think like I never have before. I miss home, the feeling of being home, where general, everyday interactions flow like water and the Georgia oaks and rivers surround me in coolness, shade and peace.  And then, just for emphasis, I go back to missin them good friends and family. Whoo! It’s been tough some times.

                   All that said, I still say that these first couple weeks have been amazing. The brand newness of my village and all of my experiences in it is exhilarating. Every day I learn something new- Jaxanke/Malinke phrases (there’s some debate as to what language my villagers actually speak), bits of magic and superstition, village customs and handy-tasks such as thatching grass huts or making nails out of bamboo.  My only real work right now is getting to know the language and the people, so I spend all my days wanderin’ about and finding folks to chat with. I help women crack peanuts or the young boys make the thatching for the huts. And, in trying to make myself useful, I also pick up on new words and new acquaintances which will be very useful for my work later on. 

And, most importantly, I really like the people.  My village has about 1,200 folks which is relatively big for being way the heck in the middle of nowhere ( I bike down the long, dusty roads with nothing but wilderness bush and distant mountains as far as the eye can see- it is wild and really beautiful).  I have by no means met everyone, and still have a long way to go to memorizing everybody’s names. But everybody knows my name and greets me enthusiastically wherever I go: “Fode Made Tanjian, Kor Tanante? Heera Tilinta!”.  They’re a testy bunch of people, constantly quizzing me on my Jaxanke skills and giving me grief when I screw up.  This is quite frequent given the greetings, tenses, and many words are entirely different than what I learned in class. And, past that, it is such a long road learning this language and deciphering what sounds like a bunch of mumbling three quarters of the time.  But they are nonetheless forgiving, helpful, and really friendly.  Everybody’s always cracking jokes and laughing. When I greet the women they offer me mangoes or this green goo called Jambo. A pack of cute, dirty children follow me wherever I go, helping me with Jaxanke and trying to climb on me.  And the old men (keebalu) have sent along many a gift to my compound to make me feel welcomed: fish, a deer leg, and even some prize antelope organs in Tupperware bowl. Yum!!,

And at night everybody gathers around my compound at night to chat, gossip, and demand that I play guitar. One night when I was playing for everybody I played a song in French. This started off a chain of song requests in different languages: “Sing us an English one.. Now Jaxanke, now Wolof… now Pulaar!”, all the way down to Jalunke, a tiny tiny language that is spoken in my region.  In most of these languages I know at best a couple phrases and in Jalunke I know how to say ‘come here, come eat’ at that’s it. But nevertheless I attempted, singing things like Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’ with Pulaar words mixed in. It was hilarious!

I spend the biggest part of my days with Cheik Moctar Tanjian. He is my village counterpart with whom I will probably doing many health projects as I get a little farther into my service. He is also my brother.  I have a bunch of other siblings living around me- at least 37 of my nuclear family (my Father/ village Chief was quite prodigious and somehow acquired 5 wives even though Muslim law allows for only four). And so, though I like all my Tanjian family (about every single man in my village is named Tanjian), It is very confusing and very big.  So Cheik, his wife and two kids are my go-to family. He has built a brand new hut right next to mine and we hang out about all the time.  He teaches me all kinds of jaxanke, though lately our long rambling conversations have been in French quite a bit. In turn I’ve begun English lessons with him, and we go about various villages tasks together. We’ve built him a palm frond bed and we hang out with my other counterpart, Diop, at the health post where they both work. There we’ve watched WWF smack down (oh lord!) and soccer on our village’s sole TV. But best of all we did a baby weighing and vaccination followed by a ridiculous, village-wide fish hunt last Sunday.

The vaccination day and baby weighing was really exciting. And helping out putting the cutest of little babies on a scale and marking down their progress was rewarding and illuminated some potential work opportunities later on. Though there were no babies that were terribly underweight, there were at least a number who were moderately malnourished which can be very dangerous in the long run.  The real spectacle and truly exciting even was the fish hunt.

Fishing day in Misirah Dantila is nothing at all like any fishing trip I could possible dream of in the US. Preparations for the hunt started two days before hand. I was on my way to play some soccer when I found a bunch of guys making bows and arrows. I was terribly intrigued and asked them what they were going to be hunting. Fish they replied. What?? But indeed, they make these crazy palm-frond turrets in the middle of the river and then wait to an unsuspecting Yego Bun Baa (big fish) swims by and then THWAP! The hunting is not just limited to the men of the village, though, nor is the technique just bows and arrows. Indeed, about every woman in the village was out in the streets the day before, pounding some kind of tree material with these huge mortars. They kept trying to explain what this was for (something about how the fish can’t see you when you put it in the water), but I only understood when I got to the river the day of the hunt.

