Sustaina-Blind

I read my journal entry from one year ago, today. Always a source of entertainment. In this particular entry, I lay in bed in my house in the US of A, spilling forth my fears and excitements about Peace Corps and Niger and what challenges I would face. I bulleted them like this:

• Food
• The heat 
• Food
• Culture
• Food
• Clean water 
• The heat 
• Using a latrine
• Culture
• The heat 
• Food

·        I also reminded myself to buy “a billion batteries.”

As I rolled my eyes at my own stupid exaggerations it dawned on me that the actual battles I’ve fought as a volunteer, with myself or others, have been entirely different from those I speculated a year ago. One adapts to food and climate. I adapted. I must say, I pride myself on being an expert adapter at this point. Throw me into the ocean and I’ll build a raft from jagged seaweed and jellyfish tentacles and make friends with the fish. Or something like that. (So glad I retained my ability to exaggerate). 

The real difficulties I’ve faced so far have been the result of cultural walls, or, surprisingly, of issues with my program itself. Most recently I’ve struggled with the pressures associated with Peace Corps’ biggest watchword: sustainability.

Peace Corps, as an organization, prides itself on what it is not. We are not an NGO that throws money at a community without research or further follow-up. We don’t put our stamp onto every project we’ve briefly brushed up against (ahem, cough, USAID) and we are not, most importantly, unsustainable.

One thing that Peace Corps is is self selecting. The type of person who joins the organization is full of zeal and good will; think uneven tan lines, calloused palms and lots of laughter. As a whole we’re a concerned group. We’re concerned about our commitment, concerned about the country, concerned about the cultural stressors, and lastly, concerned that our well meaning sacrifices are worth it. Therein lies the rub. According to Peace Corps and many development theories, in order to be worth it, our work must be sustainable.  

This makes all the sense in the world. The lifespan of a volunteer is only two years. Granted, so far it seems like the longest two years in the history of time, but in the scheme of things it is a blip, a flash, a sprint. In the lives of the people we want to help, two years is sadly insignificant. It is for this reason that we strive to find projects that last. This means not only teaching individuals, but teaching teachers. It means broadening our net of knowledge and trying to reach as many people as we can in our service. It means trying to hit all problems at the source and not the end. It means not doing everything yourself, a concept that has fallen hard on many an earnest volunteer (Mamadiy, I'm talking to you here!) It means, unfortunately for us, never giving a quick fix but always thinking in the long term.

I say “unfortunately for us” because wouldn’t it be so nice to once, just once, give a few extra dollars to help a family get through the week? Wouldn’t it be so nice to see a grateful smile and know that this baby is going to live because you paid the hospital bill? Couldn’t I just buy this man lunch so he doesn’t go hungry today? 

But what about tomorrow? What about the day after tomorrow? What about next week?

Logically, one can see the large crater I’m so gladly moving towards. I can’t possibly give money to every sick baby, to every hungry man. I may be a white American but I’m a Peace Corps volunteer which doesn’t amount to much financially even in Senegal. Anyways, it’s better to teach a man to fish and all that, right? If I help improve the health care, if I increase food security, these problems may work themselves out for the betterment of every citizen, not just two or three. This is the very core belief of the Peace Corps and sustainability. But this man will die by then, and that baby will never survive the week without medication. Do I really want that on my conscience? And so I continue to give small financial aid and consequently feel like a dirty, corrupt volunteer.

There are other issues at hand in this scenario. The family system in Senegal, in much of West Africa to my understanding, is tightly wound and supporting. If you’re in any need, your family is honor and duty bound to assist you. Some are not blessed with a particularly loving or capable family, but that’s the general idea. Let’s consider, however, the viewpoint of such a person in need. You could save yourself the shame and hassle of petitioning your sister or your husband by asking this hapless foreigner. You could find the money in your family, but this poor lad doesn’t know that, right? Also, he’s more likely to give you ten times the amount you actually need, through sheer ignorance or that nagging privilege guilt. Sounds like a good deal!

Secondly, Senegal thrives on the concept of making a quick buck. Any way to fix a piece of junk for two dollars and resell it for ten is seized upon immediately. The amount of money scams in this country is astounding. I may have written about this before, but one that really gets me is coined the ‘prescription scam.’ In this scene a person will find an old hospital prescription in the trash and then set about house to house, asking for small donations to cover the cost of the medicine. “My daughter is so sick, she’s all I have, I need to get her help, please give me a few hundred CFA”. In reality, no one is sick, this person probably doesn’t need the money (at least not desperately) but sees an easy way to fool people into emptying their wallets. The Senegalese are wise to this scam. Foreigners? Not so much.

This isn’t to say we don’t have similar situations in the US of A (or worse, unless I missed something and Bernie Madoff was Senegalese). The difference is merely the continent and the continued perception that Westerners have towards the third world , mainly, Guilt with a capital G. The hand of fate made me a rich American and so I feel compelled to shell out money for those with fates less fortunate. I believe this describes, on a small scale, many failed development schemes. Voila – the reason Peace Corps discourages and frowns upon such handouts, as harmless as they seem.  

My personal problems with sustainability stem from the Master Farmer site. My farmer is working 24/7 to install this field, a place that is producing nothing as of yet. Do the math – this man is broke. He can barely afford bread for breakfast. The Master Farmer program assumes that the farmers have grown children to help in the field and a family support system to feed them during this installation, which most of them do. My farmer, however, owns land in Tambacounda, about 40K from the village where his family lives, and has no grown children. He is living in a small room in Tamba until he can afford to move his family out here. 

Therefore, rather than watch this rail thin man work himself to the bone and suffer pangs of hunger and exhaustion, I’ve been giving him money for food. I also bought him a cell phone to make our work partnership easier – better to just lay it all on the table.

Flashes of red warning signs appear in my mind as I write this. I know, I KNOW it’s unsustainable. Other volunteers would tell me to be wary of setting a precedent that I can’t uphold, or that the next volunteer will be saddled with. They’d tell me I likely don’t know the entire situation and it’d be better to keep the boundaries of volunteer and work partner without travelling into the wastelands of money dependency from which one can never turn back. After all, Peace Corps is funding his farm - in the larger sense, he's one of the lucky ones. I'd be told to just wait it out and things will get better when we start selling vegetables in a few months. And I’d agree. I’d nod my head, say that I understood. And I’d continue to feed him, and I defy anyone who reads this to do differently!

One of my friends in Tamba put her thoughts about this issue very nicely. She said, “Frankly, I’d rather be scammed out of a few dollars than deny someone the help they really need.” My consternation with sustainability rises not from the concept itself or its obvious merit. But I often feel strangled by the notion that I’m not ever supposed to give financial help to those in dire straits, just because I can. I think change agents are forced to sometimes turn a blind eye in the name of the greater good. We can be, if you will...sustaina-blind. 

At the end of the day, I don’t want to set bad precedents or ruin the reputation of my organization, one that is tenuously built and often undermined by wealthy French tourists (zut alors!). I don’t want to leave Senegal having only temporarily helped several people instead of setting in motion long term shifts that will better the nation forever. I also don’t want to look into the face of a distressed mother and tell her her baby will die because it’s not “sustainable” for me to give her two dollars for medicine. A dilemma, my friends. And one that has been much more than challenging to face than any third meal of millet porridge or a hot day.

Until next time,

<3 Phoebe

P.S – It’s been a year, Africa! Happy Anniversary.

