tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29269297392004308352024-03-13T08:04:32.653-07:00Ian's Senegal Peace Corps BlogVoila! my first foray into the lands of bloggerdom! I hope this blog will be a way for me to keep in touch with all of you, to share all sorts of experiences, pictures, thoughts, and stories that come my way whilst volunteering in Senegal. Past that, though, I hope all who read this will share and react, write back and enjoy this little blog community!Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-12629301744342524852012-08-23T05:24:00.001-07:002012-08-23T11:25:02.032-07:00Ramadan in VillageIt’s the 18th of August, the 29th day of Ramadan. If the consistently cloudy sky accepts we’ll see the first sliver of the new moon tonight and this long, holy month of fasting will be over. Tomorrow (or at latest the next day!), will be the festival of Korité. Everybody will don their very nicest clothing and follow the sound of the village drum out to a special field behind the mosque to pray. We’ll spend the rest of the day wandering around the whole village on an extended greeting tour, passing out and receiving little candies and small change like an August Halloween. And we’ll feast like there’s no tomorrow; oily rice, beef and mutton, and drinking water all day long. But for now we’re still fasting.
Ramadan is an amazing, difficult, incredibly slow month here in village. In an expression and reaffirmation of faith, every able bodied person fasts a full 30 days. No water or food from sunrise to sunset. This means everyone gets up around 4:30am to eat a light breakfast, usually bread and coffee, and drink a whole bunch. Afterwards some drift back to sleep for an early morning nap and others head right out to the fields, trying to get their work done in the morning before the hot afternoon fatigue sets in.
Later in the day folks kill time snoozing, playing cards and studying the Koran as they wait for the sunset call to prayer. This call can be heard all across the village, a long cry in Arabic belted over the solar-powered loudspeakers at the mosque signaling the end of the long day of fasting. At the chief’s compound as many as 40 to 50 people gather around huge bowls of porridge that they drink with laughably large gourd spoons. Down at the health post breaking the fast is a decidedly tastier, though less energetic, affair. My two counterparts and I and the health post maid Siré have coffee, bread with mayonnaise or beans, and dates. Afterwards is the standard greeting and prayer: “did you break your fast in peace? May God make the rest of Ramadan easy”. And folks drift off to their homes to eat a late late dinner and catch a little bit of sleep before it starts all over again the next day.
This year and the last I have been able to participate in the vast majority of Ramadan. Except for a few days when I was traveling I have done it all, and am just now wrapping up my 22nd day of fasting. As I said, it has been a trying and incredibly slow month- it is amazing how slow the days go when there’s no midday meal to eat or water to drink and you’ve been up since 4:30! It also takes its toll physically. I’ve definitely lost weight (though not too much, alhamdoulilahi!), and everyone is less active in order to conserve energy. But it has been amazing overall. It has been a huge source of bonding between myself and my family and other villagers. Everywhere you go folks ask how the fast is going, you joke about how hard it is, and then exchange prayers for peace and health. Too, there is an incredible comradery in getting up with seven sleepy host brothers at an absurd hour of the morning, everyone sprawled out on the ground of my counterpart’s hut while the coffee boils in the darkness.
I have also delved into the mental and spiritual aspects of this time. The long, bright afternoons leave infinite time for reading, studying, and writing music. Too, I have been praying alongside my two counterparts when we break the fast in the evenings. We face east, which turns out to be the back wall of the health post salon, and bow our heads in prayer. The point, I believe, of such rigorous rituals like Ramadan is twofold: First, you really, really to appreciate the blessings of food and drink (that first sip of water is like heaven each evening!). Secondly, fasting removes worldly distractions. When your day is open and your stomach empty you look past the things that normally take up your day and towards God.
Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-67780894684750221742012-08-11T05:42:00.000-07:002012-08-11T05:42:04.084-07:00Hello everyone. I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I last posted here. Sometime in the spring I was besieged by a vicious bout of the ‘writersblockosis’ and am only just now getting over it. God grant me a swift recovery! Too, I’ve been out at site for the better part of the last month and a half, bouncing along in beautiful but internetless lands. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I wanted to write a quick entry to fill everyone in on the progress of life and work here. It’s been a busy, productive, and lovely past few months. In late May I shipped off to Croatia for my cousin Katie’s wedding and then off to Hungary and Italy to visit family and friends. Katie’s wedding was absolutely beautiful. It was full of fine folks, dancing, and an amazing, god-sent abundance of delicious food and drink. The same was true for visiting our dear friends Brie and Zsofi in hungary and our wonderful, perfectly stereotypically Italian family in Italy. Eat and drink ‘till you drop was on the itinerary for every day. It was heavenly!
Back in Senegal I found the rainy season in full gear. The rains here bring the most stunning, wonderful beauty. Gorgeous green fields and mountains are accented by brilliant blue skies and a quickly fleeting memory of the scorched deadness of dry season. On the flip side though, the rains bring a whole army of mosquitoes and, especially in kedougou, incredibly high malaria prevalence. Malaria cases started to rise in June and are by now so common in village that you start to see this deadly disease as a fact of life, as intractable as the common flu.