That day as soon as our vaccinations Cheik and I grabbed my machete, hopped on our bikes and headed into the bush to the river. When we got there we found a huge, village wide party at the river’s edge. Everyone was there- old men, women, children, and everybody was armed. They had nets, bows, and machetes and were all hootin’ and hollarin’, kids leapin’ in the water, everybody cheering like a baseball game when someone caught a big one.  All the river was littered with the baskets and baskets of plant stuff they had ground up. This was, I soon found out, a mild poison! The poor fish didn’t stand a chance against such a varied arsenal.  Cheik and I dove right in (not literally!), and before long were wacking these little fish called Kon Kongs with my machete when we’d find one sneakin up for a bite of food near the river’s bank.

Before long we had ourselves a few good sized ones, and an old keeba gifted me these two prized ones that he had caught. These we left by a tree and headed on down the bank to look for more Kon Kon’s. Eventually, maybe six or seven Kon Kongs the richer, we headed back to our original spot to gather up the winnings. When we got there though we found all of our stuff but no fish! I’m lookin’ all around but to know avail, so pretty soon the nearby fishers figure out that my fish are gone and sound the alarm. “TOUBAB LOST HIS FISH!!” I hear them yelling at the top of their lungs. And soon the call is taked up by the villagers downstream and out of site, “Toubab lost his fish!!”.  Thankfully (more than anything this was just embarrassing!) Cheik finds our fish just a tiny bit downstream and the Villagers sound out the everything’s-cool call, “TOUBAB FOUND HIS FISH!”. Aye, what a crazy day!

Anyway, now I’m off in Saraya typin the last words and getting ready to head back to my crazy life in Misirah. At 50 km Saraya is the closest road town to me. It is hardly more than a big, paved road intersection, but with electricity and 4 boutiks it feels like a booming metropolis.  I’m not sure how often I’ll be coming here, but I have two volunteer friends who are here and there are cold drinks for the having, so hopefully I’ll be coming to here or Kedougou at least every 2 to 3 weeks.  And, when I do, I shall be sure to write again.  Hope so much that you all are in the best of health and spirits!

Ian

The end of preservice training, on to new beginnings!

Hey everybody! Time has been flying by and I’ve gotten woefully behind in my blog updates. I think last time I wrote we were just about to find out the location of our permanent sites where we’ll be working for the next few years (I think that was around week 5).  Now, four or so weeks later, we’ve found out those sites, visited them, come back for a few more weeks of pre-service homestay and language learning, and had a number of wonderful and ridiculous experiences along the way.  Whew! In two days we’ll have a big ceremony hoopla in Dakaar to be sworn in as regular bonafide volunteers. Then the next morning we ship of to our new sites-  I’m simultaneously really excited and a little terrified.

                I don’t quite know where to start- the last few weeks have been crazy, busy, and truly joyful.  But I suppose I’ll begin where I left off last time: site announcements.  At the time I was all kinds of sick (I’m so sorry for leaving my blog at that and not writing a ‘I’ve gotten better and have been in great health since’ post.  Xekatu!! (jaxanke sorry!)).  Nevertheless, I headed out to the basketball court here at the training center and got blindfolded with all my fellow volunteers. We were then taken by the hand and silently led around the old map of Senegal that is painted on the court. Finally, after they led us in enough circles to be sure we were utterly disoriented and confused, they yelled for everyone to take off their blindfolds.  I opened my eyes and looked at my feet and found myself standing in Kedougou, the farthest southeast region of Senegal…  and in the absolute farthest corner of Kedougou for that matter!  Next to me I found Ben, so far my best bud here in Senegal, along with Patrick, Marielle, Larocha, and Martin. We all burst out cheering and smiling, celebrating the creation of our great Kedougou crew!

Me and Ivy, blindfolded and smilin'!

                 Later on after another week or so of homestays we all came back to Thies and piled into Peace Corps cars at some terribly ungodly hour of the morning to ship out to Volunteer Visits.  During Volunteer Visits trainees get to stay with a volunteer in the region.  We shadow our hosts to see what their work and life is like and, Inshallah, visit our future villages. All this was accomplished during my VV with the addition of some ridiculous drama along the way!