Battle against the 'Toubab'

The perks of living in a small village include a Cheers type familiarity - it's where everybody knows your name. No little kids screaming "white person, give me gift" because you're known, you're one of them. No incredulous stares when you speak Wolof well, or not well, or somewhere in between, because your village is used to you.

Of course, I live in a city, so all bets are off. 

I have to re-explain my purpose, my name, my single marital status, my job, no I don't know how to cook the national dish of rice and fish, no I don't want to buy you a plane ticket to France! - to almost every person I encounter. I think some Senegalese kids are trained from birth to yell "toubab!" ("white person!") whenever they see one. What really gets me is when adults yell too. Come on, people. 

Yesterday I was biking furiously to the Pentagon (my field) and a woman called "toubab!" as I passed. I stopped. I turned around. I biked back. She looked blankly at me. I told her politely that "toubab" was not my name. Would she prefer be called simply "African person" or did she go by something else? Did she, in fact, want to talk to me? Or was she just being vocally observant? Yes, there's a white person! Ta da. I got back on my bike to leave. She waved and said "bon voyage, toubab!" as I biked away. Lesson decidedly not learned. 

There's a French grocery store near to my house that sells a lot of my favorite foods such as Pringles, gummy bears, Twix bars, fruit yogurt and olive loaf. (As I write that, I realize I sound like a bizarre five year old. Can't help it...) This store, besides being the reason I don't have any money ever, is also a local hang out for the talibe gangs of Tamba. You'll remember, the talibes are the young Koranic students who are told to beg most of the day, to learn humility. Well, they see me a lot as I come in and out of this store, so I finally taught them all my Senegalese name (Aida) to avoid the typical "toubab" situation. Somehow this information spread all over Tamba so that when I see a talibe now, even in the far reaches of the city, he will know my name! I was pretty impressed by this until another female volunteer came into the regional house one day wondering why all the talibes were calling her "Aida". Drat. 

In my somewhat reluctant role as the white foreigner, I can get away with things that normal Senegalese eschew. Having a pet, for example. Pets here are very rare; most animals serve one sole purpose, I think you can guess what. 

It can be hard to see the too-skinny cows and goats and know where their destiny lies. Of course, there is something more honest in this type of butchering than in buying a pack of chicken breasts at Stop&Shop. At least you know where the meat came from.(Or is that worse? I can't decide.) Unfortunately you don't often know which part of the animal it came from...and that is how I ended up eating sheep testicles last week. Not good. Not even remotely good. 

In March I arrived in Tamba towing my tiny black cat, unnerving half the neighborhood and earning myself a reputation right from the start. Now it's September and I've adopted a puppy to live at the Pentagon, so he can run free in the field and keep us company as we work. I recently took him on a walk through the small village area next to the field and earned myself a whole new reputation. It's important to remember that as strange as Senegal seems to me, I'm giving just as much as I receive; in terms of weirdness, of course. Yes - I'm pretty sure most of Tamba thinks I am very weird. But there are worse things!

Until next time, 

<3 Phoebe

Recent Fun

!

Wassadou, a beautiful campemant 70k from Tamba. I saw hippos!

Surpise, Muus!

Looking fancy for Korite...my younger sister Awa on the far left, followed by neighborhood friends 

Awa and friends!

More neighborhood kids :) 

Me and Awa, relaxing! 

Pure Ridiculousness

One of my great friends is leaving his job with Tostan in Dakar and moving to Chad, to work with The Carter Center for the eradication of guinea worm disease. He’s been fantastic, one of the few people I could really count on in Senegal. This past week I went to Dakar to say my goodbyes and wish him the best of luck.What follows are accounts of a few ridiculous experiences I had while visiting the capitol.

The Nightclub 

Upon arriving in the city, my friend Dan and I grabbed a taxi and asked to go to the Tostan office. Dakar is a large, sprawling city, so normally you have to tell the taxi driver the name of the quartier you want to go to. Unfortunately, I don't know the city very well, so I felt lucky when this driver told me he knew exactly where to go. Dan and I settled into the back with all our bags. 

After fifteen minutes of heavy traffic and twists and turns, we started to be suspicious. "This doesn't look familiar, maybe we should ask him again if he knows where to go," I said. The driver waved off my concern and said "Tostan! Tostan! Yes, I know!" so I sat back. 

We finally arrive at a sketchy corner in the middle of the city, nowhere near the quartier where the Tostan office lies. The driver points out the window. Dan and I confusedly follow the line of his finger before lighting upon a crumbling, broken down nightclub called "Hoissan".

Easy enough mistake to make, I guess. After all, why wouldn't two young Americans want to go to a closed, dirty nightclub in the middle of the day?

The Restaurant

The second day of our trip, we learn our friend who is moving hasn't started to pack...at all. We leave him to it and strike off to view the big market in Dakar and get some lunch. Neither of these tasks proved to be particularly easy.

The market in Dakar is, to say the least, overwhelming. I basically tore out a fair amount of my hair while briefly walking around that day. It's full of desirable items - actually, if you can't find what you want, someone will get it for you in a jiffy. It's like a tag sale hunter's dream in that the hundreds of stalls have no direct correlation to each other and everything is cheap. If you look remotely like a tourist, however, be prepared for the harassment experience of a lifetime. 

A couple men latched on to my friends and me right at once. "Come here! See my brother's shop! Come here! See my cousin's stall! Eat this! Now give me 25 cfa!" This kind of heckling isn't uncommon in any market worldwide, but I hate being followed. 

Two men wanted us to go to a far side of the market to look at a shop. They trailed us as we were looking at fabrics, jewelry, fruit, talking incessantly and trying to move us in the right direction. My short temper finally blew up and I let off a stream of angry Wolof that deterred them momentarily, but not for long. We had to walk far outside the market area before they gave up.

At this point, wallets still full and nothing bought, my friends and I decided to eat. There are a lot of little standing room food shacks in Dakar but there are also some really nice restaurants, so why not take advantage, right? We walked around trying to find something suitable, pushing through heavy crowds and traffic before realizing we'd gone in a giant circle without seeing much. Harassment was on the horizon again so we quickly jumped in a cab and headed across town to another restaurant we'd heard of. 

After another twenty minutes in a cab, we arrive on the clear other side of the city to find the restaurant closed for maintenance. There didn't seem to be a lot in the area but we started walking, trying to find that right combination of cheap, sitting area, good food, and quiet. Hard!

We trudged down a bright, hot avenue, sidestepping into a private residential area by mistake, passing expensive hotel bars and tiny rice shacks. Finally, thirsty and somewhat bewildered about our bad luck in finding a suitable restaurant in this huge city, we stumble upon The IndoChine Palace. 

Parked on a big corner lot, this place had the full decor (inside and out) of a stereotypical Asian restaurant. We crossed a small sloping lawn, complete with statues of Buddhas and dragon fountains. Still unsure if the restaurant was open, we reached the big double doors only to have them open silently (magically!) upon our arrival. A full staff of Senegalese people dressed in traditional Chinese garb welcomed us. I looked at our ensemble in our sweaty, dirty, backpack-carrying glory, and raised an eyebrow. Typical. We were the only customers. 

We sat down at a round table with fancy place settings and cloth napkins, surrounded by eclectic Asian art. I found myself facing a giant stone bust of an African queen. Not quite what I was expecting. 

Over the course of the next hour, we proved ourselves to be unequipped to handle civilized society. After a solid month of eating with our hands, working in the grind of the fields, and showering once a week, it's hard to get back into the swing of... having any manners. To start, the waitress brought us damp hot hand towels. We didn't know what to do with this. I took mine and nervously held it out over my plate. Dan started using it to wipe the sweat off his face. Eventually they lost their heat and the waitress took them back, thank goodness. 