The news is good though, because we have met this climb in malaria with some really cool, exciting projects. In late June my good friends Ben Alex and I put together a big malaria fair for the city of Kedougou. Early in the morning on June 30th we lined the entire street from the health post to the central market with 308 rice sacks. The rice sacks visually illustrated the money that Kedougou spent to treat malaria last year. A total of 4,466,000 CFA, or almost 9,000 US$, could have gone to buying rice for the folks here had all these cases been prevented. The rice sacks also led the way to a fair ground where music blasted, a theatre group performed, and volunteers in 5 different stations taught people how to wash, repair and modify nets and make neem cream. It was a huge success and really cool to see almost every one of the 30 or so volunteers in Kedougou unite to make such a big project work.
Since then I’ve been working on an overwhelming but really exciting project in my health zone called PECADOM Plus. We designed it as a complement to existing malaria interventions and systems in Senegal. It is a proactive, intensive system of malaria surveillance, testing and treatment. In early July we trained health workers from four different villages to test and treat simple malaria. Then my wonderful counterpart and I went from village to village training elected community representatives or ‘care groups’. These care groups would monitor their family members for malaria symptoms and help the health workers to identify and test potential cases. Once both of these trainings were done we were ready to start intensive, village wide sweeps in every one of the 5 villages in my health zone. Every Monday and Friday the health workers would go from compound to compound. The care group members would help them identify potential cases to test for malaria. Everyone who tested positive for simple malaria would receive free meds right there on the spot, and severe cases and negative tests would get referred to the health post.
This project actually got underway just a couple weekends ago. On Monday, July 30th it rolled out in all of the five villages. Five really good volunteer friends of mine came out to help out in each village. And thanks to their and the health workers great work the first day of PECADOM Plus was an amazing success!! In some of the smaller villages we tested as much as 25% of the entire population and as many as 12% of all the villagers were treated for simple malaria in a single day. Overall we tested more than 140 people. 87 of them had positive, simple malaria and each one of these received free meds. Amazing! I’ll leave it at that though, because I’ll follow this up with another whole post about the great, obstacle strewn course of this promising project.
I will do my very best to write again soon. Hope so much that you all are well and in peace.Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-8700153769764563482012-05-15T18:26:00.000-07:002012-05-15T18:26:19.427-07:00Senegal Quirks That No Longer Stick Out to Me But Used To Seem Hilarious or Just Plain BizarreHi everybody! I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long while. There are all sorts of crazy aspects of life here that really crack me up. As I go on with my service though I start noticing them less and less. So I wanted to start taking a running list of all those funny quirks, the random bits that brighten up days and life here. I hope it will bring you all smiles and some new insights into the wacky place and culture in which we live.
1. The random, haphazard mix of four to five languages that I hear every day, sometimes in the same sentence. Favorite quotes: Yangi Nice Quois?! (wolof-you are, English- Nice, French-what?!). Another came when my counterpart and I were hanging out one night and looking at the constellations. He was telling me that he though Orion was two cow herders leading a single cow between them. A couple hours later he look up and was like ‘Allah, ninso tigolu sont en train de bouger rek’ (Jaxanke- wow the cow herders, French- are scooting along, Wolof- only!)
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2. Little children get their heads shaved here fairly often. But they often leave a little round poof right in the middle of the head. Or sometimes a straight Mohawk. Fashion!
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3. Everybody, the oldest of old folks down to the tiniest children, wear nothing but flip flops and sandals every day. In the beginning of my service I felt like I was hanging out at the beach every day…except no beach! Dang. Even on the most formal occasions everybody wears new, fancy flip flops to complement their beautiful, tailor made outfits.
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4. Eating with my hands around a big, communal pot on the floor. Every meal is eaten communally around giant bowls. Usually the men and boys eat together, and the women and girls eat separately. The little kids crouch on the older folk’s feet and everybody digs in, throwing tasty bits to me or any guests. I’m pretty good with the eating with my hand technique now, but it used to be a mighty messy process.
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5. I hate to write this one right after the food one, but feel it’s important…. Wiping with one’s hand after using the pit latrine. Toilet paper is almost non-existent here, but the water method does a mighty fine job as long as you wash your hands with soap afterwards. This one might seem the worst for Americans but was surprisingly easy to get used to. Plus we’ll all be professional campers/ party goers when t.p. runs out!
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6. Not doing anything with your left hand. We were told that people would think you were Satan if you tried to eat left-handed. Number 5. Provides pretty good cultural justification for this
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7. Sweating all the time- I’m writing this post at 11:42 at night… still sweating!
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8. Sharing public transportation with all manner of farm animals. For thanksgiving we bought a spot on the roof of a station wagon for our turkey to come down from Tamba. ______
9. Sleeping under a mosquito net every night. This couldn’t seem more normal now, but I remember feeling like I was in a far distant world when I tried to tuck in my net on my first night here last year.
