Staying Sassy in Senegal

The End

2011-07-17T11:27:00.000Z

Today is my last day in Senegal and the last day of my Peace Corps service. Tomorrow I will not only be in the United States of America, but I will also be a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV). Who would have thought? I'm in shock and disbelief that it's the end. I can't believe that I made it, that I enjoyed it, and what a wonderful experience Peace Corps has been.

When I was first thinking about Peace Corps and casually telling people my plans during my senior year of college people were incredulous. Close friends knew that Peace Corps was a dream and maybe that I'm not quite the princess everyone seems to think I am. I remember one conversation in particular with a similarly minded friend who thought Peace Corps was a cool idea. I vividly remember standing in my kitchen on Oakland and we both had red solo cups in our hands. The friend asked me if I thought I could do it and I replied "yes, I think I can." Peace Corps is completely mind over matter, or at least it was for me. PST was absolute hell, but as I built a community of Peace Corps friends, work partners, and my Senegalese family everything else became bearable.

Now, two years have passed. There is no conflict of feelings. I want to come home, back to the United States, more than anything. Senegal was great, but this experience is over. At the same time it's unbelievably sad to say goodbye. It's difficult to move on from a life that I built completely by myself and one where I may never see the people who have meant so much to me ever again.

If you're thinking about doing Peace Corps, DO IT! It's amazing and you'll never regret it although, you will hate yourself at times for making such a ridiculous decision.

Thank you again to everyone who has read my blog and sent me letters. Thank you to my family and friends for being an amazing support network. Thank you to all of my Peace Corps friends; you guys are amazing and I can't even imagine what it's going to be like to say goodbye to you tonight.

That's it from Senegal. Katherine and I will be boarding a plane back to the motherland tonight! Ready or not here we come!

Until next time, Senegal.

Babenen yoon, Senegal.

Farewell Family

2011-07-17T10:25:00.000Z

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Saying goodbye to my family was excruciating. After the past couple of days of emotional hell coupled with my family talking about my departure, but not really seeming to care, I thought that I was going to be OK about saying goodbye. I should really know myself better than that. I was a wreck, but not as bad as I thought I would be. I wanted to sleep in to prepare for all of the goodbyes and my trip to Dakar, but I still woke up early and laid in bed staring at my empty room which looked really, really sad without all of my decorations up. Eventually my family started to get up for the day and I walked around greeting everyone and then sat in the courtyard taking everything in until my mom and Ahmed came downstairs and we watched TV together.

Katherine, Jackie, and I planned to leave site in style and together by renting a sept-place in Bambey which would pick up Katherine, then me, and finally Jackie in Pout. Katherine kept sending me text messages as she passed landmarks between her site and my house. Every time my phone would beep with a text message my entire family would look up and ask where she was. It was like the grim reaper slowly making his way to his victim. I took one last swing around the courtyard, took a quiet moment to myself in my room, and then Katherine appeared at our front door.

I had bags and bags of luggage both to take all the way back to American and to ditch in Dakar for other PCVs so as Katherine and the driver started to load the car I started my goodbyes. All of the men were easy. We shook hands and told each other that we would miss the other person. Ziabata thanked me for the baby clothes and toys that I gave baby Khady and promised he would come visit in the States. It was all very stoic. The women were a whole different story.

I said goodbye to Mami first. Since Mami spends most of her time in Dakar we aren't that close and I don't really like the mood in house when she's home so that wasn't too hard of a goodbye except that she was holding Abdou. I went to pick up Abdou and give him a kiss and he smiled at me and reached his little arms out to me like normal, which made me immediately burst out in tears since this wasn't normal. It was goodbye. I've known Abdou his entire life. Granted that's only 10 months, but he's such a cute and happy little baby and he also put a smile on my face when I was having a bad day. Next, I said goodbye to Awa. She was a little teary, but we had a quick goodbye.

Next I said goodbye to Ahmed who was freaked out that I was crying uncontrollably. Ahmed helped me so much at the beginning of my service. I always had a friend and he always filled me in on the things I couldn't quite get or the names I forgot. Ahmed is so cute and so bright. I hope that my family continues to put him in the best schools and push him to succeed or at least do his homework. Working with him on his letters, numbers, and English has been really rewarding since he's so proud of himself. Without Ahmed I would have been really lonely at the beginning of my service before I had the chance to bond with the women. When Ahmed and I walk around the neighborhood he always corrects people who call me toubab and tell them I'm an American; I hope he maintains this attitude and isn't afraid of other white people and knows the toubabs can be nice too. In parting I told him that he's really smart, that he's my best friend, and that I love him. I gave him a hug and walked away; he continued watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Jeenaba was no where to be found and that's because she was hiding in her room crying. I had to go find her. Saying goodbye to Jeenaba was heartbreaking. I probably spend more time with Jeenaba than anyone else in my family. I sit with her as she makes meals, I'll sit and hold Abdou for her while she's sweeping outside, and we can sit together in a very comfortable silence. I also help her out a lot financially whether or not I should. Even though baby daddy is a good dad, he doesn't help out monetarily and Jeenaba is constantly in debt to my mom and Khady. Yesterday I gave her some money and told her to hide it from my mom and use it for Abdou. I hope she does. I also gave her my email address with instructions that if she or Abdou really needs anything to get in touch with me. I don't know if she can do that on her own, but hopefully she can find someone to help her. It was so, so, so sad saying goodbye to Jeenaba. She's been so kind to me when people aren't all that nice to her and we really bonded. I hope that everything turns out OK for her and that's she's able to leave the family house and make it on her own with her husband and Abdou. Jeenaba couldn't pull herself together to walk me out to the car so she stood on the second floor balcony and waved.

Khady and my mom walked me to our front gate and out to the car. Khady was quietly wiping away her tears, but my mom was sobbing. My mom's reaction really surprised me since we've had the recent rent problems which really upset me. I understand and respect that my mom runs a huge and complicated household and she makes sure that everyone has what they need and that takes money. It's a difficult dynamic because everyone claims I'm family, but in the end it all comes down to money. Seeing my mom react to my departure so strongly was really nice and reaffirmed what I already knew; that my family really does love me and that we've grown really close over the past two years. I gave Khady and my mom huge hugs, thanked them from the bottom of my heart and got into the car. My mom stood at the gate crying and waving until we turned a corner.

What I've just described cannot do justice to what actually happened. Moving to a foreign country and really adapting yourself to it's culture, it's rules, and living a host country national family is indescribable. You really become family with these people even if "family" may have a slightly different definition than what I thought or be more complicated that I thought. The Gaye family welcomed me into their home and into their lives. We had our problems, but I love them dearly and can't thank them enough for everything. When I said goodbye to my real family two years ago it was really sad, but that sadness was mixed with terror for what was to come. My goodbyes today were just sad. Pure emotion, sad. Two years ago I knew that I would come home and my family would be waiting for me. I don't know if I will ever see my Senegalese family again and I know that it will never be the same since I will lose my Wolof language skills to disuse and become Americanized once again. This was truly an amazing experience.

Back in the car, I had a good cry and pulled myself together so that Katherine could throw three giant bags of trash along the side of the road on our way to pick up Jackie. With Jackie in the car and all of the Senegalese goodbyes behind us we plugged my iPod into some speakers to listen to the Star Spangle Banner as I popped a bottle of champagne out the window as we drove out of Pout. Our last trip into Dakar was filled with two bottles of champagne and half a bottle of Warang to dull the pain. We reminisced about the good times and stared at each other in disbelief that we did it. I can't believe we did it.

Once in Dakar it was off to the races once again. We grabbed some lunch and then Katherine and I repacked our bags before we all showered and headed out to another PCVs apartment. A boy in our stage, Jack, who's extending for a third year just moved into an apartment in Dakar and invited us over for cocktails. We supplied fantastic appetizers and he supplied the cocktails. It was exactly the type of evening I wanted. After being really emotional for three days, it was nice to sit and sip a delicious beverage with a close group of friends and just talk. There were no distractions, no one bothering us, we just enjoyed each other's company and talked about the past two years. We ended the night back at the regional house because Ben had a flight out tonight. It is so weird saying goodbye.

Last Day in Thies

2011-07-17T10:12:00.002Z

Friday, July 15th, 2011

Today was like any other day except that it was my last day in Thiès.

I got up early as usual and was able to move a lot of things out of my room and take a TON of stuff over to the center before my family even woke up. Many PCVs hand things down to their replacements and I wanted to do that for Nancy so I packed up my trunk with all of my dishes, silverware, phone, internet modem, voltage regulator and some other goodies. I had a giant bag and a box full of food that I wasn’t able to get through and a ton of toiletries that I gave Clare.

My trip to the center was multi-purpose. I needed to give Nancy the trunk and Clare he ridiculously large “care package,” but I also wanted to say goodbye to the trainees, Talla, and all of the staff at the center. The center really became a refuge during my second year where I could go and have some quite alone time. I also started helping out with trainings a lot more and really got to know some of the language instructors, the guards, and the rest of the staff.

Saying goodbye to the trainees was really weird. I welcomed them at the airport a little over a month ago when I felt that I still had a long time in Senegal. Passing the torch seems surreal. Apart from the trainees, I thanked Talla for all of his help, Amadou, the Peace Corps secretary, for helping me plan various events and rent various types of vehicles among all the other things he does. Awa, the cultural coordinator, for being amazing and helping me with my recent rent problems. I also had to say goodbye to Mike who entered Peace Corps Senegal with my stage after the program in Mauritania closed down. He now works on contract with Peace Corps at the training center so I see him a lot; that one was hard. I’m completely emotionally exhausted so the goodbyes are getting a little easier.

From the center I went into town for the last time. I wanted to print some recent snapshots for Jeenaba. She used to think that un-posed pictures were weird, but now she’s really happy that she has a bunch of pictures of Abdou. She’s such a good mom. I also ran to Les Delices to get a cake for tonight to thank my family which gave me an opportunity to say goodbye to the waitresses. Then, I took my last cab ride in Thiès and came home.

I wanted to spend the rest of the day being “present,” just taking in life and appreciating my family. Taking it slow reminded me why I force myself to get out of the house every morning and every afternoon even if it is just to walk around. Being around all day is oppressively boring and I see a lot more of the arguing and hardships that Jeenaba faces. I did really enjoying spending the day with Ahmed and Abdou. Ahmed knows that I’m leaving and told me he’s sad even though I gave him a huge box of papers, pens and pencils, and presents last night. While cleaning my room today, a feeding frenzy broke out over the rest of my toiletries even though I was trying to finish everything up before having my things attacked. It was a weird feeling to have my things picked over while I was still around.

Many PCVs give their families some extra money so everyone can enjoy a nice feast their last night. I didn’t do that because I was interested to see what happened. I didn’t expect my family to do anything different and they didn’t and for some reason I’m still sad about it. I bought a cake and ice cream which we enjoyed after a very underwhelming dinner. I’m not sure what I expected my last night to be, but I don’t think it was this. Everyone is talking about my imminent departure and that it will be sad, but I don’t necessarily believe it. Jeenaba and I had a moment today when I was really able to thank her for everything and try to explain how much her friendship means to me. We both teared up a little bit and I gave her my contact information in case she ever really needs anything and some money for Abdou. I hope things go well for her and Abdou.

It’s now the end of the night and I’m ready to go to bed for the very last time in the bungalow. I can’t believe my service is over. I’m still in shock that I made it and that I’m going home. Tomorrow morning I have to say goodbye to my family, which I’m sure will be extremely hard even though today wasn’t the best day. Then it’s off to Dakar with Katherine and Jackie where the festivities will really start.

And They Continue, The Goodbyes

2011-07-15T08:48:00.001Z

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

The goal was to get everything done this morning and hang out all afternoon. I was far too ambitious. After talking to Matt, I left the house and went to Orange to close my internet account since I don’t know when Stacy is going to move in and she’s not here to switch the bill into her name. Shockingly, working with Orange was an incredibly frustrating experience where I had to write a handwritten request to the President of Orange requesting that he be so nice as to let me close my account. I threw a semi-controlled fit about there being no customer service and that I’ve been paying for the internet for the last month, but I’m only allowed to use Gmail. Orange was not impressed, but I left with a closed account and some satisfaction that I wrote a very mean note to the President, which I’m sure he’ll never read. Then I was off to Les Delices so I could use all of the internet before heading over to Kerry’s house to say goodbye and to pick up some pictures he took of me while we taught Junior Achievement.

I planned to say two goodbyes this morning; the guys at the post office and Dioss, but Dioss was busy so I headed to the post office. For the past couple of months I’ve been really annoyed with the post office guys and I didn’t really want to do goodbyes even though I knew I should. The reasons why I don’t enjoy sitting there like I did became instantly apparent. The first thing they tell me is that I’m cheating them out of money because another PCV is going to use my box. And we’re off to a good start! We had an infuriatingly circular conversation about post office box etiquette with them telling me that they would give me the slip for the other PCV’s package, but they wouldn’t be so nice the second time. At this point I wanted to scream and run away, but it got better.

Ever since it became painfully evident that Pathe, one of the guys actually wants me to be his wife and is apparently head over heels in love with me , things have been awkward. Everyone else eggs him on and it makes things uncomfortable. On top of this we had to get into a discussion about how I should stay longer because who really would want to ever leave Senegal. This was accompanied with one of the men telling me that he doesn’t even want to visit the United States and would never want to live there and doesn’t understand why anyone else would ever want to live there. I know that this shouldn’t get under my skin, but I spend so much time being culturally sensitive and singing Senegal’s praises that it’s really annoying. Especially when everyone knows I’m going home and I’m excited about it. The guys claim we’re friends and that’s not how they would treat one of their Senegalese friends.

Going to say a final goodbye at the post office was not satisfying. I wish it had been because for the first year of my service we really did have good conversations and I really enjoyed going there. The whole interaction left a bad taste in my mouth. As I was leaving they told me about another PCV, Rebecca, who they claimed was a friend to them just like me. Apparently, she never called them when she got back Stateside. Everyone made it abundantly clear that they wouldn’t call me or email me, but I’m a bad person if I don’t contact them. A lot of interactions in Senegal are obvious white lies. You say you’ll do something that you obviously won’t do and no one expects you to do it. You say anything to save face and not embarrass the second party. I’m sad that those relationships ended as they did because now I have no interest in making any effort to contact the guys at the post office.

This afternoon I went to see Dioss. Fortunately the episode at the post office had hardened me a little bit after the emotional chaos that was saying goodbye to Mme. Ly. Dioss and his business partner Issa as well as several members of the boy posse were at the atelier. We spent a lovely afternoon talking while Dioss made tea. It was far less emotional than yesterday. Dioss wanted to talk about the immediate future while Mme. Ly dwelled on super emotional topics like our past work together, how she thinks of me as a daughter and the distant future when I’ll bring my husband and children (obviously the girl is named after her) back to Senegal for a visit. Mme. Ly indulged my nostalgia and my sadness, Dioss did not.

Dioss is still obsessed with his catalog and is very excited about some of the ideas Nancy had when I took her to meet him. I hope that Nancy can lay down the law with Dioss and he can make real progress with his business. When it came to say goodbye Dioss kept it short and sweet. I was sad and had to fight back tears, but I held it in and when he said that he’d email me I actually believed him. I was able to choke out a few sentences thanking him for working with me, being my friend, and letting me hang out with the incredible people he’s friends with (Dioss, the Ly family, and Dioss’ friends are the only people in Senegal I’ve ever seen read a book that is not a textbook)I really hope we can keep up a correspondence; I’m interested to see what he does.

We shook with our left hands, hugged, and I walked away.

The other goodbye today was to my home for the past two years. I start disassembling my room today. Damn, it’s really freaking dirty. Moving furniture here creates a repulsive dust storm. My goal today was to get everything packed up, which I pretty much did, and tomorrow I’ll do the heavy duty cleaning. I was surprised how unemotional packing up is. None of my clothes are coming home with me. I have a bunch of souvenirs, my electronics, and all of the letters that everyone has written me over the past two years. Taking down all of the pictures I’ve hung up, the Michigan flag and the banner reminding me “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions,” brought a huge sense of accomplishment. I’m moving on up in the world. My first solo, big girl “apartment” is soon to be a thing of the past and I’m looking forward to a big upgrade.

Relationships

2011-07-14T09:27:00.000Z

Before coming to Senegal I scoured the internet for blogs written by people in relationships. I wasn’t all that successful and what I did find was not encouraging. Even before joining, if you’re honest, Peace Corps asks you to fill out a fairly detailed questionnaire concerning the romantic relationship and how it will or will not affect your service. I also spoke with one of my sorority sisters who started serving in Tanzania a year before I started my service. She relayed the grave news that only one relationship in her stage survived the first year of service. Having a significant other Stateside is fairly taboo within Peace Corps.

In my stage of 56 people there were 15 people in a relationship when we started. 5 couples have made it the two years. I should qualify this by saying that 5 couples have remained at that same level of commitment without any hiccups, or at least none that I know of. My stage quickly acquired a not so nice nickname because so many of us started out in relationships. For some reason there is a stigma against having someone back home. It supposedly lessens your experience. Keeping one foot in America makes you a lesser volunteer. I definitely garnered a reputation during PST as the crazy girl who got up to Skype at 6am. Ah, the glories of the west coast. But, at this point, I think I can say that I’m not defined by my relationship within the Peace Corps community. It’s taken as a fact along with my Thiesty region-ness and people know I’m not a wet blanket, which I think is the concern.

In my opinion, my relationship didn’t hinder my Peace Corps service; it enhanced it. Being able to share what you really think with someone you care about and who won’t judge youis nice. It also gives you perspective and an outlet from the groupthink that Peace Corps can sometimes be. What I do know about the other relationships that made it is that we all talk every day. Skype will be your best friend and a third party in the relationship. There were differences among the relationships. Some had significant others in school which made visits easier and longer. Others had significant others who are working. A demanding job Stateside can definitely act as a distraction, but I think it’s easier for the person who is a PCV. We’re always having new experiences and have ridiculous things happen to us. Definitely expect to carry conversation. It’s also important to have the same expectations of what the relationship is and where it’s at. Many relationships met their demise because people weren't communicating when they were talking. Visiting is a must, the ability to countdown a necessity. I would also recommend that your significant other visit you as late as makes sense into your service when your language skills and cultural understanding are at their best. Sorry if this sounds preachy.

Today is my anniversary with Matt. He has been unbelievable. He didn’t cave when I asked him to tell me to come home during PST and he was the voice of reason when my mom and I had whipped me into a frenzy. We had several fabulous vacations not least of which was his trip to Senegal where he was a champ. He deserves a ton of credit for putting up with all of my shenanigans and coming along for the ride. Matt, I cannot thank you enough for everything.

Not only have I seen and experienced change in my relationship with Matt, but with all of my relationships. I have been overwhelmed with the amount of support I’ve received. There were the usual suspects who have always been and continue to be awesome and there were the friends from high school who came out of the woodwork to donate to our girls’ camp. I’ve been able to reconnect with some friends over email, gchat, and Skype who I had lost touch with or didn’t feel as close to anymore, but there have also been the friends who have become more distant. My family has also been fantastic. I’ve always had a close family, but their letters, packages, and fun when I went home at Christmas was above and beyond. I’ve also enjoyed connecting with my aunt through her class and experiencing Senegal with her through her students. I’m excited to see how all of these relationships progress once I’m back in the States and back in action.

The most surprising and rewarding relationships over the past two years have been with my Peace Corps friends. I would not be writing this post if not for Tamar. There’s absolutely no way I would have made it through PST without her. My girls know every single mundane and fantastical detail of my life since August 13th 2009 and I wouldn't have it any other way. My friends have gotten me through the dark times and really made Peace Corps a fantastic experience. There are people like Katherine who I would have been friends with anywhere at any point in my life and there are also the people who I would have never been friends with if not for Peace Corps. Peace Corps has definitely taught me not to read a book by it's cover and that you might as well jump on and enjoy the ride.

Huge shout out to Jackie, Katherine, and Tamar for everything they've done and for all of the good times ahead.

And So They Begin, The Goodbyes

2011-07-14T09:16:00.002Z

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Katherine, Mme. Ly, and me at our last time at Mme. Ly's stand in Thies.
Photo Credit: Jackie

Leaving Senegal correctly has been something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I want to say goodbye properly and thank everyone who needs thanking. A couple of days ago an idea popped into my head and then seeing Christine yesterday finalized it. I had to go to Tivaouane to see my PST host family. When I told my friends yesterday they thought I was crazy and even this morning I was on the fence, but the seed was planted and I knew that I would feel like a terrible person if I didn’t go, so I went. It absolutely poured this morning so I let myself sleep in a little bit and left for the garage as soon as the deluge ended. I used my sweet Obama golf sized umbrella to shield me from the rain.

At the garage I started kicking myself for letting the thought of going to Tivaouane get into my head. Tamar’s text messages let me know that she thought I had lost my mind. I ate breakfast waiting for the car to fill up with passengers and then bought a ton of cookies and other fun things out of the car window as gifts for my family. The monsoon like rain we got this morning made the scene exactly that of PST. It was hot as hell, muggy, unbearable. And I was headed to Tivaouane, very fitting.
Tivaouane greeted me as if nothing had changed. The streets were mud with a faint scent of urine, people instantaneously started to harass me, and I felt the feeling of dread I felt every time going back to site during PST. Christine deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor for finishing up her two years in Tivaouane. There’s absolutely no way I could have done it. It’s a long walk from the garage to my family’s house in the center of town so I had a lot of time to reminisce while I side stepped mud, motos, and mean children.