After scanning the menu and realizing nothing cost less than 5 mill (approx.10$, a hefty amount for our 100$ a month salary) we ordered a few things to share. The food was amazing, honestly. I could write about the savory mushroom spring rolls for an entire paragraph (I won't). My friend Minnie and I tore at the spring rolls with our hands while Dan slurped a dumpling soup. 

During the meal, out of the corner of my eye, I spied a mouse. It flitted by our table. I barely reacted. Ten minutes later, Minnie said 'Hm - I think I saw a mouse over there.' Apparently we'd all seen the mouse at different times and no one had mentioned it. Dan said, "Yep - we're still in West Africa." I think our collective lack of reaction says it all. 

The Bars

Third night of our trip, Minnie and I decide to go out on the town. We stop first at a well-known hotel bar for happy hour. The bartender took a liking to us and kept refilling our drinks, so we stayed a while. The clientele consisted of a few overweight foreigners and a old lady dressed in a tennis outfit with a mullet haircut. After whiling away some time with chitchat and wine, we walk a few blocks to the French Cultural Center for dinner, a place famous for exotic burgers. I've probably eaten three burgers in the past six months, so this was a draw. Of course, we get there, and they don't have any burgers. If fact, they didn't seem to have half the menu. With my dismal French I couldn't read most of the entrees, so I asked the waiter to translate into Wolof, which he found hilarious. With his help I ordered a great steak. Success. 

After the restaurant, we walked two blocks to a bar called The Viking. The fact that there is a bar in Senegal named after Nordic blonde warriors is amusing. There were a smattering of people there, mostly foreigners and one very intoxicated Pulaar man. He struck up a conversation with Minnie that was half Pulaar, half incomprehensible slurring, 100% annoying. We left our bar stool seats and went to a table in the half lighted interior. We nursed our drinks and engaged in conversation. After a while, I noticed that seated next to us was an extremely attractive Senegalese woman and a dumpy male white guy. I watched them curiously and saw some money exchange hands before they left together. Not hard to tell what was going on there. At about 2 am, Minnie and I called it quits and headed back to the packed Peace Corps house where I stayed up a bit longer before falling in a sweaty heap onto my bed and waking up five hours later with my shirt stuck to my back, off to the garage to catch a car back to Tamba. 

Overall, a fun trip. West Africa is a colorful place. On the way back, our car broke down four times due to an over-hot engine, so I didn't get home until late. But I'm back and ready to get back to work! Well, sort of. 

Until next time, 

<3 Phoebe 

Start of a New Season

Last night, I woke up suddenly around 3 am. It’s time for a change, I thought. Something’s gotta change.

In my last post, I wrote about falling down, getting up, and moving on. I rearranged my blog, something more ‘fresh and so clean, clean’, and I’ve put out a hit on my stress and anxiety. This whole evacuation, re-adjustment thing has bogged me down for too long, so if I’m going to stay in Senegal, I’d better quit dragging and start living.

Conveniently, Ramadan is over! The rest of Senegal has picked up its feet right along with me. During the month of fasting, i.e the month of food-related aggression, productivity dwindled and tempers ran hot. I accomplished very little and sat in stuffy heat for hours on end. I couldn’t seem to please anyone by fasting or not fasting (see dialogue below). I played dreary rounds of a board game akin to ‘Sorry’, although my board was decorated with pictures of the longest standing African presidents. So, my board was decorated with pictures of Qaddafi.

Needless to say, I’m glad lunch is back. Work can progress and I can stop looking at pictures of Qaddafi’s face for so long that he morphs into sandwiches, roast chicken, or a bucket of ice.

Future plans:
Heading to Dakar to say goodbye to a great friend who traveled with me from Niger to Senegal and is now moving on to Chad. It’ll be sad to see him go, but I know he’s excited for new work opportunities, so I wish him the best!

Finally installing the fence at the Pentagon (aka the Master Farmer site. My Master Farmer, Salif, told me very seriously that his field would be named “The Pentagon. For the national security of food and the elimination of poverty.” Can’t argue with that)

Meeting the new volunteer in Tamba! He/she is already in Senegal, the new class of trainees arrived on Aug 31st. Site allocations won’t be decided for a few more weeks, but the prospect of help has me almost drooling in anticipation. Give them to me NOW!)

Preparing for Halloween. Tamba hosts the Senegal-wide volunteer Halloween Party, so we’re getting prepped early. If anyone wants to send me orange jello…or black spray paint…

That’s it for now! Thanks for keeping up with the change of blog, and keep in touch. :)
Until next time,

<3 Phoebe

Scrapes and Bruises

In the past month, I’ve fallen down a lot. The day before yesterday I fell into a giant hole dug for a mango tree. Yesterday I fell into the same hole…again. Today I fell over while getting on to my bike. (I know…) A couple of weeks ago my closest friend was sent home after a medical evacuation to the States – that was probably the biggest fall of all!

I’ve posted about this particular friend before, but for privacy I’ll use her Senegalese name, Fatu. Refer to "Brief Job Reflection" posted on 5/21 for other stories involving her. We traveled from Niger to Senegal together, surviving the trials and tribulations of re-readjusting and trying to fit into a volunteer culture already formed without us. She’s been the support of a lifetime in only six months. Her tale can be found in her own words at www.shelbyrajk.wordpress.com, but the long and short of it is she ruptured an artery in her intestine and had to be taken to the States for treatment. She’s ok now, but Peace Corps doctors don’t want to risk a recurrence and have decided to medically separate her from service. (The more detailed story involves almost two liters of blood on the ground, a midnight race from Kaolack to Dakar in an ambulance, and two days in a sunny resort-like clinic.)

After returning to Tamba from this impromptu trip to Dakar, I took a few days to reflect before jumping back into my work. What happened to Fatu was a rapid reminder of the general impermanence of our roles as volunteers. We make flash appearances in people’s lives and change them, for better or for worse. We remind the Senegalese of what they don’t have and inspire them to reach for better circumstances. We run the risk of antagonizing those who celebrate a different culture and have no desire to revolutionize. Not for the first time, I questioned if my presence here is right. This is a gray area for me and has been from the start. But I’m still here.
In Fatu’s case, she traveled first to Niger, next to Senegal, each time with the anticipation of an extended stay and each time denied it. I thought about my commitment to stay in Tamba and wondered if we’d all make it through the elections in January, or if I’d survive the loneliness of losing a good friend here. Each day in Peace Corps brings new challenges and opens new doors, and I’ve never experienced anything like it.

The large discrepancy between Fatu’s medical care and that of an average Senegalese was also startling. Healthcare is an enormous issue in the United States and for the first time in my life, I felt thankful, because this indicates our understanding of its importance. In Senegalese villages, healthcare often stops beyond the local healer and not because of unavailability; in fact, the government has made great strides in the past ten years to provide affordable medicines and treatment. Many people have just not grasped the importance of this change, or believe too fervently in methods that have low statistical success but are traditional. Those who do understand are often not making the decisions within families. This is the challenge given to health volunteers, not just with Peace Corps but with any organization – to modify behavior.  It’s a psychological shift more than anything else. The effort of these volunteers is incredible and their successes immeasurable, quite literally.

If Fatu had been a poor Senegalese, chances are high she would have died. I thank the Peace Corps doctors for their quick action and salute the many volunteers who are working to shift that imbalance, to not only offer good care to all poorer citizens in Senegal, but insure that it is taken advantage of.