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10. Ubiquitous religious/magical charms. Just about every person wears a kind of jewelry called gris-gris. They’re usually little sewn leather pouches, worn as bracelets, necklaces, around the waist or woven into hair. They could protect you from all sorts of things- malaria, snakes, genies.. or maybe make the girl you’re after fall in love with you_____
11. Koranic Fire Circles. Each night the children of the village gather around huge bon-fires to study the Koran. They sing and yell at the top of their lungs and teachers, or maribous, patrol around beating kids who fall asleep or screw up. You can see the faint glow of fires no matter where you are, hear the faint chanting while everybody else drinks tea and listens to radio.
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12. Senegalese Tea. Tea here is an complicated, sacred, incredibly time consuming activity. You make it in tiny pots and then pour it into tiny shot glasses, raising the tea pot as high as possible for maximum visual effect and foam. Then you pass it around, giving it to the oldest/most respected people first, and everybody drinks in fast, noisy slurps. This could take a half an hour to an hour, and then you put it back on the coals for the second and third rounds, which could go all afternoon.______
13. Cola Nuts: I had always heard about Cola Nuts as this old time tradition of West Africa, the magical nut around which trade routes were established and from which Coca Cola got its name. And, after being here for a good long while, I am happy to report that its importance was in no way exaggerated. It is the central gift in all major ceremonies, and must be present in certain numbers for a Marriage to be agreed upon or a baptism performed. Too, all the old folks are addicted to it. They are always on the quest for more cola nuts, and use funny, nail-puntured sardine cans to great the nuts if they don’t have enough teeth left to crunch them. ______
14. America Apparel: Senegal has been the happy recipient of an extreme excess of America themed clothing, usually Obama gear. When I got to village I was surprised to see that just about everyone sported an Obama shirt. There are also some very questionable and very ubiquitous World Trade Center Flip-Flops that look like they are burning when your foot starts to rub off the image. Hmm. The best, though, are baseball hats that read, “OBAMA, President of Space”. Yes!*****
That’s it for now. I’m sure I’ll come up with a million more as soon as I post this. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Much love from Senegal.Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-32087791190294742132012-05-15T17:31:00.001-07:002012-05-15T17:33:44.728-07:00Care Groups and Youth Groups, Comin' AlongLife here has been busily humming along since I last posted. Work has been great for the most part. World Malaria Day was a great success in Missirah. My care group members did fabulously, doing net care and repair demonstrations all over the village. Each time one of the women was ready to do a demo for her compound women they’d send a little kid to my compound to drag me on over and take lots of pictures.
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Here's all the ladies of my Care Group, lookin' fancy in their new shirts!
In all the women washed and repaired dozens of nets (maybe 50- 60, though I won’t have exact numbers until our next meeting) and educated more than a hundred people on the importance of mosquito nets and proper care. I also went from classroom to classroom doing malaria lessons for the elementary schoolers in my village. The littlest class in particular got really excited, I think because I did the lesson in Malinke whereas I did the other classes in French. They were yelling out all kinds of really cute, bright answers.. “Pali man nyin!” “Suusulalu se pali di moxolu ma!”- Malaria is bad! Mosquitoes give it to you!
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Here one of the women from our group is conducting a net care and repair demonstration in her compound
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My favorite picture! Just after her demonstration one of the care group women is posing with her two unhappy grandchildren
Just before then Marielle and I did a training of middle school students in Nafadji. 12 students participated in the training which training focused on HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and family planning, and early marriage and early pregnancy. Though the students were young these topics are extremely, sadly relevant. HIV/AIDS rates are over all very low in Senegal but gold mining and trucking bring in a huge influx of migrants from all over Africa and, with them, much higher rates of HIV. Middle school drop-out is also incredibly high in our area, usually because of pregnancy or early marriage. Just before we started the project we found out that one of our students (actually one of Marielle’s host sisters) was pregnant. If only she had done this training earlier! Still, this project was a great opputunity for her to learn about ways to stay in school and learn about family planning methods in order to educate her friends and make better choices in the future. Indeed, the ultimate goal of the project was to train the students to be peer educators, or jeunes relais, who will now educate their peers and community about these important topics.
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here's some of the students. I need to steal Marielle's pictures though- hers turned out better
Despite a bunch of setbacks from the beginning and a bunch of health structure hoops to jump through, the training turned out to be a great success. Our Jeunes Relais were fantastic. They were incredibly engaged in for the three days, furiously scribbling notes during the full day classes and studying in the evenings. They came up with great skits and community talks about condom use, HIV/AIDS, and early marriage, and have already participated in two big community events. And, despite a bunch of trials and tribulation getting everything organized, the community got really behind the training and did a wonderful job making it a success. Now our little relais need a bunch of practice leading classes and making skits but, with a little work, they’ll do great things in Nafadji over the coming year.
