Keur Malick Fady: My home for the next 2 years

“Nestled among mazes of mangroves, tropical forest and islands that float on myriad waterways, the tiny town of Toubakouta is easily one of the most beautiful spots of the Sine-Saloum Delta. It’s an excellent base for excursions to the nearby Parc National du Delta du Saloum and the stunning Air Marine Protegee de Bamboung, Senegal’s only functioning area of protected area.  The whole area teems with wildlife and sea birds, watching flamingos, fish eagles, herons and egrets prepare to roost on the shore at nightfall is fascinating, even if you’re not a keen bird-watcher.”  The Gabmia & Senegal Lonely Planet, 2008

This was the first I had read about my site in Fatick. Beyond this I was told it was beautiful by numerous people. First word out of their mouths when I told them where my site was. So far this place sounded like not only a place I would want to visit...but to live for 2 years. How lucky was I.

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Typical sunset that I've seen everyday for the week and half I've been here

Not only am I living in a beautiful place, I am the first volunteer in my village. Keur Malick Fady is about 600 people and about 11km or 8 miles from Toubacouta, a small resort town on the Mangroves. Being the first means I have to set the expectations of people of not only my village but of villages and people near by as well. Being the first means I get to start projects rather than continue them. Being the first means (hopefully for good reasons) I will be the one they talk about to  the next volunteer (they compare the old volunteers to the new ones even if the last one wasn't that good).

My brand spankin' new hut

 I get to decorate my hut, I get to plant a garden, along with figuring out the lay of the land, speaking the language and figuring out just what people do here. For the next 2 years I will work with helping with food security, increase variety of plants, vegetables, and fruits grown to help improve diets, along with working on various education, health and whatever project might pop up.

For example, I have been here only a week and half, I've noticed that not only do 2 small children (under the age of 6) have what looks to be abcesses but while helping pull water at one of the main wells, so do a few other women in the town. So I start to track down the nearest health volunteer and start picking there brain on best self care for abcesses (as I know how painful they can be), where the closest health post is (note: not a hospital or dentist, a place for check ups or simply medication) and if there are any other groups in the area working on health care visits to these small, sometimes remote towns and if possibly it would be "normal" to ask someone to come visit the town rather than tell these people to walk the 4km to the next town and shell out a good chunk of money to see a doctor for medication. I'm not a health volunteer, I don't have medication to give these people nor money to treat every ailment they have. BUT I do travel more than they do. I have a brand new bike that I go to the next few towns on a weekly basis, I can ask questions at the health post and of health volunteers for best practices or if there are others in the areas having the same issue. This isn't a project, but it could turn into one.

My namesake, Adam, and sister-in-law, Yassen, carrying water from the well. I can carry two of those by hand, but not very far or long. Typically my family uses 10 a day.

So far a typical day is nothing from typical, everyday here has been a little different. The first few days I've greeted almost everyone in the village by walking from compound to compound in the morning before people head to school or the fields to work or water gardens to say hi, introduce myself, ask questions, etc. This lead to a few people asking me to see their gardens (for example: to look at insect damage and help find what to use), fields (because I had asked about a specific crop or where they were) or something else they wanted to show me (sometimes it's as simple as the kids wanting to practice the little english they new on me others this meant I would have lunch with their family from then on).

Large "Hai" tree and 1 room school house at Keur Mama

 I have visited the next town over, Keur Mama, to be introduced to the village chief, extended family and other notable people in the area. All of these people are potential work partners on projects, what ever those project might be. Peace Corps has a program of extending seeds to farmers, with a hook of course, for every kilo we give them, they must give us double back to increase the project year after year. This is with the understanding they had a good year with said crop. 

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Typical village in my area

 Also with farmers we teach improved techniques, such as making and using compost, double digging beds, using 1 meter by 4 meter beds for vegetables, companion planting and others. Many of times projects find you, as I have already found with the abcesses. I might have very little knowledge of the problem my new neighbors, friends and family face, but it's my job to help in whatever way I can. Even if it's finding out that they need to go to the doctor and spend more money than they like to think about.

