Thanks, Jackie!

My friend Jackie brought this article to my attention. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with most of its conclusions.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4295&page=0

Another king-sized post, now in 100-calorie portions!

Maybe as I get further into my Peace Corps service, arbitrary time markers will become less important. At some point, I'll probably stop counting months in Africa or weeks since install. Invariably, there will be an inflection point where the end is in sight, when I'll be counting down months, then weeks. (I know at least one volunteer clever enough to have a running count of both time into and time left in service.) But for now, I'm still counting up - and you can expect I'll continue noting those arbitrary time frames. As of this past Thursday, I've been in Senegal for 5 months.

Seereer training
My Seereer crash course was a hit: in 3 days we covered many of the key grammar points my ML~ tutor hadn't yet considered necessary. You know, obscure complex things like conjugation in the future tense. Plus, I got to visit a different corner of the country for a few days and break up the boys' club that was my language group (Byron, Jack, David and our teacher Assan). Someone had to roll her eyes in exasperation when they started fighting with sticks in class. (Seriously.)

Family reunion, Africa-style
Last Saturday I went to a family reunion. True to every stereotype of Africa I've ever heard, kinship is essential here. Childcare, social security, old-age care: extended family and friends (who are probably not-so-distant family anyway) are the providers of all those services; and you can't really rely on the government or private sector if your social circle falls through. People cultivate their family-and-friends network assiduously. It's why greetings are so important; why many Senegalese seem to have impeccable memories of acquaintances they met once twelve years ago; why finding a common relation, no matter how many generations back, is as important in the ritualistic greetings as asking "How's the family?"

It sometimes seems excessive. This family reunion, for instance, was region-wide and open to everyone sharing the maternal lineage Traboor. Not that maternal lineage is something I understand; it's not as simple as finding a common last name (since that'd be the paternal lineage, right?).

My host-father in the village is called Faye, but he's a Traboor through his mother. My host-mom is also a Faye, but she's a Wagadoo through her mom. My host-sister and I got to attend the reunion as children-of-a-Traboor, even though maternally I think we're Wagadoos...Maybe? In any case, we got matching dresses with other children-of-a-Traboor (a different color from the actual Traboor women). There was an extraordinary amount of cooking and food and talking. And, somehow, by the end of the day, a huge regional family rift had been resolved. Neat.

School
My grand plans for having a project to do in January - namely, computer workshops with the teachers at the public school - has been thwarted. Why? The Coupe d'Afrique soccer tournament. According to M.-the-creepy-as-ever-Directeur, until the Africa Cup finishes on January 31, the teachers have to get out early on the days when there is a match; they tack on a token half-hour to make up for lost time on the other days. Who would demand such a disruption to the school calendar? The staff, of course.

Throw in the afternoons off for Friday prayer and there's simply no time for the teachers to learn basic computer skills this month. Without even acknowledging a connection, the directeur launched into a tirade bemoaning Senegal's lack of a meritocracy vis-a-vis the U.S. I could barely hide my frustration.

The tailor
I'm not really big on clothes shopping. Put me in a kitchen store and I might never leave, but fashion has (quite visibly) never been a big concern. Here, though, buying cloth and having it tailored is fun. Yes, so most of the cloth comes in colors that absolutely do NOT compliment pale skin. The prints can be ...creative - who doesn't love wearing a dress plastered in a hundred blue chickens, or dollar signs, or pictures of Jesus? And, honestly, white people look 100% ridiculous in 100% of Senegalese clothing 100% of the time. None of this has stopped me from expanding my Senegalese wardrobe.

Most recently, I bought some fabric in Thies to make another pagne (wrap skirt). [Alyssa, I think they get easier to walk in as the fabric softens.] I decided to take it to Issa, the village tailor who made my stylish family reunion dress (a purple potato sack with arm-holes). In order to avoid being charged a jacked up toubab price, I confirmed with Fa, the woman who rents a room in our house. "He'll probably say 5000 (francs)," she said, "and you negotiate him down to 2000. They're used to people asking for a lowered price, so he'll start high. That's how it works here."

Back in my training village, I'd paid my uncle the tailor 2000 for a pagne - a price I felt must be good and honest since we were family. Now that I'm in a much smaller village, 2000 seemed a decent non-family price, too.