My family was definitely surprised to see me. Only the girls were home. My mom was overjoyed. She was so happy. Binta and Kyte seemed pleased especially when I produced all of the cookies, but they did not look good. The house looked even more decrepit than when I lived there and the girls seemed to know that they are never going to leave Tivaouane. They seemed sad and didn’t look physically healthy. Binta took me to see my brother Aly, the youngest child and the host sibling I was closest to. He now works at a small boutique that sells mixed tapes. He was definitely excited to see me and we caught up for a few minutes before exchanging contact information so we can friend each other on Facebook. Aly has had to drop out of school to help support the family because my host father’s pension isn’t enough.

Talking to my mom was sad. The girls couldn’t believe that two years had passed. They couldn’t believe it in a sad way. Their lives really hadn’t changed at all and I had already finished my service. When we started to say goodbye my mom started crying so I obviously started crying. It’s sad to say goodbye and not be able to help these people who helped me so much. Who took me into their home and tried to help me learn a language and about a culture so different from mine while being infinitely patient with all of my mistakes and faux pas. On my ride back to Thiès I thought a lot about why my mom cried. She was definitely genuinely happy to see me, but she also recognizes that I’m going home and back to a place of opportunity. She’s devastated that Aly couldn’t finish school and knows that I want to return to university. Even though she doesn’t speak French and has never really left Tivaouane she knows that better things are out there wherever there is and I think she was sad for her family.
Even though what I just wrote is really depressing, I’m very happy that I went to Tivaouane. It provided the full circle/ closure that I’ve been trying to achieve. I also think that my family really appreciated it. My coming showed that I hadn’t forgotten their kindness and generosity. I left with a skirt, a dried gourd, and two little bracelets. The family Ba in Tivaouane are really, really, really nice people.

Back in Thiès I hung out with the family while waiting for lunch. This mainly involved playing with Abdou and two spoons. He is such a happy baby and some fun and unconditional love is exactly what I needed. Ahmed and I also continued to take pictures.

This afternoon I went to see Mme. Ly and Khady. I hadn’t planned on saying goodbye to them until at least tomorrow, but because of the rain they didn’t go to their outdoor booth and where therefore at home – the perfect opportunity to say goodbye. It was terrible.

Khady and Mme. Ly were sitting under a shade structure watching TV on a mat and I joined them. Mme. Ly immediately pulled me to her and put my head on her lap like a little girl. She stroked my head for two hours as the three of us talked. They had a lot more questions about the United States. More than they’d ever asked me. They wanted to know if I could go to the market and buy fruit and vegetables, in what kind of house my family lived, and most poignantly how far away my Peace Corps friends live from me. Mme. Ly had a lovely image of the Peace Corps family continuing once we got home. That everyone lived close enough that we could see each other all the time and talk about our friends in Senegal and our experiences over the past two years. She was absolutely appalled that Katherine and I will be separated by a country that is many times the width of Senegal.

Once the other family members who I don’t know as well started to come home, I started making signs of leaving. Mme. Ly wanted some last pictures which I was more than happy to take. Major shout out to Matt again because I’ve been taking the Polaroid with me everywhere I go so that the person/ people I’m saying goodbye to can have a picture of us – instantly. The entire Ly family was pretty pumped about the instant camera and we got some really nice shots for them as well as some on my camera.

Cuddling and having my head rubbed for such a long time had lulled me into a calm state, but as soon as the time came to say goodbye I started to lose it. I couldn’t help it. Mme. Ly and Khady have made my service. They were so open to working with me, being my friends, and they opened their home to me. They’ve come so far and I know that they want to go so much further. Mme. Ly and Khady would be amazing people in any culture, in any country. Their drive, determination, and willingness to put themselves out there is almost non-existent in Senegal. They are really special people.

By the time we had given each other left handed handshakes (this signifies an improper goodbye and that the traveler must return again) everyone was in tears. Khady had to turn around and run into the house. I had to put sunglasses on, but children still ran by myself side asking why the toubab was crying. I hope that I was able to express how much Khady and Mme. Ly mean to me and how much they’ve helped me and how much they mean to me. They made my service a success and I will remember them and their kindness forever.

Dakar Region Pride

2011-07-12T18:21:00.000Z

Before the Thiest girls took the Dakar region by storm, it was a sad, sad region. Most other PCVs mock us because we have amenities and the region has never been very close because the Dakar regional house is used by all of the volunteers in country. Well, that has all changed now and it's honestly one of the things I'm most proud about in regards to my Peace Corps service. I love that we all get together in Thies for lunch, we have beach weekends together, work on joint projects, and all really get along and genuinely like each other. In hopes of continuing the tradition and the WAIST domination of the Dakar region, Katherine and I with help from a first year PCV named Sarah have been working on a Dakar region getaway day for the newbies for the past couple of weeks.

The events started this morning when everyone leaving from Thies was supposed to meet at the garage at 9:30am. Katherine, Stanzi (KO's replacement) and April arrived super early and everyone else arrived at very degrees of lateness. This was an omen of what was to come with transportation. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive and while eating an egg sandwich I bargained to rent out two sept-places for our trip to Mbour. Everything was all set. Well, we ended up waiting over an hour for the last person to arrive and once she did my deal was apparently not good anymore. Working with my new friend at the garage I switched my focus and bargained for a bus, which we all climbed into, waited for, and then were forced to climb out of because of politics in the garage. Over an hour after we were supposed to leave we finally, actually left and began an insanely slow trip to Mbour where everyone from the Petit Cote was already waiting for us at Warang.

I've written about Warang before and it never disappoints. Since all of their liquors are seasonal there's always new flavors which adds to the experience. The owners are super nice and put extra bottles in the freezer just like I'd asked! Needless to say we converted another generation of PCVs into Warang lovers. This was everyone's first chance to mingle and talk. The trainees were excited to tell each other about their demyst experiences, my stage was happy for another wonderful afternoon together, and everyone had the opportunity to meet the Ag and Health/EE PCVs that they might not have met before. It was a very inter stage and sector event, which made it even more fun. From Warang we all hitch hiked back into town to go to Kassoumaye, the amazing pizza restaurant that I went to with Matt.

Kassoumaye, undoubtedly, has the best pizza in the country and I've been talking it up for months. Unfortunately, I found out a while ago that their pizza oven is broken. I'm not sure how a brick pizza oven can be broken, but, alas, it is. The owners were incredibly gracious in working with us and had an amazing menu planned. Everyone had a salad, pasta, fruit salad for dessert and glass of wine. I thought that there were going to be plates of carbonara and plates of bolognaise and that, since we're Peace Corps Volunteers, everyone would eat off each other's plates and get a taste of each. The people at Kassoumaye are geniuses and put pasta in the middle of the plate with a scoop of each sauce on either side. Perfection. At lunch everyone had the opportunity to mingle some more and everyone stood up to introduce themselves and give their favorite fact about Senegal.

I think everyone had an amazing day. I know I did. Getting everyone together for a day is a lot of work and I spent a lot of time yelling at men working in garages, but it was totally worth it and a ton of fun. Today really offered me the retrospective/ full circle feeling that I've been missing out on. Seeing all of the trainees enthusiasm, reliving the excitement and newness of it all through them was great. I can't believe it's been two years and how far I've come. I can't wait to stalk the blogs of all the new PCVs to see what they do.

We're back in Thies now after another terribly long travel experience. I have to say goodbye to April before I leave the center for the night which is going to be terrible. It's my first real goodbye. Tomorrow starts my Thies goodbyes. I''m kind of numb to the fact that I'm leaving and in total disbelief that I'm going to be home in less than a week. For good. Now, I have to make sure that I not only leave, but that I leave properly and I'm really dreading saying goodbye.

There are a bunch of new pictures up in the "It's the End of the World As We Know It" album.

Baby Khady

2011-07-12T08:30:00.001Z

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Awa’s baby had her baby naming ceremony this morning. Obviously no one told me that the naming was happening this morning, but I guessed when I saw a bunch of old men walking into our house. I sat with most of the women in my family in the entryway to the house watching the ceremony unfold in the living room. Khady is the baby’s godmother and namesake and held the baby sitting in the middle of a circle formed by all of the men. The men took turns whispering prayers and the baby’s name, Khady, into her ear before blessing her and finishing the ceremony. It was pretty cool to watch especially since the actual baptism will take place on Saturday after I leave Thiès. After the ceremony I held Awa for the first time. She’s not a very cute baby which is unfortunate and seems to be in a really bad mood the vast majority of the time. Definitely a departure from the happy-go-lucky Abdou.

From my house I went to the center to pick up Nancy for the day and to talk to Awa about my rent situation. I’m finally at peace with the situation and really do believe it was a misunderstanding, or at least a situation where it is highly plausible that there was a misunderstanding. Awa obviously had an Ah-ha moment when I gave her the past two years of rent receipts that I have. Apparently, most people in Senegal pay their rent on the first of the month for the previous month. Therefore, when I paid July’s rent, which was half the normal amount since I’m leaving, she thought that I had only paid half for June and was going to run out on July. While this is still fairly annoying because it’s still all coming down to money in my last week of service when I’m supposed to be reveling in my accomplishment and spending time with the people who made it so memorable, it does make sense in a nonsensical Senegalese way. The person who installed me two years ago was supposed to explain this procedure and didn’t, but I know that most of my friends pay their rent American style on the first of the month for that month. I understand that my host mom is fairly money grubbing and a penny pincher. I see this behavior inside my household and with her own children so I’m attempting to remain more calm than I was. I’m satisfied that the situation has been resolved, my mom’s actual intentions and whether or not she’s happy are no longer my concerns, and that it looks like a first year PCV is going to move into my house.

Nancy and I were supposed to go see Dioss in the morning, but when I called to confirm our little date he was obviously somewhere else so Nancy and I chatted at the center until meeting up with Kerry for lunch. After lunch Dioss was back at home so we went to visit. It’s going to be really hard to say goodbye to Dioss and I started choking up almost immediately before I forbid him from talking about anything to do with our projects together or me leaving.

I think he and Nancy could have a great partnership. The large shipment of his association’s catalogues are supposed to arrive in early fall and he wants Nancy to help him set up a little party and publicity event. He also showed us the documentary that Pauline and friends, the French students who were here last year, created. It’s actually pretty good and I found it wildly entertaining since I know almost everyone in it. Nancy was already several steps ahead of Dioss and suggesting editing the video down further so that it’s facebook and youtube accessible as well as putting the full length video on his website. Dioss is so close to getting everything right he just needs someone to connect the dots and I think Nancy will really be able to help him do that. Nancy not only has her amazing experience in Kenya as a PCV, where she also worked with artisans, to draw on but she’s worked for giant retail corporations in the States like Nike, Reebok, and Ralph Lauren. I’m really excited that someone as experienced and full of ideas as Nancy is will be taking over my projects. All of my friends are demisting PCVs who are in our age range and who are outwardly excited, enthusiastic, and wide-eyed at the accomplishments of their anciens, PCVs before them. I’m not really getting that experience since Nancy already understands Peace Corps and the lay of the land, but I hope that means she’ll be able to jump into her projects right away. Madame Ly and Dioss and the artisan reseau at large are poised to make real progress in the next two years and I’m excited because I think Nancy will really be able to help them with that.

Nancy and I spent a couple of hours with Dioss. I’m always so relaxed after leaving Dioss’ atelier. It really is a nice place and has been an oasis throughout my service. Looking through his art, new and old, is always fun and I picked out a few more things to take home and give as gifts. If you want anything you have until Thursday morning to email me! That’s when I have to say goodbye to Dioss. Ugh.
I spent the rest of the afternoon with my family. They were in fine form as usual. I owe a very delayed shout out to Matt for sending me one last package full of Polaroid film. My entire family, but especially Ahmed are OBSESSED with the Polaroid camera. Everyone clamors to have their picture taken when it comes out. There was general outrage when Ahmed took a picture of our sleeping dog, Mischa, and when he accidentally took a picture of the floor. But, in all honesty, the rest of my family isn’t too much better at taking pictures and Ahmed loves it so much. I gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine Pez dispenser at the same time (cleaning out my room) so he was pretty much in heaven. I have a couple of really cute pictures which I will post as soon as I can.

The topic of my impending departure is pervasive at home and it’s really sad. Ahmed isn’t talking about it, but he definitely knows if he doesn’t quite understand. It’s going to be really, really, really sad and I wish I could provide some lasting help to Jeenaba and Abdou, but that’s very difficult to do. In the meantime, I’m trying to snap as many pictures as possible, watch as many terrible soap operas as the power outages permit, and soak it all in.

Going With The Flow

2011-07-10T15:33:00.000Z

Saturday, July 9th, 2011

Yesterday I came back to my house after a night out at chicken dibi and Pamanda’s with my friends and it was like nothing ever happened. I used all of my knowledge of Senegalese culture I've accumulated after two years to show absolutely no emotion and to pretend that nothing had happened. If there's one thing I absolutely cannot deal with, it's passive aggressive behavior so this was a huge test of willpower and patience. Everyone in my family also pretended that nothing had happened and welcomed me home after a long day with open arms. My mom acted normal, Khady wanted to know where I got my necklace (a Mme. Ly creation bien sur), and Jeenaba handed me a tired and grouchy Abdou. They asked about my day and had already been told that my replacement, because she is slightly older, didn't want to share a bed with me and would be staying at the center during de-myst (and until we figure everything out).

What's more miraculous than the relative calm I returned to (which actually wasn't that surprising since being direct isn't a part of Senegalese culture), is that we had a new addition to the family and utilities! Awa had a little baby girl earlier this week while I was in Dakar. The big news with the family was that Ziabata and his immediate family (Ziabata is actually a cousin) paid for Awa to stay in the hospital for two days after the birth. This was big, BIG news and Jeenaba was clearly jealous. They've been telling everyone about the hospital stay it seems to be more exciting news than the reason why Awa is in the hospital... the child. Anyway, the baby is a girl and wont have a name until it is baptized next week. She isn't nearly as cute and chubby as Abdou was, but I also haven't spent a lot of time with her.

The other big news is that the water is back! After three months the spigot in our compound is finally full of water. It's amazing. Everyone is super excited about it and we've been filling everything in sight for fear that the water will turn off as suddenly as it appeared, but so far so good. We actually have RUNNING water. The water doesn't come on just in the middle of the night for 30 minutes; it's on all the time. Or at least it's been on for the last 36 hours, which makes it the longest stretch of my service. Obviously this is happening after I have a fight with my family about how much I pay/ if I actually paid and after I told Peace Corps that I never have electricity of water. Fingers crossed I will live in the lap of luxury for the next 5 1/2 days.

This morning I met up with Nancy, my replacement, to start her tour of Thies and my work partners. We went to the post office to meet everyone there, put her name on the box, and I gave her my key. From there we went on a little tour of all the boring administrative places in Thies. Where to get your residency card renewed, they mayor's office, and all of the banks. From there we went to see Mme. Ly.

Madame Ly immediately set us to work putting out of all the bracelets on the table. It was past 11am and she was just getting started, go figure. It was a good first taste of Mme. Ly's style for Nancy and she did get to look at everything up close. Nancy worked with artisans on product development and marketing while she was a PCV in Kenya so she has a great background, a lot of experience, and some great ideas to not only help Mme. Ly, but also the artisan association at large. I'm really excited to see what happens! In the meantime the association is still going strong. Madame Ly is going to make the second connection between artisans and buy a bunch of leather bracelets from Aly's leather worker, Demba, in Mboror.

After spending some time with Mme. Ly, we had a nice lunch and then hung out and escaped the afternoon heat in the relative cool of the center. I spent the night at home with my family just hanging out.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2011-07-08T18:08:00.000Z

This morning I was frantically trying to clean my room, shower, and get to the center in time for a session Katherine and I were doing on the Best Game when my mom pulled me aside. I was literally telling Jeenaba that I wouldn’t be home for lunch or dinner when my mom told me that I needed to tell Awa, the head of Peace Corps home stays, that she wanted to talk to her. I thought this was an odd request since I’ve been able to handle everything else on my own for the past two years so I asked her about it. My mom said it had something to do with money. I assumed the issue stemmed from me only paying her half of the usual amount for July. I paid full rent and then halved the food, water, and electricity amounts since I’m actually only at site for 8 days in July. We’ve been through this several times and she’s not happy about it, but I don’t feel the need to give more than I already give. I pay an absolutely ridiculous amount of money (practically the entire bill) for water and electricity – utilities we never have.

As I pressed for further information on what my mom was unhappy about the problem became even murkier. I really have no idea what she wanted other than more money from me. At first I thought the problem was the prorated July rent, then it seemed like she was accusing me of not paying anything for June when I have a receipt with her signature on it in my room for the month of June, and finally she just insulted me by saying that I didn’t understand the problem and needed someone to explain it to me in English. I understand that this is a very Senegalese way of dealing with a problem – avoidance – but it has been an absolutely heartbreaking day.

Completely unsure of what happened at home, what the problem was, and feeling terrible about the entire situation I collapsed in Awa’s office at the center and told my story. It’s heartbreaking because I’m being reminded just 8 days before I leave for good that I really am a tenant, a paycheck. All of the nice things I’ve done with my family, all of the time we’ve spent together, and all of the money I have already given them isn’t enough. They want more. At the very least this is how my host mom feels or how she chooses to express it. I hope that Jeenaba, Khady, Ahmed, and baby Abdou feel differently. I hope that I have made a positive impact on their lives that isn’t purely financial. I always knew that money wasn’t far from the surface and was the most important part of our relationship, but I wish that I hadn’t been reminded of that fact at the very end – it just leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. It’s sad.

What makes all of this that much harder is the effect it will have on my family who I have lived with and loved for two years. While I will be replaced by a volunteer in Thiès who will continue working with my work partners such as Mme. Ly and Dioss, the volunteer will not live with my family. The money situation has become too much and the utilities too poor to put anyone there.

Today was supposed to be an incredibly exciting day. Today was site reveal. When all of the trainees finally find out where they’ll be living for the next two years of their lives. I was excited to welcome all of the new Thiès region trainees into the family and ready to tell Nancy, my replacement, about her wonderful host family. I have truly loved living with the Gaye family. They have, for the most part, been absolutely wonderful. I’ve definitely had my frustrations and even money issues before, but this blatant extortion plan is just too much. Awa was kind enough to go to my house and try to solve the problem. Apparently, my mom doesn’t think I paid her for July even though I have a receipt. Supposedly it was all a big misunderstanding and that’s what I’m going to attempt to pretend actually happened so I can enjoy my last week at site. Everything should be smoothed over when I bring all of the receipts to Peace Corps on Monday.

This episode is in stark contrast to another interaction I had today. Jackie, Katherine, and I went out for lunch today and swung by Mme. Ly’s stand because Jackie had part of an order she still needed to pick up. It was the last time that Jackie and especially Katherine since she worked with all of the artisans was going to see Mme. Ly. I seriously love this woman. Madame Ly is a saint and such a good friend. She was distraught that Katherine is leaving and I think we all teared up. Mme. Ly wished us all loving husbands, a bunch of kids, and full lives while smothering us with kisses and forcing us to pick presents of her jewelry. I’ve given Mme. Ly nothing except for my time and friendship (alright, alright I’ve also bought a boat load of jewelry!) and she is much more effusive than my family. In my already heightened emotional state it’s too much to have my family saying how much they’ll miss me and how we’re all going to cry next week and then demand more money or insinuate that I haven’t paid them enough.

Today should still be an exciting day though! Nancy is going to be my replacement in Thiès. She is an older PCV who already completed a service in Kenya in the early 2000s. She has an amazing retail background and worked with artisans in Kenya. Nancy is going to be able to do amazing things for Mme. Ly, Dioss, and the artisan network at large! I can’t wait to introduce her to everyone. My night should improve since I organized a huge chicken dibi outing! Most of the trainees and most of the PCVs from my stage are in town and we’re going to celebrate a little and get to know our replacements!

COS Complete

2011-07-08T17:53:00.000Z

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

The COS process is over! It’s official! On July 18th I will become a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and board a plane to come home to the United States of America. Katherine and I have been busy the past few days wrapping things up in the office and doing all of our last minute shopping in Dakar.

The Close of Service process was relatively painless. Past PCVs have really complained about how hard the process is, but it didn’t seem too bad to me. Katherine and I had both written our COS reports in advance which definitely made things less stressful and we were the only two people COSing this week. Checking off each box on the massive COS checklist was at the same time exciting, gratifying and numbing. It’s so strange that I’m the person COSing and a PCV who I’ve looked up to for the past couple of years. I’m so excited to come home, but I’m dreading saying goodbye and I’m still in shock that the time has actually come.

In-between medical appointments, exit interviews, and waiting for signatures, Katherine and I did find the time to get some additional shopping in. The two of us were in charge of getting the Dakar region’s COS bracelets. Silver ID bracelets are very popular in Senegal and it’s a Dakar region tradition that all of the COS-ers get a bracelet with their Senegalese name. It took several trips to the market and we had very little hope that all of the names would come out correctly and written on the correct bracelet, but Senegal offered us up a little miracle and the bracelets all look fantastic!

