Chebb u jen

So yesterday, I was rather crabby if you read my previous post, when my family told me I should cook lunch tomorrow. Sweet! I realize this is a great way to be integrated into the family and all, but all I could think about is how the camera would come out, and how they would laugh when a toubab tried to cook and gasp, need to use her left hand! Whatev. I gave in.

So here’s how it started. My friend, Matar, was over for lunch yesterday and so he initiated this lovely idea of having me cook. So this morning he came over quarter after 11 and was like, where is the chef? Umm... I’m here (still hoping I was going to get out of it). Just after 11 is when we start cooking. People in America don’t have time for this! That’s what they said when Matar asked what is our national plate… sandwiches or hamburgers to go since “Time is Money”. Seems to be the one and only phrase the Senegalese know in English. I hate admitting that its true, but it is. By the way, what is our national dish?

So we got all of the food out of the fridge since someone must have gone to the market earlier in the week (obviously noted by the smell of the fridge). We pulled out the raw veggies and fish and stuck them in the same bowl. Keep reading if you want to see how many “rules of the kitchen” have been broken. I’ve worked in too many restaurants to know that cross contamination is bad and we must clean everything with bleach. HAHA – that doesn’t exactly get done here. So we moved all of the food out to the “garage” area, that’s more like a porch where the “gaaz” or propane tank is. There are buckets of water that have to be filled from the tap in the back of the compound and other buckets of water used as waste since there is no sink, not to mention counters. All of this is done on the sandy cement floor with 3 baby chickens running around our feet.

So we light the gaaz and pour some oil in. Then I crushed several baby tomatoes with my hands, which I wasn’t told to wash, and mix them with a bit of tomato paste. I started peeling the veggies and scaling the fish. The maid thought my mom and sister were crazy when they yelled at her for starting, and said, wait, “she can scale?!” (thanks mom for teaching me that way back when I used to play with the fish eyeballs when camping) So then it was time to throw in the tomatoes into the oil. Also, I crushed garlic, onion, hot pepper and some Jumbo (magic ingredient in Senegal, aka bouillon cubes) into a wooden mortar, and yes, got my picture taken by my sister. I’ll ask her for the photos. Peeled and prepared the rest of the carrots, manioc, cabbage, eggplant, squash and potato. After you know, a while, we put all the veggies and fish together into the oil, tomato and like 2 pots of water. I say pots since measuring cups don’t exist and she seriously used a pot normally used for cooking to put into the caldron on the gaaz.

What next? Oh yes, we had to pick through the dry rice to get out the black pieces. Don’t ask me why they are there. Can’t decide if its mice poop, dead bugs, or just black rice. There are probably not heavily enforced rules about importing rice from Thailand. Don’t worry though, I got it all out! So I got my picture again and my sister told me since I was being such a good Senegalese woman, she would give me a man to be my husband so I don’t have to go home to America. Excellent!

After all the rice was picked through, we washed it with water, and I don’t really understand why, but they have reasons for everything. Then we put it in a large metal strainer on top of the fish, veggie and tomato mixture to let it steam for, you know, a while. Who knows how long it takes! I’ll never be able to duplicate this in America, but I will sure try! When they just somehow know when the veggies and fish are cooked, we took them out, put them in the same bowl they were in when they were raw, but don’t fear, she rinsed it with tap water. Then we threw all the rice into the tomato and water mixture to let it fully cook. No such thing as minute rice. By the way, even though nothing was measured, the rice soaked up exactly enough of the tomato-water mixture.

When it was ready, we put all the rice into a large metal bowl. The crunchy rice that we scraped from the bottom was put into a separate bowl and is just as delicious and placed on top of the other rice like the veggies. It’s usually my favorite part until one of the birds jumped into it… but pretend it’s like the 10-second rule. (Yes we still ate the crunchy rice). All the fish and veggies were placed on top and we called Matar back and him, my sis, mom and maid and I ate an amazing chebb u jen meal (rice and fish) after 1:30 – only 2 and half hours! I feel like I should tell you this too: not once did I wash my hands, nor the maid. The maid and my mom both eat with their (right) hands, the rest of us with spoons, and they make sure to break up the 2 fish and all the veggies to be split 5 ways. So everything they touched, including their own mouths is shared with everyone. Now lets hope I haven’t jinxed myself for getting sick.

