A few tasty treats

Today is Tabaski. At least that is what they call it here. It is based on a story that I think is quite similar to the Bible story of Abraham sacrificing his favorite son, who is later stopped by the Angel Gabriel? Am I totally mixing this up? In any case, in the story that I have been told here, Ibrahim is going to sacrifice his son Ismaellah according to God’s wishes and at the last moment, Ismaellah is replaced by a ram. So on Tabaski, every head of family buys a ram to sacrifice. This morning we sacrificed 6 rams, and thus I have just finished my third meal of the day of ram meat and onion sauce. Yum. I won’t eat for another two weeks to be sure.

After that, we all get dressed up in nice new clothes and go around visiting people’s homes. We ask forgiveness for our sins from other families in the neighborhood and then we wish them health and prosperity in the coming year. So here are a couple pics for you. Enjoy!

Wow, it has really been a long time since I wrote. But I'll make it up to you.

Tonight after I was sitting in one of the women's rooms in my house and talking with a group of them. Three were married, two were not, but certainly of the age to be married. Soon the discussions got pretty racy. For everyone's best interested I prefer to leave out the details (and you can imagine how much of the conversation I got, with my extensive Wolof vocabulary) but the part that was really funny is only PG-13. It went something like this:

Woman 1: Why don't you bring FD (names have been changed) back to the US? She could braid hair, clean, everything
Woman 2: Yeah, she'll even give sponge baths to the toubabs and wipe them after they go to the bathroom
(raucous laughter from all around)
Woman 2: I saw that, I swear, the toubabs take paper and wipe when they go to the bathroom

(at this point I am still not getting the Wolof phrases and I am thinking, what are they talking about.... shaking my head no...)

Woman 3: That doesn't make any sense, it would get all wet

Woman 1: no, they hang it on a little stick and tear off a little piece, wipe and then they throw it out. If you want you can even clean your hands with the paper when you are done ...author's note...*okay, maybe a little off on that part, but close enough*

Woman 2: see I told you!

At this point I intervened and had to admit that yes, the toubabs like to use little bits of paper in the bathroom. I talked a little bit about germs and why most americans are terrified by the idea of a turkish toilet and a lack of toilet paper. The women understood the germ thing very well, but they still think that users of toilet paper are completely alien. Ahh, another Peace Corps goal satisfied, sharing American culture the world over....

It's hot

Actually really hot. Who was I kidding? I told myself that the cold season was coming (sometimes at night I approach the sheet bunched up at the end of my bed). But no. I visited some American missionaries in town today, and you can always count on them for knowing the temperature in a number system that I can understand. Turns out that the middle of the day reaches 105 and the coolest time, early morning, is about 75 F. Certainly put things in perspective for me, ha!

I think there are fire ants in my mattress

Before I continue, for those of you that are interested, there are new photos up in my Snapfish account. Snapfish.com Email address is meryl.guyer@gmail.com and Password is Senegal. The October 2006 album is new and there are even little captions.

I wanted to include a few photos from the week of the funeral because I actually got a few with me in them and realize that they might be more interesting than bunches of Senegalese people that you don't know :) The funeral itself was solemn, but also really beautiful. The house filled with people from all over the country who came to pay their respects. I think that everyone in the family was quite honored.





The women cooking in 18 big pots for all the guests.



trying to help out, but mainly playing for the camera



Me and Pape



It's a Monday, and I can understand that... but even after a year, I can't help being annoyed when the person I am scheduled to meet with Monday at 9 am is still on an extended weekend in Dakar... and then the person I should meet at 11 has gone to the "allebi", the bush, which somehow takes on a black-hole/vacuum-esque quality whose absorbing force cannot be measured. "Do you know when he will be back?" Response "Eh, he went to the allebi" from this I am supposed to understand a timeframe...? So I resigned myself to whatever catch-up work I could get done in my office.

The office is quite a place. Like so many of us I think, I dread going to the office. But I maintain that my reasons are different. Every time I approach the building, an old colonial style that also houses the offices of the city Prefect, I have to playfully banter with the 6 idle adult males at the door. What makes my stomach turn is not how every morning I do the same act through gritted teeth "no, I can't be your wife, you are too ugly for me... no I can't take you to America... no, I still can't cook ceeb u diene" but actually the fact they are adult men who are getting paid just to sit around. They are somehow employees. Of what and for what is the great mystery. One might be a driver... there's another guy who sorts the mail (? In a country with 40% literacy and almost atrophied local government, let's be honest the Prefect does not get that much mail)... who knows what the other 4 guys do. But they are always there. In fact, after I tried to shut my door to my office today and in so doing shattered a lightbulb on my head, one of these men told me that he was the one that pulled the wiring out of the wall and let it hang there, putting the bulb in the way of the door. Hmmmmm.... Very effective....

The morning did turn around though-- I was preparing and translating lesson plans when I had my other mid-morning visitors. the guinea hens were back. Every day they roll in around 11:30... usually I just shoo them away and its not a big deal. What would possibly attract a pack of guinea hens to my cement and tile office anyway? And have you ever seen a guinea hen? I will try to get a photo, but they must be a Dr. Seuss creation-- an oversized oblong body set at a steep angle that looks almost like a football in a stand, and then a goofy little head that pokes up and around like an ostrich. Anyway, this particular morning caught me distracted and I ignored the hens pecking around on my floor for a few minutes. When I finally looked up again from my computer the ring leader had hopped onto the chair across the desk from me and sat there demanding answers. "Oh you too?" Until this very moment I am wondering how such an unwieldy body and useless wings got that hen all the way up onto the chair.

It seemed to coincide with the turmoil I have in my head. I can't get two thoughts together myself and this stupid half-ostrich is demanding answers? I'm caught in this endless debate about what to do after Peace Corps and I have no idea where to go. So here it is guys, this is the real chance to give me your opinions. What is a good field? Where can I make enough money to put an end to my rice and pounded leaf sauce diet? Do I need to go back to school? I was thinking med school but exploring options and who knows? Journalism? Public Policy? Could I really be a doctor? It's not all that far away...

Who wins the prize?

This is certainly a twist on the development model...

Africa leaders offered prize for ruling well
By Alan Cowell The New York Times


Mo Ibrahim, a Sudanese-born billionaire, announced the creation of a $5 million prize for the sub-Saharan African president who demonstrates the greatest commitment to democracy and good governance during their time in office.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/26/news/prize.php

Must see/read news

Very exciting stuff from the world of microfinance. At least for me, I was giggling like a little girl...

Microlean Pioneer and His Bank Win Nobel Peace Prize



(this was a major inspiration to go into Peace Corps and Business Development)

and also



it's a must-see, great way to participate in one of the best grassroots development practices around.



Another great site for third-world development through entrepreneurship

All my best!

Meryl

laugh already!

Just to alternate from the bad news earlier in the week I have a couple funny stories to share…

First, I threw myself to the wolves today. There is always a kind of a power struggle here and age wins out, no matter what. In fact, the whole society is ordered this way. Good behavior is determined by the elders, people are accepted or rejected based on what the elder members of the community say, and it goes on and on. Every task is determined the same way, as a young person, you will be told how everything should be done—the laundry, the mopping, even how to cut an onion. This can be pretty annoying if you are university-educated foreigner who thinks she has a pretty good idea of how to cut an onion and doesn’t want to be pushed around. Worse yet is when the Wolofs around you decide after 30 seconds that you are physically incapable of cutting onions and refuse to let you try any more. But in the end, I decided to put myself to this test, knowing that if the gamble worked, the payoff would be enormous.

The test was “moyne” the act of mixing millet flour and water in a big calabash bowl to make tiny grains that will be made into couscous. Believe it or not, the process is pretty tricky and there is (of course) a specific technique to get the most perfect grains, not too dry, not too big, not too clumpy. It was awfully scary sitting in the middle of all the big-shot Wolof grandmothers and trying it, but I actually succeeded and the chorus of praise (WAAW Koumba! Waaw kaaye!) was definitely worth it. I knew that my acceptance was confirmed when I kept getting meat thrown in front of me at the bowl at lunch by an imposing grandmother with a very toothy smile.

