Camel Crossing

So there are just a few things that are different about my world than they used to be. Sometimes it takes me a minute to think, “Wait a minute, that’s not normal”. Here are a few stories:

So I went “fishing in the desert” with Lamine yesterday. I am calling the project that in hopes that soon enough, when I convince him that he needs to change his accounting books, I can get American money to fund him in repairing his truck. Psst, that’s where you come in ;) wink wink. My alarm went off at 4:14am just in time for me to get ready in the dark. When I left I noticed that lights were on in my family’s compound, but I’ll get to that story in a minute. We sold fish to many women that I had never met before, showing me that Lamine really does have probably over 50 villages that he could sell to if he had 2 trucks that worked. You know in Wisconsin when you have to look out for deer? This time we had to slow down for camels in the road!! There were so many all over in between villages grazing. They are HUGE and I’ve decided that I have to go to Touba next year to celebrate Magal since friends told me they ate camel. I just have to try it!

So I have started my work in the middle schools. This week I will be going to all three of them and meeting with the girls to have them all write me an essay about their futures, as well as hear what the teachers have to say about them. Then, I’ll plan to visit all their houses to meet all their families. It is going to be an awful mess of Fre-olof but I hope it will be ok! I will be plenty busy the month of May! In getting to one of the middle schools, I pass a bunch of people working in a metal workshop. There are boys with apprenticeships starting in their early teens, up to men who have been in the trade all their lives. In passing, I normally get called “toubab” if I don’t greet them first. Well I’ve grown rather used to it so I didn’t greet them and walked on passed, but this time, an apprentice called out “red ear”, which is a much more derogatory way to point out our differences. I was pissed and called back saying that was rude but kept on walking, hearing them repeat what I said either in a mocking tone or surprise wondering if I really know Wolof. The next day, I took that same route and he did the same thing. This time, I went over, and explained in Wolof the proper way to greet someone, especially when they are your elder. He was extremely uncomfortable since obviously he knows this and didn’t think I would. The next time I passed him, he waved and smiled at me, with the proper greeting.

So why was their light on at 4:30 in the morning? A family moved into our compound about a month ago. They have a daughter with a disability, 10ish, son, 8ish, and another daughter, just learning to walk. The dad is off in Diourbel working while the mom stays here, never really leaving even to go to the market. I’m not here a lot so truthfully, I didn’t notice all of this, but I guess the kids don’t eat anything besides millet and yogurt and the mom doesn’t clean or even bath the kids daily. Late on Friday night, my host mom, Fatou, and sister went to Diourbel for a baptism at her sister’s. I had an appointment at the middle school Saturday so I went to that and then went to the baptism at eleven. I got back here and hung out until around 9 when a friend and I went for dinner. I was in bed by 10 since I had to get up the next morning at 4 and I slept through everything… When I woke up from my nap after “fishing” Fatou asked me where was I and what was I doing last night that I didn’t even help Koumba. I was very confused and said exactly what I did. Come to find out, Koumba had a baby at 3am – COMPLETELY ALONE! In our compound, there are about 6 rooms that that family, Sophie and Dabakh and I rent from Fatou. Koumba knocked on Dabakh’s door around midnight and asked him for help. He went to try and find a car to get her to the hospital and by the time he came back, she had already had the baby and cut its umbilical cord so she claimed that everything was alright and didn’t want to get in the car to go to the hospital. She didn’t even call her husband. In the car home from Diourbel, Fatou got a call from Koumba’s husband saying she had the baby and asked for her help to get her to Diourbel. When Fatou saw her, she knew she had lost too much blood and got her transport to Diourbel’s hospital. Koumba didn’t know how to cut the umbilical cord correctly and ended up needing 3 bags of blood when she got to Diourbel. The kids are now being taken care of by the neighbors while she is in the hospital. I guess Koumba’s family live in Matam, on the boarder of Mauritania/Mali so it may be awhile before she gets their help. There is no such thing as paternity leave here so Koumba is on her own. How did I sleep through the screaming of a new born baby; not to mention that of a woman giving birth?!