Now I’m back in Kedougou, working on the very early stages of a couple big malaria projects for this summer. I’m really excited and I’ll keep everybody in the loop!Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-17449880592479675852012-04-11T06:37:00.000-07:002012-04-11T06:37:57.882-07:00Getting ready for World Malaria DayThe 25th of this month is World Malaria Day. In preparation for this we are planning all sorts of cool activities throughout Senegal to encourage malaria awareness and prevention activities. Particularly we want to use this day to focus on mosquito net washing and repair. A Universal Coverage (one net for every sleeping space) happened in the Kedougou region a couple years ago. Already though a high percentage of the nets are ripped or have holes, and many others are just not hung. In the dry season right now we have about a 34% rate of net hanging. But, if all the ripped and unused nets were fixed and hung we could have more than double that rate of coverage.<br />
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So on the 24th the 15 women in our village Care Group will be meeting to tackle that problem. My health counterparts and I meet every month with this group to teach a health topic (ORS, water treatment, cervical cancer, etc). The women will then take these topics and go out to teach all of the women of their compounds what they learned. When we next meet we’ll give each woman in the group needles and thread and practice sewing up and correctly washing nets. Then the next day they’ll go out and take the village by storm for a World Malaria Day net care and repair extravaganza. Huzza! <br />
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Here’s a picture of my counterpart doing small talks about Mosquito Nets. In the dry season malaria is rare, but we still see cases of extremely severe malaria at the health post every month. He gets super animated when he does these talks, gesticulating crazily and talking a million miles a minute. It’s amazing to see!Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-59771704284743341342012-02-17T04:25:00.000-08:002012-02-17T04:25:29.496-08:00Stomping Out Malaria in Africa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IX4PF5ZPLM8/Tz5FDwkyCrI/AAAAAAAAAco/wcg8OwIS8-g/s1600/the%2Bmalaria%2Bteam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="197" width="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IX4PF5ZPLM8/Tz5FDwkyCrI/AAAAAAAAAco/wcg8OwIS8-g/s320/the%2Bmalaria%2Bteam.jpg" /></a></div>The Malaria Team: Participants came from 11 different countries in Africa to participate in Boot Camp III<br />
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At long last I am back in Kedougou. I’m killing time ‘till the once weekly transport leaves to my village tomorrow, doing a little bit of work and a lot of floating in the Gambia river while my brain cools off from the intensity of the last couple weeks. I just got done a 10 day intensive seminar on malaria in Thies called Boot Camp III. Regular Peace Corps volunteers, Peace Corps Response people, professionals and staff came from 11 different African countries to participate in the event. Classes went all day long and late into the night (though the extra late sessions usually featured popcorn.. yes!). We covered topics such as the science of malaria transmission, vector control, advocacy, and behavior change. It was a huge, information overload, amazing introduction to everything malaria related. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IEN3LnU60Gs/Tz5Fei-N17I/AAAAAAAAAc0/UqXM4RvUju0/s1600/tieneba%2Bseck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="214" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IEN3LnU60Gs/Tz5Fei-N17I/AAAAAAAAAc0/UqXM4RvUju0/s320/tieneba%2Bseck.jpg" /></a></div>Visiting Tieneba Seck, a village near Thies which demonstrated incredible community mobilization techniques in their fight against malaria<br />
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Perhaps more importantly, though, it was a forum for collaboration and momentum building for Peace Corps and many of the main players in the malaria field. We met or Skyped folks from the Presidents Malaria Initiative, FHI, Malaria No More, and numerous serious researchers in the field. By the end of boot camp the different countries presented specific action plans to take back to their programs and national partners. It was amazing to be a part of, to feel the incredible momentum surrounding this continent wide initiative, and to map out Peace Corps’ role in the fight against malaria. Malaria currently kills between 750,000 and 1.2 million people a year, mostly children in Africa. But huge gains have been made in the last 10 years. And, if the global community continues its commitment to malaria control, we will have an unbelievable impact on child survival and children’s lives. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ms3jNEivInU/Tz5GSJkb_pI/AAAAAAAAAdE/49D3Gp45Mf8/s1600/presenting%2Bat%2Bboot%2Bcamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="203" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ms3jNEivInU/Tz5GSJkb_pI/AAAAAAAAAdE/49D3Gp45Mf8/s320/presenting%2Bat%2Bboot%2Bcamp.jpg" /></a></div>Presenting Senegal's Plan at the end of camp<br />
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So, back in Kedougou, my buddy Ben and I are looking to adapt some of the information and strategies presented at boot camp to the regional level. Kedougou has by far the greatest burden of Malaria morbidity (almost 6x the national average) and mortality in Senegal. But we have an awesome bunch of volunteers and a huge amount of support from Peace Corps higher ups. So we’re getting ready for the next rainy season (though first we gotta make it through the fast approaching and oh-so-daunting hot season), trying out creative ways to mobilize the volunteer community and our villages in this important fight. We’ll be having summits, parties, classes and contests to educate people about malaria and prevention strategies. Too, we’ll be working with other Senegal volunteers to develop a post and re-distribution strategy to follow up on the universal net distribution campaigns that have swept Senegal in recent years. It is an exciting, exhilarating time to be here and be doing this work. I’ll be sure to share more as we go forward. <br />
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Slowly and joyfully the three weeks passed by and the time came for me to return. It hurt to leave, to say a second whole round of goodbyes to such dear folks. But I was ready to go back. Senegal and my hut and family in Missirah Dantila were fast becoming a dream, much too far from away to possibly be real. So I packed up, loaded down with gifts for friends and counterparts back here, and left one sad, bright morning. My folks somehow finagled Delta into letting us all go to the gate together (my son doesn’t speak English, I promise!), so they accompanied me all the way there. Twas lovely and heart breaking. <br />