Onion beds in a field I visited-so beautiful

But I think the most common thing I keep saying to people I meet here is that America has the same problems they do. They think America has so much money, I keep telling them it's credit. They think there are jobs in America, and I tell them that it's a struggle there to find a job and when you do, you work long hours for little pay. They ask me if I can take them there, I show them the conversion into cfa (the currency for the country $1=500 cfa) for a plane ticket and ask them if they've even ridden in one (There eyes get big as they thought I took a taxi or bus to get here). If they do know how much it is, then the problem is getting a visa. I keep saying it's the same in America, if I want to work in another country I need one too. And it is hard. Everywhere is hard. No place is easy.

Ibraehema and I on our way back to Keur Malick Fady from the next town over

Unless you find what you love to do, the thing that makes you want to stay up at night and do it, that makes your heart sing. And if you're lucky you are able to get paid for it and be with your family at the same time. That is true richness. Being able to do what you love with who you love around you. Being content with what you have and where you are at. 

Strangely, after going through the 100 emails I had waiting for me today, writing this, and with Christmas right around the corner, I can say I am very rich, lucky and blessed to be able to do what I love with people I love here with me by email, text messages, thoughts, and support. I wish you all the happiest of holidays and all the love and warmth I can send from Africa. (it's still 80+ degrees here in the heat of the day)

Tabaski-I survived but the rams didn't

Tabaski is the largest Muslim holiday of the year and just happens to be my first one in Senegal. I was warned that it's crazy, rams are killed, butchered and eaten over 3 days of celebration. To me in an otherwise quiet country-this sounded find to me, maybe.

"Tabaski commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismael in obedience to God. At the last minute, God provided a ram to be sacrificed instead in reward for Ibrahim's obedience to God. In commemoration of this even. Muslims around the world celebrate by slaughtering a ram (goat, cow, etc, depending upon on location and family's wealth), dividing it into shares and celebrating with friends and family. Tabaski occurs approximately two months and 10 days after Korite and the end of Ramadan."

So far eating goat meat sounds like a nice to change to all the rice I have been eating with various fish, and occasional chicken and vegetable dishes. But remember I'm in a developing country and do have electricity and "running" (aka A water spicket that provides water for most of the day for all the water needs of my family) but refrigeration can be harder to come by. Luckily my family had a refrigerator.

Miniature version of men's dress in Senegal, my nephew Abdul

So the morning of the 1st day all the men get dressed up around 9 am and leave to go to the Masque to pray. On their return, around 10 am the rams and married men (1 ram per married man in the compound) is slaughtered in a very quick throat cutting process. Teenagers and other boys help keep the animals still before and after the deed has been done.

 

No need to tell you what's going on here

After the rams have passed they are then butchered on site. For me this is nothing new, I grew up helping on my grandparents working farm butchering chickens for many years along with my oldest brother trapping and skinning vermin for their pelts. (Yes I have lived in that small of town with that back-country of life) The other part of this is that every part of edible meat is used, although it might not be cleaned the best. I will leave the rest to your imagination-it's better honestly.

We eat lunch around 2-3 pm so it looks like we are all starving even if you are just more hungry than usual that day and the food doesn't last long here. Volunteers and I have discussed how we now eat fast to get what we want out of the communal bowls with our host families rather than eating slow and savoring the flavor. We do that more when we are at the center for training and there is more than enough food and we are adults (rather than eating with 7 small children who grab and sneeze into the bowl with reckless abandon)

 After we've cut up enough onions, potatoes and ram to kill someone and ate a good amount of it. You start to very slowly get cleaned up. You take a short nap, you take a bucket bath and start around sunset to get dressed for the night in your Tabaski outfit.

Tabaski is much like prom for Senegal except without a date and a huge party to go to. The women spend the week, if not months, before saving money to have their hair braided or have extensions put on the week/few days before and to have a few outfits made. Both of which are not cheap.

During this week I wouldn't have been surprised to see a tumble weed of hair going through our small town. Hair is talked about in terms of packets of hair extensions used or how much money was spent on it, not the time it took to do it. But the transformation is pretty incredible.

