Boite Postal 21

Hold up, STOP whatever you are doing! Pick up a pen and a post-it. Write on it:

Kira Keuhn
BP 21
Bambey, Sénégal
West Africa

Okay, now you can keep reading. But when you are done reading, you need to write me a letter. A pretty one that I can hang on my new wall! International stamps cost like 94 cents. I’m not kidding: I expect mail from you in like a month. OR ELSE!

That’s right, I moved! I am no longer living with a family. I have a one room apartment. Let’s call it a studio; sounds more sophisticated. Yesterday, the Safety and Security Coordinator, my friend Erin, and I arrived in Bambey around 2. We looked at the place and talked to the owner. Then, we went to my old house to get my mattress, fan and a few other things and brought it to my studio. Then the SSC left. Erin I went back to my house and packed up everything. Within 2 hours, I was moved into my studio with the help of Morr Diouf and his horse El Hajj. Not exactly 2 Men and a Truck but much cheaper! I owe Erin big time. My room was about 10 degrees hotter than anywhere else in Bambey and we were there during the hottest part of the day! Love you Erin! She and I slept in my tent on top of my mattress last night. I have no furniture (everything was borrowed from my host mom at the last house), 2 bikes, a double mattress, more books than you can imagine, and 2 full suitcases of clothes all in a 3 ½ meter square room. But I have a window! And a cement roof!!

I spent all morning running around Bambey with the handyman I got to know very well early in my service. He repaired my roof twice and screened my windows and doors at the last house. “Screens are missing” was the phrase of the day. We went to 4 hardware stores to find all of our supplies. He will be making me a screen door and window and 2 shelves. It is much easier doing all this moving-in stuff when I already know my way around. I should be getting internet installed in the near future and am trying to make friends out of my new neighbors. I live in an apartment that’s a lot like a dorm so I have about 20 new housemates!

So now the countdown is on! I have an artisan reunion to plan, an eco-t conference to attend, a new volunteer and his artisan to visit, a tree nursery to plant, and a whole lot of other greetings to do before Nick arrives on April 5. Sama jëkër lay nëw Sénégal! Vacation is planned in the mangroves, the desert (aka Bambey), the beach and a few cities in between! Couldn’t be more excited!

Just a quick shout out to my 2 favorite women in the world – Happy belated 85th Grandma and Happy belated 50th Mom! Love you both! We’ll celebrate next year together!

Boiling Point

Isn’t there a show about this? Where people play practical jokes to someone on tape to see how much they can stand before freaking out? Well. I reached that point. I don’t really like admitting it. But Saturday night, I went crazy. I don’t think there is a better way to put it. I literally threw the dog, slammed doors and yelled profanity to my host family. If you have read my blog in the past, I have probably mentioned this horrible animal and how much I have come to despise her. She barks and no one controls her. She has complete freedom and drives me insane. Literally.

She started barking at loud music at 10pm. She doesn’t understand where the noise is coming from so barks at it. By 11 I gently put her outside the compound walls so I could go to sleep. But 11:30 someone had let her back in the compound, and was yet again, barking NON STOP! I went out and found my host mom throwing rocks at her as some poor attempt to quiet her down. By 12:30, I had it. I grabbed her by the neck and threw her outside the door. But she’s a fast little thing, and got back inside before I had the chance to close the door. So I caught her again and threw her again, and kicked her to try and close the door quickly. She still got back in. By that point, my host mom heard the commotion and came out. I slammed the huge, metal compound door and said words in English that I’m sure, along with the tone, translates to just about any language.

The next day, after escaping Bambey to Dakar, I called my host family. I gave my host mom and ultimatum: me or the dog. Well, she is very worried about thieves, so I’m out. I talked with PC and have since visited a new apartment on the opposite side of town. Hopefully next week PC will approve of my new place and I will be a much happier PVC.