So, off I went to see Issa about a pagne with pockets. Issa doesn't speak much French and I don't speak much Seereer. But prices are usually discussed in French, so with the other pagne as a visual aid, I was sure we'd figure out the transaction. Here's how it went:

Me: Hello. How is the morning? Where is the family? How is the work? How are your kids? (Etc.)
Issa: Hello. It's morning. They are there. Peace only. They are there. Only peace. (Etc.)
Me: I'd like to pay for the potato sack dress. And to make a pagne with pockets like this one.
Issa: With pockets?
Me: Yes, with pockets.
Issa: Like this one?
Me: Yes, exactly like this one.
Issa: The same size?
Me: Yes. You can use the exact same measurements. They are both mine. How much will this cost?
Issa: 500 francs.
(Here my stupidity and failure to listen get in the way. Convinced I am being taken advantage of, I become indignant.)
Me: 5000?! That's expensive! I paid only 2000 for this other one.
Issa: You paid how much? (He is confused.)
Me: 2000. 2000 is good.
Issa: Ok. (Exasperated.) Fine. How about 1000?
...
Me: Wait. Did you say 500?
(Then I realize 1000 is still better than 2000, and I don't have the language skills to backpedal and explain my confusion.)
Me: When will this be ready?
Issa: Tonight.

Having integrated quite well into Senegalese Std Delay Time, I went back the next morning. I paid 1000 for the pagne. As I handed over the money, a woman smirked and gently chided Issa for charging me a toubab price.

Le Serpent Noir
A serpent noir made an appearance in our family compound. Fa and her kids startled it coming in late the other night. Just as I thought I was finally getting comfortable with the threat of cockroaches and mice and other creepy crawlers, now I have to worry about poisonous spitting black snakes that are only active at night and attract to warmth and lights?! Seeing them during the rainy season is apparently common enough to be no big deal; right now, though, it's considered a bad omen. Lovely.

And to end on a positive note...
Someday I'll have to share the hilarious story of the day I was convinced I had malaria for 12 hours...

Twenty-ten

Happy belated Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's to everyone! The last two weeks have been very full and I am only now getting around to writing up a blog.

For Christmas (and more importantly, for my sanity), I went to Dakar and celebrated with my friends. One of the big draws of the regional house there (beyond a washing machine and the hot shower) is the kitchen: there's an oven! We did a lot of cooking and baking (brunch, cinnamon rolls, Mexican, lasagna). And when we were weary of that, we ate out to our hearts' content (Indian, Chinese, fried chicken). Even as SED volunteers with our relatively generous diets, we still crave food variety as soon as we get out of site.

There's no denying that we planned most of our days around food (or grocery shopping), but we also managed to squeeze in some tourist-y activities. Actually, even though Dakar is a big West African capital, there's not a whole lot for a tourist to do; we probably covered the two biggest draws. One afternoon, we took a ferry out to the island of Goree. Goree was the jumping off point for slave ships crossing the Atlantic. It had a very western, colonial feel with the architecture and some beautiful views of Dakar. But the museum at the House of Slaves was unimpressive and we didn't take much away from the visit.

Another day we walked up the hill to the big Dakar lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day and we had a 360' view of Dakar: the PC office, the airport, the hideous new African Renaissance sculpture (look that one up online), downtown, and the expanse of the Atlantic stretching all the way back to the U.S. and home.

Having seen let'sjustsay all Dakar has to offer (we also got ice cream), we took a sept-places ride to Saint Louis. There we met up with about 20 volunteers for the most delicious New Year's barbecue ever (again with the food!), steps away from a wind-swept beach. We sought out and grilled up beef and shrimp kebabs, fresh fish and hamburgers. Someone got bread and cheese and veggies. And then we drank an equally abundant amount before heading to the island of Saint Louis to ring in 2010 at the bars. At the strike of midnight, we were found in a local joint, singing along to a song whose sole lyrics were the oddly repetitive "Bonne annee Africa!" It was an amazing New Year's - not one that's likely to have an equal ever, if only for the fact that it was spent in Senegal.

The only sad thought is that today on the threshold of 2010, I can look ahead and know exactly where I'll be for the entire year. Twenty-ten will be spent fully here, in Africa, barring any hiccups or trips, up until the threshold of 2011. It takes a great deal of the adventure and spontaneity out of the spontaneous adventure that is Peace Corps in Africa. Le sigh.