I shared my flight from New York to Dakar with my friend Cibyl and a million Senegalese folks all going back for a HUGE festival called the Magal de Touba. They all thought it was hilarious that I was living in a tiny village in Kedougou, speaking Jaxanke and a tiny bit of Wolof. “what do you eat for lunch?” usually maafe (rice with peanut sauce) “Maafe!?! Haha! You bush person!”. Aye. When we got to Dakar we immediately hopped aboard a Peace Corps car and shipped off to Thies. There we had a big conference in which volunteers from around West Africa presented on their main projects and shared best practices. This was good, though I was in a bit of a state of shock, reeling from being back here, the sights, sounds and especially smells overwhelming and familiar. <br />
Then it was time for WAIST , the West African Invitational Softball Tournament which occurs in Dakar every year. Ex-pat teams from around the region come to play. And the acronym, at least for the hundreds of Peace Corps people who participate, is a pretty accurate indicator of the state of sobriety which will characterize the entirety of the three days. Lord! We had an absolute blast though, a great big marathon of manic, joyful, careening insanity, dancing, partying, and the occasional softball game. Each Peace Corps team chooses a theme. Themes included French- all of Dakar wore berets and batted with baguettes, South of the Border (Kolda), and Baseball (Kedougou/Tamba). Baseball I think was meant to be an ironic choice given Peace Corps’ general practice of forfeiting each game from the get go and then spending each inning in a chaos of hilarious antics, wheelbarrow races, and imbibing. I think wearing baseball uniforms was actually inspiring though. We certainly made the most of batting from each others’ shoulders, four person batting lines, and red-rover games in the outfields. We actually tried at some points though, and may have set a Peace Corps record with at least one win and one homerun! <br />
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The madness of WAIST and the great proms and parties that followed produced a myriad of results- most hilarious, some very bad, and many just plain bizarre. I sprained my ankle in a tragic second base slide. My team rallied to my side though, feeding me Oreos, beer and kisses to ease the pain and carrying me off like a king to get X-Rays. I eventually ended up in a cast, but this certainly didn’t stop the great dance party that ensued that night. More seriously Cibyl got in a car accident and ended up with a broken ankle and another friend Emily sprained hers running across a treacherous median. There also was a girl who got hit by a car going the wrong way on a one way street (thankfully she wasn’t too badly hurt) and another friend of mine Meg who had gotten meningitis a while before and played softball in a wheelchair. We all bonded in the Med-Hut, cooking up tasty food and cursing the fickle friend that is WAIST!<br />
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Eventually I made it back to Kedougou and back to Missirah. It was overwhelming being back but so joyful. Back to the peace of my hut, my family, and my kind, joking villagers. I got pretty good at hobbling up and down Missirah’s crazy windy streets. And everywere I went, every day, every person I met would greet me and say prayers for my quick recovery.. ‘Is it a little better?! May Allah grant that it feels better soon!’. ‘Aminu!’ Now I’m back in Thies, getting ready to start an intense 10 day Malaria training. I’m excited, for I’m really interested in continuing work with the big Roll Back Malaria campaigns that are being implemented throughout Africa and have already been incredibly successful. More on that soon. Hope so much that you all are well.Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-19412967391510442452012-01-18T15:56:00.000-08:002012-01-18T15:56:29.374-08:00Thanksgiving in Senegal, just a few months late!A disclaimer: this blogpost was written in the beginning of December, just before I left to America for Christmas. I meant to send it off before I left but I failed epically, partly due to a phone company strike and partly due to laziness. In America I was too distracted by unbelievable food, family, and fine friends to even think about blogging, so it was again delayed. But while there I was surprised and heartened by how many people are indeed following along on this blog adventure. So with thanks to you all for reading and routing for me I will post this tardy entry and do my very best to catch up to mid-january as fast as possible. Cheers!<br />
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Thanksgiving in Senegal<br />
I’m writing this blog from the comfort of my hut. It’s all sorts of noisy outside. The roosters and cows are making an early morning din, my next-door neighbors are blasting malinke tunes on the radio, and there’s the almost ubiquitous ‘thump’ of women pounding corn with huge wooden mortars and pestals. Meanwhile I’m sitting on a bamboo chair underneath my grass thatched hut, listening to bluegrass tunes on a tape player and typing away on my computer. It’s an odd mix of the modern (I could even get internet on my computer with a Orange key that I bought), the 1980’s (back to cassettes!), and the traditional, everything made out of mud and wood. All the same, it’s not really that odd. Technologies of a million different time periods seem to blend so seamlessly here; languages too, and religion for that matter. In the course of one conversation I might hear four different languages (Jaxanke, French, Wolof and Pulaar- maybe even an English word or two). And older healing and magical traditions (ie. Genies, charms, witchcraft) are all melded into a very devout form of Islam so well that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. <br />
I wanted to write several days ago at the end of thanksgiving. But I suppose those funky chemicals in turkey got the best of me and I was bested by sleepiness and absurd fullness. It was a great thanksgiving, though, one worthy of a blog post and songs from the West African Griots at the very least.<br />
We did it up in with true Kedougou spirit. It is such a cool culture around here. Goals, no matter how far-fetched or absurd, are tackled with a ‘can’t nothing stop us’ attitude. ‘Want to weld together a tandem bicycle? Go to!’, ‘Have our entire region run a marathon at the beginning of hot season in Tamba? Why not?’, ‘Make a Purducken for Thanksgiving? Yes!’. And this is just what we did- a chicken stuffed inside a duck, inside a turkey, inside a pig, all wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the ground Hawaiian style. It was a crazy, ridiculous idea. But everyone got behind it. After all, who could dream up a more epic Thanksgiving feast? And we all worked hard. We found a turkey in Tamba and bought him a place on the roof of a station-wagon coming to Kedougou. The other animals we found around Kedougou and spent many a long hour plucking and butchering. A grisly process, to be sure, but I suppose it’s good to be so close to your food. And eventually, long past nightfall on the 23rd, we put white hot rocks and stuffing inside our purducken, wrapped it all up in banana leaves, and lowered it all into a hot pit to barbeque underground for the next 18 hours. <br />