After my few days of reflection, I tackled the workload that had been piling up in my absence. My volunteer work partner and friend has since moved on to greener pastures, and I don’t mean that as a metaphor. He moved to Thies, a city just outside Dakar, and actually much, much greener than Tamba. He’ll be helping out there for a year with new volunteer trainings and support. Unfortunately, that leaves me to try and take on two volunteers’ worth of projects. So far it’s been pretty difficult.

To sum it up briefly, I am still partnering with the Master Farmer program, as well as trying to revive the demonstration garden after a few months of neglect. I’ve taken on a women’s garden to assist and struck up a relationship with AfriCare to help with a series of gardening trainings.  The school garden is on hold for a bit until school starts in October. In theory, I am doing all of the above - in reality, I am at the Master Farmer field all day every day, with quick appearances at the demo garden to water and drive-bys of the women’s garden to say “Try to weed better! Well, I gotta go!”

I’d say so far I’m failing to maintain all the projects I’d like to be involved in. The MF field is full time and frankly, time is running out. We’re on a strict seasonal clock here. There will be a replacement volunteer in Tamba arriving in the beginning of November, and I’m crossing my fingers that I can hold on to everything until then. I don’t want to have to show him/her an empty wasteland and say “Now grow things!”  So wish me luck. I’ll need it.

As I said, I’ve fallen down a lot this month, both physically and emotionally. Working in this environment has tested me in every possible manner. At the same time, I've learned things about myself and the world I would never have known otherwise. I hope to keep sharing these things with you. For now, what I've learned is that for every time I fall down, I'm able to pick myself back up again.

Until next time,
<3 Phoebe

Mason! Mason! Build Me a Toolshed! But Seriously.

Hello!

It's been too long! My relationship with this blog has been infinitely better than my relationship with my journal (she'll be calling it off any day now) and yet I've still neglected it. My apologies. A lot has happened in the past month!

June passed very quickly. I spent most of it wrestling with the mason at my Master Farmer site. We hired a mason to build a stone tool shed, what should be a four day project, but one month and three masons later, we're still not done. Building projects in Senegal are troublesome, to say the least. In my case, I learned the person who builds the shed is not the same person who installs the roof...but then you need an additional mason to put bricks on top of the roof after it's in place, because the roof worker can't possibly do that. How do you get a mason out to your field? Not by offering money and work, apparently! How do you get two masons and a roof worker? You don't, you just don't. Sigh.

Now it's nearly finished but the window's been cemented in upside down, a problem I can't even deign to address right now. The roof is on! Hooray! We'll focus on that.

After struggling to comprehend the intricacies of Senegalese work patterns, I left for a much needed vacation in London with my parents. It was a week of blissful tourism in which I was paid absolutely no attention by the casual passerby...hence the bliss! Don't underestimate the power of anonymity. After seven months of constant heckling, it was wonderful not to be noticed. We ducked in and out of  famous pubs, stormed the Tower, stood in two time zones in Greenwich, visited Hell during Dr. Faustus at the Globe and in general, enjoyed ourselves very much. It was a much appreciated and restful break.

Now I'm home, back in Tamba and gearing myself up for a summer of working in the fields. So far I've battled land title rights with my garden partners, extended rice and bean seed to a local farmer and witnessed the capping of our tool shed at the MF site. I'll be doing more research than I ever have, conducting studies on why one type of seed is better than another or why this practice is more beneficial than that one, and hopefully writing a comprehensive report to submit to Peace Corps in Washington. It all sounds very official! I've said this before, but the illusion of Peace Corps volunteers sitting around in the shade fanning flies off themselves has been shattered into many pieces - although the advent of rainy season has introduced more flies than I can possibly cope with. I just ignore them. It's worked so far.

I have to run to Wolof class, but I'll try to write more regularly - I'm excited to say some of my fellow Niger refugees have recently found success in Peace Corps Ghana, Moldova, and Kenya so I'm very proud of them and can't wait to hear more!

As for things stateside, I miss everyone very much and letters are on their way. I promise. I bought stamps after three hours of general confusion at the post office, so count on it!

<3 Phoebe

P.S For a look into another side of the volunteer experience, read my friend's latest entry on her blog. It's a good insight into more frustrating part of Peace Corps and I relate to much of what she says. Just in case you're interested!

http://shelbyrajk.wordpress.com/

Magic Africa

A little known fact is that I have Wolof class every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at four. I'd appreciate if this fact would be taken to heart by the select few who are constantly interrupting me at this precise time (ahem, host family and other volunteers). When not disturbed, I have learned quite a bit at these lessons, and very little of it Wolof.

For example, yesterday, as my tutor Abdullaye and I relaxed in chairs under the mango tree in my courtyard, sipping sweet syrupy tea with more sugar in it than a Pixie Stick, we touched upon the topic of healthcare in Senegal. My host mom had recently been to the hospital and received some medicine for her chronic dizziness. At least I think that's what she told me - it's either that or 'chronic donkey.' See, I need these Wolof classes!

"I never get shots," he claimed. I took this to mean he had a general phobia of needles, like a lot of  people.  I told him about all the shots required for Americans to travel to Africa, and vice-versa. "I'm staying right here," he responded emphatically.

"What do you do if you get sick?" I wondered. Abdullaye stared at me and said "My mother heals me with her hands."

Unfortunately, it was too late for me to hold back my scornful scoff. After three months of classes, I'm fairly comfortable around Abdullaye. He's a youngish, laid back Senegalese, always good for a laugh. I'd begun to think of him as one of my Western friends, which was my first mistake. Amateur move for a cultural-sensitivity trained volunteer, Phoebe!

He narrowed his eyes. My scoff was quickly replaced with a look of polite interest. What followed was a truly fascinating introduction to mystical Africa, and my polite interest transformed into actual wonder.

"Africa," he began, "is different than America." I rolled my eyes. But then he said, "this is not religion. It's mystical. The people from here are tied to the land. The land protects us. If I am sick, I can draw on that power of the land to help me." The conviction with which he said was surprising. I sat up a bit straighter. He continued to repeat that unseen forces were at work in Africa, such an ancestors, ancient spirits, and land sprites. I watched him in amazement, completely taken in.

I think I'd been waiting for something like this to happen during my service. I've been in Africa for seven months, but because I've moved around so much, I've never felt close enough to someone to talk about 'raw' Africa, Africa before missionaries, before organized religion. I loved it. It felt authentic, it felt passionate, and it felt uncontested. During decades of non-Africans dictating what Africans should believe, most have quietly kept their native traditions, vibrating just below the surface, ready to emerge in an invisible conversation with more organized religion - so stealthy that an outsider might not detect their presence. While it might be difficult for educated Westerners to accept African mysticism, I admit I'm totally converted. Who am I to say one way or another? But if the ghost of wrinkly Great Aunt Fatouma appears to help heal the sick, I might be more than a little freaked out.

Africa is, indeed, "different than America" and you might have to come here to experience what I'm talking about.

The only source of our disagreement arose when my tutor mentioned the Gambian president's cure for HIV/AIDS. This, I have not been so convinced as to believe, and I find the fact that the president has encouraged (or rather, mandated) that his citizens cease all normal antiviral treatments disturbing. If my good friend Abdullaye were to (God forbid) contract HIV, I wonder if I should have to force-feed him medication. This, I struggle with.

Towards the end of our discussion I asked Abdullaye hopefully "So if I'm sick, your Mom can heal me too?" He said "Are you from Africa? NO!" And that was the end of our class!