Anyway, I am once again back in Thies, heading to a 3-day language crash course in a Seereer village with a few other volunteers. I don't have high expectations for what I can learn in three days, but I'm eager to pick up some more grammar to try out on my tutor back in ML~.

Happy 2010!!!

(I'm working on getting pics up from Alyssa's computer... Feel free to check out my friends' blogs, too; they have some good pics when I was too lazy to take out my camera.)

School

Note: so I wrote this a few days ago when I thought I'd have regular internet access. Then, I couldn't connect for five days. Turns out I didn't have credit on the right line and was too stupid to figure that out before wasting a morning on the phone with customer service. So, I'm back. But these thoughts are a few days old.


There are two écoles primaires in my village: a private Catholic school and a public one. The Catholic school is part of a larger compound, with the church, the sisters’ dispensary and the daycare center nearby. It’s new and doesn’t differ much in style from the schools I worked at in France (the exception being that the rooms and windows open to the outside, a characteristic ill-suited for Normandy winters). The Catholic school’s familiar construction makes it obvious that it was built with foreign, donated funds; a sign says as much if you need confirmation.

The public school, well, until a few days ago, I didn’t know what it looked like. Maybe it’s because my host family is Catholic. Or because ML~ is largely Catholic. Maybe it’s because my counterpart, who is Muslim, sends his kids to the Catholic school. Or maybe it’s just because the Catholic school is at the entry to the village, the public school being considerably farther away. For whatever reason, after two months in ML~, I’d never set foot in the public school. At the same time, I walk by the Catholic school almost daily, have attended a meeting or two there – I’ve been introduced to all the teachers.

But my community is not homogenous. This is Senegal, a Muslim country: in villages where they don’t dominate, the Muslims still have a presence. There is a mosque directly on the village square (even if it is a good deal less impressive than the church, funded as it is by generous Catholics once again living outside of Senegal.

And so this week I made “non-Catholic” the theme of my visits in ML~, hopefully distinguishing me from some of the other well-meaning toubabs who come here on vacation. I stopped by the imam (who I had visited) and the public school (which I had not).

The public school is not as impressive as its Catholic counterpart, but mimics the French style all the same in an older, crumblier manner. There are more students and fewer teachers. And I have to walk pretty damn far to get there, greeting what seems like the entire village en route. But, lo and behold, there, hiding under my very nose, I found the potential for my first mini-project. I found something to keep me from dying (read: ETing) of boredom in January, something I’m actually already inherently capable of doing, even before February’s In-Service Training. L’informatique, which we can define here as teaching basic computer skills.

It turns out that once upon a time in the last ten years, someone (the state? renegade Catholics?) donated an old desktop computer to the public school. It sits there in the principal’s office unused, collecting dust because it’s old, because it uses up the solar-charged battery that people would rather use for their cell phones, because the five teachers really don’t know how to use it.

The directeur has got ideas for how they should use it: namely for writing up tests and texts (enter Microsoft WORD stage right) and calculating scores and averages (enter Microsoft EXCEL stage left). Then, once someone (not me) finds the funds to buy an ink cartridge, the star of the show – the printer – can be used to save the teachers the hassle of writing everything by hand. No joke: they write every test, every class roster by hand. Take a minute to get over the brain freeze induced by that notion of inefficiency.

So, there you have it. With any luck, I have something to do at least two days a week starting in January. I just have to
a) find a free non-internet-based typing/general computer learning program in French;
b) overcome the Senegalese habit of being late or absent for any agreed upon, fixed rendez-vous; and
c) overcome my aversion to the creepy directeur, who sees no problem giving entirely unprofessional flattery to someone young enough to be his daughter.

This is my first mini-project, though: conditions, shmonditions.

One long cab, bus and pirogue trip later, broken up with waiting for the cab, the bus and the pirogue, and I find myself back in ML~. It's both pleasant and difficult to be back. I'm thrilled to have my own space again, my own bed (even if it is a foam mattress with a me-shaped depression in the center). My lungs are grateful for the car-pollution-free air and my senses are more at ease, less tense. I can sleep well again in the near silence, not jarred awake by Dakar city sounds or people passing through the regional house. And I suppose it's also nice to be back in my community. Even if they don't need me or know quite what to do with a volunteer, they're welcoming (er, tolerant) all the same, and at least some people have seemed genuinely happy to see me back.