The second story is courtesy of my neighbor Neil. The post here in Senegal is extremely expensive, but every once in a while we just have to mail something out. Neil wanted to mail a little music and a couple other things to a friend, but his package was going to cost him 8.000 cfa, which is just too much (about $16). The postman told him that if he could reduce the weight by 4 grams, the price would be cut in half. The two of them dissected the package, looking for something to throw out. Turning up nothing, the postman simply took the cd case, held the cover firmly, cracked it in half and threw out the piece not attached to the hinge. Problem solved.

siigil ndigale

The tragic news is that my host dad, Massar Sarr, passed away two days ago. I was just getting into a car to return to Louga from Dakar when I got the news on my cell phone. Baay Massar was in his 60s and has been ill and bed-ridden for several years, but the news was nevertheless a shock. There is a definite sadness that hangs over the house in recent days, but it is encouraging to see everyone regroup in the family and gather with the community. I have been able to spend more time with my family members than usual during this time, as well as learn much more about how they deal with the death of a family member. You can see a photo of the late Massar Sarr with his first wife and several of his grandkids or grand-nieces and nephews. The other photo is Massar's brother with two visitors.

I learned a Wolof proverb today: Boo xeye gis say mbokki yepp, amulo lii la geunal. A rough translation is : He who awakens in the morning and sees all of his relatives knows that bad news awaits. the significance is that in Senegal a family member might miss a big holiday or occasionally a baptism but no one would miss a funeral. And it seems to be true. The house has been full of people over the past few days and I have met so many relatives that I never have seen before.

The funeral ceremony is planned for Sunday. From what I can gather, there will be a part where men sing verses of the Koran for several hours in front of the house, and the local marabout will spend the day along with all the relatives and neighbors at the house. Up until then, the three remaining wives of my host dad lay in a room wearing white head scarves and surrounded by blankets made in the traditional weaving style of Senegal. Community members and friends come to the doorway of the room and kneel, offer their condolences and then drop coins or small bills into a basket in front of the women.

Even though each person only spends a few moments with the women, they stay outside and spend the day sitting and talking. I had an interesting conversation with a couple of the neighborhood men. One of them posed the question, “if you had lots and lots of money, what would you do?”

I spit out my very predictable answer “travel”
The other two men responded “build a mosque” and then “build a house for my family, build a franco-arab school and then build a mosque”


Chew on that one for a little while.

Ode to Underwear

We are roughly 20 days into Ramadan right now which means its pretty slow around here. You've probably noticed that I haven't written since then. I've actually been more busy with work recently since everything comes down during Ramadan and we can get more real work done.

I just got out of the shower and consequently, done washing my underwear by hand. I have to comment on the monotony and ridiculousness of this task. I can't set out underwear with the rest of my clothes to be washed-- we were told it was culturally insensitive. I never got the whole gist of it, but I'd hate to be stepping on toes. So every day I wash my underwear. I don't think I would want to set it out anyway seeing as how my clothes always come back as though they've seen the third world war. Bleach and mysterious hole-creating forces permeate my clothes, despite the hardest work of the girl who regularly does my laundry. So everything is literallly torn apart and even though I wash my own underwear I am starting to see holes take over. The laundry soap here I am convinced smells worse that actual dirty clothes smell and doesn't succeed in actually removing much dirt. Maybe it is my half-hearted sloshing around of soap and underwear in the water bucket, but every time I take my sun-stiffened underwear off the line I find myself cringing at the thought of having to put these on again in a few days. The real test comes when you have been a volunteer long enough to be willing to buy your underwear from the local goodwill-style clothes seller. I've wandered into that part of the market, been drawn to it (such is the allure of non-sun-stiffened undergarments) but I still haven't made the jump. This is perhaps my ultimate weakness as a volunteer. Bring on the plague of crickets (I count 6 on my computer screen right now). Bring on dysentery and giardia. bring on sheep intestines and fish heads. But something restrains me from making that last break from Toubab-ness, buying underwear of unknown origins. So this leads me now to the Ode to Mom, who has agreed to mail me new, never before hand-washed underwear.

In other news, our bull broke out of his pen today and wreaked havoc in the house. ever heard of the bull in the China shop? This is what happens when you keep the cows in the house.

And, tomorrow I will attempt to fast with the Senegalese. Wish me luck!

Miss you all!

Development in Gardening

Check out a fantastic initiative started by some of our very own Senegal volunteers. A n NGO dedicated to caring for AIDS patients with self-sustaining gardening projects.

http://www.developmentingardening.org/DIG/HOME.html

School (again) and wildlife stories

Absolutely crazy morning. I guess I was feeling sleepy anyway and should be happy for this turn of events, but still it is disappointing. I showed up to my computer class with the people from my house this morning at 10 only to find that the government did not pay the electricity, phone or water bills for any school in the country. So all the services have been cut off. Thank goodness regular classes have not yet begun, but for any extra things like summer study sessions, watering the plants and trees as well as computer classes like mine, things are difficult.

Just makes you appreciate a public school system that functions.

In other news, I should talk about my recent craziness. Normally I would hide this from the blog and pretend that I am only a stellar volunteer, but the truth is I’ve gone a bit crazy, and certain associates have encouraged me to share it with you as evidence of what service in the third world can do to a person.

I’ve had some recent brushes with the wilderness that remind me just how far I am from being comfortable on a couch in suburban Indiana.

I went running with my neighbor Neil the other day where we normally run, way out in the bush where there are fewer people and cars and the air is (usually) fresher. Only about 400 meters into the run, right in the middle of farmer’s fields which are almost ready for harvest, we see an enormous truck emptying none other than tanks full of sewage and human waste onto the ground. Needless to say, the smell was terrible and neil and I kind of freaked out about the health implications—just the other day I sat around with my whole family eating beans practically fresh off the vine. Really scary thoughts.

It gets better (or worse). The rains have really dredged up a lot of insects, meaning that I chase roaches and geckos and crickets out of my room nightly. I guess I didn’t do so well a few nights ago because I woke up feeling really congested—I thought I might be getting sick until I blew my nose and found, guess what, a spider. Miracles of the human body—at least this means that I didn’t ingest it.

Which is better than I can say for the fish eyes the following evening for dinner. (and I forgot to tell you that my last meal before leaving for the states happened to be sheep’s head. Normally when we eat sheep’s head I don’t even know it because all the meat has been pulled off the bones ahead of time. But this time, for some reason, the cook left all the parts in, including jaw bones filled with teeth. My one mom even took the jaw, cracked it in half and pulled the tongue out from inside and tried to feed it to my cat. Scary when even the cat won’t look at it twice.)

One more wildlife story-- we have our cows tied up outside the house these days (there is one that just had a baby which is sooo cute!) While I was walking to the boutique on the corner my first mom started yelling at everyone to grab the baby cow. He was eating a big plastic bag—so we all kind of danced around trying to get the bag out of his mouth, but he took refuge under his mom and then the mom started charging at people. She was tied to a tree, so we all got out in the end, but it would have been terrible to be gored by a cow’s horn in front of my very own house. And the silly baby cow ate the whole plastic bag and choked and coughed for a while.

