Friday, November 30, 2007

Attaya

So it’s been a while since I’ve had a nice entry here. It has been a tough two weeks, not going to lie about that. In the past several years, I have been way too busy. In school I would make lists of what needed to be accomplished before going to bed and I kept myself working over 50 hour weeks in the summer. I dreamed about being bored and that’s exactly what I am getting good at now; watching cement dry.

The first three months of Peace Corps out of training are called the “integration period”. I am supposed to go around with my counterparts, 2 assigned influential men from the PC that live in Bambey, and meet with people and become familiar with my city. Moctar and Ibrahima are my counterparts and we met for 2 days in training in an attempt to explain what PC is and how they can help me. We made a detailed list of all the places they wanted to me see along with a schedule of when we would do it all. Haven’t really gotten to that schedule just yet….

The first week I was here I spend all my time trying to figure out my housing situation and have been remodeling ever since. Even today I had people installing my screen doors. I hope you find humor in this like I do: the screen doors didn’t exactly fit into the cement frames that existed. Instead of bringing the doors back to be remade, they broke down the cement walls to make room! Haha, I could hardly believe it. So they were back today applying fresh cement but now I wish I had hired my painter after this was all done. Oh well! At least some of the mosquitoes will stay out now (needless to say it’s not a perfect fit and only the smart ones will make it in my room). Hopefully it’s the dumb mosquitoes that carry malaria!

So for the past week I have been priding myself of greetings and getting breakfast but I think I can consider the last 24 hours a breakthrough. Last night, Moctar came to my house and we went to Ibrahima’s house. Although they both told me they are busy and don’t have time to show me around just yet, we set up appointments in the middle of December. I may have to find my way around until then… hmm. I am rather frustrated that they don’t have time just yet but I’m patient. I do have a time set up to go to Ndem next week with Pete (he’s one of my closest neighbors working with artisans; he’s been here over a year) and Daniel (another near neighbor who is interested in helping with basket exporting). That will be productive. And Moctar’s wife may be able to tutor me in Wolof. So work is as good as it can be in Bambey.

And you are wondering about “attaya”. It is famous here. During the hot afternoons when there is nothing you can seriously do besides sit, we drink tea. And about the heat, it is getting cooler, alhumdulilaye, and I wake up in the middle of the night and when my sheet is no longer efficient, I put on a sweatshirt and smile. Anyways. I was leaving the compound to get some cookies and to find a new store with people to chat with and impress them that I’m the new toubab in town who knows how to greet in Wolof, and my name was called from down the street. You have no idea how good this feels. Well, it was my Senegalese name, Ouria, but I answered to it happily trying to hide my smile. It was the guy I met and explained to you that I was hoping he wouldn’t want a plane ticket to America, remember? Well, since I stood him on that Saturday afternoon, and avoided him another time last week, he invited me for attaya=tea with his friends. My cookies could wait.

I ended up talking with him, my family’s tailor and a few of their friends for almost two hours. They were interested in why I am here and what my goals are for the next 2 years. Mostly, the conversations are in French, but every time there was silence, they’d teach me something new in Wolof telling me if I come hang out for attaya often, I’ll be fluent in Wolof before I know it. Attaya is kind of strong and sugary, but I may take them up on it.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Little by Little – Ndank ndank

The first four days, I only left the compound with the help of my host mom or sister or Dabakh to go to Diourbel. Needless to say, that wasn’t very often and I have finished 2 books and am on my third. BUT! Yesterday I actually got myself breakfast and sat outside under the tree and read. It’s the little victories! Having white skin is quite the attraction, especially since I live on the road that goes to the market. I’m trying really hard to figure out how to establish a good reputation in a city where I will be working, but if I understood correctly, I think I have a date lined up for Saturday afternoon, under that same tree. Great. You all are saying “I told you so”. I can hear it. But this really isn’t what I want, not right now. I want someone to show me around the city, introduce me to people and not want a ring on their left hand that is the equivalent to a one-way ticket and visa in America.