We also went to Marche Kermel which is a pretty touristy antiques market to get some last minute souvenirs for Katherine. At Christmastime I had picked up some excellent gifts for some of my male friends: pornographic bottle openers. They are amazing. The bottle openers are supposedly bronze, very sturdy, and are fairly graphic. They’re great. Anyway, Katherine and I are walking through the market trying to find and bargain for these items when one of the all time great Alyssa-isms pops out of my mouth. While waving a large, bronze penis bottle opener in my hand I proceed to tell the vendor who is quoting us a ridiculous price that “If you want to sell this bottle opener then 3000CFA is a good price. If you don’t want to sell this bottle opener then 11000CFA is a good price.” Needless to say Katherine got her souvenir.
Note for all future PCVs: If you ever find yourself in a market in a heated bargaining argument over a bronze penis you know it’s time to go home!
With souvenirs, bracelets, and a completed checklist Katherine and I said goodbye to everyone at the Peace Corps office and headed back to Thiès for the last time.

A Word To My Sponors

2011-07-07T14:07:00.001Z

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Before time really starts to slip away I want to thank everyone who has helped me, encouraged me, and kept up with my story for the past two years. Here is a non-exhaustive list in no particular order...

The United States of America
Thank you for the chance to serve in the Peace Corps. I hope I did you proud.

The United States Postal Service
Thank you for creating flat rate boxes. Without flat rate boxes my mother may or may not have gone insane and me and my friends would have had to suffer through holidays that did not feature boxed wine, sausage, nacho cheese and the myriad of other delicacies that have been shipped across the Atlantic.

Skype
Thank you Skype for allowing me to have panic attacks and fits of joy communicating with my loved ones at home while not paying exorbitant fees. Your amazing unlimited call plan is just fantastic. I will miss the sound of the program starting up at 5:55 in the morning.

Gmail
Thank you Gmail for offering HTML for slow connections as well as google chat without you Google, I would not have been able to communicate with my friends and family nearly as much!

McKeown Family New Yorker Subscription
Thank you for the years of New Yorker magazines accompanied with bags of pistachios! Without the McKeown family subscription I would have been much more bored at meetings and PCVs throughout the country wouldn't have had nearly as many magazines nor nearly as an enjoyable of a time traveling through the country. I am sure that years down the road PCVs will be reading your New Yorkers and be very happy that they traveled all the way to Africa for their reading pleasure.

Shirley
Thank you Shirley for all of the cards. I need to count just how many cards there are because it's a truly impressive number. Your cards always put a smile on my face. Thank you so much.

CJ
Thank you CJ for coming all the way to Senegal and having enough sibling love not to pretend that Senegal isn't exactly the nicest place in the world. Your disbelief more at me for staying here than in my living conditions was very refreshing! I will always have great memories of our trip to the waterfall in Kedougou even if you were a little bitch pretending you were sick while we were in Thies.

The Pirate Bay
Thank you The Pirate Bay for providing me with limitless torrents to make time move just a little bit faster. My completely worthless and trivial knowledge of Top Chef, Grey's Anatomy, 16 & Pregnant, The Amazing Race, and other terrible shows would not be the same without you. Hopefully I will be less socially awkward and be less unaware of American pop culture when I return to the motherland because of you.

Matt
Thank you for listening to my insanity at all hours of the day, coming to visit, and showing your infinite patience and levelheadedness. Ready or not here I come!

Peace Corps Senegal
Thank you Peace Corps Senegal for allowing me to serve even though it was hard for myriad reasons at different times. Thank you most of all for the free calling plan among PCVs. Without free calling I would have had to spend even more money on credit and much less time scheming with Katherine, talking about food with Tamar, and gossiping with Jackie.

Clif Family Products
Thank you Clif Bars for creating the life sustaining product that is Crunchy Peanut Butter. I seriously think Clif should have some sort of partnership with Peace Corps because we love your products.

My Family
Thank you to my entire family for all of your support, emails, Skype calls, and packages. Can't wait to see everyone when I get home!

SpaceX
Thank you SpaceX for allowing me to send my online shopping purchases to you. Very discrete.

My Friends
Thank you to all of my wonderful friends who sent me email updates, spent countless hours on gchat with me, sent me letters and packages, and made the time to hang out while I was at home over Christmas. You are the best and I can't wait to see all you!

JCrew
Thank you JCrew for allowing me unlimited window browsing and many, many pairs of sale cargo pants.

Mom and Dad
Thank you for everything.

Pamanda's Hummus Plate
Thank you Pamanda's hummus plate for being you.

Senegal
Thank you for hosting me.

My Peace Corps Friends
Thank you to all of the PCVs who served with me in Senegal. You are all amazing. Without you I would have ET'ed without a doubt. I'm sure we'll be lifelong friends and will annoy our significant others and friends for years to come as we wax nostalgic about Peace Corps. See you all at unofficial WAIST!

Blog Readers
Thank you to all of my blog readers. I stalked you through Google Analytics and I appreciate your time and all of your comments. Thank you for all of your support. The support has been overwhelming.

This list of thank yous is by no means exhaustive and is only supposed to thank all of you for everything you've done for me. Every email, post on my blog, letter, package, phone call and text were incredibly special to me. You've kept me going and knowing that people at home are thinking about me and interested in my life here in Senegal makes a world of difference.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Poked and Prodded

2011-07-06T17:22:00.000Z

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Let the COSing begin! My COS and DOS reports (the main pieces of paperwork I owe Peace Corps in order to leave the country) have been done for a couple of weeks now, but that is truly only the beginning. Leaving Peace Corps is almost as tedious and requires almost as much paperwork as the application process. Katherine and I must complete all of our COS (close of service) work this week so we can de-myst our replacements and then spend our final days with our Senegalese family and friends before party plane-ing it back to the motherland.

During our COS conference a few weeks ago we were given a giant packet of papers as well as a several page long checklist to help us keep track of and complete everything we have to do. The race started this morning. Immediately upon arriving at the office we check in with the medical office who tell us we have a few hours to wait so I run to turn in all of my bike equipement and have that signed off on. Instead of reveling in the air conditioning and wifi space that is the PCV lounge I ran off to the bank (twice since I had to come back because I forgot my passport!) and Katherine waited for Med.

Oh, the Senegalese banking system. Jackie was already waiting impatiently at the bank when I arrived. She had made the ridiculous mistake of pulling a number and waiting to be called when all she had to do was talk to someone at a desk who had to send an email to someone else in order to close our accounts. Obviously. Luckily for me, Jackie had the not waiting part all figured out and we had the man behind the desk email the accountant to finalize everything in our accounts so we could close them. Do not ask me why they man behind the desk, who had full access to all of our account information, was powerless to do anything except wait for this other person to email him. Two hours of waiting, people watching, exasperated eye rolls, and several bouts of annoyed questioning later the mystery man emailed the guy at the desk back and we started the process of closing our accounts.

Banks in the US like when people open savings accounts, not so in Senegal! It’s no wonder that people don’t have bank accounts. I know all about the frustrations of opening an account from when I helped Dioss open one so we could work on the exporting his cards to America. I had no idea that closing an account could be even more frustrating, confusing, and counterintuitive. By the time all of this was over I owed the bank almost 60USD. That’s because they did me the great honor of giving me the exact amount of money left in my account, fees for having kept a bank account open for two years, and having the temerity to actually close it which cost a whopping 40USD. Very, very, very annoying.

The poking and prodding had just begun because it was time for my medical appointment. The Med office is currently overrun with people who are sick and might be medically separated from the Peace Corps which is really unfortunate, but I appear to be healthy and my appointment didn’t take too long. An eye exam, physical, blood drawn… and other things you don’t want to hear about…

From Med it was more running around, more signatures, searching for Peace Corps staff members and trying to make the rest of the week as easy as possible for myself. That was until Katherine and I headed downtown to for lunch before going to see the dentist. As you can see from this post, trying to leave Senegal involves a lot of running around. I’m very happy to be doing all of this before the very end so my last few days of full of family and friends instead of Peace Corps bureaucracy.

Happy Birthday America

2011-07-05T15:38:00.003Z

Before joining Peace Corps, I loved America. American history, politics, and the US itself fascinated me. Now, after living abroad for two years, my patriotism has reached new and fanatical levels. The United States of America is the best country on Earth.

We woke up this morning in Toubab Diallaw in order to celebrate another great birthday. Tamar turned 26 two days ago and American turned 235 today. What a week. Unfortunately, Senegal wasn’t about to give us a free pass to Dakar in order to let us start the celebration early. Even with stomachs full of delicious crepes we still arrived in Dakar famished and ready for more American style food since the 35 kilometer drive from Toubab Diallaw to Dakar took us almost three hours.

After quick showers and shoving as many clothes as we possibly could into the washing machine at the regional house, we packed into two cabs and headed off to the American Club. Most of the PCVs in country are down in Kedougou celebrating the 4th like we did last year, but in order to COS, de-myst my replacement, and be ready to leave when I wanted to it was impossible to travel all the way down to Kedougou so I’m in Dakar. The American Club was up to its patriotic best with a spread including hamburgers, fries, salad, grilled chicken, and fruit salad. I went for the hamburger which was made decidedly less American when the waitress slapped a fried egg on top of it before I could protest, but delicious nonetheless.

The American Club also provided entertainment. Very strange entertainment to say the least. There were Senegalese clowns for the children to play with and Jackie and Tamar were on this side of absolutely terrified. The clowns did acrobatic tricks, had marionettes, and did little skits for the kids. We were also all entertained especially when the clowns pulled April into the circle and forced her to perform tricks with them (see pictures). Regardless of creepy clowns, the American Club was a great stop. It provided exactly what we wanted: grilled hamburgers, gaudy 4th of July decorations, beer, and the national anthem played over terrible speakers. But, we didn’t let the fun end there…

Off to downtown Dakar we went to participate in another one of mine and America’s favorite pastimes: shopping. I cannot wait to go shopping. The thought of a trashy American mall (or a super nice one for that matter) makes my heart skip a beat. Sandaga, the main Dakar market, wasn’t exactly the fix I was craving but it had to do. The main purpose was to secure COS bracelets for the PCVs in my stage in the Dakar region. That was a fail, but Katherine, April, and I did find an amazing necklace/ bead store. The three of us fed off of each other’s almost manic shopping frenzy energy and had an amazing time working with the flamboyantly gay salesman. The store was a great find and Katherine and I continue to corrupt April (a first year PCV in our region) on artisanal products. We may or may not have made several additional stops as we wound our way out of the market. Shopping expedition success.

Still on our shopping high we rushed to NiceCream, which is the best ice cream place in Dakar. The mission: Obama Cookie. Obviously there is a flavor of ice cream named after Obama and obviously it is delicious and the perfect treat on the 4th of July. Obama Cookie ice cream is chocolate ice cream (duh) with cookies that I describe as Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies without the mint. It’s really good. Our 4th of July food triumphs do not end here! Another cab ride returned us to the regional house where we proceeded to whip up some Velveeta Mac & Cheese courtesy of Jo Ellen.

What is the most perfect way in the world to end such a representative of America 4th of July? It would be watching The American President on someone’s laptop surrounded by your friends who have been working on giving each other 235 high fives throughout the day to celebrate America!

God Bless America.

Toubab Diallaw

2011-07-05T12:58:00.000Z

Sunday, July 3, 2011

There is Peace Corps lore, propagated by Thomas Wheat, about Toubab Diallaw – a beach town just south of Dakar. The main attractions of Toubab Diallaw are not the picturesque beaches, the quaint village, or the lovely water, but rather the crepe restaurant and the pizza restaurant. Seriously. We ate a lot of crepes.

Friday morning after frantically packing, by shoving as much food and boxed wine into my bag as possible, I met Katherine, April, and Jackie at a small garage in Thiès to rent a car. Bethany, a response PCV living in Thiès, and three of her friends met us and the eight of us piled into a 6 person van that absolutely reeked of urine and off we went! A super short trip later we arrived in Toubab Diallaw.

Toubab Diallow is a real Senegalese village and it’s also a beachy resort destination. Both Dakaroise (wealthy Senegalese from the big city) and foreign tourists voyage to Dakar which makes for some weird bedfellows. Our hotel was really nice. It’s dormitory style, but we had our own room and our own beds. The bathrooms were communal. While I loved the hotel and thought it was great, especially for the price, it was a strange, strange place. The hotel looked like a medieval castle that Senegal threw up on. It was made of a million different materials, featured drum circles, dance circles, and lots and lots of study abroad American kids who were loving the “cultural integration.” It was a great place…and it was only a few steps away from the crepe restaurant.

The big crew from Thiès arrived before the birthday girl, Tamar, and Brian met us in Toubab Diallaw. Once we were all reunited the only thing we could talk about was crepes. Chez Baby is located right on the beach and is run by Sierra Leoneans who speak English and who make crepes. Unfortunately, it took two hours to finally get our crepe lunch order, but it was totally worth it. The crepes were big, thick, and filled with delicious treats. I had a chicken, potato, and onion crepe. It was awesome. Next up was lounging on the beach and swimming in the ocean before we had to take showers and start thinking about our next meal. The pizza was delicious and very romantic since we had to eat by candle light as it rained.

Sunday morning we were back, bright and early, at the crepe restaurant for round two. Round three happened Sunday morning when we went back for breakfast again! Our Toubab Diallaw weekend was supposed to be a fantastic 26th birthday celebration for Tamar as well as our last little getaway before we all return back to the United States of America. The weekend, shockingly, revolved around food and lounging. The beach was really beautiful and the water was warm and we had fun playing in the waves. It was also nice to lay in lounge chairs and read a book in peace.

Sunday night’s dinner was AMAZING. Having already eaten crepes several times and not being completely enthused with the pizza, we decided to go to the restaurant right next to the crepe place. The woman running the restaurant immediately noticed the necklaces Jackie was wearing – a Madame Ly creation – and asked her where she got it. It turns out that this woman knows Mme. Ly and she was super excited for us to eat at her restaurant. Because we know Mme. Ly, the woman gave us the option to order the “special” plate that she makes for all of her friends. A “special” plate is usually a tossup. We thought there was a 50-50 chance that it would be good so we went for it. We were all so happy that we did because it turned out to be a giant platter of perfectly cooked fish, grilled chicken, salad, coleslaw, and fries. It was heaven especially when paired with a cheap bottle of wine on the beach at sunset.

A great time was had by all. I definitely needed to get out of Thiès so the trip was a welcome relief and it was really fun to spend a lazy beach weekend with my friends. It’s amazing how little time we have left so I’m happy we have a few more pictures and a few more good laughs!

July!

2011-07-01T17:54:00.003Z

It's JULY!!! AHHH!!! I'm coming home this month!

Allow me to illustrate the passage of time with one of the two most annoying conversations I had yesterday. Out of all the repeated conversations I have in Senegal there are two that stick out as being the most rage inducing.

1. There are 52 states in the United States
2. Why don't you just stay longer/ marry a Senegalese man

I had both of these conversations yesterday with the customs guy at the post office. I was so upset and frustrated by the end of the conversations that I almost left my package there since he was holding it hostage until the end of our conversation.

The 52 states debate is infuriating because it's factually untrue, but Senegalese people have a printed source that says it is. There is a high school textbook here in Senegal which states there are 52 states in the US. To make matters even better it does not list these 52 states it simply says they exist. Therefore, I don't know if they get 52 by believing that the continental US is 50 and then added Alaska and Hawaii or if Guam and Puerto Rico are counted. The lack of critical thinking skills in this country mean that all which is printed is truth. As an American citizen and history buff, I am unqualified to denounce said textbook and am ridiculed for my lack of patriotism and intelligence when I attempt to right this wrong. I was practically in tears yesterday trying to explain the textbook's mistake. It's even more infuriating since it would never stand if I tried to correct a Senegalese person on a fact about Senegal.

With nerves already frayed due to the 52 states conversation we moved on to the "why don't you stay longer/ marry a Senegalese man conversation." There is no correct answer. If I say I miss my friends and family, then I'm told to bring them to Senegal since it's so much better. If I say it's because my significant other is there, I'm told there are many more eligible men who would marry me right now here. Hey, my relationship at home isn't a sure thing, but that man on the corner definitely is! Or if I like it so much here, why would I go home? I know that a lot of this stems from insecurity and the desire to have me praise Senegal, but it's unbelievably annoying and circular.

Everyone always says that two years is nothing. I completely agree and completely disagree. Before I came to Peace Corps the two years was the scariest part. The scariest part should have been coming to Senegal, but since I was completely naive, it was the time factor. Two years seemed like an insurmountable amount of time away from family and friends. It seemed like throwing my life away by not making any money or attending graduate school. I have definitely missed out on things at home and time with friends and family, but while I will never get that time back nor would I want to give that time back, many of those events have been common occurrences and I will reclaim my spot when I come home. Without a doubt I have gained more in two years in Peace Corps Senegal than I would have at home and have become a much better, more patient, and empathic person. Not to mention the amazing friendships and Peace Corps family I've forged here. But, two years is still a really freaking long time and it makes me angry that people who have never left home are telling me it's not. I can also no longer come up with politically correct excuses to live at home and not marry a Senegalese man.

Moral of the story: I can't believe that it's been two years and I can totally believe it's been two great, amazing years!

That was yesterday. I spent the night in the dark with my family who continues to astound me with the awesomely bad food they've been preparing. Yassa (fried fish on white rice with onion sauce), Ngalach (peanut butter, chocolate, milk, millet concoction), Fataya (fried dough balls filled with fish), and Ceebu ketcha (rice with dried fish). I'm seriously impressed with how bad things have been lately so I've been raiding my remaining stash and hanging out where other food is available. The main plus of the power outages is that I actually spend time with my family instead of time spent watching television with them. I love our conversations in the dark while I get to cuddle with Abdou. Everyone is starting to talk about my imminent departure. They claim they're going to miss me and I actually believe them. They're also nervous about the new PCV they're going to get. They'll have to wait a little bit longer to be let in on that secret...

Today I've been out and about running some personal errands, trying to get all of my organizing and packing done, and going to see Mme. Ly. She's working on a couple orders for me and my friends which are still not done, but we had a nice chat anyway. I'm really going to miss Mme. Ly and Khady. It's so peaceful to hang out with them even though their stand is on a busy road with traffic and a lot of people. I always take pleasure looking through their stock and watching Mme. Ly and Khady as they work. My work is pretty much done so I visit for mostly social reasons although we did go over which PCVs who work with artisans will still be here another year and talk about my replacement.

I've been trying to get some work done at Les Delices this afternoon because the real final countdown starts tomorrow. Tomorrow is two weeks left at site, but even that is misleading because I'm headed to the beach tomorrow with my friends to celebrate Tamar's birthday, then it's off to Dakar to be medically cleared and complete all of my COS paperwork, back to Thies for a day with the family until de-myst with my replacement starts, and then three days of goodbyes before returning to Dakar to get on the plane. Two years have flown!

Ladies Who Lunch Finale

2011-06-29T17:12:00.006Z

Fall Stage '09 Ladies at our last Thies lunch.

For the past two days I've been hanging out at the center. Today and yesterday I had sessions at 8:30am and ended up spending the rest of the day working at the center since my house never has electricity and Jackie and Katherine have been in town. This morning the three of us and Kerry led a Junior Achievement lesson. For some reason the stage a year behind me is totally anti-JA and only one person has started teaching classes so far. The new stage seems much more excited about the project. After a brief presentation and overview about JA, Kerry led a panel discussion and the three of us answered questions. It was actually quite fun to tell our amusing anecdotes and reflect back on our time with JA. Junior Achievement was definitely a good project and I hope that a lot of volunteers in this new stage continue teaching.

Ladies and Brian

The big event for the day was the last Ladies Who Lunch event of my service. Lunch marked the last time that the Fall Stage '09 ladies will all be eating lunch together, in Thies, in our Thiest Region t-shirts. A sad time to be sure. Fortunately everyone in my stage was able to attend lunch at some point, although Christine didn't quite make it into the pictures! I am so lucky to have been posted here in Thies with such fabulous colleagues. Seven girls from my stage were placed in and around Thies and we'v had so much fun together. Whether they're "thiesty" or not I still love them all dearly. The seven of us really made Thies a sub-region among volunteers and it's been great to acquire new members along the way and I hope that the PCVs who replace us will continue the tradition of camaraderie and leisurely lunches.

While this was our last Thies lunch, it wasn't sad and that's because we're all in denial or at least I am. I cannot believe how short the countdown has become. I still remember the count up when I made it to 100 days in Senegal and now I'm in the teens. As in less than 20 days in Senegal. I will be home in 19 days. We are down to the wire, but there's still so much more to do that I don't feel like the end is as near as it is. I also hate goodbyes and am already getting teary when I think about having to do it with Peace Corps staff, with my work partners, with my family, and with my friends. The lunch wasn't sad at all. It was fun. And that's how I hope the vast majority of the rest of my 19 days will be. We definitely have some fun events planned to take us all the way to the final goodbye at the regional house in Dakar.

The Thies region also has a love of khaki/ fatigue pants! Guess who's who!

Let the insanity begin (continue)!

New pictures are up in the "It's the End of the World As We Know It" album.

Firsts of the Lasts

2011-06-28T11:01:00.002Z

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Today was a really good day.