                To start with, Kedougou is beautiful and really far away! In utter contrast to the rest of deserty Senegal there are trees everywhere, big waterfalls in the southern mountains, and best of all no sand!! When we arrived, sweaty and exhausted after a day long, bumpy car ride we were greeted to the most wonderful welcome party hosted by all the current volunteers.  We drank choice beverages (though in Senegal there is really not such a thing as ‘choice’!) and ate the most delicious Mexican meal.  After a month straight of nothing but ceeb u jen (rice and fish), beans and salsa and tortillas were heaven. I can’t imagine after two years! 

My new host siblings!

The next morning Marielle and I headed out with our volunteer host Kate to Marielle’s new village of Nafadji.  Some kind of bad wind must have been blowin’ that day though, ‘cause the day was fraught with one weird disaster after another.  It started with Kate’s bike tire popping in Kedougou and me losing a nice pocket knife I had just purchased in the market.  Next I came back from my unsuccessful knife search to find my i-pod utterly drenched in peanut butter which had exploded in my bag.  Of course paper towels weren’t to be found so, looking around to see if anyone was watching, I proceeded to lick the entire i-pod clean. And, alhamdiloulahi, it still works!!  Marielle actually had a bottle of shampoo explode in her bag later in the day, but the real trouble was yet to come.



This trouble came in the form of a bottle of African Fun (a fanta-esque soda) and a sneaky thief.  In Marielle’s beautiful, really stereotypically African looking village of Nafadji we headed out to get said soda. The store owner was trying to charge us 1000 cfa, so we spent maybe 20 minutes or so bargaining for it, offering 700 cfa as long as he threw in his cat in the deal.  When we finally returned we walked into Marielle’s hut to find the back door open and Kate’s back pack gone. And this was no ordinary bag; it contained her camera, 20 or 30,000cfa, i-pod, passport, whole life. Aye!

After a healthy number of curses and a thorough search we went to Marielle’s dad (who just so happens to be the village chief) to explain the situation and insist that he call a village meeting.  And a little while later the gigantic village drum was sounding and all of the old men (keebaalu) were coming to her compound.  The meeting then commenced- all three of us toubabs sat next to the chief with all the elders sitting on mats in front of him.  Despite the gravity of the situation it was fascinating to see the workings of a malinke meeting.  One guy was the designated “uh-huh”er, and the old folks would take turns making long, very important sounding speeches while the uh-huh guy sounded out every 5 seconds or so. 

After maybe an hour or so of this we took a brief break. We came back a few minutes later for more speeches and uh-huhing. Just a tiny bit in to round two of the meeting all of the sudden two guys come in to the compound and toss Kate’s bag and all of her stuff in a pile in front of it. Apparently the thief had ditched it in the bush somewhere, and everyone lunges forward to see if all the stuff is still there. Alhamdiloulahi most of her valuables (minus some mula) were there, but just as we’re searching her bag we hear this awful scream. The scream came from just past the fence of the compound where all of the women were gathered to watch the meeting. It’s then taken up by all the other women, who disappear down the street with this anguished, wailing chorus while all the men are yelling “Jon mu?” (who is it!?).  Kate leans to Marielle and I (we were utterly confused and scared) and says, “that means someone has died”.  What?!?  It turns out that that is how people mourn and spread the news when they hear of a death, but we never figured out any more to the story.

Hoping the weirdness and drama of the night was done, Kate, Marielle and I retired to her compound.  But alas, more was on its way! In the middle of the night we wake up to this terrifying banging on Marielle’s door. Kate goes out and Marielle and I stay inside, wondering what on Earth is going on. Maybe 20 minutes later Kate comes back. Apparently they had caught the thief, who turned out to be a 14 year old boy. Then they tried to tie him up with some sort of rubber (who knows what they were planning on doing with him) but he escaped into the night.  Aye yay yay!

Me infront of my brand new, just finished hut!

Thank God the next morning was calmer. An incredibly friendly villager named Mamadi volunteered take Marielle 15 or 20 km down the road to my new village of Misirah Dantila so Kate could stay and sort out post-robbery details.  The ride was beautiful and deep deep into the bush.  We got to my village after maybe an hour and a half and then spent the next three hours making the grand tour. Without Kate there it was certainly trial by fire in Malinke (most of the folks there don’t speak French), but it was amazing! All the villagers were so welcoming, truly happy to have us there and treat us to tea and maafe tigo (rice with peanut sauce).  All of the men in the village were just finishing the roof of my hut when we got there, and I almost ended up climbin’ up to put on the finishing touches.  And they gave me my new name: Fode Made Tanjian!