My computer class

Here are some captions for the pictures in this post:
1)A mural on a school wall where I teach computers
2) The building on the left is the "computer room." The crazy guy on the steps is our guard (whose last name also happens to mean "urinate" in Wolof). The little white building is the director's office/teacher room and storage area-- it is the size of a closet.
3)The shack made out of pieces of metal is a makeshift classroom. The school (like all the other primary schools in Louga is severely overcrowded. Each elementary student has to do a competition (through standard testing) to try to get one of the limited spots in the middle school. If you don't pass, you can repeat the year, but most kids repeat once or twice and then give up.
4,5,6) Students working in the computer class. The women in #6 are part of my family-- my "sister-in-law" and my "sister"
7) The sanitary block at the school. On the right is the original. On the left is one built by an NGO a couple years ago.
8) One more student in the class



I've got a pretty solid computer class going on these days, with photos to boot so I thought I would tell you a bit about it

I teach every morning (it used to be two classes which each met twice a week) but now we put the two classes together and meet every day. We are trying to rush and finish everything before Ramadan starts next Saturday. During the period of Ramadan ( a full 30 days) most adults will fast from daybreak to sunset. They don't eat or drink anything for the entire day. THe period is one of the five pillars of Islam so the fasting is practiced by nearly everyone. It is extremely hard to work during this time too-- people are tired and grumpy and often get sick and to be honest it is just too hot to try to function without food or water. So there is the reason for hurrying things along.

The class started with about 15 people and although attendance isn't totally regular, most people are present on the days they can be there and they are starting to get some information out of it. We started on things that seem so simple-- what is a computer? what is memory? how do you use the keyboard? (the double-click was a major step) and now we are getting into email accounts and using an address book; using search engines and sending files. I was so happy when we first starting using email and the students were honestly giddy about being able to send each other little messages.

There are some problems-- as you can see in the pictures, the school that houses this computer room is very poor. The computers were a donation years ago and have fallen into disrepair and the school is very crowded. During the year they use a classroom for the computer room, but once classes start again they will have to close off the computers so the students will have space to work. There are also problems with the direction, which is not very proactive, and the guard, who is currently in charge of managing the computer room and doesn't now anything about computers (sometimes he rips the plugs out of the wall in frustration!) But in the end, I am encouraged by this class. The class is young people and old, men and women-- it truly is an atmosphere that one almost never sees in Senegal, and everyone seems to be equals (refreshing!)

Enjoy, more photos to come!

Senegalese Emigration in Pictures

on BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/5335062.stm

check it out

trapped!

I wrote the other day about feeling trapped by poverty. I didn't think it would take effect so quickly but here I am. Trapped, in a different sort of way. It has rained for 8 straight hours. Not the messing around, play in the streets kind of rain, but the kind that rattles my tin roof until I think it will fly off (although it still doesn't manage to cool the interior... )

so jet lag + rain means that I haven't left my room in 36 hours... Cabin Fever! this is another thank you to care packages... what would I do without Sudoku puzzles and beef jerky? I have nearly finished an entire tome by Salman Rushdie and still going strong.

On a side note, I was so worried about needing to carry little silly gifts for family, friends and work partners here (the gift from your trip thing is taken pretty seriously) that I never bought myself any wonderful american treats to bring back with me... so mom, my apologies in advance for repeated phone calls asking for granola bars and wheat thins...

here are some more photos of the "ocean" in front of my house

and on a lighter note

I was welcomed home so warmly by my family that I had to remember why I came here. They truly are so wonderful, I couldn't leave them. And I have to thank my volunteer friends and my local other Toubabs for remembering me too! They all were in touch in my first few days home and I feel so lucky to have a great community here.

This doesn't negate the fact that I couldn't bring myself to eat rice today and ended up sitting on my floor and boiling packaged mac and cheese (thank you care packages!)

and several of my work partners have been in touch as well, which is encouraging!

thanks so much to everyone at home-- friends, family, friends of friends (maybe even the ND Football team?) for making my visit home spectacular. I can't wait to be back with all of you!

Cold Turkey

I haven't been very good at posting in the last few weeks-- but it's for a very good reason. I just returned from a visit to the states, where I met with friends and family and enjoyed all the pleasures of home for a solid 2+ weeks.

It was really a fantastic trip home (there were golf and cigars involved, a plastic tub of mango margaritas, a Tigers game of stickball, strobe lights and even french fries) so I thought I got a good dose of the US to last me for a while. and then it was time to go back to senegal and I started to change my mind.

I won't go into the details, but on my first day back in senegal I missed home more than I expected-- I missed not having to argue with the cab driver about the price before I got in the car. I missed clean streets and pretty buildings and happy smiling faces of people I might actually know. The list really could go on and on. what I really found myself wondering is-- am I completely ready to do another 15 months of this? Was I just joking when I did the first year?

So I propose a new re-insertion method for volunteers. No more cold turkey (it doesn't work and it is just plain painful). Instead, I suggest a slow-drip IV. Somehting that is portable, easy to use and not too disturbing to passersby. A little Wolof thown in here, a little rice and fish here, a casual string of shouted greetings, a chorus of sheep and even the sand from the streets. The most important is that it be entirely constant, so that instead of forgetting we have a nice and easy re-entry...

What this all really comes down to is that I had forgotten for a moment what it is like to live in this kind of poverty. I can only begin to imagine what it must really mean-- but seeing it again here was like seeing it for the first time. I think it is so easy to forget, especially after being here for a while, because people truly do show a resiliency and resourcefulness in their lives. But the reality of it is that poverty is a crushing factor here in senegal. there is no way to measure it based on what food people eat or what people buy for clothing, etc. I mean that it can be crushing to the spirit, creativity and optimism in people. We just had the period of exams for students here in Senegal and I was disappointed and discouraged by what I learned. Widespread strikes in the school systems prevented students from preparing well for their exams and in some cases even meant that the exams were never graded. For many students this means definite failure. The chances of passing are actually so narrow that many never leave elementary school. There are two universities in Senegal. One is highly competitive, with limited space. The other is public and open to all who pass their exams, meaning that classes can exceed 500 students and more. For many the only hope to really get ahead is to win a scholarship to study in Europe or America. Paying their way alone would be literally impossible. Scholarships from the government are so few that only a handful of students can benefit and private sector scholarships are non-existent.

Maybe I am just venting some frustration, but it seems like a one-way street for most people. The obstacles are so huge even to getting an education, that everything else-- job, well-being are like dreams.

I guess it is time

...to tell you all what I actually do here.

I know that probably everyone reading this blog has been asking the question since I left the states (including "why on earth is she joining the Peace Corps") but lets take this one stepa t a time.

SO I am a Small Business Development Volunteer in Louga Senegal. This means that I am assigned to work in the city of Louga, a place with about 200,000 people. And that's pretty much where the rules end. I can teach classes for groups of people or I can work individually with an entrepreneur to get a business going or improve on something that he already does. The beauty of it is that I can work with government officials or I can work with youth ; womens groups or individual entrepreneurs. I have a couple members of the community who are my advisors but beyond that I am not confined by any institution or target community. This is essential for our work for a number of reasons-- I might really struggle trying to define my role at times, but in the end I wouldn't want it any other way.

So it works like this. I spent three months getting to know the community. I introduce myself and my work and then I wait for them to take the lead. The people who follow up and call me are most motivated and the most promising work partners, but sometimes I have to push a little too, since people are shy and a little suspicious of the random toubab offering free business advice.


Now that I have been here in Louga for about 8 months, the work is really starting to pile up. It is an extremely active town that is growing fast. We have hundreds of associations that have different activities, many major goverment offices and of course innumerable individual business owners. At the same time, it seems that everyone who isn't already in a business has a "project" that they want to develop or they want to run a business but don't know what. The fact that almost all educated jobs are as goverment employees and the overall unemployment rate is more than 50% drives many people to search other ways to support themselves, primarily through commerce.

Once a person has an idea we start planning. We talk about business plans and marketing and accounting. Then we talk about how he or she can approach a credit and loan institution. Louga is huge for microfinance and opportunities abound for people with well-developed business plans.

Of course, this is the ideal. It definitely isn't easy, and when it works it is bound to be a long slow process. many of my "clients" : the people I meet with on a regular basis to do business planning, are semi-literate, or most difficult of all, have never been to school. Which makes things like accounting, marketing and even the most basic planning a little out of reach.

even still we can usually come to an understanding. We try to simplify the concepts as much as possible and talk about what the entrepreneur hopes to gain in the future. This leads to a discussion of goals and then about what is feasible with the resources available. There are many things we would love to be more precise with (it is so hard to run a business with no accounting!) but for the moment we are satisfied with just more critical thinking.