My sister-in-law Mimona and her daughter Mi

Mi, my niece

Aarma, one of the next door wives

After the women are dressed up they leave to go visit their friends at their houses. Sadly I do not have a picture of my dress, but I will have one for swearing in at the end of this month. Tabaski lasts for 3 night were I was in country, so I went the first night with some of my family to go visit. The strange thing about this was that the families we visited were not dressed up for the occasion and were simply lounging at home. And of all the awkwardness of being in another culture and meeting people all the time that you have no idea of their importance, going to visit people on Tabaski was the most awkward. The four of us women would go inside someone's room, sit on the bed, and hardly make any small talk (as in hardly I mean none), be offered something to drink (usually soda of some flavor), drink it, watch whatever was on the tv in that room and then leave. All short of maybe 10 minutes. We did this repeatedly at 4 houses before going back home and it all took around an hour.

As for being the largest event of the year, I was very surprised how low key it was. There was no drumming, dancing, or grandness of the event that seemed more important any other. People traveled home to be with their families, so there were a number of extended family members home at everyone. All in all a pretty good holiday.

NOTE: This holiday happened a month ago.

Mboro: My Community Based Training Site (CBT)

I lucked out on my community based training site, also known as CBT. I have 3 other site-mates that live with their respective families in the small city of Mboro, an hour north of Thies. On the map its right next to Mboro-Sur-Mer. The region, Niayes, between Dakar and St. Luis is known for their vegetable market and fruit farms that are in the region. The region produces about 80% of the agricultural food production for the country.


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My Mboro Site-Mates, Rollo, Me, Vivian, Patrick (on a lucky day at the near by beach)

Since I haven't a battery charger for my AA batteries, I broke down and purchased batteries here. I've been limited to the amount of pictures I have taken, but you can see of the ones I have here:

Mboro photo album
Thies photo album

The other reason for the limited photo taking is that EVERYONE in Senegal loves to have their picture taken. Pictures are a huge deal here and they expect you to give one to them. There are many cultural expectations of Americans and Peace Corps Volunteers alike I am finding. But I also have some myself of Africans, my host family and even other Peace Corps volunteers.

Down a street in Mboro, Senegal

Africa, Senegal, Peace Corps and my site, Mboro have been great. I can not complain about the food, the culture, or the trash I see. All in all, I am fed, watered, cared for and it's done well and with care. The only thing that I'm finding, or more realizing, is thinking how open and knowing how open I am there are still expectations that you have built into a culture. Some of these we forget we have until you are placed a seemingly "other" world and you start figuring them out because people are making assumptions about you.

For example, in Senegal different things are noted. Anything different than the usual is discussed. Having grown up in a tiny town, this I have found is typical in most small towns in America as well. Different is bad in a way, it bucks the trend, leads to change and possibly worse things that just this 1 random thing that happens to be different that all the other. This is also how we are taught to learn. How many shape tests did you do as a child to find "the different one" or the one that "isn't like the others"? This is a way for our brains to categorize, inform, and lack of a better word, stereotype things to make sense of them quick to protect ourselves.

My language skills are coming along slowly and I'm able to comprehend quite a bit, but forming a response in the language gets my mouth in a bind. For once in my life, I'm frustrated that I'm unable to communicate with people and have become quieter rather than my more "outspoken self" here. Frustration hits especially when I'm being asked why I can't speak their language and if I'm dumb for not being able to. Other volunteers have mentioned similar experiences where they have read an english book out loud for a Senegalese for them to realize we are capable of reading, just not in their language.

Inside a Senegalese Primary School Classroom

We do this in America as well. I'm just as guilty of making the opposite assumption, of literacy and fluency in their language. As I sat down with various host-family members over the 3 weeks I have been at my site for various conversations, making a family tree (that I have found never ends), and simply learning vocabulary that the Wolof language is very fluid idea.

French is taught in the classrooms here as you can see on the chalkboard in the picture, but Wolof or a local language is spoken at home. Meaning, french has a standardization for it while Wolof has more of an idea of it. For example in Wolof there are sometimes multiple words that mean the exact same thing, usage of that word is the same, but a native speaker your talking to might only know one of them and not both. Also spelling seems to be phonetic sometimes but there are many similar words that sound almost the same but mean very different things. Xar and xaar, meaning ram and to wait, respectively.  Context of the conversation is supposed to help you figure out the one they mean.