Until next time,

<3 Phoebe

Brief Job Reflection

It’s almost June. I’ve been in Senegal longer than I was in Niger. Sometimes I find myself standing for moments on end, flying back over space and time to that unfinished business. It’s an odd sensation, but the country of Niger made an imprint on my mind and I can’t erase it, even as distance stretches between me and it. 

My efforts now turn to immersing myself in Senegal. The more I learn, the more I am intrigued. As in the States, the economic, social, and religious demographic varies widely from region, to city, to village. This is mirrored in the volunteer experience. I live in a concrete house with electricity, running water, and a very small family. I visited a friend of mine in a village, and she lives in a mud hut, with no such luxuries and a large, bustling family that is constantly encircling her with chatter and laughter. Over the same weekend, I went to Dakar and viewed a friend’s gorgeous (Peace Corps funded) apartment on the top of a high rise building. We work for the same organization. Each of us has the same goal, and same motivation. We are achieving it very differently.

After getting a taste of the range of volunteer living arrangements, I became wistful for the village life that I am missing. In the city, I’m overwhelmed daily by the amount of people, the pollution, and the attention. In my friend’s village, everybody knows her by name and she is comfortably settled into her routine. She sleeps under the stars and breathes clean(er) air. Of course, I’m romanticizing it. She would probably be quick to point out the advantages of my situation, of which there are many. We always wish for what we don’t have, isn’t that the way it goes?

Interestingly, in this same village that I mention, poles were recently erected for electricity. My friend called to tell me, and my first reaction was “that’s great!” and she immediately said “no, it’s terrible!”

I’ve written about this phenomenon a bit in past blog entries. I would call it stagnant progress. As volunteers, we become so immersed in our community that we don’t want it to change, even though that is our job. We are change agents. In this particular village, my friend is working as an agriculture volunteer to increase millet, corn, and cereal production in surrounding fields. She is extending seeds to farmers and monitoring their fields for greater yield. Most of the men in the village are farmers. Village life centers around community gatherings and family compounds, around a slow pace of life that embraces the timelessness. How will the advent of electricity make a difference? The schedule of the day will surely be altered. Young people will play music late at night, keeping the lights on until they see fit and perhaps disturbing the neighbors. You won’t be able to see the stars. New products will be available to sell - cold drinks, yogurt, an entire market to crack into. And get ready for a wave of electronic products!

We live in the digital age, in which strangers can share entire life stories and never meet. Some think of this as an unfriendly system, and others marvel at the opportunities and technologies. For example, even with the speed and reliance of email, I’m enjoying writing and receiving letters. There’s something elusive and important in that tangible message, something that’s missing in an email. Sometimes I feel as if that square of paper is tethering me to whoever wrote it, and I feel connected, briefly, as I hold it. For someone like me, far away from home and familiarity, it helps.   

We’ve been dealing with this technological revolution for quite some time now, adapting to how it shapes our relationships and our work. Senegal is in the throes of doing the same. But it remains ‘to be determined’ at what cost.

I live in a household that has one foot in each country, so to speak. My host dad is a high school physics teacher. He leaves the house each morning looking like a well dressed American man heading to the office. My host mom is a traditional woman who cooks, cleans, takes care of her man and wears beautifully tailored Senegalese clothing. They have a nice Dell computer, a modem for internet, electricity, and running water. She attends proper social functions. He works at home on the computer grading papers. It’s an interesting and yet comfortable blend. If we were to take this house as an example, we might find no contest between past and future Senegal. You really can have both. 

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. My house is wired for electricity but we only have it thirty percent of the time. Senegal yet lacks the infrastructure to offer these resources properly. So villagers? Take a deep breath, because we still have a long way to go. 

A City with Cheese, A Third-World Surgery and Some Disappointment

I have learned several lessons this past month that I’d like to share with you. Most of these won’t apply to those at home in the States, but you might learn a thing or two from my experiences. For example:

Don’t take your cat to a farm vet. 

In April he gave my cat all the proper vaccines against infectious diseases, but for dogs (it’s the same!) and somehow that wasn’t enough to deter me from returning to have her spayed. Something about limited options.

Of course the vet neglected to mention he’d never worked on an animal as small as a cat before, because Senegalese people aren’t “crazy” enough to have cats as pets (his word, not mine). He started by giving it enough anesthetic to knock out a horse - his usual client - and finished by telling me sternly to “BE COOL” as I dry heaved in a corner. There’s a reason I don’t watch surgeries in the States. Hello, religion major, over here!

Long story short, the cat survived just fine with only an enormous, misshapen scar to tell the story. I’ve warned all other volunteers with pets that this might not be the way to go, although watching her drunkenly come off the drugs was pretty entertaining. (Get up, stumble, fall, drool a lot, repeat) 

Disclaimer: The vet I mention was very concerned about my cat, and followed up with me every day for a week. He meant well, and ended up doing a fine job! I don't mean to besmirch him by any means. Muus is happy and healthy. It just wasn't my most favorite experience...

Kaolack is not as dirty as Tamba.

           

 After arriving in Kaolack at the end of April for the master farmer training, I found all rumors of its fatal disgustingness to be false. The Peace Corps house was impeccably organized, complete with color coded signs in the kitchen for plates, bowls, and silverware, and nametags to reserve a bed for the evening. In Tamba, it’s pretty much a scramble to throw a mattress on the roof and hope there’s at least a semi-clean sheet you can snag. The city itself has a strip of water and a delta for goodness sake, what else could you ask for? Compared to Tamba, Kaolack wasn’t as hot, it wasn’t as dusty, the French grocery store sold my favorite cheese from home - the little red ones covered in wax! – all in all, a magical place. I didn’t even have many travel malfunctions, just a breezy couple of flat tires. Needless to say, I like Kaolack, for now.

Misunderstandings are Frequent and Awkward

         

It’s not easy to be a foreigner in Senegal. I’ve been warned by past volunteers and the Peace Corps bureau that many people will try to take advantage of me, either by jacking up their prices or by asking me outright for handouts, and I’ve certainly lived that experience these past few months in Africa. It’s a difficult position, because I do have exponentially more money than the average Senegalese, and sometimes I find it hard to justify saying no. Peace Corps reminds me that the program is not here to shower money or gifts on the people, but to make a lasting contribution to the community through teachings and small project funding. As a “volunteer”, I don’t get paid much more than the amount allotted for my rent and food, so it’s true that I’m not wealthy by any means. This sounds very appropriate, but running the Peace Corps mantra through my head doesn’t help when there’s a small child looking up at me and asking for food. Some days are better than others, but when I’m significantly frustrated with a project or a particular group of people, being a foreigner just exacerbates the problem.

        

I am, also, becoming notoriously bad at distinguishing when I’m being taken for a ride and when I’m being treated normally. For example, I attended a fancy wedding the other day with my host mom. The daughter of our next-door neighbor was getting married, and there was food, drinks, and dancing. I had fun mixing with the people, some of whom I’d met before. As a “toubab” (Senegalese word for ‘white person’) I was something of a spectacle, but that’s nothing new – it just means they took extra pleasure in laughing at my bad dancing. It’s all harmless and in fairness, my dancing is terrible. The Senegalese I’ve met so far really appreciate it if you can laugh at yourself.