I am proud of myself for the little things I have accomplished. I want to try and get a routine set up so I can figure out how to survive here. So today, with that in mind, I went down to buy breakfast at a little boutique. They all called me by name, which is one of the greatest feelings in the world, since Fatou introduced me to them the first day I was here. So I got a French style baguette, the only type of bread around (damn) with onion sauce. Very typical here and it only costs 110 cfa = about 20 cents. After that, I swept out my little apartment and did some yoga. Physical exercise doesn’t exist here and I’m dying to sweat for some other reason than the heat! I filled up my water filter since I bought water from a guy who sells it on a donkey pulled cart. We do have a tap, but its really salty water. Gross! Even fancy powders don’t cover that up! I’ll be buying water and bleaching it…

So my plans for the afternoon! I think I’m going into town to maybe buy a broom and go to the cyber. I may even wait for Fatou to get home since I think we have some errands to run and she’s acting like my security blanket. I would have never thought I would be the type of person that wants to run to my room to hide from it all, but I’ve had that feeling more than I’d like to admit. Hopefully I’ll get my counterparts to help me out and find me a tutor in Wolof so I can get more confident. I am the only white person and although I came to Africa with the plan to become a minority for 2 years, it’s truly frightening until I meet those people that are searching for a friend rather than an airplane ticket.

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Don’t worry about me; lots of us volunteers are getting together to enjoy a typical Turkey Day meal in Koalack, about an hour from here. I hear there is even pumpkin pie for dessert! Miss you – enjoy some raw cookie dough at the cookie bake!

I have a home!

This is great news. As of last night, I moved into where I’ll be living for the next 2 years, Inchallah (god willing in Arabic, used at the end of every sentence, along with alhumdulilaye, which means thanks be to god). It was kind of weird at first, but now I’m used to it. Anyways!

So I was supposed to get to Bambey Tuesday, the lucky 13th, remember? But then I didn’t move in until the 15th, but here’s what really happened. On the morning of the 15th my boss came to pick me up and brought me to Bambey to interview a possible host family. So around 9ish, we went to the high school where Fatou (my new host mom) works. We chatted with her and Mark explained the situation of how it should all work. Then we went to her house to have a nice look around. It is just her and her daughter, N’dack, in one structure and 2 subleasers, Dabakh and Sophie, in another structure, within the same compound. I would be renting 2 rooms in the second structure like the subleasers. When she showed us the rooms I was rather dumbfounded. There was a lot of furniture and about an inch of dust and we eventually had to carry out 2 large buckets of broken cement that had either chipped off the floor and the walls, not easy sweeping. Needless to say I was shocked, but at this point I couldn’t be picky. Then she showed us the bathroom. Since no one was using it for as long as no one was using my 2 bedrooms, she shut the water off and we had to move a door that was used as a gate to keep the goats and chickens in the back of the compound. So the bathroom was a complete disaster and pretty much only had a hole cut out in the cement to potentially pee in. There is another functioning bathroom with a shower on the other side of the compound, but I would have to share this with everyone and the Peace Corps is cool about giving us our own bathrooms whenever possible. So Mark told her that we should start asap renovating the bathroom and bedrooms and PC would pay. In the mean time, I would move into one of the spare bedrooms. So when can I move in?! was my thought exactly…