My ever present social guilt and the fact that I wont have the opportunity to see all of my Senegalese work partners in the near, near future prompted me to call Dioss even though I didn't want to. I don't know why I never want to call Dioss because I always have a pleasant time when I go to his gallery. Today we chitchatted for a little while and then both read books while listening to American soft rock as some of the boy posse ran errands and painted. Dioss has been a really good friend and at the beginning a very good work partner. I hope that my replacement continues a relationship with Dioss. I've recommended in my COS report that he or she asks one of the members of the boy posse if he would like to learn some basic accounting and in that way help Dioss since Dioss has very little interest in learning the business side of his business. The time it took to read an entire Vanity Fair magazine was the amount of time I was willing to sit around Dioss' gallery before returning home, but it was a lovely morning and I'm definitely going to miss Dioss and the rest of the boy posse when I leave.

When I arrived back at home and drenched in sweat (the hot and muggy season is officially here) my mom, Numbe, and Awa were all sitting around the kitchen. The electricity had still not come back 24 hours after it turned off. The three women were eating a tropical fruit that looks like a rotten yellow tomato. I don't think it has an English name and I had definitely never seen it before I came to Senegal. The fruit has a hard rind, thicker than an orange, and inside there are hard seeds covered in a little fruit surrounded by goop. Sounds gross, tastes good. Well, it tastes good after you add sugar to it because before it is incredibly sour. My family likes to freeze them, scoop out of the fruit, and put the fruit in some water to make a kind of fruit smoothie. It's actually pretty good although incredibly time consuming and difficult to eat.

As we ate our fruit and chatted, Numbe caught site of the magazine in my bag and asked to look at it. One of my family's great pleasures are the perfume ads in magazines. They LOVE them. After getting over their initial horror that I would rip pages out of a magazine, they now demand that the fragrance ads are immediately taken out of the magazines so everyone can smell them, rate them, and rub them all over their bodies. It's quite the spectacle and the "which fragrance is better" conversation gets heated quite quickly! It's true female bonding time and it was really fun. I had a great couple of hours, waiting for lunch to be served, sitting with my mom, Numbe, and Awa. There are moments here that are so great and then there's the rest of the time...

After lunch, I headed over the center to put a large bag of miscellaneous objects into a Peace Corps car going to Dakar. I've been trying to clean out my room and either sending things to Dakar, throwing piles and piles of Peace Corps paperwork in the trash, or bring things to the center for other people to pilfer. There are a ton of people in Thies right now working with the new SED trainees and volunteers doing sensitivity training for Peace Corps staff and trainees on being a homosexual volunteer in Senegal.

Due to the large number of volunteers in Thies and the fact that it was one PCV's birthday we all went out to Massa Massa for dinner. Jackie, Katherine, and I had been planning on going to Massa Massa for one last meal and this was a great excuse. Although Lamine, our favorite waiter wasn't there, we all ordered the lasagna and all made ourselves sick off of it. Every time I eat an entire plate of lasagna by myself I remind myself that the reason we split lasagna isn't cost, it's that we make ourselves sick when we eat it by ourselves. Two years later and the lesson is still not learned!

Failed Attempt

2011-06-28T10:36:00.002Z

Sunday June 26th, 2011

Last night was my loudest night in Senegal. A truck with giant speakers was parked outside my house blaring music. There was no party. No political rally. No death. No birth. No baptism. No nothing. Just a truck with gigantic speakers parked outside my house. I could barely hear myself think. Today I found out that all of the Catholic children in my neighborhood were receiving their first and second communion, but there was nothing going on last night. I don't understand why people don't stop ridiculous things like this. My family was complaining about the noise and my host dad is the head of our neighborhood yet, they still didn't attempt to stop the noise. There are only two plausible explanations:

1. Senegal
2. No one complains because they know at some point that they will want to have a truck parked outside of someone else's house blaring loud music.

Today I really wanted to and thought that I would do work. I went to the center and even took a lunch so that I wouldn't have to leave. I sat in the living room at the center and tried to hunker down and concentrate. No such luck. In anticipation of the trainees coming back to the center for the first time and due to all of the recent power outages there were a lot of PCVs at the center so I chatted, walked through the market, and did other unproductive things.

The trainees did come back from their first five days in their towns/ villages and were excited to be back at the center again. This group of trainees is already really tightly knit since there are only 17 of them so they were excited to see each other and excited to get a nice cold beverage at the Catholic compound. I didn't really hear any horror stories, but people definitely have a new appreciation for Thies and the training center.

Back at home my family was in a terrible mood. Having Mami home full time now, university is out for the summer, really creates tension and drama, which is fun for me to watch!

Storm Clouds

2011-06-25T16:35:00.001Z

The past couple of days have been full of ups and downs. I feel incredibly busy, but at the same time seem to be accomplishing absolutely nothing. For the first time in years my two worlds, the world of Peace Corps Senegal and the world of my old life at home, are colliding. I’m so close to being done, but home is still out of reach and while I’ve been planning a life at home it’s still vague and currently includes another plane ticket to the west coast 11 days after getting to Michigan and that’s pretty much it. The new trainees are here, I’m writing my Close of Service Report which will help my replacement jump into life and projects in Thies (I just finished it this morning!), and I’m placing last minute jewelry orders for my friends and myself (hey, I’m trying to keep what’s important in perspective!). At the same time my calendar is filling up with all kinds of events in Grand Rapids and Chicago. Having a foot in each world is a little weird, but probably good practice for how I’m actually feel when I get home. For now, I’m trying to prepare, but enjoy my time in Senegal with all of my friends. We still have one more trip planned and 4th of July festivities to look forward to!

The process of writing my COS report has been a strange one . Writing the details of my service, how I organized the artisan expo, what the creation of the artisan association looked like, the shipment of Dioss’ cards to the States, the new styles of Mme. Ly’s jewelry, is an exciting look back at my service and has reminded me that I actually did accomplish things. Writing about my family already has me in a panic about saying goodbye. Describing everyone’s personalities, their quirks, relationships to each other, and how the insanity of my household all seems to make sense is really emotional. These people no matter how much they annoy me, how incredibly inconsiderate they are sometimes, or how they truly feel about me as a “member” of their family are my family here in Senegal. I depend on them and I love them and it’s going to be terrible to say goodbye even if I will enjoy not being barged in upon while half naked and given a baby to hold. I hope my replacement finds the same camaraderie with my family as I did.

My COS is only one of the written documents I’m working on. Job applications, letters of recommendations, different essays, and PST schedules are constantly open on my computer and just never seem to be complete. I’m easily distracted these days.

Yesterday, I did get some work done. In the morning I attempted to explain my internet problem to the service provider. It ended with me having a meltdown in the Orange office much to the amusement of two Peace Corps employees who were also there to complain and attempt to have their problems resolved. From there I headed over to Mme. Ly’s to check in, chat, and discuss a special order for Jackie. Upon hearing that there may or may not be coveted hot pink beads in Dakar, I also placed an order. We discussed the Artisan Association and how it really has nothing to do with Katherine and I and that the next meeting in September will be just as successful and the artisans can do more and more themselves. Mme. Ly doesn’t seem convinced, but I’m confident she’ll pick up the reigns when she has to.

In the afternoon I met up with Andrew, one of the new trainees who is doing PST in Thies. He was feeling a little antsy in his home stay which I could understand after talking to his mom on the phone and explaining that he was a big boy and could walk to a central location by himself to meet me! We walked through the market running some errands I had. During my PST I felt like all of the PCVs who came in were so enthusiastic and happy about everything and in love with Senegal. Many people in my stage find it funny that I’m in essence “stage mom” since I hated PST with such a passion, but I hope that I’m giving people a realistic picture of Peace Corps life. I would have felt so much better if someone had told me that Peace Corps is hard, that people can and will be really mean in cities, and that Senegalese cities are just dirty and disgusting. This isn’t a value statement it’s just the truth. I think Andrew has a lot of the same misgivings that I did when I first arrived so I hope that I’m helping trainees who feel like I did and at the same time not appearing to be too much of a Debbie Downer to the super happy go lucky people. It was nice to get out of the house and hang out with someone and it was another opportunity to reflect on my service.

So, I have been doing things. I’ve visited work partners, yelled at service providers, toured Thies with new trainees, and even written reports, but it doesn’t really feel productive. I need to kick it into high gear. It’s a sprint to the finish.

As I’m in transition, so is the weather. The rainy season has arrived. Katherine called me this morning because she knew I had plans to go into town and a storm was hitting Bambey. It takes almost exactly half an hour for weather to get from Bambey to Thies, which would have had me walking around in the storm. Thanks Katherine for the heads up! Even without Katherine’s heads up I hope I would not have been stupid enough to leave my house after looking at the sky. It was pitch dark at 9am and then the sky turned red with sand and the wind was incredibly violent, banging everything closed and tearing limbs off our Mango trees. It was pretty cool. The storm lasted for over two hours and it rained a lot! Now we actually have some water since we collected it in buckets. The rain was a welcome relief from the humidity that’s settled over Thies in the past week or so. I’m not too pumped for Thies to become a swamp of trash again, but I do enjoy seeing the change in life when the rains come. No one does anything, there’s no cars on the roads, everyone hides from the rain and I watch movies in my room!

SHOUT OUTS!!! I’ve been delinquent in putting these up! I apologize.

McKeowns – Thank you so much for the “Countdown to Redondo” package! The trail mix and magazines should provide me enough fuel to get through the next few weeks. I’m excited to teach Ahmed all about paper airplanes as well. Thank you for your support.

Mom and Dad – Thanks for another great package. The wine cups will be much appreciated during our beach weekend next week! And I promise to wear the new underwear on the plane so Africa underwear doesn’t make the jump across the Atlantic!

Shirley – Thanks for another great card! Matt and I are definitely going to call in that order of Pecan Bars and I can’t wait for some fried rice salad and mashed potatoes!

Sorry this has been a rambling and disjointed post! I’ll try and do better tomorrow.

Recently

2011-06-23T18:32:00.003Z

With a very short five days of "rest" at home in Thies/ the training center, I was off again and back to Dakar on Tuesday for a Junior Achievement event. But, this wasn't before I had the chance to go see Mme. Ly on Monday afternoon.

I had been dreading going to see Mme. Ly because of the disaster that was Jazz Fest. She and Khady had the most miserable expressions on their faces every time I saw them and I was afraid that all of my hard work with them would be for naught after the giant disappointment of the expo. Fortunately, Mme. Ly doesn't hate me. Just like Katherine's artisan Matar told her, Mme. Ly told me that the event was so horrible that the artisans bonded and that they did really learn a lot from the gallery and how we had set up the Peace Corps display there. Apprently, the boys stayed an extra couple of days in St. Louis and sold some more product which is good. Mme. Ly and Khady left after the final official day of the expo with some very, very, very exciting news. After I had already left St. Louis, Joelle, the gallery owner, came over to the Peace Corps booth to check things out and speak with the artisans. She was impressed with a couple of the products including the Collaboration Bag (made by Matar the tailor and Demba the leather guy) and a lot of Mme. Ly's new jewlery designs.

Mme. Ly and Khady are over the moon that Joelle liked their jewelry and the three women are working on finalizing and order for the gallery and creating a partnership! Exciting!!! Over the past year I've been creating a Look Book for Mme. Ly with all of her designs. Every time she has a new necklace I take a picture and put it in the photo album I bought her. She now has a record of well over 50 designs that she's made. The next time Mme. Ly goes to Dakar she's going to take her Look Book and show it to Joelle so she can choose more designs. Hopefully this will turn out to be an enduring partnership! And it means that at least two good things came out of Jazz Fest: the artisans have really bonded and become friends and Mme. Ly has a new opportunity with a gallery!

Unfortunately, Monday night did not end as well as the afternoon went. My internet is suddenly suffering from the mysterious disease that Katherine's internet had a few months ago. From home, when connected to the internet through my modem and an ethernet cord, I can only access Gmail, NYT.com, and Skype. While these sites do represent the holy grail of internet, but it's really annoying when you can't access the rest of the internet, especially after I had paid my bill earlier that day. Yes, I know, the trials and tribulations of the Peace Corps Volunteer. No internet. Poor me. But, it's all what you get used to and I have work to do! Although I have been obsessively calling Orange (my service provider), re-configuring my modem, and turning everything off and on, there has been no improvement. Blame the terrible utilities companies for the lack of blogging.

Tuesday morning, after yelling at several Orange representatives over the phone, Talla came to pick me up and we headed to Dakar. Since Talla was driving and I didn't have to take a sept-place I took a ton of Peace Corps property into Dakar to turn in... I'm getting closer and closer to coming home! We picked up Jackie and with Kerry already in the car we sped to Dakar... until we got stopped in standstill traffic for over an hour. The real purpose of the trip was Junior Achievement and the end of the year festivities and events planned by the JA country team.

Tuesday night we attended a lovely reception at the American Ambassador's house and Wednesday morning we went to the national theater along with a bunch of JA students (including some from Lycee Technique!) to celebrate their accomplishments and listen to some Senegalese musicians perform. We also got to watch a television segment about JA in which Jackie and I starred or in which Jackie starred and I had one ridiculous line. The best part was we were both wearing the same outfits we had on in the video! Just goes to show you how poorly PCVs dress.

Now I'm back in Thies waiting out the power outages and politicking. Definitely check out Senegal is the news for yesterday and today. I'm an fine and safe, but there are protests happening throughout the country. Yahoo news, Reuters, and AP all have articles if you are interested to know what's happening in Senegal.

Exhaustion

2011-06-18T12:46:00.002Z

Trainee site placement interviews continued yesterday and I continued to be absolutely fascinated not because I see myself two years ago, but because I see my projects two years from now. The new group of trainees is overall older than my group, has more experience, and already speaks better French. The number of people with retail and marketing backgrounds who want to work with artisans is staggering and they are chomping at the bit to take the Peace Corps Artisan Association to the next level with their expertise, contacts back in the US, and their excitement at what their service holds. It's a little sad that I wont be around to see everything first hand, but don't worry, I'm coming home.

The nostalgia is definitely kicking in. The new stage is so excited to get to know each other, so excited to learn local languages, and so excited to get to work. I can finally see why some people do extend their services for a third year(again, don't worry this is happening, I already have a plane ticket). At this point in my service no matter how incredibly annoyed I am with the country of Senegal and everything it entails, I can still get things done. The artisans, even after the catastrophe that was the St. Louis Jazz Fest, are still excited about the association and call me incessantly to talk about. With my language skills and cultural understanding at the point they are now, I could do great things with a third year just like some of my stage-mates will do with their third year. But, back to the new stage...

PST is going well. Who the hell thought I would ever say that in any context? I was at the center all day again yesterday doing interviews, answering questions, and participating in the cultural fair where I lead the Islam talk for the forth time. Last night since the trainees are still not allowed to leave the center I lead/ created a trivia night for them. While the questions might have been a little titled toward the Alyssa/Katherine weird knowledge/ obsessions side, it was still fun and I hope a success.

Fortunately, I am able to take a little break from the center today and try to become a whole human being again. The past ten days have been crazy. Katherine and I worked our asses off all day in St. Louis and then may or may not have had a little too much fun at night, then 5 days in Dakar for COS Conference, and now PST. In return for all of my hard work, I have earned a very persistent head cold and complete exhaustion. I slept for 10 hours last night, got up, eat breakfast, pretended to do work for an hour, and then took an almost two hour nap. Yeah. I want to spend some time with my family today because I've barely seen them this month and I have very little time left.

I did spend a little time with my family today. Operative word being little since I was so, so, so tired. My main interaction was holding a stick on one side while Ahmed held it on the other in order to prevent him from seeing how many times one can poke a light bulb before it breaks. I had to take several naps both in my room and on the floor of the living room when the power was out and it was too hot to be in my room without a fan. I think tomorrow I will be close to normal and can continue with normal live. Tomorrow is also the Thies walk around so the trainees will be let out of the center for the first time! Hopefully I wont scare them too much!

My Replacement: He/She Is Here

2011-06-16T19:20:00.003Z

Yesterday at 4:45am Chris (our Country Director) picked up a group of us at the hotel where we were staying for COS Conference and we all went to the airport to pick up the 17 new SED stagaires. Even though I was sick and had to sit through the rest of the conference all day, I wanted to go great the new stagaires to come full circle. I remember how incredibly terrified I was when I landed in Senegal and how much I looked up to the PCVs who came to collect us. I didn't see any of the terror I felt in their eyes, but it was great to get a first look at them.

The stagaires were in Thies all day yesterday, but I left early this morning for Thies with a group of second year SED PCVs to present on our various projects and give a little taste of what we do to the new kids before they had their interviews about site placement. Katherine and I presented on artisans (it seemed like people were super interested!), Elizabeth and Jackie did Junior Achievement, Byron presented on cross sector collaboration (SED and Ag co projects), Chris on Eco-Tourism, and Lyzz (a first year) on waste management. I know that I would have liked a project overview early on in my pre-service training, since I had no idea what kind of work the PCVs did, so I hope they enjoyed the presentations. I also participated in a safety and security discussion about Thies, but the most interesting part of my day was the site placement interviews.

I am lucky enough to sit in on the site placement interviews and help decide which trainee goes to which site. It's absolutely fascinating. I remember my interview and how it's so hard to talk about what you want when you don't know a damn thing. I feel like the PCV who sat in on my interview really was able to look at the sites, understand who fits into what site, and then evaluate my personality in order to put me in Thies. The fact that I wasn't quiet about my desire for internet/ connection to the outside world probably didn't hurt either. Regardless, I hope that I can help place people at a site where they will be successful and at a site that they love. Listening to the new trainees struggle to find the right words because they're jet lagged, try to describe their perfect site without knowing anything about the sites, and attempt to process all of the information being thrown at them is bringing back a deluge of memories.

All of their questions are interesting and I already feel invested in them since they are a SED stage, but most especially because one of them will be living with my family, taking on my projects, and quasi living the life I've lead for two years. The goal of these interviews in the next two days is to figure out which languages people are going to learn. Since the group is so small (only 17), there will be 5 French, 2 Serere, and 10 Wolof. Therefore, winnowing down the two who will speak Serere is a pretty big deal as they will be placed in one of two sites. There's a lot more variables in play for the people learning French and Wolof, but I definitely have my eye on a potential replacement for myself and for Katherine.

The past 8 days have been insanity with Jazz Fest, COS Conference, and the new stage arriving and it's not going to calm down anytime soon. For the rest of the week I will be spending all day at the center with the new stage and I have to go back to Dakar next for a Junior Achievement Senegal conference.

Artisan Update: I just got off the phone with Katherine who spoke to her tailor, Matar. I have yet to really speak with or visit Mme. Ly. According to Matar, some artisans stayed until Tuesday even though the event officially ended on Sunday and that they actually sold quite a bit of product and that the artisans are generally happy. Apparently, after we left, everyone started singing kumbaya and being best friends forever. Alys' leather worked, Demba, is now a father figure to Matar while Mme. Ly is his mother. They all bonded over the horrible situation and believe St. Louis made the association stronger, which they are now obsessed with. I desperately hope all of this is true because I've been feeling terrible about how poorly Jazz Fest went and how miserable the artisans appeared while we were there. I can't wait to get a chance to go over and see Mme. Ly. I hope she's as positive as Matar!

COS Conference

2011-06-16T12:15:00.004Z

Fall 2009 Stage at COS COnference

For the past three days my entire stage has been in Dakar for our COS (Close Of Service) Conference. This is a point in my service that I never, ever thought I would attend. I didn't think I would make it through PST and then I thought I would be going to grad school in 2011 and wouldn't make it to the conference, but, as I've learned in Peace Corps, you never actually know what's going to happen and I made it to COS Conference.

The real purpose of COS Conference is to bring the next stage to leave together in order to give us mounds of paperwork and instructions for ending our Peace Corps service and returning to the United States. What COS Conference really is is an opportunity to get everyone in your stage together one last time and stay in an air conditioned hotel in Dakar for four days. Unfortunately, that AC gave me a terrible head cold, which I'm still struggling with. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were filled with vast amounts of paperwork to be filled out in the future, job prep information, and how to continue our service in the US by speaking with schools, participating in recruiting events, etc. The conference wasn't super informative since I had already ravenously read our COS manual, which I received a few weeks ago and outlines most procedures, but the conference was the last time I'll probably be able to slow down and think and process.

With volunteers spread across Senegal, there are only a couple of times each year we all get together and other than trainings there's no time when you are along with your stage, the people who crossed the Atlantic with you and suffered through the same PST. It's really fun to see everyone and hear about how life is so different in a village than in Thies, but that we share many of the same frustrations and our perspectives on Senegal aren't all too different. I love hearing everyone's personal anecdotes about site from accidentally adding too much bleach into her drinking water, to 3 day long bus rides to Mali, to me getting peed on by a goat while sitting in a car, to making bagels over a gas tank or being asked to participate in a traditional wedding, everyone has a great story.

During the day we sat in a conference room learning and sharing and at night we sat around the hotel pool or in our air conditioned rooms reliving our favorite memories, making news ones, and discussing our plans for post Peace Corps life. That next stage will start at different times for different people in my stage. Myself and most of the SED volunteers will start leaving mid next month (because our replacements have arrived in Senegal 2 months early), while our agriculture stage-mates will be leaving anytime from July to November. There are also the brave PCVs will be extending a service for 3 months or 6 months or even a year. COS conference is supposed to bring us together and make us think and it definitely accomplished that for me. I am so unbelievably excited to come home and as I'm wrapping up my Peace Corps experience I'm proud of what I've accomplished and believe that my service has come to a logical conclusion, but at the same time it's really, really, really sad.