The most common question I get from Senegalese is if I will take them, or their children back to America with me. In their mind, America is great, bountiful and full of money and so there for so I must be too. Senegalese has a wonderful sharing and joking culture. That if you have something, food usually, you are deemed to share it with the group or be asked about it from every person there a few times while eating it in front of them. Its normal for them to share and ask the same of others. Sometimes with the joking culture, they will simply ask you for whatever happens to be on you, in your hand, or whatever they might fancy you have. This I have found is 2 fold. First, it's to poke you to see if you will play with them or be offended by it. Second, it's a complement, they genuinely like the thing they are telling you is pretty, nice, or whatever and would like it. My response to this at first was "thank you" and "no you can't have it", to now it's "sure, but I want that dress your wearing and the shoes too" for something as simple as something a beaded bracelet. They have 1 word that means, pretty, beautiful, gorgeous and anything else deemed "beautiful" in there culture so by doing this they are telling you they like your style (a word that doesn't exist in their wolof vocab, along with please).

Not MY idea of style, but for Tabaski, it is.

I have realized that frames of reference, culture, and personal experience all shape our relationships and interactions with each other and other cultures. I was lucky enough to have this brought during a lecture with author Jean Illsley Clarke in college and it prepared me for at the time traveling to South Korea and with understand other cultures and people since then. I might not be able to fully understand why something happens I don't agree with but I can ask a questions to get a better idea rather than have a visceral response to it.

I will make sure to take more pictures of the market, school and more of the town now that Tabaski is over.  Let me know if there is anything you are interested in hearing about. There is a beekeeper near by as well I hope to be visiting soon too!

I Survived 2 Weeks in Africa...What do I Get?: Hopefully Not Maleria

I have been told the first day at my host family is the hardest day of my service. Today I get to meet my 1st host family in Mboro, Senegal (about an hour north of Thies) and start living there with them for the rest of my training. We come back and forth to the training center for more training, language tests and debriefings.

I also will get my 1st Senegalese name. I am very excited about this as the closest word in Wolof to my last name is the word for toilet. So needless to say, I'm excited to see what tribe I'm also with. There is a culture of joking cousins, out of the 6+ tribes, each has 2-3 joking cousins that they are sarcastic with. You might give a vendor a hard time when bartering knowing they are your joking cousin. Also shows proficiency in the language.

 
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 I started writing this over a week ago before I was on my way to site in the short time I had left with internet access, a table to write at, and my computer (that I left at the training center) Much has changed since then.

My Senegalese name is Daba Mbodji (Prounounced Mbouch) and I live in a small town north of Thies, called Mboro. It's known for it's vegetables and fruit market and gardens. My family is small in terms of Senegalese size with only 10 people not including myself. I live with my grandmother, my mom, my 3 sisters and my brother and his wife along with their kids. Luckily my siblings are around my age and my tarondoo (namesake) sister is also unmarried with no children. So we have much in common.

My house has 5 small bedrooms, a living room (with a tv-most channels are in french or wolof) and a shared courtyard (where all the cooking and laundry is done as well as hanging out) with more extended family with house that is connected to ours. So all together there are 20-ish people around at any given time in or around the house. Needless to say I shouldn't ever be lonely.

I live a few blocks away from a school and a few more blocks from the other 3 volunteers that my site mates here that live with their own receptive families. But even living that short distance I have gotten "lost" a few times in the week I have been at site. I see this as an adventure to get to know my neighborhood and I can easily be  "found" by asking where my families' house is or calling a site mate to come find me. Or worse comes to worse I can call my brother and try in broken wolof or french to come find me or find where I am. Either way it's not hard to get lost or found in my town.

I will write more while I'm here in Thies for training in the next few days. My rechargeable battery charger isn't working so I have not been able pictures. So my goal of being here is to figure it out so I can show you more of my family and my new home for the next few months.

Je Suis Arrivé: My First Taste of Senegal

It's hot here. I arrived in Senegal with 57 other volunteers at 5:30 am, this was a good thing for 2 reasons first it was already 85 F and we were the only ones in the airport. So not was I only tired from not sleeping, I had sweating beading up on every inch of my skin and had to wrangle my luggage. (Yes I packed too much, but I'm still happy with what I brought as I sleep my first night in Senegal in my sleeping/mosquito proof hammock with a very large smile on my face)

After wrangling said luggage, we were greeted by current volunteers, our country director and other wonderful staff. I was more than happy to sit for another hour or so to the commute to Theis from Dakar. And the view on the way was pretty great.