Back to Dakar. To breath. To sit at the pool or lay out on the beach. To relax. Since I just keep having people remind me that I gave up stress for 2009.

Benn At ak Gen Wàll

Waaw, def naa benn at ak gen wàll fii ci Sénégal. Jot bi gaaw na torop! Waaye itam, namm naa waaAmerik te bëgg naa nibi ndax fofu, mo gëna yomb!

Surprisingly, today marks my 18th month in Senegal. It was also my 3rd site visit by my 2 bosses Mark and Bamba. They drive up in their fancy Land Cruiser that attracts all this attention and legitimizes my work and existence in this town. This is how it played out:

They came to my house, met with my mom, who told them that everything is just fine, and that I am a great daughter. I told them later that she left out the part that we have been on thin ice lately since she had been telling the maid to use my propane tank when I was gone. According to her, we are family and this means that she shouldn’t need to ask to use my things in my room. Maybe this recent argument is the reason I wasn’t invited to Gamou, the Tidiane pilgrimage to Tivoauane with them. No, Mark and Bamba, everything isn’t just fine. But they still feed me and let me live here. I haven’t figured out how to murder Gista, the beloved, barking, nasty dog. But I am in the process of finding my replacement a new house in a different neighborhood with another family!

Matar came over. He was very proud to talk about our work together. His accounting is coming right along, happily showing profits this month! Bamba: “What are you learning from your recordkeeping?” Matar: “To be cheap.” Haha, so much for eating all that silver, as the Wolof expression is equivalent for having fun! We are continually developing his products and he is planning the next expo while also completing orders for more patchwork hoodies and pj pants for volunteers. Bamba told Matar not to let me leave with my expertise; that he needs to learn it all before October. Matar will now be my most motivated work partner!

Then, we headed to my compost site. A short story about that! I just got back yesterday from my 5 nights to de-stress in Dakar. I went to see Djebaye last night and had quite the interesting talk. He explained that he is thanking God for giving him the ability to work and his connections with Astou Kane (women’s group pres) and me. But honestly, it is just not right that I should get mad if he doesn’t show up for meetings. It isn’t right that he isn’t getting paid for all this work that he is doing; and that I should have pity on him when he needs money for a transport pass to visit his religious leader. Alright, I see where he is coming from, on some points. So he forgives me for storming off. But we still have more problems to solve, like, where is that 15,000cfa from people who have already paid Djebaye and yet the money hasn’t made its way into the cash box? And if we don’t have enough money for a new order of garbage cans by the end of the month, I will refund people’s money. Anyways, last night, I sent a text around to about 10 people to invite them to the site and to meet my bosses. About 7 showed up, which is incredible! Some people didn’t know the others existed and they were all talking about how to correct current problems and keep this project going. Honestly, it is no longer my number one priority, but I can’t just quit. They are interested in continuing this work. Now let’s just find someone to buy it to pay Djebaye for his work! And then I’ll leave it up to my replacement to decide if they are ready to find funding for this to really take off.

The last introduction with Mark and Bamba was with Fallou, who is a retired teacher who will be helping me with my adopt-a-tree project. As soon as tomorrow, we are going to the schools to see if there is the interest to do tree nurseries. I need space, protection from animals and a water source, along with students willing to water the trees. My idea is to give them the choice of using the compost, but they will have to purchase it. I haven’t figured out how exactly to fence in all the trees once we out-plant them but I hope to have 1 or 2 students adopt a tree and, using whatever they can find at home, fence in their tree. Then I will go around and give out prizes to the “Most Effective” and “Most Creative” fences. Let’s hope tomorrow and next week I will find the willingness to start this project since by the end of the month, I need to start the tree nursery!

(Yes, I have done a year and a half here in Senegal. Time is very fast! But also, I miss the people of America and want to go home because there, it is easier!) Peace Corps: Hardest job you’ll ever love. True story.