Wednesday night (the concluding night of the conference), Chris, the country director, invited us to his house for some food as a thank you for our service and as a last meal as a group. Jackie made a freaking amazing slide slow with pictures from the past two years. I'm not close with everyone in my stage, but there's the person I sat next to on the plane from DC to Senegal, or the people from my PST training village, or the person I spent a weekend with at a regional house. Most of all, these are the only people who will ever really understand my two year Peace Corps experience in Senegal. They know how crazy it was, how much I hated PST, and the fabulous adventure it was.

Not to be super sentimental/ nostalgic/ sappy... I will move on. COS Conference also represented the last few days I will have to think about my service, or, at least, start thinking about my service. Wednesday morning I was part of a crew of 2 year SED PCVs who got up at 4:45 to great the new SED stage at the airport. One of these people will be my replacement! Crazy!

St. Louis Jazz Fest

2011-06-12T14:55:00.001Z

Katherine and I arrived in St. Louis Wednesday afternoon after the one of the worst sept-place rides of all time. I literally sat on my right hip the entire time because the back seat was so small, a the giant woman sitting next to us decided to needed to jiggle her baby most of the ride, and the 2.5 hour trip actually took a little over 4. The only thought that sustained us during our sept-place ride was: Rice Krispie Treats. Katherine’s mom sent us some last minute food supplies and we brought a lot of it to St. Louis, most importantly the Rice Krispies. There was obviously no gas at the Peace Corps house in St. Louis so we foraged for sticks. On the side of the road. In a major city. Once we collected what we thought was a sufficient amount of stick on which to cook Rice Krispie treats the magic happened. Fortunately, butter and marshmallows don’t take too much heat to melt and before we knew it we were indulging in the gooy delight that is Rice Krispie treats. Making ourselves sick for what would be the first out of two times on Rice Krispie treats we hid the remnants in a plastic bag and then put it in our luggage to enjoy later/ hide from other PCVs because we’re fatties.

In a sugar coma, we walk across the bridge to the island to meet Amanda and see the gallery for the first time. We also walked through the artisanal stand section to find our booth and prepare to help the artisans find the booth and set up Thursday morning. The gallery, like the one in Dakar, was beautiful although they received a giant shipment of goods while we were there and actually didn’t get everything set up and open for business until Friday, which was a day after the actual festival started. Everything seemed like it was under control and Katherine and I left the island feeling like the artisans could pretty much fend for themselves and our roles would be minimal. We made a delicious Mexican fiesta over some more sticks, ate some more Rice Krispie treats, created a PST presentation, and went to bed thinking that the apocalypse probably wouldn’t happen the next day. We were wrong.

The gallery was supposed to open at 9am so that’s when Katherine and arrived to find the first floor of the gallery overrun with product to the point where we could barely find a path to walk. The first day at the gallery was a bust because it never opened, but it did provide us with a reprieve of the absolute hell taking place outside. I went to the stand to search for artisans and ran into Ndeye, a boutique owner from Kaolack, on my way there. She couldn’t find the booth. Ndeye was the first artisan to show up followed by the women from Kebemer who make bags and then Mme. Ly. It was obvious at this point that we were in trouble. The artisans were not happy about the space or the congestion in the “artisan” area. We had warned them about the space. At the last artisan meeting we actually mapped out on the floor the dimensions of the booth and reiterated to everyone that they could not bring their usual amount of goods/ baggage. This needed to be an event where we worked together to make the most of our space. This obviously didn’t happen.

The three women started setting up and pretty much filled the entire space and four artisans had still not yet arrived. I had had several discussions with Mme. Ly about only bringing her best goods and only bringing a couple necklaces, bracelets, and earrings in each style. This obviously fell on deaf ears as she brought her normal/ ridiculous quantity of goods. I was really annoyed she completely disregarded my recommendations and then that she refused to reduce the amount of goods she had on display so other artisans had more room. The day really only got worse from this point.

Katherine and I had to move our bags from the Peace Corps office to the house our stage rented for the weekend so we did this and had lunch, leaving the three artisans who had actually arrived at this point at about 12:30. We returned at 2pm to hell. The male artisans had finally arrived and the amount of bags they brought with them had brought all of the artisans to a complete standstill. It was like they were paralyzed. No one was continuing to set up. Everyone was just sitting there, complaining about the lack of space, and staring at the unpacked goods. While we were hoping to have a minimal role, Katherine and I jumped in and started unpacking; there was nothing else to do. We moved as much as we had been OK’ed to move into the gallery to create more space and we attempted to have the artisans work together in creating displays.

The Peace Corps Artisan Association is supposed to be a practice in collaboration. There are already several products where artisans work together and several have become good friends, but when it comes to money and showcasing goods all bets are off. Each artisan wanted his or her own space. No one wanted to or accepted the idea of displaying a piece of jewelry in a bowl or on a basket. There was just an explosion of goods and it looked terrible. Fortunately Amanda came over to play bad guy and arrange goods for them. The artisans are terrified that the one product they put away is the one thing that will sell even if they already have the same product displayed elsewhere. Amanda helped us work with the artisans for several hours to create a space that looked semi-decent, but which was still overflowing with products.

The artisans and especially Mme. Ly did not like what we did. At this point it’s 6pm and we’ve been working on arranging things since the early morning. Most of the artisans traveled to St. Louis that day. Everyone is exhausted, it’s incredibly hot, and the conditions are just terrible. The artisan exposition is more like a bazaar. The vast majority of booths were filled with random crap from the market, goods made in China, and cheap knock off goods. There were 100 booths and maybe 20 had actual artisanal clients. The majority of the clients were Senegalese school girls and there was a constant crush of humanity milling along the road at all times. Loud music was blasted and the organizational effort put in by the mayor’s office was nonexistent. I went to a boutique to buy drinks and donuts to make everyone feel better, but most of the artisans didn’t even want it. That’s how angry and exhausted everyone was. With nothing left to do and the artisans definitely not wanting to talk to us, Katherine, Alys, and I left around 6:30 for a much needed and deserved beverage.

Friday morning wasn’t all that much better. The gallery finally opened and served as our oasis from the chaos outside, but since the chaos outside stretched to the front of the gallery we barely had any customers. What we were able to do was bring the artisans inside the gallery so Amanda could talk to them about product display. Unfortunately when she asked them what the biggest difference between the booth and gallery was they said space instead of set-up, but they did she how nice and clean and minimal everything looked. Space was definitely tight at the booth, but if they had worked together to display everything they would have been much better off. The men really seemed to get this lesson and take the entire debacle as a learning experience. I’m not so sure about the women. Next week I will talk to Mme. Ly and have a short de-brief to learn what she really thought. Hopefully she’ll have cooled off by then.

Friday night was the big Peace Corps party night. Richard, the volunteer in my stage in St. Louis, had his favorite hangout hold a Peace Corps Appreciation Night and he was the DJ at the event. The party was really fun…too fun and I paid the price yesterday. We had planned on leaving yesterday morning to come to Dakar, but that turned into yesterday afternoon as Katherine and I had to spend most of the morning in bed and finding my phone. For some reason I gave Katherine my phone who put it in the safest place to put some of value: her bra. When we woke up yesterday morning the phone was gone. We went back to the hotel where some PCVs were staying and looked around. Nothing. We asked the staff at the hotel. Nothing. My phone was ringing and no o ne was picking it up so we thought there was a pretty good chance that it was laying somewhere for us to find. On the walk back from the hotel Katherine decided we should check the beach as she had gone out there with Emily and tripped several times. With Katherine calling my phone and me following behind scanning the beach, I saw Katherine’s entire body shake in excitement and then bend down and pick up my phone. The phone was still on the beach at 12pm. That’s a Peace Corps miracle right there!

Phone in hand, we headed back to get our bags and then to the gallery to meet Alys. A delicious greasy hamburger later, I felt like I could survive a 5 hour car ride to Dakar and we were off. A fairly easy car ride later we met Tamar at the regional house, took showers, and made delicious pizza. I’m extremely happy the expo in St. Louis is over. The planning and the event itself was extremely stressful, but it also marked my last project of my service. I’m definitely disappointed it wasn’t a big success, but I hope the artisans learned something and that future expos will be better. The event didn’t destroy the association, but seemed to make it stronger which is good. I’m now relaxing and recovering in Dakar at the regional house before moving to a hotel this afternoon to start my COS conference! Let the craziness continue…

Pictures will be up eventually.

Running

2011-06-06T20:05:00.002Z

Things having to with running have occupied my mind recently. After spending the weekend with Tamar on Mar Lodj and basking in the glory that is her shower, I've decided that I would most likely resort to physical violence to have running water. I'm at my wits end with the water situation. It used to be one of those grin and bear it scenarios, but now it just sends me over the edge. The electricity has been terrible lately which means there's absolutely no hope for water and Jeenaba was gone all weekend which meant that no one pulled water since our new maid doesn't work on the weekends, Mami and Khady are the antithesis of most Senegalese women, and Awa is approximately 74 months pregnant. Water on demand sounds like heaven. A dream. Utopia. I don't even care if it's hot. I just want it to come out of a spigot. I'm not even asking for a shower head.

I've also been running a lot in order to not look like I've spent the past two years living in Africa when I return to the motherland. Unfortunately, this gives me a lot of time to think about running out of time. Don't get me wrong, it feels like I have an eternity left here in Senegal even though I'm staring down the last six weeks of my service. Time is dragging. Everything is touching my last nerve. People are being so mean to me on the streets that I'm practically beside myself. Fortunately, my family is back in my good graces so they are the only thing that stands between me and insanity. Junior Achievement is over (more or less) and artisan stuff will be as soon as the Jazz Fest is over this weekend, but the social engagements (I know, I have a hard life), PST, and planning for life back at home takes a lot of time. Thinking about coming home isn't what I would call overwhelming, but it does take a lot of thought and I want to hit the ground running which takes a surprising amount of preparation. The time seems short in an intellectual sense, but like I've been banished to purgatory in every day life.

The return home has me reaching back out to friends for everything from job search questions to grad school inquiries to party planning. I forgot how freaking awesome friends in America are. In my opinion, one of the biggest differences between Senegalese and American culture is the acquisition and dispersal of knowledge. Knowledge is power after all, but knowledge is treated in totally different ways. Here in Senegal practically anyone would take you into their home and give you a meal and a bed, but ask them a question about future events or even facts about Senegal and they wont say a peep. Senegalese people keep their knowledge close to the vest. They don't want to share and help everyone else out in that regard. At home it's the opposite. I've been nervous about asking my friends for information, to read their essays, to ask for help because that's anathema here. I've been wording apologetic emails of solicitation only to receive page long emails with 3 attachments in return. Information spewing forth with ideas, recommendations, examples, and anything I could ever wish for. Seriously, America, you rock. As do all of my wonderful friends back at home. Thank you.

While thinking about all of these things/ how I would bore you by blogging about them, I ran around town. First I went to Les Delices to ensure I had power to Skype with my Aunt Diane's class for the last time. As usual they brought a smile to my face as did the plate of hummus I ordered! From there it was on to Mme. Ly's to confirm logistics about St. Louis and pick up necklaces to show at the gallery. She seems on board with the plan to only bring jewelry and only the pieces we've discussed. I have very little faith this will actually happen, but we'll see! I also ran to the post office.

SHOUT OUTS!!!

Shirley - the letters keep rolling in and are as amazing and uplifting as ever. Thank you.

Ma - Thank you for the amazing package. The treats and magazines are much appreciated. I can't wait to go shopping for all of the things I see in magazines when I get back to the States. Chicago better prepare itself!

Mom and Dad - Thank you for another fantastic package. If Awa ever has her baby she will be thrilled with the outfit. Ahmed already loves his eye spy book. He doesn't quite have the concept down, but he likes it. And I love all of the salty snacks and life giving magazines!

I appreciate every letter and package that's been sent, but it's about time to stop all of the love coming to Senegal. Packages should be sent no later than the end of the week and letters shouldn't be sent after the third week of the month. I want to make sure that I get everything. THANK YOU!

Mar Lodj

2011-06-04T20:49:00.002Z

The past couple of months have been packed with trips and checklists and countdowns. The push to fit in everything I haven't done, everything I've wanted to do, and everyone I want to visit is in full swing. One thing left on the list was a "friend" trip to Mar Lodj. I've actually been to Mar Lodj twice before with my mom and then with CJ, but never for a girls weekend on the island. Jackie and Katherine still had Mar Lodj and visiting Tamar on their checklists and we all know it's fairly impossible for us to be separated!

Thursday morning Katherine had trouble getting a car, but then absolutely flew to Thies and caught Jackie and I a little offguard so, I happened to be the last person to arrive at the garage. We were people 5,6, and 7 in the sept-place and after I had my inevitable confrontation with the men taking the money for the car we were off to Joal. On Wednesday I had picked up some food supplies in Thies and Jackie grabbed some veggies in Pout, but in Joal (where we had to change cars) we were on the lookout for some more veggies and shrimp. After being told that we could walk to the market, which we later found out was 5k away, we bought some eggplant but failed in our acquisition of shrimp. A tour of Joal hotel then ensued as we looked for lunch to no avail. Arriving at the second garage where we could find a car to Ndangan (the town on the mainland where you get a boat to Mar Lodj) a man told us that he had a restaurant where we could get a lunch serve with a base of bread. For some reason unknown to the three of us we actually followed him. We are so happy we did.

The restaurant was absolutely spotless, featured actual glassware, and overlooked a fishery. It was a weird place for sure, but when they served us a 1/4 chicken, salad, fries, and bread for 1500 CFA we were pretty happy. It was delicious and a great start to our trip. The good luck continued at the garage where people tried to force us to be the first people into a 14 person mini-bus. A taxi driver approached the three, girl toubabs to try and sell us on purchasing a cab, obviously. The ridiculous part was that the taxi was the same price as a pass for the completely void bus. Excellent. We took a fairly comfortable cab all the way to Ndangan where we dropped Tamar's local name and were welcomed with open arms and told which boat to take.

In Mar Lodj we were greeted by Tamar, her friend Laura who is visiting from the States, and Byron who took a boat trip with the girls across the delta earlier that day. The group of us took a tour around the village of Mar Lodj and greeted Tamar's host family. The cultural exchange and use of local languages (unfortunately Tamar's site is predominately Sereer and I speak Wolof) we had a drink at a hole in the wall bar and then headed home to make a delicious pasta dinner full of nutritious vegetables. Katherine and I then cuddled in her bug hut on Tamar's porch under the huge night sky.

Byron left early on day 2 of our trip to Mar Lodj after a great Tapalapa breakfast. Tapalapa aka village bread is a dense and delicious bread that only poor people eat. City folks eat terrible, processed, machine baguettes and make fun of me when I find village bread and buy it. It's a treat for Jackie, Katherine and I to have Tapalapa and an even bigger treat when paired with fresh honey! Breakfast prepared Tamar, Laura, and I for a walk into the village to buy supplies for dinner. Soon enough we all piled on a charette, horse cart, and headed off to a campement across the island where we spent the afternoon sunning ourselves, going swimming in the delta, and discussing how crabs breath.

We took a long walk back to Tamar's house and started making our chicken dinner. We wanted to make a chicken dinner American Style for the women in Tamar's family. Chicken is a big treat and we wanted to see how they would react to our cooking. The plans were so well laid, but they obviously didn't work out. It was past 7 by the time the chickens arrived and were butchered, the grill kept going out because the wood was too wet, and we only had one gas to work with. Although we wanted to grill the chicken, a pan fry was still delicious. And the women actually loved our sweet potato chips and onion rings! That's right we made onion rings instead of onion sauce. Anyone who knows me well, knows my weakness for onion rings. They were delicious. Katherine and I were really excited about them.

This morning Jackie, Katherine, and I packed up our stuff and headed back to site. The trip was a really nice break. Tamar was a great hostess. She was probably very stressed, but it was very relaxing for me! Mar Lodj is beautiful, my family wasn't annoying me, and I had a minute to take a breath before the insanity of the next 6.5 weeks starts up.

Pictures of the trip are up in the "Cape Verde" album. Check them out.

JA Commencement

2011-06-01T16:32:00.002Z

Last night I went to sleep on the wrong side of the bed because my Aunt Numbe decided it was super important for her to ask me for a piece of paper and a pen at 10:45pm, after I had already locked my door and gotten into bed, and several hours after the power went out. This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed because we had no water. There was literally no water in the compound and I really wanted to take a run. Usually the lack of water would just generally upset me and then I would relent, run, and then walk back to the center and take a shower. Wednesdays always pose problems because I have Junior Achievement and I always have things to take care of at the last minute.

Realizing that not running was going to make me more angry, I went and concocted a plan to get water. The plan is not creative or inventive since there's only one way to get water when it's not coming out of the spigot, but it was taking matters into my own hands. Still dressed in running clothes, sweating, and red in the face, I grabbed a basin and headed to the neighborhood well. At the well I was greeted with blank stares and jeers, but remained undeterred. After almost 45 minutes of waiting, being mocked, and being cut in line it was finally my turn. Victory. A nice girl helped me lift the basin to my head and I got home without spilling too much, but since it was 9:30am no one was awake to help me take if off my head. I had to push the top of our 50 liter tank off with my hip and then pour the basin into the big tank. The clattering of the metal top of the tank brought the girls out of the house and they were incredulous at my initiative/ ability. In order to really show my discontent about the water situation, I filled a bucket to shower with and then took the rest of the water I pulled, put it in another bucket, and locked it in room. Probably not the most mature move, but totally satisfying.

One of the reasons I was worried about timing today was today was the final day of JA and we were supposed to hand out certificates. The certificates were order eons ago and were supposed to be in Thies last night. No deal. I called Talla this morning and he was able to get the certificates here and I stood on the side of the road as he drove by and stuck the certificates out of the window. This was humorous mostly because Awa saw me both pulling my own water and waiting on the side of the road in order to receive a giant stack of paper. She thinks I'm really weird. With certificates in hand I ran into my room, sat down, and wrote in all of the students' names, the date, and the course.

I finished the certificates just in time to jump in a cab and go to Bon Marche to buy all of the treats for the graduation party. For the second time in a day I carried things on my head Senegalese style. I had a giant box full of cookies and pop on my head walking down the main street of Thies. I'll let your imaginations come up with how that looked/ the reactions that I received. Fortunately, Kerry fed me snacks and lemonade as we waited for Talla and his friend to arrive before heading to the Lycee Technique.

I've previously aired my grievances regarding certificates in Senegal. Today was my worst nightmare. With everything that's been getting under my skin lately this one just really dug in. As soon as we walked on the premises teachers were making sure that we had certificates not only for our students, but special ones for them as well. Over and over and over again. Luckily Kerry and Talla were there to keep me calm and keep things in perspective because otherwise things would not have gone well. I spent my morning making sure the certificates were perfect. They were in order according to project group, attached to the attendance sheet so that no one could come up and say that they attended class, but didn't get a certificate. I was already frustrated with the certificates because last week the head teacher told me that I had to give a certificate to every single student listed on any of the attendance sheets instead of just the students who had attended at least 50% of the classes as I wanted. I just don't understand how the certificates are special if everyone gets one or how giving them out like candy reinforces anything positive. It also takes away from any feeling of accomplishment I might have, which I realize is selfish.

Today after all of the speeches, the students' presentations of their business ideas, and awarding the winning team a bunch of cookies, the teachers went through my perfecting organized certificates so they could reorganize them in exactly the same way. Apparently, I forgot two students. What actually happened is that two students came to the last day of class so they could get certificates, which I was forced to give them. I think this just cheapens the entire process and underlines why there is so much complacency in Senegal.

That all being said, Junior Achievement is now over, or, at least, the teaching part is now over, which is one more thing to check off my list! I think the class went well and hopefully the students learned something. Kerry and I definitely learned a lot which will help other PCVs teach JA better in the future.

Tomorrow I am off to Mar Lodj, Tamar's island, and next week it's off to the races with Jazz Fest, COS conference, and the new stage of SED PCVs all coming in rapid succession!

Shake It, Shake It...

2011-05-29T20:03:00.004Z

Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Many moons ago when Matt was visiting Senegal he became transfixed with the idea of a Polaroid camera. Ahmed and the children of my neighborhood didn't need educational materials, or shoes, or other necessities...they needed a Polaroid camera. In Matt's defense, kids do LOVE having their pictures taken. And taking pictures here is a production. Small children and screaming and grabbing at you and pushing their way to the front of the group of children so that they are front and center in the picture. Once the picture's been taken it's imperative that everyone seems themselves on the screen of the digital camera and that we rehash the picture. Oh yes, that is you on the side... this happened 1.3 seconds ago. During Matt's trip we did have one particularly memorable photo session when an entire family stopped us on the road and demanded an impromptu photo shoot complete with smiling adults, sobbing children, and stray dogs.

Upon Matt's return to the States, the idea of the Polaroid stuck with him and he got me a Polaroid which traveled across the country to Katherine's boyfriend's office and then with Katherine across the Atlantic and to Senegal. I must say that I've been delinquent in bringing the Polaroid out mostly because Senegal and I haven't been getting along lately and I knew that it would be a hit. I had no idea how much my family would love the camera. To say that it caused a ruckus would be a vast understatement.

