Saturday, May 21, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
Haunting Images
There are some events that are devastatingly horrific to see. Some that will forever give me nightmares. That happened to me today while I was waiting for lunch to me served. My mom, mother of 5 kids was ridiculously sweaty. The way she fixes that is to take her shirt off and proceed to wipe the sweat from her body. Under her armpits, her stomach and back all the way to the front where she lifts up her boobs to get to the sweaty underside. Then back up to her face. This happens for about 30minutes until lunch was served. I was sitting less than a foot away and could not take my eyes away from the terrifying site. She is a beautiful Wolof lady, but I was not prepared.
Camels
Just thought I'd let you guys know that today I was biking home and saw about 30 camels jogging down the street on the way to the watering hole outside of Linguere. It was pretty funny. I usually see them on a daily basis, but not so many all together.
Random Thoughts
Hot season is here. Apparently it's not as bad as it was last year (the other volunteers boast). But I have to say that it's still pretty damn hot. We can still work outside, and go about our normal tasks until about 1pm when the sun becomes too hot to move. I then have to take refuge until about 5-5:30pm when I can get another couple of hours of work in. Senegalese people think we're insane to be working outside this much, but they do it too! They tell me that my skin is too white and sensitive to handle the heat. That might be true, at least for my pasty skin, but I refuse to be seen as a weakling! haha
So an example of my workday:
I usually wake up at like 7am, sleeping outside with my family doesn't really allow me to sleep in. I'll read for a little bit while I have breakfast (usually consisting of bread and tea). Then I'll head out about 8:30am, 9 if I'm feeling lazy. Today I went to the Master Farmer site (I'll explain more about that program later). I watered all of the trees that line the farm, all of the trees that protect the field from the smothering heat, winds and sand. Since there really isn't a great irrigation system, I water them all by
hand with a watering can. After that I planted eucalyptus, guava and cashew seeds in our tree nursery site. At about 12:30 I biked back into town, chugged some cold water at our regional office and went home. I passed out under the tree in my compound until lunch and read until about 4pm. I came here to work on my computer (thank allah there is electricity right now) and wrote this post. Now I'm getting ready to head back out to the field to finish up some work. At around 7pm I'll head back home, shower and hang with my family for the night.
So that's the schedule most of the time. Other days I work in my personal garden or visit residents in the city and help them out in their gardens. We have about 13 volunteers in our region now. The rest of them are Environmental Education and Health workers. But everyone works in some sort of agriculture. Sometimes I get to go to their villages to teach or assist teaching agriculture techniques. We work with women's groups and school environmental clubs. I love doing that. Even though my Wolof is still a little rocky, I have so much fun teaching and conducting trainings. So that's the agriculture part at the moment. I also work on educational and nutritional murals around town, which is really fun. It's a nice break from the field and can be therapeutic.
I feel like I conduct "cultural classes" on a daily basis with people. Some days I have the funniest conversations. And the questions people come up with are amazing:
Do they have bread in America? --Um yes, yes they do
Are there cats in America? - yup, we've got those too
What about sand? Is there sand? - Yes there is, but it's usually attached to some water
There cannot be sheep in America!??-- By the end of this 15-minute question fest I usually lose
patience and say something stupid like, yea we have sheep
but in America they have two heads....I can be such a jerk
I find that lots of volunteers do this. We're not trying to be rude, or take advantage of the lack of education here, but sometimes we just get annoyed. Or need a laugh to keep our heads on straight.
But I also have serious conversations with people. I was extremely surprised that most adults and teenagers (ones that have been to high school) do not know that we have landed on the moon. I spent one evening talking about how in 1969, we actually went to the moon and walked around and stuff. And since then, we've been exploring all over space. They think I'm CRAZY, or playing a joke on them. "Adji, you can't go to the moon, you'd fall off." I then attempted to explain gravity in Wolof. I think I may have left them more confused than when we started. But at least now they know people can go there. At least, I hope they believe me. Maybe I'll tackle that topic again another time.
I love talking about winter. I'm constantly showing pictures of snow-covered Ithaca and Union Springs. TV shows snowscapes all the time, but I don't think anyone connects it to the real world. People are fascinated that ice covers the ground and roads. Everyone just assumes that we stay indoors for the four months of winter and wait it out. I tried explaining that we go about our daily lives and if the roads are too icy we spread salt over it. "SALT!" my host dad exclaimed, "why would you people waste salt like that? Don't you need it for eating?" I guess that is the normal response. I tried to explain how it's different salt, blah blah but I think it got lost in translation. It got me picturing salt trucks pouring it all over icy roads...that made me laugh out loud. Sometimes Senegalese show me how weird OUR culture is.