Since by this time it was after 10, we would have to drive back to Thies and then back to Bambey with all of my things. It’s only an hour drive from Thies, alhumdulilaye, so we were back in Bambey before my host mom’s lunch break was up. So I was really bummed and wanted to finally move things out of my suitcases and into a real place for the first time in 2 months, but I had to wait. Things did move along quite quickly, which is surprising in this country, which I am very happy for. We went shopping the next day and had a painter there in the afternoon to start my rooms, baby blue – darling. Bought a fancy Turkish toilet and showerhead and flooring and spent money faster than I thought possible! (I’m cheap like my dad and hate spending money!) And then it got stressful again. Mind you, this is all in another language and although I’ve taken a lot of French, I still have trouble. They asked me about how I want to do the bathroom since we can’t paint it since the paint would just chip off the cement when it got wet. So, Fatou, suggested tile. Sure, thinking it would be cheap and not a lot of it right? Wrong. Since it was too expensive in Bambey, we would have to go to the next closest large city to get it. Dabakh would be the one installing it and since he knows what his doing, he brought to to Diourbel to go to the bank and to buy tile. I had to withdrawal pretty much all of my money from the PC “move-in allowance” to pay for everything possible before getting reimbursed. Then we went to the tile place. Dabakh wanted to get 15 square meters! I didn’t think this was necessary but I didn’t really have a choice at this point. We came all this way and I tried texting my boss to get a second opinion but he didn’t get back to me in time. I spent A LOT of money on tile, which come to find out, since it wasn’t necessary, I won’t get reimbursed. We could have just put fresh cement on the walls and been fine, but no. By the end of today, I will have the best looking bathroom in all of Peace Corps Senegal, thank you French degree. Now I’ll just need a set of locks to keep the whole neighborhood out.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

SEND MAIL!

Hey hey!! Im a resident in Bambey... so now you need to send me letters! My address is:

PCV Kira Keuhn
BP 03
Bambey, Senegal
West Africa

Some quick hints since I only have 10 min left at the cyber:
international stamps are 90 cents! cant wait to have christmas cards on display all over my bedroom walls!
there is a flat rate box that you can pay for and stuff with as heavy of stuff you want... if necessary; it may be worthwhile to look into. i dont really know that much about it!
For ideas on what to put in to the packages; FOOD! haha does that really surprise you? the best stuff we crave is candy, mom got scolded for not sending chocolate in the last one; and junk food; beef jerky and dried fruit: i,m easy to please! if you are real inclined; send your fav funny movie or burn a new cd... but make sure to take it out of the wrapping since otherwise a newly packaged electronic thing would be highly taxed on my behalf and i cant afford that!

thats really all ive got! next time i have more time, ill fill you in on my living situation in bambey! real big switch. i went from having 9 younger siblings to now one and a mom with 2 subleasers! its calm and im a big fan!
no more time! anxious to get your letters!!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

All I can do is Laugh

So site installations went fairly well for everyone, with on exception. I was the second to last to leave Thies. Everyone by now is safely in their regions at least… except for me. Want the long version or short? Haha – I have time, how about the long version?

So we packed up the Peace Corps Land Cruiser with my luggage inside, and my mattress and bike on top. It is only about an hour drive to Bambey so we left “fashionably late” because my install coordinator, Mamadou, said that if we got their early, no one would be there. I already knew this and had no problem hanging out at the center taking a quick noppalu (nap ci wolof). So after 2 we left and arrived in Bambey right around 3. First we went to the police station to exchange numbers and get them familiar with me and what I would be doing there. It feels good to have an in with the police chief! After that we went to the Mayors office where I should have met the mayor and my counterpart and my future host dad. None of whom we found so we went to my supervisor’s house. (I already met my supervisor and counterpart and they were well aware that I was coming on the 13th… so I thought) So, surprisingly by freak chance, my supervisor also wasn’t home and had left his cell at home, where he wasn’t. So we waited and Mamadou called some people to find where my counterpart lived. We found him! Success! Everything should get better from here, right?