Marielle petting a warthog on the way back from Kedougou

Whew- I’ll try to wrap this up ‘cause I know it’s getting long! The rest of training has flown by- we’ve been learning languages, getting really close to our families as we are better able to communicate. Too, I’ve been getting closer and closer to some of the volunteers, particularly my closest buds Ben and Chelsea (both amazing, amazing folks!). 

And now ( I tried to post this just before swear in but failed) I’ve been sworn in as a new volunteer and am getting ready to install in my site the day after tomorrow.  The swear in ceremony was at the American Ambassador’s house.  The Peace Corps director, Senegalese ministers and various other big men were there, and I gave a speech in Jaxanke!  Aye! Inshallah it will be put up on youtube, so if I find a link to it I’ll be sure to share it with everyone.

I hope to write again soon, and pray that all is well in your lives.

The first few weeks of homestay: Gardening, Jaxanke classing, and Senegalese dancing

Hello everybody! I’m writing you all after having disappeared for the past couple weeks into the crazy, often weird, on the whole wonderful life of my home-stay.  I’ve been living in the great big sandy city of Mburr with the Cisokho family, going to classes and gardening and doing my very best to learn their relatively obscure Senegalese language called Jaxanke. Homestay has its definite ups and downs, but I love my family and have settled into a routine quite happily.



Every morning I wake up super early- maybe 5 or 5:30- to the blaring sounds of mosque calls to prayer, roosters, or noisy cat fights.  Every town in Senegal is equipped with a million different mosque PA systems which blast chanting or other often goofy sounding blabbing at all hours of the day and night. At times I think I’ve heard them unwittingly turn on the mics and treat everyone in my side of Mburr to a conversation about the latest wrestling match or how tasty the rice and fish (Cheb a jen) they had last night was. Ha!

Then if my host brother Mohammed doesn’t come banging on the door to get me to go running at the beach with him (Mburr is most happily situated right by ocean!), I’ll go back to sleep for a little longer and then get up for breakfast with my Dad, Mom and Aunt.  In addition to them I live with three older brothers who range in age from 24 to 40, and have at least three other brothers and one sister who are off in various parts of the world. Though I get along with everybody really well, if I could have one wish it would definitely be for a bunch of little brothers and sisters.  I think playing with children would be such a great fall back when my caveman Jaxanke is failing and the space of our big, sometimes lonesome house becomes overwhelming. 

Breakfast is delicious bread and butter and bad coffee which we sip while watching a ridiculous, unceasingly dramatic Spanish soap opera called Frijolito.  I have long French conversations with my father (mBa), who has traveled around the world, maybe speaks 20 languages, and loves to lecture me about the various goings on of the world and American capitals. Then to my Aunt (nNandin) and mom (nNaa) I say what would literally translate to “I am going school to, with friend others I do the eating, I be returning will this evening.” …Or something like that! Crazy Jaxanke language!



I drew the short straw of homestay locations and ended up on the entirely opposite side of Mburr from everybody else, so my trek to class is 40 minutes or so.  I make the most of it though, and have befriended just about everyone along the way. In the beginning every kid in the world would yell “Toubab, Toubabe!” which means ‘Hey Whitey!”. Now, though, everyone yells Mamadou- my Senegalese name, or Amadou or Mamadi if they’ve gotten mixed up. All the little kids run up with huge smiles for handshakes, older folks ask me to come have tea and quiz me on my Wolof, and everybody tries to get me to do the hugely popular, silly looking Senegalese ‘Yousa’ dance!

Jaxanke class is held in one of the other volunteer’s houses on a big blue and red mat in an otherwise empty room.  We are taught by Lamine, one of the many brilliant Language and Cultural Faciliators that Peace Corps employs here in Senegal.  Classes are tough but really helpful, and we’re slowly gaining the grammar and vocab to discuss really silly scenarios.  Yesterday we actually had our first language test.  And, not to toot my own horn, but I was very happy to have made it to intermediate low Jaxanke! (Peace Corps requires you to make intermediate mid by the end of training)

This blog is getting too long, so I’ll try to speed through the last bits.  After class I go home for lunch, which is almost invariably rice and fish. We eat around a big bowl communal bowl on a variety of chairs, stools, and mats, arguing in Jaxanke about whether or not I’m full…. “A domo! (eat!)” “Mfaataa (I’m full!)”  “I faataa?? A domo!!”. Afterwards or in the evenings my brothers come into my room, fiddling away on my guitar and insisting I sing in English. Generally it’s Bob Marley, but sometimes I sneak in some Disney songs just for kicks! And, if I’m lucky, my mom might sing in Jaxanke while my aunt dances. Amazing!