Okay I must head back out to finish my work day. I'm already in need of a shower. Heat rash is crawling up my legs. I have sweaty- salt stains on my clothes from this morning's work. My legs are covered in dirt that accumulates from just walking around. Sand is still gritty in my mouth, the wind these days is laced with layers of it flying into my eyes, mouth and ears.
But it is absolutely beautiful out here. I've never lived in a semi-desert (and will never again) I love it. I have so much freedom with my work. I experience new things every day. I really cannot imagine myself doing anything else with my life right now. I just wished I had a creamsicle ice-cream cone..
So an example of my workday:
I usually wake up at like 7am, sleeping outside with my family doesn't really allow me to sleep in. I'll read for a little bit while I have breakfast (usually consisting of bread and tea). Then I'll head out about 8:30am, 9 if I'm feeling lazy. Today I went to the Master Farmer site (I'll explain more about that program later). I watered all of the trees that line the farm, all of the trees that protect the field from the smothering heat, winds and sand. Since there really isn't a great irrigation system, I water them all by
hand with a watering can. After that I planted eucalyptus, guava and cashew seeds in our tree nursery site. At about 12:30 I biked back into town, chugged some cold water at our regional office and went home. I passed out under the tree in my compound until lunch and read until about 4pm. I came here to work on my computer (thank allah there is electricity right now) and wrote this post. Now I'm getting ready to head back out to the field to finish up some work. At around 7pm I'll head back home, shower and hang with my family for the night.
So that's the schedule most of the time. Other days I work in my personal garden or visit residents in the city and help them out in their gardens. We have about 13 volunteers in our region now. The rest of them are Environmental Education and Health workers. But everyone works in some sort of agriculture. Sometimes I get to go to their villages to teach or assist teaching agriculture techniques. We work with women's groups and school environmental clubs. I love doing that. Even though my Wolof is still a little rocky, I have so much fun teaching and conducting trainings. So that's the agriculture part at the moment. I also work on educational and nutritional murals around town, which is really fun. It's a nice break from the field and can be therapeutic.
I feel like I conduct "cultural classes" on a daily basis with people. Some days I have the funniest conversations. And the questions people come up with are amazing:
Do they have bread in America? --Um yes, yes they do
Are there cats in America? - yup, we've got those too
What about sand? Is there sand? - Yes there is, but it's usually attached to some water
There cannot be sheep in America!??-- By the end of this 15-minute question fest I usually lose
patience and say something stupid like, yea we have sheep
but in America they have two heads....I can be such a jerk
I find that lots of volunteers do this. We're not trying to be rude, or take advantage of the lack of education here, but sometimes we just get annoyed. Or need a laugh to keep our heads on straight.
But I also have serious conversations with people. I was extremely surprised that most adults and teenagers (ones that have been to high school) do not know that we have landed on the moon. I spent one evening talking about how in 1969, we actually went to the moon and walked around and stuff. And since then, we've been exploring all over space. They think I'm CRAZY, or playing a joke on them. "Adji, you can't go to the moon, you'd fall off." I then attempted to explain gravity in Wolof. I think I may have left them more confused than when we started. But at least now they know people can go there. At least, I hope they believe me. Maybe I'll tackle that topic again another time.
I love talking about winter. I'm constantly showing pictures of snow-covered Ithaca and Union Springs. TV shows snowscapes all the time, but I don't think anyone connects it to the real world. People are fascinated that ice covers the ground and roads. Everyone just assumes that we stay indoors for the four months of winter and wait it out. I tried explaining that we go about our daily lives and if the roads are too icy we spread salt over it. "SALT!" my host dad exclaimed, "why would you people waste salt like that? Don't you need it for eating?" I guess that is the normal response. I tried to explain how it's different salt, blah blah but I think it got lost in translation. It got me picturing salt trucks pouring it all over icy roads...that made me laugh out loud. Sometimes Senegalese show me how weird OUR culture is.
Okay I must head back out to finish my work day. I'm already in need of a shower. Heat rash is crawling up my legs. I have sweaty- salt stains on my clothes from this morning's work. My legs are covered in dirt that accumulates from just walking around. Sand is still gritty in my mouth, the wind these days is laced with layers of it flying into my eyes, mouth and ears.