Here is a little idea of some of the projects going on right now:
Business Planning-- local entrepreneur hopes to introduce rechargeable Batteries in local markets
Business Planning-- local entrepreneur hopes to expand refrigerator parts and repair store
Business Planning-- Aluminum worker wishes to expand his shop and add new tools
Business Planning-- Metal Apprentice wishes to open own shop
Business Planning-- English teacher wishes to open Language Institute
Business Planning-- Youth group looks for ways to make fields more profitable
Marketing-- Artisanal soap maker looks for better production and packaging methods
Teaching-- Local adults learn to use computers
Teaching-- Louga citizens take English Classes with local teachers

Does that make sense?

a medical question

Kari and Ted (volunteers from Linguere area, about 2.5 hours away) came through the other day and I thought I should share with you some of our musings

Kari: I wonder how much permament damage is being done to my gastro-intestinal tract while serving as a PC volunteer? Constant exposure to amoebas, cysts, giardia, and a daily medication regimen that would rival the average hospitalization.

Ted: I once sent a letter to a high school PE teacher telling him that his students should do a class project on my health. Exercise, diet, heat exposure, medications, etc.

Kari: Do twelve servings of white rice and six of cooking oil increase or decrease your chances of a long and healthy life?

So here is the question-- what will we be like 10, 20, 50 years from now? Do simple carbohydrates, a contaminated water supply and long hours of heat exposure and physical labor strengthen or weaken the human condition? Will we leave here looking (and feeling) like the shriveled lung you looked at in the smoking section of the health book?

I'm hoping that the lifestyle is coupled with an unstoppable ability to shake one's butt and shout louder than anyone in a tri-state area.

It can't be any less healthy than how I lived in college right? Only now beer is replaced with rice

Best day ever

First it rained, really really hard. It rained for what seemed like hours and with an intensity that made it sound like a marching band was playing on my roof. I hardly slept all night and when I finally dragged myself out into the courtyard I saw that the entire street in front of my house was turned into a pond. I spent all day calling it the ocean, telling the kids to try to catch fish and jumping from rock to rock to get out and do some work.

The rain is good news. I was starting to believe that “rainy season” was a misnomer, and my little corner of the Sahel was just an interpretation of “Sahara”. And the farmers. Nine months without rain don’t prepare the fields. But now it came and everyone just chilled out. The weather is cooler, but sticky and it heats up so fast in the afternoon that you could almost see steam rising off the street (or at least off my shoulders).

I had another episode in the night a few days later-- I couldn’t sleep again (I think that insomnia hits a lot of volunteers at different periods) and even though I was just minding my own business reading in bed a big fat cockroach skittered right into my bed, slinking through the gap in my mosquito net (I am lazy about closing it properly because I sleep on the floor and my windows have netting on them). Of course I screamed and jumped up, getting tangled in the net. I have never been so scared in my life. But I was standing there, searching my bed for the bug until I felt it move, on my back. I think I woke up the neighborhood, and then stripped down so fast that my clothes ended up in different corners of the room. This is war. I was excited about the rain until critters started taking refuge in my room.

So it is vacation too, for the kids in school. I am usually not at home during the day, since I go into town to work, but today, Sunday, I realized how exhausted everyone is with the kids. I decided to take a big risk and get out construction paper and crayons. I was terrified-- usually anything for the kids becomes a huge ordeal where things get destroyed, etc. But we had the best morning. Each of the kids drew something for my mom and dad-- I told them I would be going home soon to visit and that my parents wanted to know the kids. So it was a cheap ploy to get to decorate my room with their drawings for a few weeks, but it worked and I’ll try to post a photo-- it certainly brings some happiness to the room!

The Money Story

It is sometimes very scary to think about the real situation here in Senegal. I have been here long enough to kind of get used to life and the environment and sometimes I forget just how hard and unfair it is. I lose perspective. I guess in a good way, since I stop looking at people here and thinking only about the dirt that they live in, the poor conditions of education, inadequate health care and job opportunities. Instead I see just my neighbors, my family, or the guy whose sense of humor I really enjoy, or the nice old lady on the corner that struggles to show me the teeth she has left in a big smile whenever I see her.

But today was one of those days when I sort of got my perspective back. It tends to happen when I sit down with someone and really get into the grit of my work. I spoke at length with my host mother about the problems the family currently faces. Being the first wife, she is in charge of the finances for the entire family. Her husband, an older man, has been extremely sick for years. He cannot work and requires constant care and attention as well as medicines and an occasional visit from a nurse. The other adults in the house, for the most part, do not work. They try, selling items that they make in the market or raising chickens to sell for food, but for the most part the opportunity in the market is very small and family members lack technical skills and education to attempt many other businesses. In addition, due to cultural norms and certain parts of Islam, my host mother has taken care of a good number of grandchildren, second cousins, or simply other community members. It is the true African family and after living here for more than 6 months I still don’t know where everyone comes from.

So what it comes down to is that the whole family (35 people or so) is supported by 1 son who lives in New York and sells sheets (let this open an immigration debate please), another son who lives in Dakar and sells car parts, and me, from the rent and food that I pay for from Peace Corps. Already I think we can all see where the problem lies. Food is not all that expensive here, but having electricity and running water is. And the bills are serious. (The cost of electricity here is twice what it is in the states-- try that against a struggling currency and a weak economy)

But it gets worse. My family is in trouble with the Mayor’s office. They own three little stalls in a market near our house. After selling there for a while they saw that the market does not draw any clients, it is in a very poor neighborhood and people prefer to go to the big market. So the stores were losing money and they closed them. There are no buyers for the stores. But now the mayor’s office wants its tax money on these boutiques-- for the past two years. It only amounts to about $300 overall, but in Senegal that is a hell of a lot of money.

So now it is my job to work with my family to start a business that they can do with the skills that they have, that they can make money with, and that is sustainable. And how do you do that when you have 35 mouths to feed and are already in a hell of a lot of debt?

Yes, I came here for development. Yes, I came here to get to know the real issues. Yes, I came here to make an impact. But sometimes the problem seems bigger than all of us and our good intentions combined.

my black cat

I have to make some comments on my recent return to Louga after a two-week vacation with my wonderful friends, Bridget and Leah.

Coming home is almost a game now, where I get to guess what kind of a state my room, my fridge and now even my cat might be in, This one was particularly entertaining. The room was great, no problems there… the fridge… well minus the infant suppositories and a freezer packed full of candy my family hopes to sell we are still doing great. Now my cat. The Senegalese really don’t like cats, and for good reason. Cats here are outdoor animals, scavengers and mongrels—interestingly enough this is how I saw cats in America (no offense to cat owners, I just never thought I would be in the position to have one of my very own). But my family here in Louga has slowly warmed to my cat. The girls still scream and jump and run away when he gets out, but they also regularly feed him and shoo him lovingly from their bedrooms when he surprises them.

That being said I was surprised when I came home and heard that my family was trying to wash my cat-- this seemed to me to be a complete oxymoronic Amelia Badelia kind of thing to do, like ironing a bathing suit (which believe me has happened here), especially strange because to this day no one likes to actually touch the cat, they can only observe him. But then I saw him I understood; my once white cat had turned a stingy gray. I examined his fur and decided, no he isn’t dirty, he’s just getting older and at a small seven months the gray hair is finally starting to come out. So I assured my family in broken Wolof that nothing was wrong. How silly for them to think that his fur was dirty and not just changing color!