Today when the power was out I was trying to do some reading, but Ahmed was having none of it so, I grabbed the Polaroid and the madness ensued. Ahmed was immediately intrigued by a new camera. The boy is a ham. He was shocked when a picture magically came out of the camera, but then infinitely disappointed when there wasn't an image, only a glossy white finish. Invoking the infamous Outkast song, I told him he needed to shake the picture and it would appear. This was all too much. He went insane. As the picture started to appear Ahmed darted inside the house, shaking the picture the entire time, running around showing everyone the magic picture.

Pictures in Senegal are generally reserved for special occasions and snapshots are not the norm. Therefore, people are usually hesitant about having their pictures taken when they aren't dressed to impressed, much less on a Sunday afternoon when everyone looks like a lazy scrub. Ahmed's excitement generated interest and before I knew it there was a line. My mom loved the the camera, process, and resulting picture so much that she made Ahmed go upstairs and take a picture of my host dad to show him how cool the camera was. This is the best picture I have of my mom and myself:

There are a bunch of other pictures, but they've been commandeered. I hope that I can at least take pictures of them because some are really funny since Ahmed was the photographer.

It wasn't just the girls and the little kids who showed interest though. Baye and Petit (Jeenaba's older brother) were adamant about getting their pictures taken. They saw the pictures later in the day and sent Ahmed to my room and to get me and the camera so they could have their own pictures. The whole picture taking experience was pretty funny. Everyone was really in to it. I also like that they thought they looked better in these pictures than regular pictures; I'm pretty sure that's just a case of instant gratification.

After a while I had to put the camera away to conserve film. I definitely want to bring it out at least once when Ahmed has little friends over and show it to Dioss because I think he would really like it. Matt was right! The Polaroid was a huge success. Thank you so much for providing me with such a fun afternoon activity!

Glimpses of America

2011-05-28T21:55:00.002Z

The past couple of days Thies has been full of American visitors and it's been great. Erin's parents are here and Tamar has a friend in town and I have willingly participated in their Thies experiences.

Yesterday, after a morning spent hanging out around the house, holding babies, and continuing my virtual job search, I headed across town to the Catholic bar to meet Erin and her parents and Emily for a drink. Erin's parents spent two days and two nights night her village which makes them total champs and they were just incredibly nice people. Exactly who you would expect Erin's parent's to be.

Today Tamar who has a friend visiting from the States as well as Erin and her parents were in Thies. I started out the morning walking through the market with Katherine trying to find fabric. Katherine's tailor Matar has finally perfected what Katherine and I like to call "the Tory Burch" tunic and we're having several made before we head back home. I'm also hoping he can turn a tunic into a tunic dress... we'll see what kind of clothes I come back with after Jazz Fest! I found two different fabrics that I really like. One went back with Katherine to go to Matar and I kept one in Thies in the hopes that Khady and I can work on making a really cute dress together at her tailor's.

Katherine and I went to Bon Marche and picked up a delicious picnic lunch (read: massive amounts of cheese) to share with Jackie at the center. Tamar and her friend arrived in Thies from Dakar early so the five of us ate lunch together before heading back out to the market, a nice visit with Mme. Ly, and a beer at Pamanda's.

As I was walking home from the center after a long day I got a text from Erin inviting me to Chicken Dibi. Well, a dibi invite is fairly impossible to refuse. I didn't want to go home because that creates a whole fiasco when I want to leave again for dinner so I decided to sit at Les Delices and wait for them. Most of the way to Les Delices I get a call from Erin saying they're going back to the center so I turn around and walk all the way back. I circled Thies at least twice today. A big group of us ended up going to the speakeasy by the center for a drink before dibi. The speakeasy is really stepping up their game, which, I assume, is in no small part due to Peace Corps Volunteer patronage. Anyway, they have a fence now which separates their house from our shenanigans and two bathrooms. Why do I mention the two bathrooms? Because one door says "uriner" and the other says "cacas." Classic. It seriously made my day.

Chicken Dibi never disappoints. I hadn't been in several months and it was great to go back. It's always so delicious!

Seeing people from the US is always great. They look so clean and shiny and are so happy to be experiencing Senegal. It also gives you a little glimpse into life back at home and almost makes you feel like you aren't missing too too much. What brings America even that much closer is what Tamar brought us from Dakar. Currently sitting on my desk is my COS packet. It details much of what I will learn at my COS conference next month: how to wind down your service and readjust to the US of A. Lets just say I don't think I'm going to need too much help getting back into the swing of things Stateside. But, things are starting to get real. We're getting down to the wire and home is within site, which is currently making things that much harder. The next 7.5 weeks are going to be insanity.

The Best Game

2011-05-25T19:57:00.004Z

Last night I had a complete mental breakdown over a flashlight. Yes, a small piece of plastic with a battery that shines light. I sobbed in my bed, in the dark over a flashlight. It was sad. Senegal is really getting to me. The power was out last night and I had already eaten dinner so instead of staring (but not seeing) my family in the dark as we sat in silence I decided to go to my room and read in bed. The time was 10:35pm, not a weird time to go to bed. My door was closed, I was in my PJs, and I was enjoying a nice fashion magazine. Awa bursts into my room and demands the flashlight so she can heat up dinner for the rest of my family. Yes, it's not abnormal for them to eat at 11pm. I hesitated for a second since I was in bed reading, but in a blink the flashlight was out of my hand and I was having a temper tantrum in my bed.

The thin, thin line between family member, house guest, friend, and meal ticket is really getting to me. Everything is getting to me. I am a trusted confident and babysitter one minute and asked for additional money (I already pay A LOT) for food the next. My gas tank, matches, and other personal effects are taken because I shouldn't care right? and then I'm treated with respect and eat with my dad. I can't pull water, but I can't ask for water to be pulled because there isn't any. I want to be a normal adult so badly. Crying in ones bed in the dark doesn't usually denote maturity, but I did get over it just not before letting fly a string of profanities into my pillow.

Everything is driving me crazy and in my slow devolution back to my easily aggravated state of PST, I'm attracting crazy. Yesterday I was walking down the street when a man walked by me and pretty much gave me a noogie and tried to pull my ponytail out. Why? No idea. I started yelling at the top of my lungs at how terrible a man he was and pointing at him so that the busy street pull of people could see him. Or today when a man had to grab my arm to tell me that he needed a beautiful second wife like me. You are creepy. Stop. Not to mention all of the men on the street making kissing noises. A word to the wise: toubabs are not deaf; I'm ignoring you. And people are just catching on to this. As I was walking down my street today boys my age were making lewd comments and I was ignoring them, but when small children run up and want to shake my hand and ask questions I always take the time to talk (children are our future after all). The boys just started commenting on the fact that for some magical reason I somehow hear the nice children, but don't hear them. Who would have thought? There was also a boy who hit me with a clot of dirt shot with a slingshot. Lets just say that his mother wasn't too pleased with him after I literally dragged him to her and explained what happened. I seriously need some crazy repellent.

After my exhausting day of artisans yesterday and my general annoyance with the vast majority of Senegalese men, I was dreading Junior Achievement today. Especially because Kerry is out of town so I was flying solo and had to teach The Best Game. The Best Game is pretty much the Game Of Life and teaches basic finances and calendar planning. It is a no fail business lesson. Everyone always loves it. I planned to meet all the teachers in the teacher lounge 30 minutes before class so I could explain it to them. A terrible process to be sure. So, I was ecstatic when one of the teachers knew the game and wanted to teach it.

In The Best Game groups make paper hats which they then sell. The teams need to figure out that they have to take the risk to produce the hats in order to generate profit and be successful at the game. I spoke with the teacher before class started about giving quick instructions because we wanted the students to figure things out for themselves. It's best when one team epically fails and one team does well so we can discuss the differences in strategy. 47 minutes later, after I had written a journal entry, planned out the next week on my calendar, and texted back and forth with a few people, the teacher finished his explanation of the game. This is not a joke. He literally took 47 minutes (I timed it) to explain the game/ give away all of the little tricks and tell the students exactly what to do.

I know that I was personally bored to tears and even some of the other teachers came up to me to discuss how it might have been better to let the students figure things out. Regardless, everyone really enjoyed the game and hopefully learned something. I had cookies for the winners so they were pleased. We only have one more week of class! Next week is final presentations and certificate time! Things are winding down...

Because I've been having a rough 10 days I thought I deserved a reward, even though I had lunch with the girls yesterday. Since I couldn't reward myself with what I really want (some friends and family time in the best country in the world), I had to settle for the next best thing: dairy products. A giant block of cheese really made me feel better today.

Artisan Association II

2011-05-24T21:51:00.004Z

Today featured two big events. The first was totally fun and the second, slightly annoying, but overall effective.

The Thies/ Dakar region finally has our very own Health/Environmental Education PCV and today was her inauguration lunch. Lisa was thrown into the deep end since almost everyone was able to attend and when we all get together it's hard to stop us for even a second to do introductions or explain anything. It is a special kind of bond when everyone can talk at the same time about myriad topics and start in the middle of stories and we all understand everything.

I've been eagerly anticipating today's afternoon event, the artisan reseau meeting, for several weeks. The meeting marks the second formal meeting of the association and also provided me with a forum to speak directly to the artisans instead of over the phone where we've all suffered misunderstandings and miscommunication. The association meeting started at 3pm so that the artisans had the majority of the day to travel to Thies and so that the PCVs could meet to discuss the Jazz Fest and other artisan things over lunch and perhaps a beverage or two to take the edge off.

When Katherine and I arrived at the center about 15 minutes before three 3pm I was stunned to find several artisans already ready, waiting, and mingling. Madame Ly threats regarding timeliness seem to work for some... they definitely don't for others. After a brief powwow with Talla to go over the main points of the meeting we were ready to start.

I was very pleased with the turnout. An artisan for PCV was present for each artisan attending the St. Louis Jazz Fest and one artisan from Kaolack who isn't even going to the Jazz Fest also came, which I thought was a bonus. I have to admit that I have been hoping that a female artisan from Kaolack named Ndeye would drop out. I'm not impressed with the plethora jewelry and weird cloth things she makes and it's just harder to coordinate with someone further away, but she's fantastic and deserves all the credit in the world. Katherine and I imposed fairly difficult restrictions on her about money for Jazz Fest, getting to the PCV in Kaolack in a timely fashion, plus she will have the greatest costs getting herself and her goods to Kaolack. She's been up to the challenge and is a very sweet woman. Ndeye is obviously hardworking, entrepreneurial, and independent woman. All that being said, there are still only two booths and seven artisans. It's going to be tight.

We discussed how there is only a limited amount of space that the artisans have to share and about the importance of at least attempting a somewhat cohesive look for the tables. After a long and drawn out discussion about space we finally got how to break down the costs of the tables. Since there are two tables and seven artisans, we were thinking one table of 3 and one table of 4 with the 70k price tag split amongst the artisans at that table. At first the artisans were going to split it evenly, but they finally figured out that they should split it amongst the table members. This lead to an infuriating discussion over who would be at each table led by Katherine's tailor, Matar. It was very important to him that he and his boy posse of Demba (Alys' leather worker in Mboro) and Mamadou (April's woodworker in Diourbel) be the three man table. I don't really know how this conversation spiraled out of control since no one was against Matar's idea, but it did. I just hope that the artisans don't freak out when they actually see the booths. We told them the exact dimensions and kept reiterating the small space and that people (aka Mme. Ly) can't bring all of their usual stuff. I'm expecting disaster, but we'll see what happens.

Division of tables and costs lead to what I knew would be the most frustrating part of the meeting: dues collection. I've been singing the praises of the women from Kebemer (cloth bag makers who don't have a PCV) because they are well organized even without a PCV and really know what's going on. At the last meeting I was pleased that they wanted to head up the Treasury because I thought they could handle it. Turns out, they don't actually write things down when keeping track of dues. Excellent. I ended up writing everyone's financial information on a giant sheet of flip chart paper so the treasurer could re-write it and all of the artisans could be sure that no one was getting cheated and that everyone was paying the correct amount. The amount of back and forth this necessitated was amazing. There was also a huge discussion over whether dues paid by members not attending Jazz Fest would be going to pay for the event. Lets just say that the idea of a communal pot and the true idea of an association has not quite taken hold yet. The money issues were solved as best they could. PCVs are still out money that they fronted, but I'm prepared to play bad guy at Jazz Fest to make sure that everything balances. Talla was instrumental in getting the money issues understood and solved. We couldn't have done it without him.

Amanda, the third year based in Dakar who works with the West African Trade Hub and who connected the reseau with the gallery owner in St. Louis, attended the meeting to explain the gallery. I was really happy she could come to explain the level of quality, creativity, and professionalism the gallery owner demanded so there was a separation between myself and that aspect of Jazz Fest. Especially since I didn't want it to appear that Mme. Ly was receiving special treatment since she will be exposing at the gallery and I'm largely seen as the PCV in charge. She did a really good job and I hope that she inspired the other artisans to take a look at the gallery and think about how they can improve their products so they could potentially exhibit in a gallery one day.

Three hours after the meeting began Talla, the artisans, and the volunteers were getting restless and we were done. A couple of minutes after most of the artisans left and I was sitting around with Katherine and April, Mamadou and Demba arrived. Three hours late. They were flabbergasted that the meeting was already over. Fortunately, Matar was still there and rehashed the meeting for them because I was too exhausted at that point to explain everything, again.

The meeting was definitely a success. I feel much better knowing that everything has definitely been relayed to all of the artisans and that there were no communication problems since Talla was there. I know that there are going to be problems with transportation, lodging, food, and space in St. Louis, but now that those problems have been presented and are out in the open they are no longer my problems; they are the artisans problems. Hopefully everything will go well. Now, my only St. Louis challenge, until the actually event, is to convince Mme. Ly that she absolutely cannot bring her giant/ ridiculous amount of product. Good luck to me

When Things Become Normal

2011-05-23T22:02:00.005Z

One of my stagemates wrote a fantastic blog post that describes my current state of mind. She put it much more eloquently and nicely than I could have. Her name is Maya and here is the link to her post:
http://mayaenroute.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/the-hangover-of-adventure/

I love her term "The Hangover of Adventure." I'm trying to think of something stronger/ worse than a hangover because that's what I'm suffering from.

Since all of the little things are really starting to get to me again (I was asked for my sunglasses 7 times today), I've been spending more time at the center because it's quiet and I can think and be in peace. I've also had a ton of computer work to do, which is much easier to do when I have a reliable source of power, which the center's generator provides me with.

Things are starting to get quite hectic with the artisan expo for the St. Louis Jazz Fest. I cannot wait for it to be over. Working with artisans has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my service and definitely the most quantifiable, but all of the money issues and all of the phone calls are getting to me. So, so, so many phone calls from artisans. The meeting is tomorrow and I think we're going to have pretty good attendance. Whether or not they come baring dues and are ready to discuss St. Louis logistics is still up in the air. I've been working on the flyer to promote the gallery. We're hoping to get some banners printed up as well.

Here's what the flyer currently looks like. And don't critique my French; it, undoubtedly, needs some editing.

I haven't been spending much time at home because my family is driving me insane and trying to force feed me intestine stew. Intestine stew is a perfect example of "The Hangover of Adventure." It used to be interesting, I tried it, it's edible, but why would I eat it now? Awa is still pregnant although, she seems increasingly unhappy about it, we have a new maid whose name is Adama, and Ahmed is being a little terror.

Over It

2011-05-21T13:54:00.005Z

The past couple of days have not been good day. I have been busy which is good since a large part of my frustrations in Senegal have come when I have nothing to do. Jazz Fest is starting to become insane and I'm really looking forward to the Artisan Reseau meeting on Tuesday so I can hopefully transfer some of the responsibility and planning over the artisans. Junior Achievement is going well since we actually had class this week and I've already procured the materials for next week's class and read over the instructions for the class so I feel prepared. I'm also occupying (maybe stressing a little bit!) myself with finding a job, getting my pictures in order, and preparing myself for the final stretch of my service and all of the tough goodbyes which I know are just around the corner.

Before Peace Corps Senegal I was fairly tightly wound (some might say I still am) and frustration used to send me over the edge. Frustration in not being able to understand a school subject, or frustration with traffic (oh my, I hope this has eased since my next permanent residence is known for traffic), or just general frustration that was putting me a bad mood. Peace Corps has been so good for me. I've learned to let go and to sit and not do anything and know that's OK. My ability to be patient has increased a million fold. Creative problem solving is something I'm actually good at now. Small children don't send me running. I'm much less quick to anger. I've learned to adapt. All of this has been part of the transformation I've experienced from dealing with and struggling with the every day realities of Senegal.

At the 2 month mark (during PST) everything bothered me and I could barely deal with it and I wanted to go home. At the 6 month mark I was begining to understand that things are truly different here and that I had to accept and adapt. At the year mark I came to understand why Peace Corps is a two year commitment and I hit my stride. (My friends and I had a blast at the amazingly successful girls' camp and the Artisan Expo almost tripled 2009 sales). At the 18 month mark I started to realize the end was near, created a laundry list of things I still wanted to do and accomplished, and became a "senior" in the Peace Corps as a member of the next stage who is scheduled to leave; I realized I had made it. At 21 (almost 22) months I'm freaking over it.

The little things that I've spent the past almost two years learning how to ignore and let run over my shoulders are back...with a vengeance. I've moved well past anger. It's not anger. It's frustration and a sense of "why?" Or, SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!

WHY...!?!?!?!?!
Yesterday my family made a lunch that I'm not a big fan of. I will definitely eat it, just not a lot. It's obvious that I'm not the amazing shrinking woman and my family knows that I have my own snacks which I eat in my room, just like they do. Well, around lunch Jeenaba came into my room with eggs, a little salad, and bread. I thanked her and thought that our interaction was over. She sheepishly looks at me and says that my mom would like me to pay her for the lunch. I was dumbfounded. I didn't know how to react and I knew if I did react it would involve tears, profanity, and general inappropriateness (another thing I've learned: to keep my mouth shut). After eating the meal (even though I wasn't happy about it), I went into the house to explain for the millionth time that if I don't like something I will make my own meal. All of the women started chiming in that I'm a terrible cook and that the food isn't good. It's good to me. I don't like all of their food just like they don't like my food. Well, that argument fell on deaf ears as usual. I can't even really think about this situation without becoming enraged so I've decided it's best not to delve into the psychology behind this episode...especially since I pay my family an exorbitant amount each month for my rent, food, and water and electricity (which I never have).

When trying to woo me, do not point out the fact that the increase in the temperature has brought back my acne. Seriously, how terrible at flirting can you be? This prompted me to leave the post office without responding to the question and without saying goodbye. Also, how many times do I have to tell everyone that there's no way I will ever be a second wife.

With my frustrations mounting and my inability to eat ceeb for lunch, I left my house this morning and headed to the center for some quiet time. I didn't need anyone to tell me that I am sleeping when I'm sitting up-right with my eyes open reading a book. I didn't need to be told that the cleaning job I did wasn't good enough. And I didn't need to be told that I can't cook/ can't do anything in general. I can ignore the racial slurs, proclamations of love, and honking cars. What I can not ignore is a large man standing right in front of me. There's a part of the sidewalk on my way to the center where the sidewalk narrows so it's just one person wide. A man stood up from a chair and stood on this part of the sidewalk with his hands on his hips so I couldn't pass and had to walk in the street. When he confronted me about walking around him I lost it. Let's just say my tirade ended when he called me racist and I walked away.

I'm so over all of these little annoyances and instances of disrespect, or thinking that they can get away with it/ are entitled to it because I'm white. After two years a lot of people around Thies have at least seen me and know I'm not a tourist, I wish this brought me a little respect. I'm over the homesicknesses of America, I'm past missing my family and friends (it's way beyond that), I can survive another two months of ceeb. All I want is a little respect.

We Had Class!

2011-05-19T20:00:00.003Z

Yesterday we actually had a Junior Achievement class. Miracle of miracles. It didn't look too promising when Kerry and I arrived at the Lycee Technique and the teachers' lounge was locked, but we were able to secure our materials box from one of the secretaries which really happens because she's never there so, before class started we were at a draw. Then the room where we usually have class was locked and there's obviously only one key and the person who had that key was not at school that day. Never fear we will squeeze fifty people into a tiny room with not enough chairs. I'm actually not going to complain about this part since it was a tech room so it was air-conditioned to protect the electronics!

The class actually went really well. Unfortunately, since so many classes were cancelled we've had to combine several classes in order to fit in everything before our June 1st graduation. Yesterday's class was about marketing which was supposed to be two classes so the students could conduct a short market research survey. Kerry went to the Lycee on Monday to drop off the market survey, which the teachers were supposed to distribute to the students. This didn't quite happen, but we still had a good discussion about what market research is, why it's important, and how to conduct a survey. At this point Kerry and I are doing very little teaching. We prepare the lesson plans a week ahead so the Lycee Technique teachers have a chance to look them over. Two teachers have really stepped up and do the majority of the teaching with Kerry and I interjecting some information or explaining an activity.

The majority of yesterday's class was dedicated to the students writing and performing television commercials for their business. One was great, but I thought the other two missed the mark since they didn't really have anything visual or catchy. Definitely something to mark in the lesson plan: must have visual if doing a TV commercial. Next week I'll be flying solo and teaching a finance game that's a lot like The Game of Life. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully the teachers and students will catch on quickly and like the game!