But it is absolutely beautiful out here. I've never lived in a semi-desert (and will never again) I love it. I have so much freedom with my work. I experience new things every day. I really cannot imagine myself doing anything else with my life right now. I just wished I had a creamsicle ice-cream cone..
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Where is your car?
I can really see how many of my stories will talk about transportation in Senegal. Maybe because it’s so difficult to get anywhere from Linguere or that people cannot resist messing with the toubab, but travel days are anything but dull. This recent experience I was traveling to St. Louis, a beautiful French-influenced city on the Northern coast. We had a language seminar that started early Monday morning, so Marem and I left Dahra Sunday. I had traveled to Dahra the day before. Actually, Marem’s dad is the mayor of Dahra and had come to Linguere for a soccer match; they took me along. I got to ride in her dad’s personal car through the game, and when I say through the game, we drove straight through midfield up to the stands to take our seats. I felt like a celebrity and a jackass at the same time.
Anyways, we decided to take the “direct” afternoon bus from Dahra to St. Louis. I should probably explain that Sunday is a market day there; market days are insane from all the people coming and going, selling and buying, but today was special. This was the last market day before Tabaski. Ohh Tabaski. This is the Muslim holiday that celebrates the “sacrifice.” This is actually a bible story I think where a father is told by god to sacrifice his son to prove faith, and at the last minute god intervened and saved the son. So they celebrate this holiday in Senegal by slaughtering a white ram, eating it, praying, dressing up in new clothes and then visiting family and friends. The Linguere and Dahra region is called the “Djolof” and the djolof is famous for its animal herding and grazing.
You cannot even imagine the amount of sheep that were at this market day. What people do is come to the djolof, buy a bunch of sheep for a low price, travel back to the cities and make huge profits.
So back to Marem and I on this bus. We call them “alhums” because on the front of all of them there is a sign that says, “alhumdallah- praise allah” for good luck. After it arrives an hour and a half late they were packing it up when we realized a lot of sheep were waiting to be loaded. I’m thinking, wonderful, these sheep are going to be tied to the roof. They are going to whine, pee and poop up there and I’m sure somehow it’ll leak through (these alhums are pretty dilapidated). That was true for about half of the sheep. In getting on the actual bus did I realize about thirty of the sheep had been shoved underneath the seats. So instead of putting my feet on the floor I sat with my knees curled up to my chest with my backpack in between. I can say that that did not last long, especially since we were sitting five people across. You know that pet store smell? Imagine being in that pet store on a hot summer day, without electricity, and you’re locked in a dirty kennel; or a cramped dirty horse stall.
Anyways, the knees to the chest thing was not going to last the whole 8 hour trip, so after about an hour my feet were resting on top of the sheep’s bodies underneath me. About two hours after that the sea of sheep had swallowed my feet and I couldn’t find my shoes again until we finally got to St. Louis. And yes, the sheep were pooping and peeing the whole time. Now I’m not sure if all of you can picture these rams. People only sacrifice the BIG guys; you know the ones with those crazy horns. Yes, those ones. Picture that surrounding my legs and butt. They were constantly jabbing and ramming (hahaa yes ramming) into my body. Oh the bruises.
But for me, the worst is not the poo or the bruises or extreme uncomfortable sitting position, but the NOISE. Sheep have one of the most annoying and creepy cries I’ve heard in Senegal. They sound like zombies. I mean legitimate zombies; I thoroughly believe that zombie movies have been taking recordings of sheep all of these years because that is exactly what it sounds like. Every minute or so one would be thrashing under you and then let out this “AARRRUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH” and I would jump thinking we were under siege.
I have to say that no matter how angry I was at these creatures above and below me, I pitied them because they were all on their way to their death. I was actually angrier with the people who would torture the animals like this, scare the shit out of them just to kill them a few days later.
Let’s move on to the people on the bus…
Most of the people on the bus were part of the Pulaar ethnic group because herders in Senegal are generally Pulaar. This did not help me at all since I can only speak a limited Wolof at the moment. After telling these men that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND Pulaar, they keep asking me questions for about twenty minutes in this alien language. When they finally realize I cannot respond they switch to Wolof asking me why I haven’t learned Pulaar yet; insulted at my lack of cultural integration. Well gentlemen I’ve only been in Senegal for three months so I’m just trying to get Wolof down first and then after I want to learn Pulaar. Oh three months in Senegal, they ask? You should already be fluent in Wolof and well on your way in to Pulaar. Oh, okay thanks guys.