Then I started to pet him and slowly my hand started turning gray, and then black. Here I am again, the crazy tubab who doesn’t even know how to take care of her own tubab cat and not even another tubab in town to call and ask (everyone seems to be on vacation these days). So I finally decided I would just have to dunk my cat and get this stuff off of it. He really started getting feisty after I dipped him by the tail a few times but finally got most of the dirt off of him. I later sheepishly admitted to my family that they were right—then I got the real story. Apparently he got out of my room a few days ago when they went to feed him and decided to go rolling in the charcoal. Ha!

The other funny part of this is the “seriche.” It is a Senegalese custom to bring a gift when you come home after a trip or some time away from your family. I stopped doing it for a while for myriad reasons, first and foremost that a gift from a tubab carries too much tension with it. But this time I really was gone for a long time and I had some bubble gun I had been meaning to give them. So I gave my host mom a pack of 8 smaller packs of gum, each containing 5 pieces. I promptly disappeared in order to avoid the chaos that would ensue. Thirty minutes later I had ten kids tapping at my door saying they didn’t get any seriche. How is this possible? My mom didn’t realize she needed to open each pack to get at the actual gum and instead 8 kids were wandering around with a whole pack of gum in their mouths rather than each person getting one piece. Perfect. Those 8 kids were damn proud though, which I guess brings a smile to my face.

So in other news the girls visited, yay! And made it safely home without a hitch. I really want to start by thanking them. As soon as I got back to louga I realized how impressed everyone was with them here. And of course here is where it matters most to me. It isn’t easy for a visitor to come and spend time sitting and talking with people-- dealing with all the specificities of a culture that they don’t know. I am also appreciative of the fact that they really shared in the way I live here with my family and my friends. They even shared in some of the stresses that I deal with, and I again, grateful. Here is how some of these encounters went.

Random Senegalese dude: hello, are you fine?
Leah: yes I am fine
(intermittent awkwardness, language issues, leah clearly wanting to read her book on the beach, RSD clearly wanting a tubab girlfriend and thinking Leah is a good candidate, RSD striking a magazine centerfold pose on the beach)
RSD: will you teach me to swim?
Leah: My friends speak French, they are in the water, go ask them.
Me and Bridge in the water: Looks like you’re doing just fine Leah!
RSD: Okay, I go.
(Bridget and I promptly start swimming to shore as he starts swimming out toward us)
On arrival to shore we strategize about how best to be left in peace while I listen to RSD’s friend calls out to him in Wolof “hey, where did you get that tubab?”
Not more than 5 minutes pass before RSD and his buddy decide again to grace us with their presence.

RSD: why do you not teach me to swim?
Meryl: Oh, you wanted us to teach you to swim? We didn’t know.
(all three of us are buried in our books, dying to be left alone, but this guy lounging and flexing his muscles at us just does not get body language)
RSD: (still talking at us, I tuned him out long ago)
Meryl: I’m sorry but we really just want to relax right now
RSD: Oh am I bothering you?
Meryl: No comment
RSD: Okay then (to Leah) I will leave you my address
Leah; No thanks, that’s okay
RSD: (still kneeling to give leah his address) what is that?
Leah: Meryl, tell him
Meryl: (cracking up) (in Wolof) she said, no thanks
RSD: she no want it?
Leah: no

It was a beautiful thing, and after only one hour we had peace again.

check out this article

Spriritual Work Bears Fruit in Senegal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5075534.stm

a visit back to thies

I have to take a moment to talk about how impressed I am with my first host family here in senegal. Last night i visited them in their home in Thies and I was so happy and comfortable with the visit. It is hard to express why things went so well, but there was not a single problem-- they didn't treat me like some strange ghost coming to visit. We immediately settled in and started talking. They honestly care about me, my adjustment to Louga, my family at home, and likewise I really care about them. Little Fallou is in a session of serious exams so that he can continue school, Dior my sister just started a new job, Seynabou is finishing her first year of teaching in a school-- I am just so impressed with all of them. They are really model people as well, the mother divorced several years ago and now supports their entire family which is actually more than 8 people. SHe has instilled in all of the kids the importance of studying, of marrying the person of your choice, to keep in mind your financial status when planning a family, and most importantly to work hard. Being with them was so refreshing and inspiring, I can only hope that someday my family in Louga will all have such lofty goals and accomplished students.

So then I learned that Dior is about to get married! This is going to be a big day. I wish I could tell the whole story here but it just won't fit-- the basics are that I got introduced to the fiance before I knew what was going on. Then my mom, Nogaye, started to tease mesaying he's ugly, Dior made a bad choice, she couldn't get anyone better-- this naturally made me so uncomfortable, I didn't know what to say, but it is a typical Wolof joke-- Seynabou finally saved me saying a Wolof proverb "a man cannot be ugly if his pockets are deep" Perfect.

The story ends that the girls asked me to be in the ceremony as a "bridesmaid" an honor reserved for sisters and close friends. This will be quite an experience-- Wolof parties are crazy enough without a random toubab crashing it. and it means that I get a new dress to match all the other girls and we'll have to dance in front of everyone to really loud music. kind of like in the states but much more embarrassing when you are all white and awkward. There is something about Wolofs that makes them naturally very cool and sexy that just leaves us tubabs looking weird.

probably good to end with that philosophical statement :)

photos are up!

okay; the good news is that I think enough photos are up that I'm willing to unveil them,

please take a look

www.snapfish.com
go to login in the upper right corner
email is meryl.guyer@gmail.com
password is senegal

enjoy!

10 reasons why my grandma would have loved senegal

As much as my relationship with senegal has its ups and downs I really have to acknowledge that it is a great country with a lot of true paradise within its borders and also some truly incredible people. I found myself walking through town the other day thinking how much my grandmother might have appreciated its sandy beaches and warm afternoons, which led to a much funnier moment imagining my grandmother actually arriving in Senegal... thus this week's theme.

10 There is no arguing with the thermostat, it is the perfect temperature, 110 degrees at any moment of the day.

9 There are so many helpful people around! Even just now a nice young gentleman helped me into my taxi, too bad I seem to have misplaced my wallet and that gold necklace I was wearing...

8 Whether it is fish and rice or meat and rice, all the food seems to take on an even oatmeal consistency

7 There is always a team of young girls around to manage the housework.

6 There is not a single Detroit Lion's football game to be found on any station. Only the Senegal Lions soccer games

5 In fact there is only 1 station, and more often than not it is dominated by religious programming

4 Lettuce in the market it always on sale, only 20 cents. Beats the pants off the price at the base.

3 Plastic shopping bags and baskets and even wearing hair nets is really in style

2 They even have a golf course! and it's the perfect size, just 12 holes...

1 All the music is played loud enough that it doesn't matter how good your hearing is; it will come in loud and clear.

what is weird about this?

Lots of big news recently and still I can think to write about is work stuff-- maybe the biggest rollercoaster I've been on in my life. First things first. Jonathan arrives in less than one week, and I think pretty much everyone within 11 miles of me has been alerted. The women are all trying to get me ready for this mysterious male guest, telling me what kind of incense to burn in my room, the best kind of plastic beads to wear around my waist (the bine-bine is a classic Wolof trick-- every girl from 2 days to 52 years is wearing them), how I should do my makeup, my hair, etc. Anyway, the excitement when (and if) jonathan actually makes it to Louga should be worth the wait. My Louga host family has been debating for months whether they should kill a lamb, a camel or a goat for the occasion. can't wait

In other news I got a cat. a little kitten, a boy. and I named him Scout, pronounced "Scoot" in Senegalese fashion. At first he was great... we played, we cuddled, he scratched the hell out of my hands in a sweet loving way... but then i started to realize, scoot has a real mean streak which is primarily played out in his peeing on my bed several times a day and throughout the night. even when I finally get peace (although sleeping in a bed that stinks of kitten urine) I am awoken at 5:30 am. why? while I have learned to sleep through the call to prayer, Scoot has not, and Scoot is a morning cat, who likes to play, leap and pounce as soon as he wakes up, a pattern which often brings his path right across my face.