Yesterday afternoon Kerry and I hung out at Les Delices talking about JA and enjoying some electricity. On my walk home I was in my usual walk mode: iPod on, looking straight ahead, and pretending to ignore everything in front of me. When a car keep honking at me as I walked down the street I ignored it. Cars honk at me a lot and I could tell it wasn't a Peace Corps car so there was no reason to turn around. Finally the car pulled in front of me and park. The car/ person I had been ignoring for over a block was my host dad who was trying to be nice and give me a ride home! Oops! He thought I had my music playing really loud, but I explained that people honk at me a lot so I just ignore it. He seemed to understand the explanation and not think too much about it. My mom definitely enjoyed the story when we got home and my dad told her my mistake!

Today was a fairly chill day. I did some work around my house this morning, which always invites criticism from my family since they still think it's impossible for me to do work in my room and that I'm always sleeping when I'm in my room alone. Yes, this is still frustrating me. This afternoon on my way back home from the Peace Corps center I saw two girls get into a huge fight in the middle of the street. One girl was accusing the other of stealing her boyfriend while at the same time screaming that her boyfriend is homosexual (a very derogatory name to be called in Senegal). It was really intensse. The girls were straight up fighting in the middle of the street and one almost got run over by a car when the other one pushed her. It was quite entertaining, if not infinitely dangerous for the two girls involved. Definitely the most interesting part of my day.

Now, I'm waiting for dinner, which I have confirmed is chicken. My mom proclaimed an hour and a half ago that we were going to eat "early." It's now 8:45pm. The wait is on.

Senioritis

2011-05-17T21:17:00.002Z

I have a severe case of Senioritis.Yesterday I couldn't motivate myself to leave my compound. Today, I left the compound, but wasn't happy about it. Everything is a struggle. Interacting with people who are not in my family: struggle. Pretending to like ceebu jenn: struggle. Feigning interest in the discussion of power outages (we had one hour of power between 12 and 1 and it just came back on at 9:15pm) while staring at the ceiling: struggle. Dealing with the new heat wave: struggle. Thinking about anything other than the countdown to America/ life in America: struggle.

A complete lack of desire to do anything, other eat ice cream in a climate controlled setting and think about the America inspired playlist I'm making on my iPod, consumes me. Actually one other thing does take a lot of time and attention...

Personal Ad: If you or anyone you know/ can contact wants to hire me in the greater Los Angeles area, you will be my best friend forever and I will be forever indebted to you. Even job leads are appreciated.

There is a lull in artisan work until our meeting next week and only so much I can do for Junior Achievement when Kerry is awesome and has really taken the reigns/ we never have class so dreaming about the end instead of acting on the present is taking hold. I'm actually impressed I've lasted this long since a lot of my friends had early onset Senioritis. I'm so close, but yet so far and I know that I should be doing really awesome things, but getting marriage proposals, lectures on how American English and British English are so wildly different that I couldn't understand a Brit, and being called really mean names are getting old. These things don't even anger me anymore because I'm just really rude and walk away.

I did manage to tear myself out of my compound today (mainly because we didn't have power/ I was starting to feel like a loser). This morning I went through the market and collected vegetable prices on a long list of vegetables for a project that Byron is working on and this afternoon I went to see Mme. Ly. Mme. Ly and Khady are awesome and usual and have some new necklace designs that I will post when I'm not too lazy to take pictures. Purchasing jewelry is a tried and true method of buoying my spirits so I may have indulged in some of Mme. Ly's newest wares, but it's all in the name of the Senegalese economy and getting Mme. Ly's stuff out into the public eye.

Back on the home front the main topic of conversation was electricity and how it makes no sense that the power comes on for one hour in the middle of the day when it doesn't help anyone. True. I've also started to notice that I am the "fly on the wall." All those times that you wish you could hear a conversation and not get noticed? Yeah, that's my daily life. My family knows I'm not a gossip (well, about their issues at least) or thinks I have no idea what's going so I got to listen to many interesting conversations today.

1. Jeenaba ripping her baby daddy a new one about not contributing enough money. You go girl.
2. Awa trying to explain to my mom that she can literally not taste how spicy the food is she's making because she's just that pregnant.
3. Awa and Ziabata talking about how Khady doesn't discipline Ahmed... at all. True.

That's about it for the Senegal rundown. Nothing too exciting, obviously, since I have Senioritis. I also swung by the post office and Shirley deserves another SHOUT OUT from another great letter! Thank you!

Food Crimes

2011-05-14T20:58:00.003Z

A (food) crime against humanity was committed last night at my house. I'm still upset about it. I spent yesterday afternoon at the center using the power (the center has a generator so it was the only place with power yesterday, my house had electricity for less than two hours) and waiting for the new volunteers to return from Dakar where they had just sworn in. I try not to stalk PCVs on day one of their actual service, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The tally of artisans attending the expo in St. Louis next month is finally finalized and although the number is one too many and I'm hoping (I'm a terrible person) that one will drop out, I had all of the money ready to go. All I needed was a mule and that mule took the form of the new volunteer going to St. Louis. Jessica is really helping me out by taking the money to the SED PCV in St. Louis who will then take the money to Jazz Fest offices to reserve our booths. Complicated, but I'm confident all of the transactions will take place.

High off of my time with electricity and the money transfer I returned home to what I thought was a beautiful sight. Moroccan couscous was in the kitchen! I've been having major issues with almost all Senegalese food, which has been compounded by the fact that I never feel satisfied or satiated after I eat, so I was pumped when I saw couscous. It must have been the euphoria of seeing couscous that clouded my judgement and prevented me from asking what we were having for dinner because it was a truly, rookie mistake. Even though I was hungry I told myself not to snack from my stash and waited patiently in the dark for my delicious dinner to arrive. At about 10pm when I wanted sleep more than I wanted dinner anyway, I received gruel. Awa had turned scrumptious Moroccan couscous into lach aka gruel. I was so sad I had to call Katherine for moral support. There was nothing else to do but throw the gruel to the goats and go to bed.

Today was a really quiet day around the house because my mom and dad went to Dakar which meant everyone else did nothing. Literally nothing. The power was out so everyone sat in the rooms by themselves, which suited me just fine especially since I was going out for lunch. Brian was in town visiting his host brother who had club foot surgery in Thies so we went to lunch at Les Delices where we ran into a couple of other PCVs. It's always nice when people are in Thies and it was nice to get out on the weekend since I usually stay around the compound, which usually puts me in a not so good mood. Yes, I understand that problem is easily solved. Brian and I walked to Total after lunch to pick up some Sandras (ice cream) and then parted ways - I walked home and he went to the garage and back to Joal.

I spent most of my evening in the Dakar sitting on a mat with Abdou and listening to all of the women talk. I started yawning because I was zoning off and it was dark so Jeenaba started mocking me about going to bed early. She called me a chicken, which means "early to bed early to rise," since I went to bed at 10:15 last night. I would like to point out we had eaten dinner, we didn't have electricity and everyone else was lounging in the living room dozing. I take so much flack for going to bed "early." It is my family who are the abnormal ones as most of our neighbors and most other PCVs' families go to bed when I do. The going to bed early thing doesn't bother me anymore and I'm doing it again tonight!

Artisans 2 Ways

2011-05-13T16:45:00.003Z

Thursday, May 12th, 2011

This morning Erin called to let me know that she and her friends from the US of A were out and about in Thies, wandering the market and soaking in the fabulous atmosphere in Thies. As the de-facto Thies tour guide I considered it my obligation and my pleasure to tag along. Erin's friends has only been in Senegal for less than 36 hours when I met up with them and they had already been out to dinner in Dakar, gone to Erin's village for a baptism, grabbed a beer at the Catholic bar, and spent the night at Massa Massa. This seems like a whirlwind tour, but it gets better because they came to Senegal via Nepal where they had gone for a friends wedding! They are literally circumnavigating the world in one trip! San Fransisco to Nepal to Dubai to Senegal and back again. I can't say I'm not jealous.

I've been trying to take a lot more pictures of Thies recently because I'm running out of time and I'm realizing that I don't have the mundane pictures of every day life/ every day Thies that I will most definitely want when I'm home so, walking around with Erin and her friends was a great excuse to take pictures. Walking around in a big group of toubabs also makes taking pictures less awkward or perhaps so awkward that it really just doesn't matter anymore. One of Erin's friends is an avid quilter so we visited a ton of fabric stalls and really looked at the patterns and different options which I haven't done in a long time. It was also nice just to actually look around since so often when I'm walking in Thies I have my blinders on and go straight to my destination. Having visitors that weren't my own helped me to slow down, enjoy, and really take in my surroundings.

The market was oddly dead for a Thursday so we were able to take our time, walk in a group, and we weren't harassed too much, which was nice. After checking out most of the fabric stalls in the market as well as all of the fruits and vegetables, we headed over to see Mme. Ly. Since it was only 11:30am Mme. Ly was still setting up. It takes the woman an eternity to get everything out and displayed the way she wants it. I was immediately put to work taking out all of the earrings, which was fine because I got to see Erin and her friends look through everything. It was fascinating to watch since the girls went straight for the designs and colors that Katherine, Mme. Ly, Khady and I have been working on. Mme. Ly and Khady noticed it as well and were happy that the colors I've told them about and that they've seen in the American magazines I've given them really do sell better than other models and colors. The girls were really happy with their jewelry purchases, even Erin bought a new design in a fabulous coral color!

There's only one place to go after Mme. Ly's and that's to Dioss' atelier. We walked into a picture perfect scene of Dioss listening to old French music (quite loudly I might add), smoking a cigarette, and checking out Facebook on his computer. It just doesn't get any better than that. A member of his boy posse was working on the backgrounds of cards and cleaning brushes. Classic Dioss. Through a conversation with Erin I learned that Dioss is originally from a village near Erin's village where he has a field. I immediately called him out on the fact that there's no way he actually attends to his field. The man loves his shoes WAY too much. He didn't even put up a fight and conceded that Erin is a much better farmer than he is, but that the two of us should go visit her. I'm making sure this happens because I'm pretty sure that I feel more comfortable in a village than Dioss does and I want to see him squirm!

This fantastic morning was capped off with a delicious lunch at Massa Massa. I was in a great mood after grabbing a Sandra (the cheapest, most delicious ice cream available at the Total station) with Erin and her friends and then parting ways with them at the post office. Shout out to Jo Ellen for sending "end of service" supplies to get us through the next two months. I'm ridiculously excited for the Rice Krispie treats. Everything is safe in sound in Thies! Everything was great...

And then... the ugly side of dealing with artisans reared its ugly head. The St. Louis Jazz Fest expo is turning into a logistical, monetary, and emotional nightmare. The artisan association is just in it's infancy and there are still lots of problems and issues to resolve. Compound this with the fact that Katherine is working with fairly unhelpful people in St. Louis who are organizing the expo and we have no idea what's going on. Earlier this week Mme. Ly and I called all of the artisans to see who wanted to attend the expo and since then Katherine and I have been figuring out a way for a group of PCVs to advance the money to pay for the expo since the money is due before our next artisan meeting on May 24th. To say this has been a challenge is an understatement and things went from bad to worse tonight when I thought that we would have to get three tables and not two. I feel terrible, but at this point we're hoping that one artisan drops out so that there will be three artisans at each booth. Hopefully in the future, the association will have more money and the artisans will be communicating better with each other so that sudden death situations like this don't materialize, but for now things to be under control. That is... under control after Mme. Ly and I sat on the floor of her house, the dark, as she called artisans and told them they had to have their money for the expo to their PCV by 12pm tomorrow. We will see what happens!

New pictures of Thies are up in the "Cape Verde" album.

It's Getting Closer

2011-05-10T21:25:00.003Z

Today Jackie, Alys, and Katherine were in town and we had lunch with a couple of boys from the Health/ EE a year into their service. It was nice to see everyone and hang out a little bit. This morning Jackie, Alys, and I walked Thies and took some pictures for the Insider's Guide, a project eco-tourism PCVs have been working on to promote different sites in Senegal. But, the main event was lunch where we started talking about the end of our service.

Talking about COS (close of service) has been a topic amongst my friends since approximately day 3 of PST so it's not a new topic. The topic is now at hand and that's what makes it so different. Katherine, Jackie, and I have been specifically planning our departure from site for quite some time because we want to do it in high style, but when Katherine starting talking about it today reality set in. I started getting really emotional and I know it's only going to get harder. It's very weird to think about actually leaving even though I'm so excited to go home. I don't want to leave my two little boys and the daily, ridiculous interactions that I have with my family.

With COS quickly approaching, there are still a lot of things that I want to get done. I have work projects like JA and artisan reseau things that I want to tie up before I leave and there are personal projects like getting all of my pictures in order and re-reading my blog for all of the terrible spelling and grammar mistakes that you've been putting up with for the past 21 months. My blog. Oh my. I started reading it today and got through five posts. It's going to be hard. I've already started crying and in blog time I haven't even left the center for the first time and met my family in Tivuouane. This is going to be a disaster.

Anyway, I did do other things today than talk about/ think about leaving. After lunch where we did discuss artisan trials and tribulations with Alys, Katherine and I went to visit Mme. Ly who was selling at the training center today. It was the trainees first Mme. Ly experience and Mme. Ly made bank. Mme. Ly and Khady immediately started rattling off what they had sold once Katherine and I sat down. They knew exactly what was selling, what they needed to make more of, and the popular colors. I felt especially good about the colors since I've really pushed them into the neon colors that are popular in the States right now. They were obviously pleased with the results and Katherine and I were really excited that they were keeping track of their inventory and evaluating their work, what was selling and what wasn't.

Once we were done looking at all of the new beads and earring designs Khady had made, I walked Katherine to the garage where we parted ways. At home, I walked into girl central. All of big Ahmed's female classmates were over making chicken dinner spectacular for a school event tomorrow. The courtyard was literally packed with teenage girls butchering chickens, cutting onions, and pacifying babies after they started crying at the sight of me. It was insanity and big Ahmed was obviously nowhere to be found since he's guy.

The best part about today was seeing my friends and getting their pictures from The Gambia which are now up in the Cape Verde album. Check them out!

Odds and Ends

2011-05-09T21:16:00.005Z

I've been a delinquent blogger! I'm sorry! Here are the updates.

Children
A couple of days ago I was walking one of my normal routes through Thies when I see a group of little kids who are beside themselves with excitement. They've spotted a toubab. As I approach them from several blocks away they get more and more excited. Giggling and pointing starts as do blank face stares when I greet them in Wolof and start shaking their hands. Then, one little boy approaches me with his arms outstretched like he wants a hug. I ask him if he wants a hug in French because I have no idea what the word is/ if it exists in Wolof. He definitely didn't understand since he was 2, but he kept staring at me with huge eyes and his arms outstretched...so I hugged him. The little boy didn't know what hit him. His eyes bugged out of his head. I asked him if he wanted to cry, he said yes, and then he started crying much to the amusement of the grown women watching him. It was pretty funny. I doubt he'll ever approach a toubab with arms outstretched again!

As for the children in my house...
Ahmed is really sick which means I'm enjoying a little peace and quiet and that I'm avoiding him because I don't want to get sick.

Little Awa is as annoying as ever, but seems to gradually be taking the hint that I don't like it when she pulls my skirt up or tries to open the door while I'm in the shower. At least we're making progress. Additionally, the staph infection in her armpit seems to be going away which is good because she was in pain and it was really gross.

Abdou is still really freaking cute and is a little fatty. Abdou being a huge baby is especially comical when his mom, Jeenaba, holds him since I look like a giant compared to her. He refuses to crawl, but loves to scoot around and hold himself up on tables and try to walk before he falls and starts crying.

The future baby has yet to arrive. Awa looks absolutely miserable and is huge, but I have no idea when she's due. She's also craving spicy food. Really, really, really spicy food. She cooked lunch both Saturday and Sunday and all of the boys refused to eat it because it was too spicy. She claimed she couldn't even taste it while slathering on extra hot sauce. I thought it was pretty good ceeb. If your taste buds are burned off due to spice you can't really taste anything, which, in this case, is a good thing.
* Update: We just had dinner and it was SPICY! After big Ahmed, my dad, and I ate my mom pulled me aside to ask me if it was spicy since my dad didn't eat anything. I told her it was as fire lept out of my mouth. She shook her head and scurried off because if I thought it was spicy there was no way any of the boys were going to eat it.

Artisans
Oh, artisans. Katherine and I have been working on the St. Louis Jazz Fest exposition which is coming up on June 9th. We are having equally frustrating experiences. Katherine has been trying to get information from the people actually organizing the event, which has been a nightmare. Just last week they set an exorbitantly high booth rate for artisans and now expect payment next week. This information sent me into panic mode because it was my job along with Mme. Ly to call all of the artisans and remind them that they have to pay their dues, we have an upcoming meeting on May 24th, and that we need a bunch of money if they want to go to St. Louis.

Calling the artisans is always interesting. Nicities are always exchanged and then Mme. Ly puts her Madame President demenor on and lays down the lay. Unfortunately, even after Mme. Ly has told people what's up I'm not confident that it's actually going to happen. I need confirmation people are coming or not coming because this is an expensive event and myself along with some other PCVs are going to have to front money to make it happen. It's also frustrating that the reseau isn't running better and that I still need to do a lot of hand holding, especially when there are artisans who understand that the PCVs need to start stepping back.

I'm still working with WATH and the gallery in St. Louis who might host some of the artisans during the Jazz Fest. By the end of the week I'm hoping to have a lot more answers.

Junior Achievement
Kerry and I are still plugging away at Junior Achievement, writing lesson plans and planning PST sessions for the new trainees. Hopefully we will actually get to teach a class this week since the past two weeks were cancelled otherwise it will be very difficult to finish before exams starts and the school year is theoretically over.

Random
This evening I thought we were about to have dinner so I was forcing myself to sit and watch the Wolof soap opera that makes me want to die. Dinner was obviously far, far, far away from happening, but I did see the most amazing thing. While two female characters are sitting on a bed talking, the camera pans the room. There's a chair and table, but the walls are bare except for...a Teletubbie hanging on the wall from a nail. NO JOKE! It was amazing and I couldn't stop myself from bursting out laughing. The best part was that it was the purple, gay, Teletubbie and that it was hanging from the nail by it's purple, triangle headpiece. Classic.

Also, shout out to Shirley for another awesome letter. You rock! Thank you.

Cheese Me

2011-05-05T19:19:00.002Z

It's been two days since we got back from The Gambia so, it's been two days since I was able to eat whatever I want whenever I want and not have to think about it. Just for the record, we did not eat local food one time while in The Gambia (if you don't count chicken sandwiches which are delicious and the only thing available at ferry crossings).Food is starting to become a real issue since even the smell of ceebu jenn is currently provokes my gag reflex. The past two days have also been bad meal days, culminating in today's lunch: Yassa. Yassa and I have never liked each other.

Now, I'm never the girl who doesn't like to eat something because it's unhealthy. I actually get angry when Matt buys ice cream that isn't full fat, but Yassa pushes me over the edge. It has no nutritional value and it's just not good. Yassa is white rice covered in onion sauce with some fried fish on top that have been sitting in the onion mixture so have by this point lost any fried delicious they may have once had. The vast majority of PCVs like Yassa. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. White rice - fine. Onion sauce - well, we haven't been getting along for a while, but it's better than other things. Fried fish - fine. But that's it. There's nothing else. And I can no longer bring myself to eat it. Today lunch was really late so I was sitting in the living room, waiting, and reading a magazine. My heart dropped when I saw the Yassa. I sat down at the bowl, picked up my spoon, and put the spoon into the rice to take a scoop, but I just couldn't do it.

There was no place to hide so while my spoon was full of rice and hovering above the bowl I made the decision that I am indeed a big girl. I put down the spoon, announced that I wasn't hungry, and then ran away as my mom and Awa shouted after me that I don't like Yassa. You are one hundred percent correct my friends; I do not like Yassa. Fortunately, my family can see that I'm not the incredibly shrinking woman and that I do find food when I don't eat what they're having so their persistence that I eat is diminishing. After my triumph over Yassa, the only place to go was up so I went to Bon Marche bought a giant block of cheese and an apple and gorged myself on these delicious snacks in my room. Having control over my diet is without a doubt one of the hardest aspects of Peace Corps for me and I'm so excited to go back to the States and eat whatever I want.

Before I could go to Bon Marche and acquire dairy products and fruit, I had to go see Mme. Ly. The woman is a saint. I just love her to death and she and Khady always make me feel better. They were their usual, chipper selves and we had a good talk about the St. Louis Jazz Fest and some other upcoming events. Madame Ly also let me know that she and Khady are almost done with a big order they just received last week. They really know how to work hard and they even had some new styles to show me today!

Even with a giant block of cheese resting comfortably in my stomach I'm still hungry so let's hope for something good for dinner!

The Gambia: Travel, Travel, Travel

2011-05-03T16:42:00.005Z

Day 1: Easier Done Than Said

After a night spent spooning and talking to Katherine, we had to wake up early in the morning to start our sojourn to The Gambia. Right off the bat we had some good luck with the sept-place immediately filling up (amazing luck with transportation was the theme of the trip) and we were off after I had an awkward conversation with two of the men in our car who chided me for not being able to speak Puular since one of them didn't speak Wolof. From Thies we absolutely flew to Kaolack where we had to switch garages and find another car to the border of Senegal and The Gambia.