After being told I’m a failure because I don’t know Pulaar, they ask me if I know any of the Americans they’ve ever met in their lives. Because of course every American knows each other. The man to my right asked me if I knew a Maty Diob; she lived in a village in Senegal 10 years ago and worked in a hospital. She was from America, are we friends? Um sir, do you know her real name? What do you mean? Her name was Maty Diob. No sir, I’m sorry I don’t know her.
They all thought it was wonderfully hilarious that a woman toubab was riding on this bus with all the sheep and the sheepherders. Their next line of questioning started to annoy me. It might have been about the time I lost my shoes. “Where is your car/” Why aren’t you driving your car to St. Louis. You’re American; all Americans are rich and have cars. The concept that not all Americans are rich is something I deal with on a daily basis. I’m not surprised that people think this because in relative terms Americans are wealthy, but they don’t take in to consideration our standard of living or taxes and such. And any t.v. they see from America is ridiculous; like “pimp my ride” or “house.” Anyways, they think I’m lying when I say I don’t have a car or the money to rent one. I finally get annoyed and yell at them “If I had enough money I wouldn’t be on this fucking bus!” Most of it was in Wolof.
Never believe anyone when they say “direct” route. Not true, our direct trip stopped about every 10km to pick up or drop someone off. By the time we made it to Louga, the next biggest city, Marem and I wanted to kill ourselves. It was here that I said goodbye to a new friend who told me that if I came to his house and married him, he would slaughter a sheep just for me on Tabaski. As romantic as that offer was, I was very determined to make it to St. Louis.
It’s important to note that no matter how miserable that trip was, it was pretty hysterical. I laughed most of the time, both out loud and internally. You have to find humor in what’s going on or else you’ll actually be miserable, and that makes traveling so much harder. So when any of you come to visit me (hint), just keep an open mind and be flexible. You really never know what will happen.
When we finally got there, Marem and I praised allah for the cold beer and delicious pizza that was waiting.
November 2010
Anyways, we decided to take the “direct” afternoon bus from Dahra to St. Louis. I should probably explain that Sunday is a market day there; market days are insane from all the people coming and going, selling and buying, but today was special. This was the last market day before Tabaski. Ohh Tabaski. This is the Muslim holiday that celebrates the “sacrifice.” This is actually a bible story I think where a father is told by god to sacrifice his son to prove faith, and at the last minute god intervened and saved the son. So they celebrate this holiday in Senegal by slaughtering a white ram, eating it, praying, dressing up in new clothes and then visiting family and friends. The Linguere and Dahra region is called the “Djolof” and the djolof is famous for its animal herding and grazing.
You cannot even imagine the amount of sheep that were at this market day. What people do is come to the djolof, buy a bunch of sheep for a low price, travel back to the cities and make huge profits.
So back to Marem and I on this bus. We call them “alhums” because on the front of all of them there is a sign that says, “alhumdallah- praise allah” for good luck. After it arrives an hour and a half late they were packing it up when we realized a lot of sheep were waiting to be loaded. I’m thinking, wonderful, these sheep are going to be tied to the roof. They are going to whine, pee and poop up there and I’m sure somehow it’ll leak through (these alhums are pretty dilapidated). That was true for about half of the sheep. In getting on the actual bus did I realize about thirty of the sheep had been shoved underneath the seats. So instead of putting my feet on the floor I sat with my knees curled up to my chest with my backpack in between. I can say that that did not last long, especially since we were sitting five people across. You know that pet store smell? Imagine being in that pet store on a hot summer day, without electricity, and you’re locked in a dirty kennel; or a cramped dirty horse stall.
Anyways, the knees to the chest thing was not going to last the whole 8 hour trip, so after about an hour my feet were resting on top of the sheep’s bodies underneath me. About two hours after that the sea of sheep had swallowed my feet and I couldn’t find my shoes again until we finally got to St. Louis. And yes, the sheep were pooping and peeing the whole time. Now I’m not sure if all of you can picture these rams. People only sacrifice the BIG guys; you know the ones with those crazy horns. Yes, those ones. Picture that surrounding my legs and butt. They were constantly jabbing and ramming (hahaa yes ramming) into my body. Oh the bruises.