Work stuff too is amusing. I had a meeting the other day with a representative of the mayor of Louga, who also happens to somehow work with a branch of an NGO out of Dakar. he came to my office and we discussed his plan, which while constructive and ambitious, is also nebulous, undefined and unrealistic. When I began to inquire as to the detailed functioning of the project, or even of his knowledge of the different themes he was quite taken aback. Keep in mind that this is our third meeting... It was now that he chose to ask me who I was, where I was from, what kind of education I had, etc. Already he is seriously doubting my ability to assess his project validilty... but here is the real kicker,... his questions had been going on for a while and I knew something was weird and then there it was "when you were in the united states did you know anyone with black skin? did you ever work with anyone with black skin?" wow. the part that is even scarier.... is that he was not talking about racism-- that whole concept wasn't even part of his thinking. Instead, the point he was trying to get at was that in his opinion no person with black skin would worry about financial details or business plans. It was not the culture of planning that separated us, but just simply the color of our skin. Blown away, I didn't even know how to respond. Anyway, he was soon out of my office, blank business plan guide forms tucked under his arm, probably never to be seen again.

Bifall Gamou April 16

so we killed a cow two nights ago. It was pretty gory and also kind of cool since when it was done there was an enormous dismembered bull head and horns sitting in our courtyard area for hours. They started late at night so that by the end the old man charged with directing the operation was crouched under a flickering spotlight using his machete to chop the last parts into manageable pieces. It is a distinct image in my mind still and its too bad that I couldn't photo it to share with you-- or maybe that would be worse, since then the image in my mind would clash with the reality. Anyway-- the gentleman, Aliou Gueye is a wiry, thin man with bits of white in a scraggly beard and even at night under the spotlight he wore his sunglasses, a second-hand pair of gold-rimmed aviators. the sheath for his machete pushed aside and the dulled blade covered in blood, his crouch brought him close to the middle of the animal skin spread in the packed sand of our kitchen courtyard. Each leg of the animal retained its distinct shape, even skinned down to the bone, they stacked one on another behind Gueye while he worked down to the end, finally hacking the hooves and tail loose from the skin and dropping them into the pit of water and refuse my brothers had dug into the ground before the slaughter.

anyone who is as familiar with large mammal anatomy as I now am knows a cow is a hell of a lot of meat. and considering the practice here of eating everything that is edible, I was sure we'd have a lot of food ahead of us. And we ate the whole thing (I think) yesterday. It was the Bifall Gamou in Tivaouane. Which I know doesn't mean anything-- but what is important is that it is a religious pilgrimage to a town called tivaouane, made by members of the Bifall sect (a sub-sect of a Senegalese Muslim brotherhood called Mouride). I think that most people would agree that Bifalls tend to be somewhat more radical (in a religious sense, not a crazy militant sense) of the senegalese sects. they have their own marabouts (or religious leaders) just like the rest of the sects, but they worship them with a fanaticism that is not as fanatic in some of the other groups. In any case, I certainly felt that when I was in Tivaouane.

Which brings me to broach a topic that I would rather just avoid, but I think it is kind of necessary-- and that is racism and intolerance. I can't even pretend to know what it feels like to experience it every day for one's entire life, but I also never thought I would experience it to the extent that I have here. even at this religious event, for Islam, which invokes peace and tolerance in every aspect, I experienced it even more deeply than I do on a normal day in my life in Louga. Of course, it isn't everyone, it is not even a majority, but there is no denying that it exists here and that it is a very strong sentiment. it would seem unthinkable, unimaginable that racism like this still exists, particularly considering the fact that I live with Wolofs, speak their language, and have come here to help-- but to be honest, i can hardly blame them. For many reasons, the first being that many have never met a white person who doesn't treat them with disrespect and anger, or one that bothered to learn their language. Second is the harboring of this jealousy of the wealth that white people have and does not reach this country or its people. Third is the fact that popular belief leads many to blame the west for the "continuing evils" of slavery. No matter what the real story is, the over-arching image of slavery has endured and doesn't leave a pleasant trail behind. Fourth is that the white person embodies a western culture that many do not want to see pollute their traditions-- and sometimes tradition is everything. I was recently speaking with an American family living nearby, and as reluctant as we were to acknowledge it, we were all feeling frustrated with the same trend-- most things that are different here are immediately seen as "bad" okay, we all know this old paradigm, but imagine how this affects a culture when it isn't just people being afraid of change, but it is in ev-ery-thing... there is no innovation, no individualism, excrutiatingly slow social change, virtually no leadership and certainly no one who is willing to stand up and disagree--- such disaccord simply does not exist. When people want to say no, they won't even say that-- it is too harsh. Instead they will find a roundabout way of averting your eyes or changing the subject so that you might get the message without having to hazard a confrontation. I better stop myself there, but you get the idea?

The Routine

Yay! Laura, I can't believe you saw an exhibit on Tabaski at the Snite! How exciting! What you described sounds really accurate-- I just participated in our Tabaski celebration in January and as soon as I get my computer back I will post photos with more detail for you-- but you are completely right-- Tabaski is the major holiday in the Muslim calendar here in Senegal and it celebrates the story (very similar to the Bible story) of Ibrahima and Ismaillah. I am not terribly good with the story (all that I understood in the Wolof communication was spotty) but Ismaillah was supposed to sacrifice his son, Ibrahima and just as he was about to bring the knife to his throat Allah replaced him with a sheep so that a sheep was sacrificed instead. Again, I am foggy on all this but you get the idea. So now, every single family kills a sheep on Tabaski and then visits family and friends asking their forgiveness and friendship for the year to come. My experience with this was interesting--- my Wolof still had a long way to go and I ended up just standing in awe as my family slaughtered 5 sheep; drained their blood into a pit next to my room and promptly cooked up the liver to serve to me. Then I put on my fancy Wolof traditional outfit and paraded around the neighborhood -- clearly I felt a little silly, but being their most important holiday I was happy to do it-- and more than that, I was honored to take such a special part in their celebration. Here in my town you can really see how important it is-- family members from all over the country and even abroad come home just for this holiday.

SO, hopefully I will get those sweet photos up for you soon.

The routine I want to talk about today is the questioning... normally this routine ensues every time I enter a boutique or a business or a vehicle. I greet in Wolof, everyone responds. An older man says "oh, the tubab speaks Wolof!" I say yes. Everyone laughs. The man begins the onslaught. DO you have a husband (known as the borom ker "house manager", which is culturally a lie, the women rule the house) Where is he? I don't believe you. Where do you live? How long have you been here? How did you get that name? Can you cook? Why not? How much water do you put in the rice to cook for your borom ker? Can you dance? Why not? Come over to my house and I will show you how to dance. You don't want a black boyfriend? Why not? You don't want him to bring you to paradise? What's better a black boyfriend or an American? ( people know that there are african americans, but don't really believe that they exist-- say that a black person could not live with snow). And thus the questioning continues. I've gotten so adept at responding-- telling people that I have 4 husbands so I can't have another or that I only want to be the 4th wife, so they should come find me again after they already have 3-- but until just a few days ago I had never seen it happen to anyone but me; the token tubab.

So there I was; in the car coming back from Thies with 7 other passengers, all male except for one 18 year old, air'headed girl. I couldnt believe it, she got all the questions (except for the ones about a black boyfriend of course) so that's when it really really clicked. The problem here is just a lack of creativity. every senegalese man has the same routine tucked away in his memory, to be showed off for everyone to see at the earliest opportunity.

A couple quick work stories now... For the most part work is actually going extremely well-- the Embassy has agreed to finance the work on and English corner here in Louga so they are coming through next week, and I am preparing a couple classes to start within the next couple weeks, as well as consulting individually for a few entrepreneurs and community organizations and schools. but still, there are some things that are just laughable.