Tough Day

I live in a city. I have power, running water, a cell phone and internet. I can communicate in the local language and have great friends and a decent family. I have good work partners, a few current projects and ideas for future ones. Yet, today, I’d still rather be anywhere but here.

Went to the cyber twice yesterday and once today and was unable to connect. For some reason, I could connect in Thies but can’t here. I have tried my home, both LAN and wifi, and 3 different cybers. Mystery unsolved.
Yesterday, I went door-to-door for 3 hours trying to collect money to get more garbage cans ordered to increase my project. Not a single payment.
I saw a baby pig get into my fence at my compost site. All I have to say to that – I want another BLT.
I have prepared a pretty interesting article on the Stimulus Act for the English class at the high school, but when I called to confirm with my English teacher, he told me he is in Thies, partying, rather than teaching. This, by the way, is just a week following a meeting we had when he told me that the kids need to learn 9 months of material in about 4 months because of holidays and strikes.
Showed up for another meeting with my work partner to go back around door-to-door, but my work partner didn’t show up. My women’s group president told me she knows nothing about compost and doesn’t know what to do with it. “Ouria, you need to find people who will buy it, I don’t know how to do that or how much to charge”. Great. Thanks for the help.
Since I’m crabby and obviously deserve something sweet, I went to the boutique to get flour, butter and sugar to make peanut butter cookie dough. (No oven, gotta improvise) But not only 1, but 2 boutiques are OUT OF FLOUR! Come on, give a girl a break!
And then tonight, I went to talk to my work partner, who tried to change everything on me. Long story short, we need a break from each other. He doesn’t want to listen to me, or meet me for our meetings, so its break time. I’m off to Dakar. Normally, I would go for a night or two. But Monday is another Muslim holiday. There is a pilgrimage to Tivaouane, north of Thies. So I will go to Dakar until Wednesday. I have friends COSing and I have to give blood to check liver function anyways. Damn, how good would a cold beer taste right about now? 7 months….

Rock throwing Riots

Well, I think today was the first time I have experienced violence in Senegal. It's such a peaceful country but I find it rather ironic that it happened the same day that the president of Guinea Bissau was assassinated.

Yesterday I spent the night just outside of Thies at a friend's site. We left around 10 to get to Thies with no problem at all. Somewhere during the 11k drive, our Safety and Security Coordinator sent volunteers a mass text saying "Transport strikes and demonstrations reported in Dakar and Kaolack. Possibly nationwide. Expect transport delays and cancellations today. Please remain vigilant and alert". We get random messages like this all the time so didn't think anything of it. I wish I was exaggerating but honestly, within the next 5 minutes, our bus was stormed by dozens of angry people throwing rocks. We were warned at one stop to let someone off just before this by a fruit lady saying there will be problems ahead but our driver didn't listen to her. No one was hurt, thank goodness. I was able to sink down to nearly sitting on the floor. One brick ended up coming through the back window. It was obvious our driver didn't know whether to stop or drive faster but obviously this mob wanted him to stop. It is the drivers who are striking for higher wages and this was there way of saying, QUIT DRIVING, WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON STRIKE.

But, knowing this culture pretty well, I know that there were a lot more people involved in this mess than there should have been. I doubt it was only the drivers throwing rocks. People looking for a thrill played along as well. We had to get off of our bus about a quarter mile before the entrance to Thies to be on the safe side. Near the garage of Thies, there was hundreds of people standing in front of the garage, as if to guard anyone else in search of transportation.

It's after 6 and I have heard there may still be problems with public transport now. I won't be going back to site tonight, that's for sure. And we have a taxi's number to bring us back to my friend's site. No need to worry!

It has been a fun day in Thies today. I met the new stage, who upon their arrival, makes our stage the next to leave. There are 2 stages a year - so I'm a senior. AKA next to COS. Crazy. Time to go get busy at site but here I am trapped into watching movies, eating restaurant food, and gossiping with my favorites! Life as a PCV