 I take a sweaty, unpleasant nap almost every day cause the middays are absurdly hot, and then make the long trek back to the other side of Mburr. At a little school there our Jaxanke and Mandinke classes  have created a beautiful garden, and we’ve also made a lovely mural map of Senegal.  It’s complete with camels and lions, and even has some kind of crazy sea dragon swimming amongst the dolphins. We’re all very proud.

Watering the garden or painting away ends most of my days, and I usually head home for more rice and fish and guitar playing till sleep sneaks up on me.  Every now and then we’ll sneak in some break in the routine like a day at the beach or a visit to the health clinic to help out with baby weightings.  I’ve really enjoyed getting close to a lot of the folks in our group as well as some of the Fula Kunda trainees who are also living in Mburr (the number of languages that are spoken in a single city, never mind all of South Dakota size Senegal, always blows me away! ) 

In a few minutes we’ll be finding out our future sites where we’ll be spending the next two years! So exciting! Unfortunately though I’ve been destroyed by a fever for the past couple days, though thankfully a few of my friends have taken amazing care of me here at the center in Thies. And (Alhamdilloulai), my malaria test turned out negative.  So here’s hoping I’ll be well enough to get blindfolded and physically led to my site on the basketball court map of Senegal.  Updates coming soon!

Slowly slowly I trap the monkey in the bush! (ndanknakk moi goloo chi nyai!)

Voila! Here's my attempt to upload pictures of the first few days of our Training in Thies.  As you all can see, it's been a lot of hard work, and there's been very little time for dancing and enjoying the fantastic weather and culture!  Tomorrow though we head off to our homestays and will be totally immersed in whichever language we are destined to learn. As for me, I'll be learning a language called Jaxanke which is spoken in the southeast of Senegal. I'm so excited!



Greetings from Senegal!!!

Asalaa Malekum my dearest Family and friends!

I'm writing you all to tell you that I'm safe and sound, happily installed in Senegal and having an absolutely wonderful time already.  We flew in on a quick and uneventful flight three nights ago, landed in Dakar before the sun rose, and there was David Vaughan! (For those of you who don't know him, he is one of my dearest friends who has been doing Peace Corps in Dakar for the last six months. And you should know him!) It was so dang good to see him. We talked at high speeds trying to catch up but pretty soon I was wisked away on our Thies caravan and he went off to a school garden he's begining. 

The drive out of Dakar was thrilling and super ugly, so many people and trash and traffic everywhere, milling about with a sense of unchained but benign chaos. Once we got into the country though, much more peaceful and inviting dusty lands with towering baobobs welcomed us, and soon enough we arrived in this fantastic paradise of the Thies preservice training sight.  I am currently writing you underneath the shade of a big communal grass hut. Its almost entirely encircled by comfy cushions (perfect for sleep deprived volunteers). Folks all day have been chatting and lounging on the cushions, and a whole bunch of others are playng games on brightly colored mats on the floor.  All around our little compound are tin roofed huts, mahogany trees, and gardens with the most beautiful tropical flowers and tasty looking veggies. The days have been gorgeous- blue skies and hot sun but with a constant lovely breeze blowing through this big hut and cooling us down. What a place to be!

On our first long, beautiful day we finished up one some health information sessions and then were treated to a fantastic dance-drumming party. Four guys came and played these big, djembe-esque drums and then we all danced in a big circle around them. The dancing was awkward and hilarious and was especially fun when the younger drummer led us in crazy senegalese dances.  They involved lots of swaying, call and response, and almost always ended in these crazy crab pose that cracked everyone up. I suspect that this was made up to make fun of the crazy Americans (Toubabs), but oh well!

Breakfast is a small affair here- bread and nuttela mostly- but lunch and dinner have been great.  Lunch is eaten on the floor around a big, communal bowl with spoons or just your right hand. We've been slowly finding out all the terrible cultural fauxpas we've been making, but it's been so much fun to practice our caveman Wolof and chat around a gigantic bowl of rice and chicken or beans.  

We spent a lot of today (Friday) in Senegalese culture sessions.  These consisted of Islam lessons, baobob juice and tea drinking, and pit latrine demonstrations! Ha!

Anyway, i reckon I'll should finish this big ol missive.  In a couple days we head out to our preservice homestays where we will be totally immersed in the culture and whatever local language we will be learning for the next 8 or so weeks. So I shall try to take advantage of this unexpected ease of internet access, and will hopefully be posting pictures soon.

Ba Beneen,
Ian