First business plan I took home to review-- very well done, just needs to be updated, a few holes to fill in, then it is all ready to go. I met with the entrepreneur; we went over the sections to fix up, meeting was going great-- when we finished he handed it back to me and said, "so when you"re done with it we can take it to the bank?" wow, was the idea of "entrepreneurship" lost on him. It took me 40 minutes to convince him that I couldn't possibly know his business well enough to write his plan for him.

Then, in the neighborhood I met with some men who said they have a community organization that disbanded but now they are getting back together and they want to work with me. Great, so what's your project? Well, we need you to find an NGO with a project and money and then we will write the project and send it to them.

lordy lordy

thanks!

by the way

one of my side work projects, the establishment of an English Library in Louga, with the support of the American Embassy in Dakar has gotten favorable reviews from the embassy and we will have an official visit next month :) Cheers for teaching English and the love of reading!

Senegal is all about sitting in plastic chairs feeling awkward

I need to thank Maren Johnstone, a former PCV from Senegal for this skillfully crafted quip-- it really sums up a lot of things about living here and now as we are completing our 3-week training and preparing to head back to site I find myself thinking more and more about this.

We just completed the development of a 6-month work plan for our return to site and I realized that I am going to go back to where I am the only white person around (and even more alienated by the fact that I actually do understand the local language) and I will once again be the center of everyone's attention. I have enjoyed so much peaceful anonymity among other Americans that I think I need to start bracing myself for the worst. So this may include going to several baptisms, marriages, ceremonies for pilgrims retunring from Mecca, sitting in a plastic chair for hours on end while wearing a stiff damask curtain and a scarf shaped into a fruit bowl on my head.

The scary part is that I am not nearly as afraid of it all as I once was.

I've learned a lot at this training and I am anxious to get out and start working (which will hopefully help distract me from other, more negative sentiments like "Senegal Breaks Things!"--such as my ipod, my computer, my solar battery, my flashlight and all of my clothing) but first I just need to eat one more hamburger in civilization. And the real kicker is that I am about to experience real real civilization when I meet my family in Italy next week (I am such a lucky brat!) I have sent a list of "necessities" t be brought to me that is as long as your tax documents. not to mention the full wheel of parmesan I plan to buy upon arrival in Rome.

so this leads me to the next question-- what really qualifies as civilization? I'm so numb to everything here now that it doesn't at all seem strange that I eat with my hands, I share public transportation with livestock and occasionally see the driver take the key out of the ignition while still driving in order to clean his ears with it, that there is trash everywhere and little talibe begging on every corner. But here's the deal, people are not necessarily starving, there is a system of education (though it is far from acceptable) and every other basic need has at least some provision-- and to be honest, compared to a lot of African nations; you might think that Senegal is on the up andup; and then you have the discussion about female genital mutilation, or about the negotiation of dowries for marriages, or about the concours that elementary students must participate in just to have the chance to go on to middle school! there is a long long way to go. am I being clear on this? When we say "development" I think it has so little to do with what people have-- it relates more to the way people think--

One example; my closest female friends in this country are our language trainers. They are far from Louga and I see them rarely, but they are the first individuals with whom I can carry a conversation that does not include hair extensions or cooking ceeb u jen. on the other hand, these particular women are so educated (meaning university degrees) that they can rarely find a senegalese boyfriend who is not terrified/intimidated/who knows what by their intelligence. Until we can see educated people who can succeed, hold a job and still fit easily into the traditional family structure we are not seeing development.

this is a bad example but I am feeling scatterbrained and will have to come back to revise it later-- someone help me by asking some questions, then I will know what direction to go in next time. Thanks, miss you all , love you to pieces!

Meryl

WAIST

Wow, this feels altogether like a different world-- I just got back from WAIST, the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. A place for Peace Corps volunteers from several West African countries, american ex-pats living in the region and even Japonese ex-pats and west africans working within the ex-pat community to get together and celebrate a great American tradition-- co-ed slow pitch softball. It was so strange-- we've been here so many months and all of a sudden we were dropped into this softball paradise with high school cheering sections, ball park hot dogs and a swimming pool. I even played my first softball game ever (I have a real future in this, I promise). Anyway, it was a great two days (especially the morning where Kari and I gave up the game and just had a few beers before heckling the other team on our way to a sweet victory)-- but in an eerie way I think for myself and for a lot of other volunteers it was the most homsick we had felt too-- just too much American-ness... families there with their kids watching the games during the day and then nights out to the bars that awkwardly resembled college nights ( you know; back when I was in college) Still definitely worth it For those of you who will appreciate this too... during the 4-day event there are a number of activities that Senegal Peace Corps volunteers host in order to raise funding and awareness of the gender and youth-oriented programs that volunteers host during the year at their respective sites. There are some great activities; including bike tours for girls, girls and boys clubs, scholarship programs for good students and lots more-- all of which takes a little bit of cash. So anyway, there is a silent auction we do where we try to offer products and services to the ex-pat community-- and I threw some tennis lessons on there.... so there have been a few bids, but it is more just my own selfish desire to finally play some tennis!!! (there are maybe 2 courts in the country)

We also just had a wonderful afternoon visiting our tech trainer in his home in Dakar-- he invited some of the people in the small business development program over for lunch during the tournament, and also so that we could meet his wife and two little girls... again I wish I could put photos up, it was fantastic. It is always overwhelming to see how the ex-pats live in Senegal-- the nicest parts of town and far removed from the center-- but our tech trainer welcomed us as Senegalese and as a Senegalese would-- it was maybe the first real glimpse of the city we have had

One more thing about all of this -- we have only been in Thies for a week, but I am already anxious to get back to site. There is something so real and comfortable about living with my Senegalese family, in my humble compound and working with the members of my community every day that is so much more satisfying than running around Dakar-- it really doesn-t even compare to the rest of the country.

Thanks for all your notes and emails, can't wait to hear more!!!

Diewol

So good to be connected with you all again!!! I have internet in Louga, but usually the cost and the frustration involved with trying to use a local internet connection is too much to bear-- plus I really have been busy with work, which has prevented me from getting to the internet cafes during their opening hours. So here I am back in Thies ready to start training again. All of the volunteers in my group have only been at site about 10 weeks but are already so changed!! The people from really far south have become pirates, the people from pulaar regions have taken on strange walks and interests in livestock... I could go on. thies feels big and bustling even compared to my busy town.

An interesting weekend past that I would love to share-- it is a bit complicated, so please bear with me.
Senegal is primarily Muslim- 95%, remaining Senegalese are Catholic or animist. The kind of Islam practiced here is a bit difficult to describe because it is based on brotherhoods as well as the teachings of spiritual leaders. In addition the fact that Islam was introduced and then the spread of colonialism hundreds of years later has led to a real mixing of legends, stories, myths.
I've participated in several religious ceremonies over the last few months, but this one last weekend was a big one.
So it's called Diewol, and it is specific to the brotherhood to which my family belongs. My mom here in Senegal is really involved with her religious group so I knew I needed to go and participate. The communication barrier between myself and my mom always presents some challenges-- she is amazing, but is really hard-core Wolof-- and speaks it so fast with such an old-lady slur that even her own children don't quite understand. So any way, she told me we were going, and I was okay with that, no questions asked.
Only after arriving at the Diewol (an empty clearing in the desert marked only by an empty well and a rusted sign at the side of a disintegrating road) did I learn the particular significance of Diewol. Apparently it is a really big deal, people come from all over the country in a pilgrimage to the place where their Grand Marabout once spent the night. I was actually quite impressed with the operation-- thousands of Senegalese came from all over, piling their food and enormous iron pots, tents and even livestock on top of fragile-looking buses we call Alhams ( they all have Allxamdulilah painted on the front, which is an Arabic blessing and seems to be an eerie prayer for survival when riding in aforementioned public transport). So anyway, thousands of rural, hyper religious Senegalese gather in the desert, far from anyone around, for what? I was asking myself the same thing-- then I got more explanation than I every could have wanted. The following is a conglomeration of the many different versions I heard over the weekend, you get to pick your favorite options just like a Choose Your Own Adventure.
So the marabout lived in Touba when the Tubabs (French colonizers, white people) came to the city called St. Louis-- this is late 1800s. The tubabs called the marabouts from all over the country to come to st. louis, an order from Charles de Gaulle. Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba refused to come from Touba because he said his god had not ordered him to come. So de Gaulle said he would send his soldiers to get him. So C.A.B. asked god what to do and god said he should go. So he left with all of his followers. While in transit he met the tubabs in teh desert at Diewol, he asked god what to do, god responded stay the night and pray. So all the followers stayed the night. During the night the colonizers dug a well but found no water, then the marabout found water. Then he encountered the devil (which I believe is somehow equated to the tubab) and cast him out of the desert. Then the Angel Gabriel came to him. Then the colonizers put him in the well, but he got out. and the end.