Not all Smiles

So theres gotta be bad days to make the good days that much better. Muslim holidays sometimes arent the most fun thing. Yesterday was a huge pillgrimage for about 6million muslims -- yea thats nearly half of the country all going to one city just about 50k down the road. so needless to say Bambey was empty, except for my host mom and sister and one or two friends. i got back from Thies and Dakar extremely motivated; had quite a few meetings with possible work partners and pretty good confidence in Wolof. a lot has changed.

the city started to clear out on sunday. it was empty by monday. so i started reading and watching my christmas present: all three seasons of greys anatomy. i am on my second book and about halfway through the second season. ALL I WANT IS WORK!

so i have been simply thinking about what i can do here getting real frustrated. my host mom always seems to mention and wonder why i havent left the compound. i hate that. she also commented on how the peace corps would be a better organization if there was funding. i snapped and bit my tongue. come up with a good project and i can help find money! ah! there is so much i can do but i dont know where to start.

headed to Ndem Friday and a friends site to meet people in other villages that Ndem is working with next week. Then i will meet up with womens groups and head to middle schools to find girls to give a scholarship to and the high school to have english conversations. all these plans... lets hope something works so i can say; after 20 more months; that i have accoplished something i am proud of.

Back to Reality

So I’m back in Bambey after being away from site about a month! Everyone I see tells me they miss me, I was gone too long, and asks for gifts. The norm. In-service training went well; although I am glad it’s done. Early mornings of Wolof and technical training is not my idea of fun although I did improve on my wolof and am very comfortable telling people I understand now. In Dakar, I went fruit shopping with a friend of mine. She greeted and asked how much everything was and was talking in French to the fruit seller. She asked me a question in English, and I responded, in English. Well, this upset the fruit seller and he looked at me and said, in French, “You are in a French country, you need to speak French”. I looked at him, insulted and said, Degg naa Wolof, man may lakk Wolof. He was dumbfounded. He didn’t believe me and asked me what I had for lunch and if I have an “owner of the house” aka husband just to test me. I was pissed and he got just what he asked for. I bought fruit elsewhere and made my point. They just aren’t very friendly. Earlier in the week I was also called a racist since I didn’t give money to a bayfall. Little does he know I work with bayfalls in Ndem daily and am in no way a racist!

Anyways! Dakar is fun! After training and plenty of playtime in Thies we went to Dakar for the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST). But first, did I tell you about my birthday? Celebrated it in Africa as close to an American celebration as I could get. Went to training, got out early and went to get a drink. Told the owner of the resto it was my bday and he treated me to a second. After eating white rice and fish, not my idea of a dinner out with my fam to Red Lobster or Nakashimas but it did the job, we went to Palais des Arts. It’s our new favorite bar in Thies and we convinced them it was a good idea to offer PCVs happy hour! I made friends quickly and one of the artists gave me a sand painting! Beautiful! I even got his signature and phone number on the back! YES! The live band that was playing made me come up on stage, get kissed on both cheeks like the French do, and they sang Joyeuse Anniversaire to me! It was really fun and I had a good time!

As for WAIST! It was the 35th annual and everything went wonderfully! We stayed with an expat couple who have lived abroad working for the foreign service for the last 28 years in like 8 or 9 countries. They had an amazing house, 4 bedroom, washer and dryer, microwave, American tv! We had a blast! I stayed with 2 of my good friends and we each got our own room and hot showers everyday! Was I this easy to please in America? We played softball everyday and hung out at night! Very good time in Dakar. On Tuesday we had an All-Volunteer conference that was very useful. Good to see most everyone in the country although it was impossible to talk to them all. We talked about new ideas for malaria prevention and how to collaborate. I will be doing a lot of work with artisans and linking that to the tourism aspect of PC. Should be great. If you are interested in vacationing in Senegal, let me know, I have a few connections!

As for my plan now that I am back in Bambey – I hope to meet some more people, poke my head into a few English classrooms, work with artisans here, talk with women’s groups and the microfinance org. I will be back and forth in Ndem and some other villages not to far away and can’t wait to get the application in for the Fair Trade certification. Hope to get a lot accomplished but know that it’s going to be an uphill battle the whole way. Wish me luck! Happy winter! Mom sent me a thermometer and it’s inside my room, after 6pm and it says its 95 degrees. Can’t wait for the hot season to start!

Sometimes things just work out!

So since our training stage is all back together in Thies, we are "eating our money" as the wolofs say it! We go out in the evenings and share great stories and on the weekends we try to head to the beach or hit up Dakar. Last weekend was wonderful at a new beach none of us had seen and this weekend we were up for the same thing! We all trade off on resposibility, and yes, you guessed right, i was nominated to plan Mbour.

