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