Wrong! My counterpart took me to my host family’s house. They, needless to say, weren’t expecting me (I specifically told my counterpart two times to talk to them to tell them I will be coming on the 13th) I wished from here on out that I didn’t understand Wolof or French, because that’s what they all figured and talked about me when I was standing right there. So we went back to the mayor’s office, for the third time within an hour, and I met my host dad, kinda. Mamadou put him on the phone talking to my Peace Corps supervisor, Bamba. My host dad seemed extremely uncomfortable and after a long conversation, I came to find out that he had given my apartment to someone else. He says that he waited until November and since he “couldn’t get a hold of Peace Corps” he couldn’t afford to wait any longer and is now renting it to someone and her daughter. This was just decided a few weeks ago, right around the time that my counterpart got back from the counterpart workshop…

After this, my counterpart went home and we went back to my supervisor’s house to wait for him. We waited until after 5 and decided to head back to Thies. Surprisingly, we saw my supervisor on the road so we stopped. He apologized a great deal, saying this hurts him that I will not be there yet. He is a wonderful person, highly influential in the town and very wise. I do really appreciate that I have him and seeing him cheered me up at this point, which I needed. Bamba and Mark, my PC bosses are working with him now to get a new family set up.

Like I said, all I can do is laugh about this. If it were a perfect world, there would have been a welcome committee waiting for me at my house, when in reality, that’s what I got when I got back to Thies. My host mom was called to make sure it was alright for me to come back to use my room. She was more than happy but since I got home before she was done with work, my family was very happy to see me again, and incredibly confused. In wolof, I tried to explain that I have no home in Bambey and they were like great! Stay here! No problem! I am lucky that I have such a great family. Not everyone is this lucky. So now I just get to hang out in Thies! Rough Peace Corps life…

Saturday, November 10, 2007

no longer in Training!

Its official! I am a volunteer in Senegal! We swore in yesterday in Dakar and ate wonderful food and put on a funny skit after singing the national anthems. It was a good time. My host family said they saw me on national tv during the skit.. haha amazing! There are a few pictures up of the skit. It wasn't very good and i screwed up one of my 3 lines i had to memorize. But you are reading the blog of a famous toubab in africa!

So needless to say, it feels good to be a volunteer finally. We had a big dinner with one member of our family last night after getting back from Dakar at the training center and danced until after 1. They brought in a dj and we danced in an attempt to burn off some calories. There is this problem I have, as well as other city volunteers. We have many friends that are moving out into the bush and will serisouly lose weight since there are not proper nutrients available. Me, on the other hand, will be in a decent city of 25,000 but feel like I still need to eat the delishous food available for us at the training center. Oh well! Life is good!

So I will be moving to Bambey on Tuesday! I am getting rather nervous to meet my new family and get to know the entire town. I can't believe its actually happening though. Remember when I first came up with the idea to do the Peace Corps? It's going to be real now. Crazy!

Well check out my pictures and next time I write on here I should have a new address that you will have to send mail to. I'm bummed that I haven't got any lately.. you will have no excuses when I have a permenant address! :-) Love and miss you all!

Monday, November 5, 2007

The Number 13

I have always hated that number - 14 being my fav obviously. And the number is haunting me. I arrived in Senegal on the 13 of September, I have cubby hole 13 meaning I'm 13th in the alphabet in our stage. My cell number is 221-77-713-3897 (call anytime - I'd love it) and of a possibility of 5 days to be installed at site in Bambey, it will be the 13th of November. Lucky 13 right?

So life is pretty good considering. I have a bit of a stomach ache to say politely. I am thanking Schuelke from the bottom of my heart for the largest 3 containers of drink mix powder. The gatorade is coming in handy today! (as side note - Schuelke, the best former swim coach in WI, set me up with enough drink mix for the next two years, so if you are as kind, don't send any, I'm set!)

So to say again, I am (hopefully) moving to Bambey next week. Hopefully since I still have to pass my oral Wolof exam. EEEK. If not, I'll be hanging out in Thies for another week or two with a private tutor. But about Bambey, I guess it will be more accurate then, but I did get to meet my supervisor and my counterpart last week. They will be helping me introduce myself into the community and seem to be pretty good so far. I don't know that much but time will tell.

That's about all I have time for right now. Keep me in mind on the 13th!