I not only had a window seat on the plane (Dakar has a VERY short runway and the approach just about clips buildings from a water approach-not for the timid flyer) and also on the van ride to the training center and because my batteries were dead I simply took it in instead of taking pictures. Now looking back I'm happy this happened. There were some interesting things along the way, but that was one road in a very small region of this amazing country.

Once we got to the training center we were welcomed again with beating drums and some food, coffee and tea.r After luggage was moved again (I'm wondering if I should start counting) In the heat it started sprinkling and people found there natural places lounging, playing Frisbee and simply enjoying being here. I don't think any of us in our sleep deprived haze could quite get our heads wrapped around it.  We were here. In Africa. I had said it while I was in the states yet, in less than 24 hours I will be in AFRICA. Crazy.

And I am here. Enjoying it all. Since we are on the end of the raining season (and it rains as I right this at almost 3am) it is lush here. green beyond green. I was told they thought the rainy season was over and we got just another (and yet another) dose of it, it will start to cool off and the humidity will drop and get "Lion King"-like.  So while we have it I'm taking notes of the plants in the gardens we have in the center's compound (which is roughly the size of a city block with a tall cement wall around it and many buildings and gardens throughout)

As this week goes by I hope to LEARN a lot. Most of didn't sleep on the plane or the entire 1st day we were here and we had some training sessions. I hope I retain any of that information, but I did get a chance to sleep and will again after the rain stops and lets me back to my hammock until the breakfast drum sounds. Tomorrow is another day here and I can't wait for it. (and will take some pictures)

Saying the G-Word: My last week in the United States

This week I have seen many friends, co-workers and family before I head off to Washington, D.C. and then to Senegal, West Africa next week. Strangely, many of them have not said my least favorite word “goodbye” to me. I’m sure I have mentioned to most of them how silly I thought it was that friends and family warned me there were going to cry and have told them back what a happy experience I wanted this to be. Not sad or with tears. I am sure when looking back at these days I will not be saying to myself   “I wish people would have cried more” and that there will be plenty days in Senegal that I will cry enough for all of them combined. Save the tears for when they are needed, trust me, I will need them.

 

I understand that having a friend or family member leave is unsettling, but in this day and age of electronics, internet and cell phones, communicating across the world is as easy as ever. I have friends all over the globe that are on Facebook and with Skype I can ‘call’ them when we happen to be online at the same time. Handy, right? Unless you aren’t well versed in things technological, like my mom.

If anyone asks me what they can do or get me before I leave, I have simply replied with be happy I am going to do what I have wanted to and please don’t cry. As simple and priceless as this is, I know it is much harder and complicated as that, especially for my mom. She has known forever that I am going to the Peace Corps and I have prodded her to learn how to email and use Skype but still has not learned on her own. I grew up in a small rural town with 300 people, close to the dark ages some say (that some be me) but there is a 20,000 person town nearby. I’m hoping that she will read this by my sending my blog posts to her email that we have the chance to set up. I have warned how expensive it is to send things (medium sized flat rate USPS box being around $60-70 US) it would be much easier to email and Skype, which are both free.

Changing habits and learning new things is more difficult in action than in theory. It’s always a good idea to work towards the better but feels impossible whether you have a support group or not and no matter how small of a change you are trying to make. I’m sure in Senegal I will have many more hang-ups than I ever thought possible. 

I do have to say having a 2-year old say "buh-bye" in the sweetest voice ever does make just throw up my hands and puts me right where my friends are. There is some strange part of me that is glad they are sad to see me go, but know that I will have only more to share with them from my travels. 

“After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t always mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child. And you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much, so you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. And you learn that you really can endure, you really are strong, you really do have worth, and you learn and you learn. With every goodbye, you learn.”  -Veronica Shoffstal 

I can say the best way I have learned to say good bye, is from a dear friend of mine that works for Kooza for Cirque du Soleil. He has worked the entirety of the show and has seen many faces come an go. As a traveling production they are constantly moving and on the road, seemingly for years. I bawled when I last saw him and now know how he felt. It's hard when others are sad to see you leave. His words of wisdom..."I will see you again in another part of the world", which is so true. I hope to see many other people I have met through traveling or working various places. Or in my best friend's case she will be moving due to her husband being in the military. And of course this post would not be complete without my favorite E.E. Cummings poem.