well, that's what I got out of it. Anyway, turns out I was naturally the only Tubab among all of these believers at Diewol-- well cared-for by my family, but that doesn't make it any less weird-- I was a real fascination for all people present, especially in my traditional Wolof attire.
Then I was asked to speak on the documentary that was being produced (on handheld ancient video camera with half-broken flood light) about what it felt like to be present at Diewol. My Senegalese mother coaching me from the side "Tubab bi dafa mettiwoon, wante leegi baaxna" (tubabs used to be difficult, but now they are good), which I dutifully repeated into the camera and then hung my head in shame.

Then we stayed up all night and blasted prayers through burnt out speakers into the desert until the dawn prayer-- then we went home. Oh yes, and my whole family who came to attend the celebration? They were there until curiously shortly after dark when they almost all split.... very tricky....

but still I was very glad I went-- my senegalese mom (and my American mom) set an example to live by. She took the best care of me, and welcomed hundreds of virtual strangers into our makeshift home to feed them and give them a place to sleep and then managed to stay up all night to pray-- quite a cultural experience.

man, writing one story just wears me out... is this good for now? hopefully I will get another one in soon

Miracles!

(eeeek!!! I just reread my last post and saw how incredibly negative it was... no wonder no comments in three weeks!) Lots of much better news this time, I promise.


I don’t know how you manage to do it, but you pull me out of the « merde » every single time. I was fed up last week, absolutely sick of this place and on the verge of heading home—it had been going on for days--and then I received a whole wonderful bunch of letters and packages from home. It’s such an amazing feeling to get news from home, I can’t quite express how much it helped lift up my day. (Jan, the kids went wild for the candy you sent, and my sisters love to look at the magazine with me. Jonathan and Bridget, I already have dreams about pork chocolate, now you're just giving substance to my obsession. And mom. You’re awesome, I’m convinced you would send a Toys R Us if you had the chance-- and thanks for thinking of me too, Luna Bars and trail mix go a long way on those millet porridge days)

No matter what I am dealing with personally, I also have to give tremendous credit to the Senegalese people I have had the good fortune of meeting and working with. I know I haven’t written at all about my work (boooor-ing) but I will appease the labor gods and give a little description right now. First of all, Peace Corps Senegal is set up so that I train for 2 months, go to my site (Louga) for 3 months, and then return for a second training session that lasts 1 month before I start really working in Louga. The reason for this is that the culture and business environment in Senegal is so different from home that it honestly takes 3 months in order to understand how it works and who you are dealing with. I am currently completing my 3-month stay in Louga and getting ready to head back for my second training.

So, during the past several weeks it has been my business to know everyone else’s business. I drop into the ministry offices, personal businesses and association headquarters to ask how things are run, what problems people are having and what their goals are for their work and for their livelihood. The experience is incredible—every day I sit with new people and ask them about what they value and what they expect of the future. The people here in Louga have a rich outlook on development and take ownership for the promotion of their country--the real miracle. I am constantly amazed at the pride and hope people express when speaking of their work. Senegal is a country with few resources and a nascent economy, but its people are not deterred. I just recently met a man who recognized a need for better guidance and better care among small children (there are complex problems with the education system that I won't go into now) In any case, he has devoted his life to a preschool that he opened. Now he manages 80 children every single day. By himself. Truly remarkable. First miracle.

Second miracle is that the chocolate cookies my mom sent by mail survived! (you are the best) I defy you, African sun, heat and sand!

Third miracle is that in the same day I met another man who has also dedicated his life to the service of his community. How? You might be familiar with the Boy Scouts of America? Little did we know; it also exists in Senegal (except here it is pronounced "les scoots") Carrera, as he is named, manages a group of "scoots" that numbers close to 400; developing an annual training program and leading the youth in education and social responsibility.

One final example is my family here in Louga. I don't think I've spoken enough about them honestly, but they are a daily miracle. The kids rush to help me bring in my bags or pull my bkie across the sand. They water my garden for me every day and can't wait to tell me when they see a new seedling sprout. My mom and all my sisters; aunts; and brothers are incredibly kind and generous. They want to include me in every aspect of their lives, which is a gift that few people are afforded. They are even patient with my Wolof :) They are also really working for development, which I find incredible. They are primarily uneducated and unable to find work in Louga (all the adult sons have left to find work elsewhere), but they still serve in different capacities to the community, including managing a chicken coop and a micro garden that are designed to raise funds to build a new classroom in their over-flowing public school.

So these are tiny tiny examples of how impressed I am with people here. It maybe doesn't sound like much, but I think it is important to realize that they are working with almost no resources, no compensation. When it is nearly impossible to find a job it is remarkable that people are willing to give so much of themselves to a volunteer or community organization.

These are my good thoughts for the day, all my best!!!

Meryl

"If I ever get real rich, I hope I'm not real mean to poor people, like I am now."

I had to open with this little Jack Handey jem because it's the truest sentiment I have ever felt. I heard this a million times during my training here in Senegal: "this experience will make you very angry" but I didn't fully comprehend it. Now I do. I have become an angry individual. You've seen me batter a child in the street, you've heard me tell grown men that they are ugly. what could happen next? don't worry, I'll tell you all about it-I particularly resemble the Incredible Hulk on an angry day.

So nevermind getting "toubab-ed" by kids in the street. Nevermind being asked for money, marriage or a trip to the US. All of these things are understandable, and honestly at the bottom of things they are not done maliciously. Usually it is just joking in a culture whose humor has almost no comparison to our own. However, there is one last bridge that I have not yet been able to cross. On rare occasions I am absolutely accosted by Senegalese men. They are so aggressive and egotistical that you would laugh if you saw it.

Last night I had to come into Dakar. It's a long story, but I was offered a ride to the transportation post by an assistant to the mayor. Suddenly I discovered that we were not at all going to the "garage" but instead going to his home. Weird and inappropriate #1. It started off well, discussing work projects and integration, etc. He told me we were just stopping to have lunch and so that he could get his bag and then we would leave. Throughout the following 7 hours I was doomed to be in his presence. While in his home, with his wife constantly calling to check on him to make sure that he didn't forget anything, etc I had to deal with the classic Senegalese machismo. Within moments of our work conversation being finished I was reduced to the most helpless and inept creature he had ever encountered. Not only did he continually propose that I would soon see-- I would become his mistress and carry many of his children, but he also insisted on translating everything into French and even into maybe the worst English I have ever heard. He called cabs for me, bought water for me, everything that I do on my own every single day. In short he had to insure that I knew he was the most important guy around. We call this being the "patron" Anyway, there's the frustration of the day. I refuse to get into details on it, but it sure as hell makes you want to work for women's advancement in Senegal.

On a better note, I am having the most therapeutic day here in Dakar. Our excellent medical team checked me out (and I'm sure they will diagnose my hypochondria shortly). I had a long discussion with our peerless and fearless Technical Trainer the marabout Bamba Fall and I even got some sweet thorn-resistant tubes for my bike.

One thing that really depresses me is that my last post on my dear friend Pape Samb was lost, but I'll re-write it for you soon.

thanks to you all, missing you!
love,
Meryl