           

At the end of the wedding, as I returned home and changed out of my fancy clothes, a younger kid came to find me saying “the bride wants a picture with you, the bride wants a picture with you!” After a night of heckling and attention I was starting to get fed up, and this rubbed me the wrong way. She wants a picture of the ‘toubab’ at her wedding, I thought bitterly. She doesn’t even know me, she won’t bother to get to know me, this is so inappropriate and frustrating, I’ll never fit in here, blah blah blah – you can see my train of thought. I went, took the picture, and sulked in my room for the rest of the night.

         

About two weeks later, the bride stopped by my house with a giant photo album, in which she proudly displayed pictures of her and every guest. That’s right – every single guest. Well, if that didn’t make me feel like an asshole!

But it doesn’t always play out like that. Yesterday, I met with a committee that is planning a festival in Tamba to celebrate the Diola ethnicity. Although I learned Wolof in training, my host family is from the Diola clan, and so this festival has special importance for them. My host mom had previously told this committee that I might be willing to help out, which I didn’t initially understand, but it turned out a lot of the people coming for this festival are farmers and gardeners, and they would appreciate the chance to talk with me and ask questions. I spoke with the president of the committee, we took a tour of the sites in Tamba where the festival was to be held, and I was becoming fairly happy with the opportunity to plan my exposition and bring some demonstrations. This falls exactly into my job description, and I was excited that they had come to me and wanted my help. 

Of course, they waited until the end of the meeting to tell me that every participant gives a contribution in money to the festival. It took about ten minutes of roundabout conversation to establish this point, but unfortunately if you’re not direct with me in Wolof I simply don’t understand. The committee seemed uncomfortable, and I suddenly realized they expected me to pay them for my space. This goes against any Peace Corps mandates, and I immediately knew I wouldn’t give them any money, but I was so affronted that they asked and disappointed that this was being revealed as their true intention.

I asked them how much they wanted. They told me I should name what I was willing to pay. It’s a “contribution”, they kept telling me. I said 25 mille, an exorbitant amount of money, about half my rent. I said this partly out of confusion (they completely sandbagged me, to borrow a word from my dad) and partly out of curiosity. I was hoping (naively) that they’d protest and say most people are giving five to ten mille, that would be plenty, thank you so much for all the time and effort this is going to cause you, but instead they sat in silence and then said “Actually, 50 mille is more appropriate contribution.”

I felt very used. First of all, if I am going to give 50 mille (about 100 dollars and my entire month’s rent) to a cause, it is not going to the Diola culture festival. It will go to something worthwhile. Second of all, I’m coming to realize that my host mom likely described me to this committee as a rich American who would gladly give money, and that makes me sad. She should know what Peace Corps is about - I tell her often enough. Instead, she raises expectations that I’m a walking bank. I feel as though I can’t trust anybody here. This is why Muus the cat remains my only Senegalese friend. (And also, I don't really speak the language. It helps that I can speak 'cat' fluently.)

I left things with the committee uncertain, as I was too befuddled and disoriented by being one moment lifted up by project potential to suddenly confused and disappointed. I’m going to have to call the president and let him know that I can’t contribute money, but if they’d still like me to come and answer questions I will. However, if you’re reading this, perhaps you can shoot me an email with some advice. This “exposition” would take a lot of my time over the next month and I’m not convinced by any means that it’s worth it. I don’t feel like they truly want my knowledge, and so I’m tempted to back out all together. I’ll keep you posted. In any case, there are sure to be several misunderstandings in the future both comical and frustrating, so keep reading!

My Garden Partners are the Worst…Just ‘the Worst’.

This is another delicate situation. The volunteer in Tamba before Austin set up an abysmal system with the family that lives right next to our demo garden. The deal was, they water the garden twice a day, and we pay them ten mille a month. To give you some perspective, some workers in Dakar make ten mille a month working 9-5 jobs. They are already receiving a disproportionate amount of money to the amount of work. On top of this, they are unpleasant people, always fighting in grating voices and they don’t take the watering seriously. We have suspicions that when both volunteers are out of town, they simply don’t water. The other day, I arrived to find the five year old boy struggling to lift a full watering can and subsequently drenching himself and little of the actual garden. This is a problem on a couple levels. 

Other volunteers have similar systems in which they hire a Senegalese person to water and work in the garden. These people have been carefully selected as capable, friendly, and hard-working. They are not paid directly but are able to sell the produce of the garden, thus giving them an interest in its maintenance.  They make a comfortable living off this and usually learn a lot from working with the volunteer, thus affording the skills to start their own garden or contribute to the demo garden.

Somehow we ended up with this hostile family that lets its kids trample the beds, spends all morning screaming at each other, and barely does the work for an enormous amount of money. You might suggest that we allow them to sell the produce, creating a similar sense of ownership and pride in the garden, but as I was surprised to recently learn this is the case. They're able to sell everything except the trees we pepinere for our own projects. For some inexplicable reason, they just don’t care, damaging their own meager income and our project. It’s hard to believe.

Austin has considered terminating their contract with us, but hasn’t for a couple of reasons. One, they live right next to the garden, and are spiteful people. It’s easy to see them taking revenge on our work. Secondly and more importantly, they are dirt poor. The family has several kids, three under the age of five, and without this income they would likely starve. (Again, baffling that they don’t take their job more seriously.) But they’ve found the correct way to milk the system, because as perhaps they’ve guessed, we’re loathe to cut them off completely despite their dismal performance.

I’m formulating a plan to continue paying them some money but bar their entrance to the garden. I just don’t want them in there, they’re destructive and distracting and unfriendly. I’ll let you know how it goes, but I refuse to spend the remaining sixteen months of my service dealing with their incompetence!

Volunteers in Tamba are Great

I’d like to end this blog post on a cheerier note! Over the past couple of months I’ve gotten to know my fellow volunteers in Tamba Nation (as we call ourselves) and it’s been really positive. I like everyone I’ve met and they’ve welcomed me into their close-knit circle, which will sincerely help me succeed. That support network is crucial.. We’re getting ready to welcome the new health/environmental education class that ends training this Friday, and although I’m going to miss their installation, I’m excited to have them here. I’m missing their move-in because I’m headed to Dakar for a much needed break from the heat, and also to catch one of my best friends from college who is passing through for other reasons. I’m going to buy a guitar while I’m there, and hopefully get back into my music a bit. It’s been too long. Things to look forward to! Missing everybody as always and ta-ta for now!

<3 Phoebe

Some Lessons Learned, or Just One Important One

Last week I left Tamba for the first time since my installation. I traveled down to Kolda, a city near the Guinea-Bissau border and attended an agricultural conference. The conference was informative, and the heat in Kolda a little less oppressive. My least favorite session consisted of a three hour explanation of the dreaded Volunteer Reporting Form (VRF), which I won’t be writing this time around considering...I have nothing to report. I guess I could talk about how my cat got stuck on the roof last night and I spent four hours climbing the rusted battlements trying to get it down. Yes, Peace Corps, that is how I spend my time!

The conference in general was great but as expected, travel was a major issue. On the ride down I was folded into a backseat of a station wagon in which my head didn’t clear the ceiling and my knees touched my forehead. You see, when I say folded, I mean folded. This wouldn’t have mattered if the ride didn’t last five hours. I began to lose sensation in multiple appendages. When I arrived at the garage in Kolda, finally able to free my pretzel-ed body from the car, I realized I was missing 30,000 CFA. That amounts to about sixty dollars, a pretty hefty amount in Senegal. Peace Corps recommends you start screaming the Wolof word for “thief” as loudly as possible and shame people in helping you locate your money. I wasn’t really up for it. Afterwards, the driver refused to give me my change from my ticket payment and I was so fed up I pathetically told him he was a “bad person.” That’s about as aggressive as I get!