But for me, the worst is not the poo or the bruises or extreme uncomfortable sitting position, but the NOISE. Sheep have one of the most annoying and creepy cries I’ve heard in Senegal. They sound like zombies. I mean legitimate zombies; I thoroughly believe that zombie movies have been taking recordings of sheep all of these years because that is exactly what it sounds like. Every minute or so one would be thrashing under you and then let out this “AARRRUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH” and I would jump thinking we were under siege.
I have to say that no matter how angry I was at these creatures above and below me, I pitied them because they were all on their way to their death. I was actually angrier with the people who would torture the animals like this, scare the shit out of them just to kill them a few days later.
Let’s move on to the people on the bus…
Most of the people on the bus were part of the Pulaar ethnic group because herders in Senegal are generally Pulaar. This did not help me at all since I can only speak a limited Wolof at the moment. After telling these men that I DO NOT UNDERSTAND Pulaar, they keep asking me questions for about twenty minutes in this alien language. When they finally realize I cannot respond they switch to Wolof asking me why I haven’t learned Pulaar yet; insulted at my lack of cultural integration. Well gentlemen I’ve only been in Senegal for three months so I’m just trying to get Wolof down first and then after I want to learn Pulaar. Oh three months in Senegal, they ask? You should already be fluent in Wolof and well on your way in to Pulaar. Oh, okay thanks guys.
After being told I’m a failure because I don’t know Pulaar, they ask me if I know any of the Americans they’ve ever met in their lives. Because of course every American knows each other. The man to my right asked me if I knew a Maty Diob; she lived in a village in Senegal 10 years ago and worked in a hospital. She was from America, are we friends? Um sir, do you know her real name? What do you mean? Her name was Maty Diob. No sir, I’m sorry I don’t know her.
They all thought it was wonderfully hilarious that a woman toubab was riding on this bus with all the sheep and the sheepherders. Their next line of questioning started to annoy me. It might have been about the time I lost my shoes. “Where is your car/” Why aren’t you driving your car to St. Louis. You’re American; all Americans are rich and have cars. The concept that not all Americans are rich is something I deal with on a daily basis. I’m not surprised that people think this because in relative terms Americans are wealthy, but they don’t take in to consideration our standard of living or taxes and such. And any t.v. they see from America is ridiculous; like “pimp my ride” or “house.” Anyways, they think I’m lying when I say I don’t have a car or the money to rent one. I finally get annoyed and yell at them “If I had enough money I wouldn’t be on this fucking bus!” Most of it was in Wolof.
Never believe anyone when they say “direct” route. Not true, our direct trip stopped about every 10km to pick up or drop someone off. By the time we made it to Louga, the next biggest city, Marem and I wanted to kill ourselves. It was here that I said goodbye to a new friend who told me that if I came to his house and married him, he would slaughter a sheep just for me on Tabaski. As romantic as that offer was, I was very determined to make it to St. Louis.
It’s important to note that no matter how miserable that trip was, it was pretty hysterical. I laughed most of the time, both out loud and internally. You have to find humor in what’s going on or else you’ll actually be miserable, and that makes traveling so much harder. So when any of you come to visit me (hint), just keep an open mind and be flexible. You really never know what will happen.
When we finally got there, Marem and I praised allah for the cold beer and delicious pizza that was waiting.
November 2010
I'm back!
Okay everyone I want to apologize for my absence, I’ve never really had a blog before or ever kept up with them. After some pressuring from my parents, who now have Internet and computers at home, I have promised to write semi-consistent updates of my life happenings.
Give me feedback, if some topics are extremely boring or whatnot, my dad said that you guys might be interested in what’s going on. I guess when you’re living here, things that become commonplace are slightly ridiculous or even amusing to everyone else. So bear with me guys as I try to describe some of my experiences…and maybe I can add some pictures along the way…
Give me feedback, if some topics are extremely boring or whatnot, my dad said that you guys might be interested in what’s going on. I guess when you’re living here, things that become commonplace are slightly ridiculous or even amusing to everyone else. So bear with me guys as I try to describe some of my experiences…and maybe I can add some pictures along the way…
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
25/08/10
We're heading back to Mboro today, so that means another two weeks without any internet communication. I'll try to write things down so I'll remember what to post. Also I'll be taking more pictures and once I get my connector cord I'll attempt to put some up!
Hopefully everything is going well at home, miss you guys!!
Hopefully everything is going well at home, miss you guys!!
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