So needless to say, it’s been a crazy few days. The next few weeks are going to take a lot out of me so today I am claiming it to be a Kira Day. I slept in until 10:30, replanted my seeds in hopes that the 4th time will be the charm to get basil, spearmint and other delights to actually grow, I plan on watching a few movied and I may leave after lunch to go shopping in the market for a few things. I want to start cooking lunch on my own but I need to buy a propane tank first. And things to cook with. And a table to cook on. But If I don’t get around to it, that’s just fine. I need today to be normal so watching movies on my computer all day may just be necessary. Happy Kira Day.

Pufferfish are squishy!

Maybe I should call this blog entry “playing tourist” since that’s exactly what I have done for the past few days. I went to celebrate a friend’s birthday in Dakar this weekend. We made chili, hamburgers and even chocolate cake! Then on Sunday, I was minding my own business, eating breakfast when I over heard a friend mention he was going scuba diving. I obviously had to invite myself along! I had heard good things about it before and had to check it out! That afternoon we went 12 and a half meters down to swim around a shipwreck! They gave us all the equipment and a nice warm full body wet suit that I really didn’t think was necessary until we were about 10 meters down. It was great! We saw quite a few fish and lots of blow fish that our guide agitated and passed around for us to touch. We saw lots of starfish and even though the water wasn’t incredibly clear, it was lots of fun, and not all that outrageously priced… unless you are looking at it from a volunteer’s point of view! Very fun, spontaneous afternoon!

From Dakar, I got to meet 2 friends visiting a friend here and we went a few hours south along the shore. Palmarin is actually quite difficult to get to and there is not much in between it and the closest city. We stayed at a campement there and walked to a village near by for dinner. The next day we went kayaking through the mangroves with a very cool guide. He took us all around the mangroves, pointed out the lizards sleeping in the trees and let us walk around to get a closer look at the flamingos. We even had coffee inside a baobab tree! After lunch in another village, we went back to Joal, the next closest city to spend the night. Previous volunteers in Joal started quite a profitable compost facility that was very interesting to check out after hearing so much about it.

Overall, these last few days were great! Check out my pictures when I get the chance to post them. Senegal is very pretty and rather fun as a tourist! I invite you all to come! Now I am back to reality in Bambey and hope to stick around a while to save some money! I’ve got lots of plans and plenty of people to meet up with! Should be a good next few weeks!

Watch out for the goats!

Only for obvious reasons I guess! Biking back from Ndem today, I fell off my bike and skinned my knee in the gravel. When last did I have a skinned knee? Good question. And you know how everyone has that reaction to get up and look around to see who saw? Well, randomly, I was on 1km out of the 13K road that actually had kids on their way to school. So it was if I was back in grade school, just as mortified. Maybe I proved a point… “That’s why the toubab wears that funny thing on her head! She falls!” Terrific. Don’t worry, my knee will be fine and in order to restore my dignity, I am just going to tell everyone that I was going super fast and a stampede of goats ran out in front of me and had to swerve out of the way. You believe it right?

So like I said, I went to Ndem hoping to work on the IFAT application again. We didn’t exactly get to the application this time, but I am proud of my accomplishments. I had been asking Abdou how people send in orders because there is a chalkboard with clients’ names and dates, along with a mess of random papers that have very important information on them. So I talked to him about creating an order from. All of their products are already on the computer, so for the rest of the day, he and I made an order form! I am suddenly known in Ndem as “borom informatique” – master of computers! That’s right! It took me forever but I have it all set up and organized so that clients can simply copy and paste what they would like to order, specify the color and size and email it in. Abdou is going to send it to a few clients and ask them what they think, since we are probably missing a few things, but job well done in Ndem.

I went “fishing in the desert” earlier this week with Lamine. We sold 5 cases of fish to 23 villages including 34 women. I have recommended a different way for him to keep track of who owes him money in his accounting book. I have a feeling what he tells me his profits are, isn’t exactly accurate. I hope he understood me, but if not I can always go back out. This time, we didn’t get stuck in the sand and only had a slight scare with the missing breaks! I was asked to spend the day, and sometimes night by just about everyone, so I have to come up with a plan to avoid all the nice invitations next time. I took a few pictures, so check those out!