The ride back from Kolda, the car broke down several times, once when the wheel fell off and once when the transmission fell out. I’m surprised the engine didn’t just drop out too. If your car is your entire livelihood, wouldn’t you take better care of it? But we made it back.

Another frustrating aspect of living in Tamba is the wretched mail system. I haven’t heard of any of my letters arriving in the States, even ones I sent in the beginning of February. However, the letter I sent to my friend in China arrived after only two weeks. Go figure. I guess based on past record in which my Nigerien letters arrive after four months, I might still be ahead of the game. Let me know if you get one so I can feel a bit better about paying exorbitant postage rates.

Our current projects are coming along fairly well; my volunteer work partner/slave driver (just kidding, Austin) wrote a fantastic grant for a school garden and we received the money yesterday. This morning we biked around to several hardware stores and bought grillage and metal posts for the fence, put in an order to have a metal door made, bought cement and sand for the water basin and tools for the labor. (I sometimes think of Austin as a slave driver only because no sane person bikes around Tamba at noon in hot season, and forces others to accompany them. Sigh.)

  

After buying the materials we returned to the school to see the garden. We had planted some trees at the end of March, and the gardener called yesterday to complain that nothing had grown. This was strange, because the species we planted should have started sprouting at least. So we biked out there, with our materials following in a horse-drawn buggy, and found our tree-bed overtaken by a thousand weeds. Not sure why someone would call to say nothing had grown, when clearly the opposite was in fact true. The tiny tree sprouts were hidden by a mass of grass. Three hours later, the bed was de-weeded and the trees left in peace to grow. Lesson learned: always budget in several hours more than you anticipate spending on any project.

In other news, our carefully selected and recommended pilot farmer was accepted into the Peace Corps Master Farmer program, meaning we will now entirely fund his farm and teach him improved techniques. That’s pretty exciting – he’s been waiting almost a year to be approved by administration. As a result I’ll be leaving Tamba again at the end of April for a Master Farmer training in Kaolack, a city on the road towards Dakar.

The Talibe (Koranic students) garden project is also flourishing. The project exists to provide local talibes with some garden experience and frankly, to give them something to do besides beg. They will also receive the crops to supplement their meager diet.   

I visited the site about a week ago to take pictures for the conference in Kolda, and the owner of the garden greeted me enthusiastically. He was bare-chested and out of breath from working in the heat of the day, but as soon as he saw me taking pictures he ran inside and put on a fancy Senegalese robe. What followed can only be called a photo-shoot. He started by calling in all his staff from the field, and making them stand behind the water basin. He then handed each of them a piece of corn or a watering can, and told them to pose. Finally, he turned on the hose so water cascaded poetically into the basin and told me gravely “we’re ready.” I ended up taking almost a hundred pictures of him in different parts of the garden. He kept saying “take one with me and this corn section. Did you get the corn? How do I look? Now take one with me and this lettuce. No, that doesn’t look good. Take another.” I mean, really, I just needed a few snapshots to show my peers at the Kolda conference. Lesson learned for a second time: always budget in several hours more than you anticipate spending on any project.

That’s all for now – me and Muus the cat (in Wolof, Cat the cat) are here and braving the heat as best we can. Would love to hear how everybody is doing in other parts of the world, and as always, love from Senegal.

<3 Phoebe

The Usual Routine (With Some Variation)

It's morning, and I awaken to a high pitch noise and a notion that I am strangely wet. As I become more aware, I remember that the cat is hungry (and making it known) and once again, I’ve managed to sweat through the sheets.  After groggily getting to my feet, becoming entangled in my mosquito net, struggling bitterly for five minutes, I emerge ready to start the day.

First order of business is to dunk a bucket of water on my head and stand in front of the fan.  This morning step is crucial if I am expected to function.  Gradually I dress in a dirty tee shirt and torn pants to work in the garden, kicking the cat around in the process. It has an unfortunate habit of climbing my leg like a tree trunk. This makes it hard to put on pants. It’s low heat, only about ninety degrees farenheight. 

I grab my bike from the courtyard, evading my host mom as she judges my appearance with a disgusted eye. I think one day I'm going to wear a fancy, embroidered Senegalese outfit to work in the garden and watch her face as I come home covered in mud and manure. Maybe she'll stop heckling me then...of course I'm dirty, I work almost exclusively with dirt, woman. 

I meet my work partner at our garden, where a few beds await digging. This process entails heaving a giant pick at the hard earth until it is broken up enough to be shoveled out. Since I have been here, we’ve created twenty wheelbarrows worth of rocks after sifting through the minimal soil. And we’re nowhere near done! I resign myself to another morning of digging, shoveling, and learning. Today I might learn how a squash plant is pollinated, or why sage cannot be layered upon itself. Odds are it will be another day of realizing just how useless my degree in religious studies is.

Around noon, the sun is burning and even my motivated, vastly-stronger-than-me work partner can’t take the heat. I trudge home, feebly waving to kids who yell my name and ask me for money. 

When I arrive my host mom skips the greetings and waves me enthusiastically into the shower, imploring me to “stop being so dirty.” I go willingly and prepare myself for a lazy afternoon of dozing in the heat, reading, and drinking tea with the numerous ladies who visit my house.

In the evening, I return to the garden to spray for pesticides or transplant perhaps lettuce, fruit trees, or lemongrass. The rest of my day consists of socializing with my family and an early retreat to my room for sleep, armed with six bottles of cold water and the fan placed strategically at the corner of my bed.

--There have been certain variations to this day, but in general, I’ve been grateful for the stability. No more evacuations please - I've had enough excitement! Some deviations include the following:

Biking to the vet with my cat in a basket on the handlebars, exciting pure confusion and contempt on the part of the Senegalese

Arriving at the vet surrounded by old men with their sick goats and cows, trying to be taken seriously with my hot pink cat basket and pleas for vaccinations

Doing laundry with my host mom, only to realize she wasn’t washing her own clothes but merely following me and washing mine twice

Inviting a man and his young daughter to a girls’ leadership conference and dealing with the question “Uh…why?”

Wheelbarrowing a large pile of manure for compost…”What is that for? Why are you wheeling around a giant pile of cow poop? Is that for your cat? Does your cat eat cow poop?”

Attending a Senegalese wedding and being called into the center of a large, intimidating dance circle…I did my best

Hearing my cat’s distress calls and rushing out to find my young host sister force feeding it sand, consequently snatching the cat and saying in an angry huff “No! Bad! You…are bad!”

Realizing I need to study Wolof so I can politely say "Please, don't feed the cat sand, it will die, thank you so much."

Until I write again, you know where to find me!

<3 Phoebe

Tambacounda, Among Other Things

I've finally arrived!
...Well, sort of. 

I made it through our technical training, a pretty anticlimactic experience considering the phone call I received from the agriculture agent (see "Something Lighter").  He turned out to be one of the nicest men I've ever met, wholly concerned with our well-being and happiness in Senegal. Despite this (haha) I learned about double digging, zai holes, demi lunes, tree grafting, and don't ask me how to do them because I've already forgotten. It's going to be a steep learning curve, but gardening and I are going to be great friends by the end of my two years here.