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Thanksgiving, or any holiday for that matter, away from home just isn’t right. Without my family there it was hard to believe that this was really Thanksgiving at all, and the nostalgic feel and smell of November was burned up by our hot Senegalese sun. It felt more like we were having a mock thanksgiving feast in the middle of August. But as the big day really got going I got more and more into the Thanksgiving spirit. Everybody was cooking up a storm in the kitchen- pies, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes- and we were drinking homemade honey wine. We also had done a radio show in Malinke about what thanksgiving is and what we’re thankful for. (Nse Allah tantou baawo nna dimbaaya Amerik a nin men be Senegal bee be kedeyaarin!) Sometime in the afternoon we all took a break to go swimming in the Gambia river. And there, all of us frolicking in the cool water, I felt pretty dern lucky to be doing thanksgiving in Senegal. It’s not Thanksgiving with my family, but I’m thankful all the same. <br />
When we got back it was time to pull the purducken out of the ground. My buddy CJ and I unwrapped the banana leaves and there it was- cooked to perfection, fall off the bone deliciousness! Everybody crowded around like kids around presents at Christmas, pulling big chunks of meat off the pig and savoring them with huge grins. It was so joyful- our purducken a success! By the time we finally got to the feast we were nearly stuffed. But we piled our plates nevertheless and didn’t slow down till the apple pie, carrot cake and cheese cake were all gone. Nse Allah tantou!Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-22477954359963935782011-11-05T05:46:00.000-07:002011-11-05T05:46:56.764-07:00HIgh Adventure in the Land of the GeniesA 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. <br />
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View of the spires from far far away<br />
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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.<br />
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. <br />
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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. <br />
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.<br />
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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. <br />
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.Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-78634899571343813002011-10-04T11:02:00.000-07:002011-10-04T11:02:34.231-07:00The Last Few Months: Ramadan, Camp, Nets and MandolinsGreetings 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.<br />
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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’. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KxKGdcc3OLk/Tos55c4pKeI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/oUTq5g3TDZs/s1600/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KxKGdcc3OLk/Tos55c4pKeI/AAAAAAAAAZ4/oUTq5g3TDZs/s320/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B064.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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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. <br />
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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!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8pBXCq6d4ml6SZNyAQjOTkb4jsD0qwwH6AoUlw_V2twUDdL6AYaR_6f_IWOdaJ8t555RCP7RcB9diJZBLcCNOv9vaQmxiygWdCTY55xq-dMvmTp3HJz62IVrf_22f3lf2zaCcEM1fCo/s1600/IST%252C+Rainy+Season+and+Ramadan+2011+180.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="150" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8pBXCq6d4ml6SZNyAQjOTkb4jsD0qwwH6AoUlw_V2twUDdL6AYaR_6f_IWOdaJ8t555RCP7RcB9diJZBLcCNOv9vaQmxiygWdCTY55xq-dMvmTp3HJz62IVrf_22f3lf2zaCcEM1fCo/s200/IST%252C+Rainy+Season+and+Ramadan+2011+180.JPG" /></a></div><br />
All of my villagers in their Sunday best, out praying in the woods for Korite<br />
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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.<br />
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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. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PrU2TDkaM0M/Tos9eh4NxJI/AAAAAAAAAaE/i4WQik-j9-U/s1600/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="150" width="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PrU2TDkaM0M/Tos9eh4NxJI/AAAAAAAAAaE/i4WQik-j9-U/s200/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B008.JPG" /></a></div>Patrick teaching the Challenge Course at camp!<br />
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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!<br />
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. <br />
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!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T10wA43hMF4/TotJLq--RdI/AAAAAAAAAac/1N3R0PEboNE/s1600/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="150" width="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T10wA43hMF4/TotJLq--RdI/AAAAAAAAAac/1N3R0PEboNE/s200/Camp%2Band%2BNets%252C%2BSept%2B2011%2B053.JPG" /></a></div>Me with a villager in Bembou, helping out at the net distribution<br />
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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!<br />
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Hope all is well,<br />
IanIan Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-48299258720919020132011-07-29T11:53:00.000-07:002011-07-29T11:53:29.293-07:00Startin' Up Work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gD9tp-UvsNk/TjL-mkCJTvI/AAAAAAAAAY0/gocMJ0Mn9oM/s1600/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gD9tp-UvsNk/TjL-mkCJTvI/AAAAAAAAAY0/gocMJ0Mn9oM/s320/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+010.JPG" t$="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My brother Cheik and I- best Koto Ke (older brother) in the world</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And, whilst on the subject, I wanted to write about the beginnings of my work back in ol’ Misirah Dantila. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju8E4cTXnv4/TjL_CPD24hI/AAAAAAAAAY4/gORImTF36-A/s1600/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju8E4cTXnv4/TjL_CPD24hI/AAAAAAAAAY4/gORImTF36-A/s320/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+022.JPG" t$="true" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Leah and a wonderful woman from my village stirrin' up a batch of neem lotion</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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<sup>th </sup>(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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVFbEtygSzg/TjL_Rg_nSLI/AAAAAAAAAY8/esNqMSIH3GU/s1600/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dVFbEtygSzg/TjL_Rg_nSLI/AAAAAAAAAY8/esNqMSIH3GU/s320/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+013.JPG" t$="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Some of the women at the Misirah Dantila demo, pre-chaos</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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. </span> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HZWwsrYTWsU/TjL_hE-zBlI/AAAAAAAAAZA/aJ9m50bRnvk/s1600/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HZWwsrYTWsU/TjL_hE-zBlI/AAAAAAAAAZA/aJ9m50bRnvk/s320/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+003.JPG" t$="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ben and I in our Patriotic finest at the Fourth celebration</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U_O9qf-nlp0/TjL_wuU4qhI/AAAAAAAAAZE/mw089iJFXnA/s1600/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U_O9qf-nlp0/TjL_wuU4qhI/AAAAAAAAAZE/mw089iJFXnA/s320/Fourth+of+July+and+Neem+Tourney%252C+%252711+031.JPG" t$="true" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">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!</div>Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-67545858908700007502011-07-06T11:33:00.000-07:002011-07-06T11:33:46.676-07:00Tambourines and Elephants!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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-</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6-t2HsiTtYk/ThSn2MsutVI/AAAAAAAAAVE/iKcstlcPDkI/s1600/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" m$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6-t2HsiTtYk/ThSn2MsutVI/AAAAAAAAAVE/iKcstlcPDkI/s320/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+204.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Two cute little girls from my compound, both named Fanta!</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0cpe91kwOUo/ThSogMQNU8I/AAAAAAAAAVI/n-L5lc5OIxI/s1600/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+208.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" m$="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0cpe91kwOUo/ThSogMQNU8I/AAAAAAAAAVI/n-L5lc5OIxI/s320/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+208.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am slowly beginning to get a sense of the health situation of my village and opportunities for future projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, malaria is one of the most immediate, grave problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is particularly prevalent in our region of Kedougou, and will be coming in full force now that the rains are here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eGFbgY3IPUc/ThSl9RwobNI/AAAAAAAAAT4/C0fffBzdeH0/s1600/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" m$="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eGFbgY3IPUc/ThSl9RwobNI/AAAAAAAAAT4/C0fffBzdeH0/s320/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+212.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">Aerial view of Misirah Dantila, taken while repairing one of the roofs after a huge storm knocked off all the straw</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but I still get a few wrong or have to sidestep my forgetfulness by claiming I’m in a hurry to greet my father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I-qdjLhoB00/ThSnOeQEeZI/AAAAAAAAAUs/wr_log3oVqk/s1600/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" m$="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I-qdjLhoB00/ThSnOeQEeZI/AAAAAAAAAUs/wr_log3oVqk/s320/Onwards+and+Upwards-+Swear-In+and+first+weeks+at+site+181.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-18750459346778979182011-05-31T03:33:00.000-07:002011-05-31T03:33:53.382-07:00Misirah Dantila: My first two weeks!<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, just for emphasis, I go back to missin them good friends and family. Whoo! It’s been tough some times.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">And, most importantly, I really like the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re a testy bunch of people, constantly quizzing me on my Jaxanke skills and giving me grief when I screw up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are nonetheless forgiving, helpful, and really friendly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!!, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The real spectacle and truly exciting even was the fish hunt.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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!!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, when I do, I shall be sure to write again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope so much that you all are in the best of health and spirits!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ian</div><!--EndFragment-->Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-85455793294967971292011-05-15T16:52:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:52:00.827-07:00The end of preservice training, on to new beginnings!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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-<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m simultaneously really excited and a little terrified. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t quite know where to start- the last few weeks have been crazy, busy, and truly joyful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I suppose I’ll begin where I left off last time: site announcements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Xekatu!! (jaxanke sorry!)).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I opened my eyes and looked at my feet and found myself standing in Kedougou, the farthest southeast region of Senegal… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and in the absolute farthest corner of Kedougou for that matter!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6AjKJuzqjkw/TdBf9oovuzI/AAAAAAAAARM/D_X55_fnI1Q/s1600/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j8="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6AjKJuzqjkw/TdBf9oovuzI/AAAAAAAAARM/D_X55_fnI1Q/s320/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+073.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Me and Ivy, blindfolded and smilin'! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During Volunteer Visits trainees get to stay with a volunteer in the region.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drank choice beverages (though in Senegal there is really not such a thing as ‘choice’!) and ate the most delicious Mexican meal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Gw11LpsMEQ/TdBibtPgkhI/AAAAAAAAARU/k-j9sZQIFhY/s1600/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j8="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Gw11LpsMEQ/TdBibtPgkhI/AAAAAAAAARU/k-j9sZQIFhY/s320/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+086.