So after talking with a few people; we lined up a house for 20 of us for just 20mille... aka about 40 dollars. Too good to be true?! Obviously: we got there and the hotel guy came to pick us up from the garage just like he said he would, but instead of bringing us to his hotel, he brought us to his friends since his rooms were rented out. Terrific! Let the fun begin! A little background on the city, major touristy stop yet residental. Rich europeans would rather buy houses on the beach than rent right? so we all sat around talking with hotel and boutique owners. Everything was waaay out of our price range. Not really knowing just what to do, some random guy named Moussa called us over.

Moussa was on his way to the market with his gardener and seems to be quite a rich senegalese man. He said he haed a house that we could stay in and when i said there were 14 of us he said ok, 50mille, (100 dollars) no problem! haha well we dont exactly have money like that to throw around so i said i will only go with him to see this supposed house that i was extremely skeptical of since i had already been screwed once. I took one of the boys with me and we went to see the house.

so we take a few winding streets down the road, get to the most beautiful home youve ever seen. Danny and I were trying our best not to smile because this uy was about to offer his house to 14 white toubabs dying to crack open a beer and toss a football on the beach. There was one bedroom with 2 beds able to sleep 6, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, and loft. The veiw was a very nice sunset and he even has a pool, not to mention a back door to the beach, probably a pools length or 2 to water. He really wanted to have us pay 50mille, but i got him down to 30 and even though he wanted us out by 10 we talked him into 3pm.

After figuring this all out, we brought everyone back, locked up our things and went to play on the beach. Moussa didnt spend the night, but his 2 nephews did. 2 men in their 20s who partied and cooked along with us. We danced to loud music and they taught a few people to play the tam-tam! The house was beautiful and we did out best to clean it up this morning! Still cant believe what we got away with! Only in Africa can we wing it and end up better off... i think i spent under 15 dollars inbetween training and now!

ups and downs

So being a white toubab can for sure have its perks as I will get to in just a minute. But first I want to tell you a shitty part of it as well. We have come back to Thies for training. We are back with our same families and it sure is fun to be able to tell Oumar to get out of my room with ease… he just doesn’t really listen. I like him though. Anyways. I was with 2 friends the other day after training about to get a taxi to go to a restaurant. We were let out the same time as the school kids were. In order to get our attention since we weren’t paying attention to their hissing and yelling toubab, one kid threw a rock and it hit my friend! We could hardly believe what happened! She reacted in the perfect way when I was completely unsure how to act. We all turned around and asked, in all wolof mind you, who threw it. The coward went running as all his friends ratted him out. At the same time all of this way happening a teacher was walking home as well. He knew the kid and called him back. Mandi explained to the kid that we live here, work here and speak their language. The teacher let us know that he knows the kid and he will get punished tomorrow at school. Excellent, good thing we didn’t have to witness the kid getting hit/educated, it’s the same word in Wolof.

The story gets better/worse. Just 2 days later, I was walking home, already in my neighborhood, able to see my house. There were plenty of kids, aka talibe, playing in the street, doing nothing but throwing rocks for entertainment. They were told to stop as I walked through and I greeted everyone. To explain the life of these kids is an entirely different thing. They are talibe: which means they are given by their families to the Marabou to learn Arabic from the Koran. They don’t have anything and walk around cities everywhere asking for alms. Muslims give alms daily, as it is part of their responsibility, so they usually make an extra plate of lunch and the talibe will come pick it up. These kids practically wander the streets all day looking for food and money and are dirty and it is easy to feel bad for them, except when they pinch my arms to get my attention or throw rocks at me! Twice in 2 days! A few months ago I was pinched and couldn’t believe how rude the child was but the other day a rock was thrown and it hit my neck! I tried to get the kid to come over to me but everyone around simply laughed and he was too afraid to come over to me… since obviously I was ready to smack him! I just walked away embarrassed. Well I told my family and I went over to the Marabou’s house tonight and although he wasn’t there, I got the neighborhood talking and the kid will get punished.

So life can be tough, but I’m making it. After training on Saturday, we got out at noon and 30 of us went to the beach. A different beach from last time, but still just as fun! We stayed in a very touristy place and the most beautiful hotel. You don’t want to know how affordable… when we pulled in I seriously said out loud that we must be lost because our budgets don’t allow for that! But they did! And I have bright tan lines to prove it! Enjoy the few pics I took, but they just may not do it justice!