At approximately six-thirty am yesterday morning, I bid farewell to my fellow volunteers and hopped in a rental "sept-place" (seven seat station wagon) to drive seven hours to my new site. The city is dusty, hot as all hell and full of garbage, but also graced with a large amount of character and potential. I unloaded my baggage, met my new work-partner and biked immediately to the demonstration garden where I will spend the majority of my time here. The garden is right next to the town dump and infused with the most rocks I've ever seen not in a gravel driveway, and so it presents its challenges. However, the volunteer I am now teaming up with has made huge headway and I'm excited to get started.

The garden is used to host gardening classes and introduce new techniques, hence a significant amount of pressure on the volunteers to keep everything growing healthily and strong. In a plot of land with more rocks than soil, this is no mean feat. I'll keep you posted on our developments and insh'allah report some future successes.

My particular situation is a little tricky given that we (Niger transferees) are being installed in a non-traditional manner. In any other case, I would not be working alongside a volunteer in my exact sector, and so figuring out the division of labor and where I fit into projects already underway is a bit difficult.  I haven't met my host family yet or moved in fully, because Peace Corps screwed up - what else is new? - and didn't give us any money to buy beds, mattresses, food, etc. I am currently bunking at the regional house until tomorrow when the offices open and I can access my funds. I can't tell you how excited I am to not be living out of a suitcase. One more day...one more day and I'll have a real home! Fingers crossed I'll live here for more than eight days. Maybe set up some pictures. Or have a real bed. Never discount the importance of simple pleasures...or necessities!

My host family is very small by even American standards; a young couple and one daughter. I am lucky to have running water (yes, we're definitely not in Niger anymore) and electricity. Essentially, I have landed in the lap of luxury, so I don't know that I'll be able to claim the classic "rough" Peace Corps experience. My host family even has a computer, allegedly. But don't worry - it's still 120 degrees!

<3 Phoebe

Something Lighter

The West African Intermural Softball Tournament (WAIST) was a blast - Team Cape Niger (Cape Verde + Niger) was undefeated until Team Niger had to deflect and head home for language class on Monday. Bummer! It was great to meet tons of people, and here's hoping they remember how nice I am and not how awkward I was. It was just so overwhelming! I was also misinformed about my new region, so I spent a solid morning introducing myself as the "new volunteer" in X region, being raucously welcomed, and then retracting that information and having to introduce myself to a whole new crowd. People are still confused about where I'm posted, as am I, to be honest. In the end it will all work out!
Just had an unexpected phone call from our agriculture trainer who will be working with us next week. It went something like this:

Trainer: Hjiggdskhfh
Me: Hello? What?
Trainer: Feeejgjjgkdk?
Me: What? Who is this?
Trainer: Fooeebbe?
Me: Phoebe! Yes! That's me!
Trainer: (Several intense agriculture questions that I didn't know the answer to)
Me: Uh...I don't know (several times)
Trainer: Well I guess I know what to work on next week during your training. So, you're Italian?

This is just my week for awkward interactions, I think. I'll let you know if any more crop up before Saturday. I'm also becoming quite adept at hair cutting - income generating activity, anyone?

<3 Phoebe

Casual Cruelties

Senegal is, in many ways, similar to Niger. It's hot. It's sandy. The people are friendly and welcoming. But what I've been sensing over the past two weeks is an underlying harshness in Senegalese culture, what I believe is the direct result of the improper meshing of Western and traditional culture. Let me further explain.
In Niger, life was very hard but simple. Up with the sun, down with the sun. Modern luxuries have been trickling in, such as cell phones and electricity, but most people don't seem to feel the loss of these in a place where family and friends are all within a half-mile radius, and forms of entertainment are few and far between anyways. In all certainty, life is difficult and often short. But it isn't complicated.

In Senegal, the people are currently caught between a more intense cross-fire of Western influence and traditional heritage. In my host family, we have electricity and everybody has a fancy cell phone/mp3 player. My older host sister is a tailor and runs her own business, while my father farms and my mother makes frozen juice pops to sell to kids after school. All in all, they are doing very well for themselves. Sometimes it's hard to remember that they aren't American, especially my older sister who wears tight jeans and fancy shirts, similar to clothing I own back home.
Unfortunately, this is causing a certain amount of strife between the more traditional parents and the trying-to-be modern children. Because my sister can sustain her habits through her lucrative tailor-business, she has no financial obligation to her parents. However, family is extremely important in Senegalese culture and she would be forever labeled if she abandoned her upbringing and religion. Which she is not inclined to do, in either case. A difficult situation.
Senegal is still a developing country, so while mobile phones and electricity may be more commonplace, water is still a precious commodity and so is food. Yesterday my Western clothing-wearing, educated, self-employed sister backhanded her younger brother viciously for dropping a plate of rice. He lay in the corner of the room with a hand-sized welt ever growing on his face and was refused dinner that night. I understand corporal punishment is more common here, and I was prepared. It's still difficult to stomach and made me very uncomfortable. He's probably upwards of six years old.
It's an inconsistency like this that bring out the underlying harshness to the culture, in which I find the people struggling to adapt to the new technologies; wanting the luxuries and the resultant status but retaining the same frugalness that is forever ingrained in those who know hunger. Sometimes it seems like a new piece of electronic hardware might be more valuable than a bag of rice, and so the food they do have is preciously hoarded. It becomes worth hitting a kid over dropping a plate, because there's just so little to spare.

(There is a a slightly related article on international development that I found very, very interesting. I think everyone should read it!)

I'd like to touch upon the horribly ironic story of Koranic schools in Senegal. An infuriating practice, and one that many a Peace Corps Volunteer has encountered.
In Senegal, as in many Muslim countries, it is considered an honor to have your child study the Koran from a young age until they have "mastered" it. Ultimately, this means sending your child away to a city to live with an existing Koranic master until a vague age in their teens when they return home, with theoretical honor.
In practice, the scholars who run these "schools" don't have housing or food for their students. Instead, they set them to begging for money all day long, so the streets are clogged with kids singing Arabic loudly and jangling bowls in your face until you submit and offer a coin. The kids return to the "master's" house late at night, surrender the money and are often beaten if it is not enough. They are then set to beg for their own food because they are given none by their teacher. Often they sleep in the streets. This, in theory, is to teach them "humility." Pardon my over-usage of quotation marks in this story, but I find this all incredibly ludicrous. How can someone identify himself as a Koranic scholar and treat children so inhumanely? The irony is obvious and painful. It drives me crazy!

When these now-adolescents return home, they are untrained in any skill applicable to village or city life. They don't even have the minimal education that all Senegalese citizens are entitled. Volunteers have started projects to try and train these students in gardening, farming, literacy, really anything and everything that they haven't been taught in the first eighteen years of their lives. And of course, many volunteers have tackled this custom head on. But, as I've mentioned, there is always culture to consider. It's just not easy.

As for me, details of my day to day life are fairly mundane. Today is the Gamou, Prophet Mohammad's birthday, so happy birthday I guess! All it means to me is that I don't have language class. That probably seems culturally insensitive, but after the past few days I'm feeling rebellious.

I found out that I will be posted in a city in the middle of the country come March 5th. I'm very ready to get out there and get going with my work. Training for five months is a little excessive. This weekend I will travel to Dakar for the first time for an NGO/All Volunteer networking conference which should prove fruitful, as well as the West African Intermural Softball Tournament (WAIST) sponsored by American ex-pats in the capital. There will be four hundred volunteers in Dakar this weekend for both of these events, so I'm prepared to feel overwhelmed by social anxiety - but in the end, it will be nice to meet other Senegal volunteers and build some relationships for the remaining two years of my service!

Missin' everyone back home, and hope the snow isn't keeping you down. Literally!

<3 Phoebe