Shoffstal V. with every goodbye you learn. Available at: http://youareremarkable.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/with-every-goodbye-you-learn/. Accessed July 29, 2012.

Out in to the Ether: I’m Traveling for How Many Hours/Days?

On Sunday I start my way toward Washington, D.C. before I board a plane to Senegal, West Africa to start my life as a Peace Corps volunteer. Actually if you count the fact that I am actually at my mom’s house in southern Minnesota to visit for a week, the travel has actually already started. Being in limbo and extended traveling isn’t new to me and I actually thoroughly enjoy it, that is with enough planning.

Flight home from South Korea back in 2006

 Rachel is another fellow expat and Minnesotan who has lived abroad in Somalia for a few years now and writes about her adventures, family and life on her blog, Djibouti Jones. I have followed her blog for a few months now pouring over her site looking for packing lists, cultural norms to be wary of and finding out I should prepared to sweat and be dusty, sometimes at the same time.

In a recent trip for her back to Somalia from Minnesota she gave this WONDERFUL list on her traveling tips. I will be using all of them in the hours or days I will be traversing the earth for a while.

Ten Travel Tips
1. Eat whatever you want. Food eaten in airports and on airplanes doesn't have calories.
2. Fly like the American you are (if you are one). This means feel free to carry a large, ugly backpack, wear large, ugly shoes, and large, ugly pants. Whatever it takes to be comfortable for the next 27 hours.
3. Be nice to the airline employees. You will see a lot of them and they know where the extra toilet paper is kept on the plane.
4. Pack your carry-ons so you will only need access to one during the flight.
5. Bring a bottle for water. Even if your husband thinks you won't need it. He will be asking for it somewhere above Europe.
6. Bring reading material you are willing to forget in the seat carrier in front of you.
7. Make sure young children use the bathroom before flight attendants lock you in for the 45 minutes preceding landing. Ditto for yourself.
8. Don't look at your watch or any time-revealing devices. It won't help.
9. Explain to concerned passengers and flight attendants that the pile on the ground beneath your feet is just lumpy carry-ons, not a sleeping child. Even though it is a sleeping child and you are secretly jealous.
10. Remind yourself that a whole new world awaits you. As well as, hopefully, all of your luggage.

From my research I believe the plane trip to Senegal is somewhere around 7 hours, but if you count the total hours I will be on a plan next week it’s closer to 13.  Back in 2006, I traveled to South Korea on a 15-hour flight with a lay over, but nothing could beat the flight back. We left around 10:30 am Friday morning and woke up with the sun that day to see it set and rise again on the plane only to land around 11 am on the same Friday we left. I saw the sun rise and set that day twice and took me a while to get my head wrapped around that for a while after.

Being in limbo, traveling, whatever you call it, is a strange place to be in. Time is not what it is, you make yourself as comfortable as you can, check your patience and calorie counting at the door. They say its not the destination but the journey that matters, same goes with traveling. A little planning goes a long way on making yourself and others comfortable.

I am slowly checking things off my list, writing as much as I can not knowing when I will get the chance again, seeing as many friends as possible, eating all the things I think I would miss and excited to start my new adventure in Africa.

All in all I have been blessed, prayed and chanted for, had a monarch butterfly released in my honor and protection, had guardian angles asked to be my side while traveling, hugged, kissed, drinks bought for, fed well and wished well in SO many wonderful countless ways from friends, family and complete strangers. I can honestly say I'm speechless (and if you know me-that NEVER happens) 

So THANK YOU ALL, the UNIVERSE and all other wonderful things. I'm excited to get on a plane and start seeing more of this wonderful world.

Jones, Rachel Pieh. Marathon Miles: 10 Travel Tips. Rachel Pieh Jones. 2012. Available at: http://www.djiboutijones.com/2012/08/marathon-miles-10-travel-tips.html. Accessed August 20, 2012.