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">My new host siblings!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The next morning Marielle and I headed out with our volunteer host Kate to Marielle’s new village of Nafadji.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some kind of bad wind must have been blowin’ that day though, ‘cause the day was fraught with one weird disaster after another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It started with Kate’s bike tire popping in Kedougou and me losing a nice pocket knife I had just purchased in the market. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marielle actually had a bottle of shampoo explode in her bag later in the day, but the real trouble was yet to come. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This trouble came in the form of a bottle of African Fun (a fanta-esque soda) and a sneaky thief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a little while later the gigantic village drum was sounding and all of the old men (keebaalu) were coming to her compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the gravity of the situation it was fascinating to see the workings of a malinke meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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!?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kate leans to Marielle and I (we were utterly confused and scared) and says, “that means someone has died”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What?!?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Hoping the weirdness and drama of the night was done, Kate, Marielle and I retired to her compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aye yay yay!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Cghrnir6Fxs/TdBjkHKgU2I/AAAAAAAAARc/Jh52iY2TDL8/s1600/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j8="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Cghrnir6Fxs/TdBjkHKgU2I/AAAAAAAAARc/Jh52iY2TDL8/s320/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+095.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Me infront of my brand new, just finished hut!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ride was beautiful and deep deep into the bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they gave me my new name: Fode Made Tanjian!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tlblp1aye3Y/TdBlVrHgRuI/AAAAAAAAARk/iWoas0PxEak/s1600/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j8="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tlblp1aye3Y/TdBlVrHgRuI/AAAAAAAAARk/iWoas0PxEak/s320/Site+announcements+and+VV%2527s%252C+April+%252711+138.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Marielle petting a warthog on the way back from Kedougou</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The swear in ceremony was at the American Ambassador’s house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Peace Corps director, Senegalese ministers and various other big men were there, and I gave a speech in Jaxanke!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hope to write again soon, and pray that all is well in your lives. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
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</div>Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-40313735763625051602011-04-07T07:10:00.000-07:002011-04-07T07:10:06.683-07:00The first few weeks of homestay: Gardening, Jaxanke classing, and Senegalese dancing<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P2eM8pcSN1o/TZ3EPgsxZcI/AAAAAAAAAFE/AqCHqwIbG8g/s1600/Homestay+in+Mburr-+the+first+few+weeks+039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P2eM8pcSN1o/TZ3EPgsxZcI/AAAAAAAAAFE/AqCHqwIbG8g/s320/Homestay+in+Mburr-+the+first+few+weeks+039.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Breakfast is delicious bread and butter and bad coffee which we sip while watching a ridiculous, unceasingly dramatic Spanish soap opera called Frijolito.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0tWPlWwevYE/TZ3FPneDHeI/AAAAAAAAAFc/BR6ufb5byYg/s1600/Homestay+in+Mburr-+the+first+few+weeks+052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0tWPlWwevYE/TZ3FPneDHeI/AAAAAAAAAFc/BR6ufb5byYg/s320/Homestay+in+Mburr-+the+first+few+weeks+052.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jaxanke class is held in one of the other volunteer’s houses on a big blue and red mat in an otherwise empty room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are taught by Lamine, one of the many brilliant Language and Cultural Faciliators that Peace Corps employs here in Senegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Classes are tough but really helpful, and we’re slowly gaining the grammar and vocab to discuss really silly scenarios.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yesterday we actually had our first language test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This blog is getting too long, so I’ll try to speed through the last bits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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!)”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“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!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have created a beautiful garden, and we’ve also made a lovely mural map of Senegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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! )<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Updates coming soon!</span></div>Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-60347979847022634112011-03-13T15:06:00.000-07:002011-03-13T15:06:03.335-07:00Slowly slowly I trap the monkey in the bush! (ndanknakk moi goloo chi nyai!)<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">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!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div>Ian Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2926929739200430835.post-81070687133521822272011-03-11T13:37:00.000-08:002011-03-11T13:37:54.481-08:00Greetings from Senegal!!!Asalaa Malekum my dearest Family and friends!<br />
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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. <br />
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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!<br />
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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!<br />
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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. <br />
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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!<br />
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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.<br />
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Ba Beneen, <br />
IanIan Hennesseehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430567135048277415noreply@blogger.com5