Ron Tchetter, the PC director came to visit us. I got the chances to talk to him, which was very cool. He told us stories about how he was a community health volunteer in India in the 60s with his wife and how since being the director, has traveled to over 40 countries and that he reports directly to the president, who “gets very excited about all this stuff”. (George? Excited?) This visit, he saw Guinea, Senegal and was on his way to the Gambia. 3 other volunteers and I met with him to talk about our work with artisans. The Africa regional director was also at the meeting and will get us in contact with other countries that are already exporting successfully. Hopefully we will get in touch with the people that export to Hallmark and Ten Thousand Villages!

I finally have met one of the three principals at the middle schools. And I’ll be meeting the rest as I will with my women’s groups soon enough. But early next week, I’ve got plans to play tourist in the mangroves! Life is good in Senegal. Watch out for the goats!

Gej naa la bind!

So I have officially been in country for 7 months today! Mom, that means just 19 to go! And just 4 months from yesterday, I will be on my way to Rome. The Peace Corps gives us 2 days for every month in country as official vacation days. I will be using all of my days out of Senegal, and the first 35 are going to be in Europe! Hope to see four or five countries in that time and my plan is to go alone; on my own schedule (where for once I don’t have to tell anyone where I am going and when I will be back and deal with how they miss me and when they will see me next… oh the Senegalese). Can’t wait! If you know of anyone abroad in Italy, Greece, England, or France (or any boarding country for that matter) let me know if they are cool with me staying on their couch for a few days!

Gej naa la bind: It’s been a while since I’ve written… my apologies! I have nearly stopped writing in my journal too. Maybe I have been busy? Nothing to complain about. I was in Dakar for a few days following a business conference and had a university student who stayed with me for 5 nights. She is studying abroad here in Dakar and was assigned a week-long rural visit. I made sure she lived up the rural life since we went to Ndem for 2 of those nights, which she actually really enjoyed. She even got to experience how trying it is to get out there with public transport: took over 2 hours to get into a bus that ended up breaking down twice and needed to be pushed by like 10 men! We made it though! It was nice to show someone around my home, a bit too hot for her liking. Dakar gets an ocean breeze; I don’t.

So I have been introduced to 2 women’s groups’ presidents this week. I wrote up a “Demande de Travail” telling them what Peace Corps is and what I can do, requesting to only work with serious people. I gave it to my supervisor who found these women for me. My counterpart went with me to introduce me to Astou earlier this week. He did an excellent job of explaining what I can do and she responded with how she doesn’t want my money, but rather wants to know what she can do with what she has. I could hardly believe my ears. Hopefully she will be good to do actual development work with! The other president runs a restaurant with her group, so that will be interesting to learn about as well.

Still haven’t met with the middle school principals and am getting mad at myself. Lots to do there and I just keep putting it off since I have no one to introduce me to them. Honestly, I wish it wasn’t who you knew... And I haven’t been back into the bush with my fish salesman and it may be put off another week since he called me telling me his aunt passed away. I can’t wait to go again and take pictures and figure out the best way to find him some funding.

I went and made some good progress in Ndem earlier this week. I was quickly disappointed since they didn’t respond to my email asking questions to fill in the application for IFAT, but rather, I sat down with Abdou and he went to town answering questions. I will be going back to continue work on it. I would love to get to Ndem every week but I’ve made a few new contacts here in Bambey and need to figure out how to make it all work. I have always been the kind of person that wants to do everything all the time and its just not possible here. I am good at managing one appointment per day and making lists.

I will be going to the Thies training center this week. We have a new stage of volunteers that came in March and since the World Peace Corps Director is visiting Senegal for a few days, our country director thinks it is important to talk to him about Ndem and the work we are doing with artisans. Very cool, in my opinion.