I'm not so thrilled to return to the level of inactivity that is becoming a habit. It is not rewarding to consider productive a morning spent walking through ML~, greeting villagers. [It's exhausting for an antisocial crab like me, but hardly productive.] Especially after having talked to other volunteers and heard what they're up to, even with their small projects, it's hard not to feel useless and bored and lazy all over again. And my program director's assurance at Thanksgiving, backed up by a second year volunteer, that my plate might be less than full this first year, well, that's more disconcerting than comforting. I'm still not sure why I should be here being unproductive and idle when I could be unproductive and idle someplace with electricity, warm water, unmelty chocolate, someplace closer to my family. [This is the point where all the counter-arguments to my bitching start flooding my head, so don't worry: I'm not ETing yet.] And, finally, being in Dakar was like being on vacation with friends and eating out and drinking. When I got back last week, in contrast, I spent an entire morning - three hours - doubled over plastic basins, hand-washing two weeks' worth of laundry. I might never say this after PC: the vacation's over; now I just wish there was some work to get back to.

In other news...I've finally set up internet, sort of. I have a battery-powered wireless internet phone line. I have to buy credit to log on. I have to make sure my computer AND the phone are both charged. And I have to make sure that there's enough sun to fill the family's solar charger to charge the laptop and the phone. We'll see how reliable this is...

Please forgive me for throwing punctuation rules out the window this time. :) It's been awhile.

Dakar & Eco-T conference

Well, while being in Dakar has been lovely (and expensive), the eco-T conference which ended today was a bust. Beyond the introductory speeches on Thursday, none of the trainings/workshops materialized and the traffic through the expo was limited. At any point, there were up to 11 volunteers sitting around the Peace Corps stand with our counterparts looking very bored. There was some good networking, but the lack of organization around the training hardly merited a 3 day conference. Wah-wah-wah.

The "after-hours" part of this trip has been fun, though. Yesterday, after 6 hours at the Hotel de Ville, I took off with PCVs Byron, Cail and Alex on an unofficial walking tour of the city. We started with ice cream and ended with a happy hour many hours later; passed through slums and luxury hotels; saw the President's mansion, the Assemblee Nationale, the Palais de Justice and two of Dakar's islands from afar. Exhausting? Yes. But it was also amazing to get to know the city just a little bit more and move a step away from being terrified of it.

So, now I'll spend another day or two here in Dakar before heading back to my site. Until then I'm going to enjoy this delicious feeling of not really being in the Peace Corps for a few more days...

Back in Dakar

I've now been away from site for over a week, keeping quite happily busy. After Tabaski, my friend Alyssa left on a tournee of Senegal. So, off I headed to Pout to visit my friend Jackie. (Take a second to giggle at the silly name. You know you want to.) Pout's on the road to Dakar and is known for its fruit (mango capital of Senegal, specifically). Aside from making fruit smoothies, we didn't really go crazy on the fruit, but we did cook a bit: banana pancakes and makeshift mac-and-cheese. Not at the same time. Delicious.

Now I'm back in Dakar for an eco-tourism conference that Peace Corps is participating in. Today, we sat in on ("crashed") a separate one-day eco-T conference at a very fancy hotel, and we were rewarded with the most amazing buffet lunch ever. We shamelessly charged the food tables for first, second, third servings, beating the actual attendees to the punch. It was a bit embarrassing, but we're hungry PC volunteers, right? Plus, I haven't had real salads (There were beets. BEETS.) or a decent chocolate baked good since I got here. We went to town. And then sneakily rolled our stuffed selves out of there before most people had got to the main course. Conference crashers.

Right now we're back at the PC office doing some last minute prep for the week's conference (which we're actually supposed/allowed to be attending). In a little bit, we'll be heading out to clams and beer (or shellfish and alcohol, more generally) at some shack on the Western most point of the continent. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday.

Ahti - you won't believe this: we went to Thai last night and I actually ordered a shrimp dish. Shrimp, as in shellfish. I hope you're proud!