I slept almost the entire way in the car (sleeping is a great talent of mine) so I was ready to schmooze with the customs officials once we got to the border. This was a good thing since we were there for a couple of hours waiting for some guy to return with our passports and new visas. Although having the customs officials tell me what scent of incense they would burn for me if I came to their house, was more than a little awkward, they did really help us out with our travel plans. The original plan was to cross the river at this point and travel on the south side of the river to Georgetown, our destination for the night. Fortunately, the customs officials told us the southern road is terrible and that it would be a much better idea to not cross the river and head east on the north side of the river. They were right. The road was in perfect condition and stick straight. The driver could have put the car on cruise control and taken a nap if he wanted to.

We arrived in Georgetown in the late afternoon, hours before we thought we would actually arrive. The only hiccup was exchanging money which proved to be slightly difficult since banks which offer 24/7 services were closed (and their ATMs locked) and the one bank with an accessible ATM was broken. Go figure. We were able to get some Delasi (Gambian currency) and once we arrived in Georgetown we hopped in a little boat and forded the river to McCarthy island, where, with the help of two guys who found us on the boat, walked back and forth across the island until we decided on a campament to stay in.

The campament was pretty nice and super cheap. We negotiated a boat tour with the men who helped us find the campament, took some much needed showers, and ate a delicious chicken dinner, and then went to bed... that is until the campament owner started hacking apart his door at 1am because he had lost the key.

Day 2: Apocalypse Now Field Trip

The first time we crossed the river to the island, Tamar fittingly referenced Apocalypse Now and the similarities between the boat we used and the boat in the movie. It is truly amazing that a boat made out of random pieces of metal fused together actually works.

The day before, the guy who was trying to persuade us into taking a boat trip with him claimed that we would see hippos jumping on a sand bar. While this image reminded me of Dumbo and gave us a good laugh, I gave hippos jumping on sand bars a 0% chance of happening. Grandiose talk. That's what it appeared to be almost an hour into our boat ride down the river. We had planned on going to Baboon Island, which is a chimp preserve, but time and money prevented that from happening so our boat tour was just through the river in the national park. The Gambia provides a much better chance of seeing wildlife than Senegal, but I was skeptical. Especially after seeing one very small monkey in a tree very far away and a small lizard that Tamar swears was dead.

Just as the four of us were about to throw in the towel and tell our guides to turn around we saw a huge family of baboons along the shore. There were probably thirty or forty adult male (huge!), women, and children along the bank. It was really cool to see. The baboons were running around and growling a bit, but we got to watch them for quite a while. We saw them again when we turned around as well. Totally satisfied with baboons sighting, I thought we were done. Then we came across the infamous sandbar... and there were actually hippos! And they were frolicking on the sandbar. I couldn't believe it. There was a family of hippos on the sandbar (which unfortunately was mostly covered in deep water), but we saw the dad jump out of the water while the mom and three babies swam around. It was pretty cool!

Extremely happy with the hippo and baboon sitings we turned around and headed back to Georgetown so we could catch a car heading all the way west back to Banjul, the capital. We got in the boat for our tour at 7:30am and literally did not stop moving in some form of transportation until after 8pm. It was a boat trip to a river crossing in a boat, to a sept-place back to Faraffeni (where we had crossed the Senegalese border the day before), into an Alham (terrifying scrap metal bus) to the ferry crossing, a ferry across to the south side of the river, to another scary Alham bus, to a garage where we got on a slightly nicer bus, which we road for over two hours on a dirt road, until we came up onto a paved road, and then, finally a taxi to the Peace Corps regional house. I have never been so dirty in my life, which is saying a lot since I've been in the Peace Corps for almost two years. It looked like I had murdered a swamp monster in the shower.

We celebrated our insanely long day with Chinese food. Banjul is more like Accra, Ghana than Dakar. The streets and buildings are nicer, but there's less of a downtown. The cars are nicer, their regional house is WAY nicer than ours, and cabs actually know where they are going...until they get stuck in sand pits on back roads like ours did on the way to Chinese. No worries, we pushed him out. I have now eaten Chinese food in four different, African, countries which I would call quite the accomplishment. If I had to rank them; Ghana, Cape Verde, Senegal, and The Gambia - although we didn't leave anything on our plates!

Day 3: The Big City

Banjul and Fajara are about as interesting as Dakar. Our first stop was to see the big arch in Banjul, which was a big arch. We did take a nice walk around the market and along the beach until we started getting harassed by some local "bumpsters," or men looking to sell sex. I have a masters degree in ignoring obnoxious inquiries and getting people to leave me alone, but the bumpsters in The Gambia are like nothing I've experienced. They just don't give up. If you ignore them they call you racist and if you engage well, then you have to talk to them and they don't leave you alone when you tell them to. Being followed by bumpsters killed the nice walk along the beach. The beach is beautiful though.

Since there isn't too much to see and it was a national holiday (May 1 is international Labor Day), we headed back south in a cab toward SeneGambia - a strip of bars and restaurants for lunch. We had really good pizza and even better cheesy garlic bread! The food in The Gambia (specifically, the non-African food options) are far superior to Senegal and not surprisingly food was a major part of our trip. With bellies full of pizza we returned to the regional house and chatted with some Gambian PCVs before going to a bar over looking a busy fishing port to watch the activities and the sunset. Mexican food was on the docket for dinner and then a drink at an Irish bar.

Not wanting to offend The Gambia by not showing it the same level of commitment we showed Cape Verde, we swung by Aquarius. Aquarius is THE club in SeneGambia, but even this infamous club can't rally a crowd on a Monday night after a three day weekend so we were the only people on the dance floor...literally. Eventually we gained a few other people, but we never hit double digits. I would say it was a pretty epic night and we definitely owned the dance floor while the American Top 40 played which was great. Aquarius was definitely a good time, but how do you know you probably shouldn't be at a club?

1. It's Monday night.
2. You are the only people at the club.
3. The DJ agrees to watch your purse while playing all of your requests...because no one else is there.
4. There is no line for the ladies room.
5. CNN is on the TV which is supposed to playing music videos for the dancers to watch. Instead, we watch Elliot Spitzer talk about Osama bin Laden.

Day 4: OMG We've Spent Over 24 Hours in the Past Three Days Traveling

With a solid almost four hours of sleep under our belts, we're up and ready to get back to Senegal. If you've ever wondered what it feels like to be in Dante's ninth circle of hell, I can tell you. It involves being crammed into an Alham (crappy bus) while on a ferry fording a river. Yup, that's the ninth circle. Being packed with four other people on a bench made for three while the entire things bobs up and down in the water on top of a ferry is the absolute worst way to spend a morning after you've been out the night before. Not fun.

Two hours later the ferry docks and our Alham doesn't start so some guys have to push it and we coast into starting the bus. Fortunately, it was a short ride to the border where we stamped our passports, used our last Delasi to buy presents for our family, and climb onto a charette (horse cart and yet another form of transportation) to travel through Byron's village to the garage. There Jackie and I were able to get a car directly back to Thies which was awesome, while Tamar and Katherine had slightly longer trips back to site.

It was a great trip and I'm glad that I got to see The Gambia (aka the country inside the country I've been living in for two years) as well as some hippos and baboons! You may be wondering where the pictures are. I hate myself and forgot my camera. I've been so busy taking pictures for Mme. Ly I left it in another bag! Yes, I am heartbroken. Luckily, Jackie, Tamar, and Katherine took a million pictures so check out their blogs and I will be stealing their pictures the next time I see them!

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T22:39:00.003Z

Amazing. Loved it.

Not surprisingly my most thoughtfully laid plans totally fell through and Katherine and I were not able to watch The Royal Wedding on a big screen television in a private conference room at a hotel while gorging ourselves on enough food to pay for the room. Alas, CNN obviously didn't work in the conference room and I absolutely refused to watch French people discuss Wills and Kate getting married. Therefore, I sat in the lobby of said hotel, with remote in hand, turning the volume as loud as I could as guests, employees, and random people walked the halls. I say "I" because Katherine was caught in a miserable bus which took hours to get to Thies, Tamar was on her voyage into town, and Jackie was actually trying to do work/ laundry at site.

There's absolutely no reason why The Royal Wedding should have brought me so much pleasure as it did. I'm not a huge royal fan, but I do love weddings and pomp and circumstance...especially when it has nothing to do with me. I've been counting down the days until the wedding since they announced their engagement in November. I would also like to point out that I told my mom that the dress would be Alexander McQueen months ago and she didn't believe me!

Alexander McQueen the dress was... and it was fabulous. I actually LOVED Pippa's dress even more. It's amazing. I want to steal it off her and wear it myself. Everything was beautiful (including Victory Beckham's hat and those custom Louboutins) and I wish I was there to celebrate. It just seemed like such a happy day! I would also like to discuss how Prince William used to be super hot and now he's balding and how Harry was a scary, ginger child and now he's the most eligible bachelor in the world. I also want to attend Prince Harry's "survivors party" which goes until 6am, but alas I will traveling to The Gambia.

Yes, it's true. I will be traveling to The Gambia tomorrow. It is a British colony so that's fitting! Katherine, Jackie, Tamar and I are going so that we can say we've been to the country inside the country we've been living in for the last two years and to hopefully see some chimps (questionable) and eat some Mexican food (probable).

Check back on Tuesday for more updates and thoughts about the wedding (aka how I will ensnare Harry and become best friends with Kate).

When Is Class?

2011-04-27T17:42:00.002Z

Since the power was still out this morning after my run, after breakfast, and even after showering, I had nothing better to do than prepare for my Junior Achievement class. Honestly, I was a little nervous since Kerry isn't here this week and this was supposed to be the first class I taught solo this time around. "Supposed to be," being the operative phrase. I did everything I was supposed to do. I called one of the teachers yesterday to make sure that the students weren't striking, that they were back from vacation, and that the teachers were prepared for today's class, but that's apparently not enough/ nothing could have prevented/ foreseen today's cancelled class.

I arrived at the Lycee Technique and saw two teachers already in the lounge and all ready for class. Perfect. I left them to go get the supplies which are locked in a secretary's office. She obviously wasn't in for the day and no one else, including the janitor, could possibly have a key so I resigned myself to not writing anything down for the class to see and just taking copious notes. No problem. Then, I go upstairs to the room where we have class. As usual the English Club is practicing in the room before JA, but they are surprised to see me. One teacher does both English Club and JA and he told me that he didn't know about class today and thought we started up again next week. Sure enough, once I finally tracked down the head teacher who wouldn't answer my phone calls yesterday he confirmed that I was the person who had made the mistake. According to him, at our last meeting we had changed the schedule, again, to reflect a longer break. I'm positive this is untrue, but it doesn't really matter since none of the students showed up.

With nothing better to do and already planning on missing lunch at my house, I wondered the streets of Thies running some errands and making very special arrangements for Friday. I may miss many things while I'm away in Senegal, but the Royal Wedding will not be one of them. Plans will be released upon accomplishment on Friday since I'm worried that I'll jinx them!

To Do

2011-04-27T16:38:00.003Z

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The To-Do List for today was quite intense.
1. Renew my residency card
2. Have lunch with Jackie and Brian

That plan was turned upside-down quite quickly. Drenched in sweat after a morning run my phone started to get a million text messages. They were from Talla asking me if I could be at the center within the next 15 minutes to present about the SED program. No further information. I pretended to bathe aka splash some water on my face, threw on a dress, and jumped in a cab. Fortunately, I wasn't the only volunteer totally caught off guard. Although they did receive a day of advance warning, Emily and Erin also didn't have a fancy presentation like some of the other people. I think I did the SED program proud and put in a good plug for the work we do and the type of help we can offer to other volunteers with their projects.

Being at the center meant that I ran into a bunch of people including our country director, which was great since I needed to talk to him. I also dropped off magazines and filled up on cold, filtered water. From the center, Brian and I walked over to the office where residency cards are renewed. Fortunately, the process was quick and easy and Jackie even showed up in time to get hers done. Paying internet and electricity bills was followed by a trip to Mme. Ly's where Jackie did some shopping and I did some planning. The three of us then had a delicious lunch at Pamanda's and chatted away the afternoon.

Brian and Jackie left in the mid-afternoon to return to site and I stayed at Pamanda's to get some work done. I barely managed to finish a cover letter before Emily and Erin reappeared and we all caught up. While I was pretending to start another cover letter Dioss called to beg me to come over. The catalog is actually in Thies and he desperately wanted me to see it, so I obliged and went all of the way across town to Dioss' house where I met a study abroad student interested in art education. It's always interesting to talk to study abroad students and hear just how different their perspective on things can be. I really try not to sound too jaded, which I think I achieved. Dioss is insanely excited and proud of the catalog. It's actually not as big or as nice as I was imagining, but it is beautiful and he is listed as the author.

The power was already out when I got home so I spent a lot of time staring at my family in the dark. I did listen to one of the most interesting conversations I've ever heard my family have. Khady and and my mom were discussing where Ahmed should go to school next year. Khady wants a school that teaches both French and English (since I've been working with Ahmed on English and Khady realizes the next PCV could as well) and sounds like it has high academic standards, while my mom wants a school closer by and where other kids from the neighborhood attend. I'm not sure if philosophy or cost was really the issue, but Khady seemed to put her foot down.

Musical Chairs

2011-04-23T22:25:00.002Z

A lot of time during a Peace Corps service is spent in dark, literally and figuratively. While I've had electricity fairly consistently lately, this didn't help me illuminate, in advance or even after, the reason for my trip today. For the past week I've known that there would be some type of Junior Achievement event today. Some type of event being the operative phrase. Earlier this week I learned that the event was in some small village, far off the road, between Ngeye Mheke and Louga and that a PC vehicle would come and pick me up at 9ish am. My ability to go with the flow has astronomically improved over the past 20 months.

Fortunately, Jackie was my partner in crime throughout the filming of the JA special last month as well as today's activities. Since Jackie lives a couple kilometers outside of Thies, closer to Dakar, she was also the person who called me to say that the car was actually on it's way. Now, in the car, with Jackie we discuss how we have no idea what the day's plan is. We picked up Kerry and then the fedora wearing Talla Diop and then gossiped for a while in the back of the car before we started questioning Talla about the reason for our journey. Talla didn't really know either and was only attending because the woman in charge of Junior Achievement asked him to.

The plan all along was to return to Thies in time for lunch. Being the seasoned PCV that I am, I knew that that was never going to happen, but I wasn't prepared for what was going to happen. Talla, Kerry, Jackie, myself, and two other men from Dakar arrived at the village's communal building where we sat with a bunch of important men introducing ourselves, eating beignets, and then staring at each other in silence. The staring continued while more and more people kept piling into the room. The silence was broken when Jackie moved her chair and knocked over and shattered for coffee cup. For some reason this was hilariously funny, if not funny in this post.

After an hour of sitting in the room waiting for more people from Dakar to arrive while residents of the village waited ever so patiently in a packed and hot room next door, Talla started to get antsy and asked to start the meeting while we waited. It's a good thing we started this process because it took FOREVER. The head table meant for all of us ended up being the entire length of the room and was then still too small because it had over-sized chairs behind it. So, we went back and forth and back and forth across the packed room. Tripping over people, getting in everyone's way, sweating, and trying to sit in order of importance. Jackie and I attempted an escape by graciously declining stairs for standing only room in the hallway to no avail.

Twenty or so minutes after the musical chairs started we were finally all seated. That is until the rest of the delegation from Dakar arrived and the entire process started over again. Once everyone was seated and the meeting began I started to zone out. I couldn't help it. The redundancies of the meeting, the sweltering heat, and all of the people taking cell phone video of me started to take it's toll and Jackie and I became a pair of slaphappy toubabas. This continued for an eternity - over 3 hours in total.

The event was to introduce Junior Achievement to this village and the meeting discussed the pros and cons and let the community air their concerns. There was absolutely no point for Jackie and I to be there. We were pointed at twice as the two PCV toubabs in the room and that's about it. I am still not use to Senegalese meetings where agreement is shown by saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and I don't think I ever will.

Almost eight hours later the car dropped me back off at my house and I collapsed in a heap and then made myself lunch...at almost 5pm. Hopefully my presence was appreciated although, I'm pretty sure it didn't make a difference.

All I wanted was a quiet evening, but that didn't happen because... Mami's home! She waltzed in sporting jeggings and a GIANT bow in her hair, instantaneously got in a fight with big Ahmed, and then called all of her girlfriends over for dinner. This upset Jeenaba because Mami wanted her to serve them in her room, which in turn infuriated Awa because Jeenaba wanted Awa's help with the extra cooking even though Awa was doing the dishes. I silently hoped that it didn't mean that my mom would cook dinner since we all suffered that terrible scenario last night while holding Abdou and officiating over coloring time for little Awa and Ahmed so they would be quiet and stop driving me insane. All in a day's work.

Bandia

2011-04-22T21:59:00.003Z

A giraffe in Bandia Nature Preserve

Traveling and guests have been the name of the game in the Thies region as of late and today was just another day of meeting the fam. Today I met Kerry's daughter and son-in-law on the last day of their 6 day whirl wind tour of Senegal! Today's agenda? Bandia Nature Preserve. I must admit that I was highly skeptical of today's itinerary. I've drive past Bandia many times on my to the Petite Cote and down to Mar Lodj to see Tamar and I haven't been very impressed. It's also the idea that Senegal used to have big game and the exotic animals that you think of when you think of Africa, but now doesn't because of poaching. The vast majority of the animals at Bandia have been imported from east and south Africa.

Kerry, Jeanine, Brian, and I set out from Thies for Bandia early this morning and we had a lot of fun at the park. Bandia is actually much nicer than I expected and riding around in a big jeep while looking at animals in Africa is pretty cool...even if those animals are no longer native to the area. We had a great time riding around and seeing some rhinos, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, ostriches, buffalo, and a lot of birds native to Senegal. Our jeep excursion was followed by a delicious lunch at the park's restaurant where some monkeys were getting a little bit too brave and a little too close to our table! There are some pictures posted of the animals we saw today in the Cape Verde album.

On our way back to Thies I called Dioss to see if he was at home so we could swing by the gallery... he was obviously in Dakar so we went straight to Mme. Ly's. I love Madame Ly. I honestly can't say enough good things about the woman. She was really excited to meet Kerry's family and was a very nice host while Kerry's daughter looked around. Unfortunately, Kerry and crew were exhausted after a week of traveling and sightseeing so they left and I stayed to talk and work with Mme. Ly and Khady.

Mme. Ly and Khady are work horses. They constantly impress me with how much they can get done when equipped with beads and electricity. Last weekend they went to Dakar for an expo which they both agreed was the worst run expo they've ever been to (while stroking my ego by reminding me just how great the Peace Corps expo was in December), but they did find some new and AWESOME beads. Since then, they've been going to town and have some really cool new pieces. I'm quite proud with how far they're pushing themselves. I wasn't even allowed to sit down today before I had to go and look at the new pieces and take pictures of everything. They are really starting to understand different lengths, color combinations, and that bigger is most definitely better. The only problem is me.

Mme. Ly and Khady want me to approve/ critique every piece. They also want me to be a fit model. I do enjoy the playing dress up aspect of this activity, but for those of you who know me well, you know that I have freakishly small hands and wrists. There are currently plethora of bracelets that fit me and small children...only. Hopefully this will be fixed next week.

Some of my concerns and fears about the artisan association for the spring/ summer season were also soothed by Mme. Ly's no nonsense "this is what I'm going to tell people," approach to her presidency so that's good. We are full steam ahead for the St. Louis Jazz fest and showing at a gallery. I'm trying to take some classier pictures for the gallery owner/ WATH so let me know which one of these pictures you like more or if you think they're both bad!

This is the necklace in a wood bowl.

This is the necklace on a whitewashed bench.

After a lovely afternoon talking jewelry with Mme. Ly and Khady, I walked home with a quick detour to the post office. Shout out to Shirley for another amazing card. Made my day as usual. Erin happened to be stopping by picking up some packages on her way back to site from an Ag summit Kolda. We caught up while she waited for the customs agent to materialize. The best part about this wait other than the exchange of gossip? Definitely when one of my post office friends called the customs agent and told him that one of my friends needed to pick up a package so he needed to come in even though he had already left for the day. Score. The post office men are back in my good graces!

I'm having problems uploading pictures so check back tomorrow for updated photos.

Reunited

2011-04-21T21:08:00.002Z

Reunited and it feels so good.

Time is a funny, funny thing in Peace Corps. The days can pass slowly and then the months (and day I say it, years) blow by. Since returning from Cape Verde, the days have crept by and that's partially because 66% of my main texting/ calling/ general communication circle has been gone. I just saw Katherine for the first time in three weeks and that's just unacceptable.

Yesterday I headed off to Dakar to clear my mind of Thies (even though nothing annoying/ particularly bad has happened) and to get a gossip rundown of my friends' recent adventures. The food brought from America as well as my newly fixed computer might have also sweetened the deal. It was great to be in the same room as Tamar, Jackie, and Katherine again and we had a great time catching up on each other's lives for the past couple of weeks which was a little weird since my friends usually know what I've eaten and the last time I've peed during the usual day.

We also had to plan our next trip! Nope this isn't a joke. We are determined to use all of our vacation days before we aren't allowed to travel because the end of our service is so near! So, we're going to The Gambia next week. Yes, we're crazy. No, we haven't done any planning.

The trip wasn't all fun and games though. I did have to go into the office to work on future artisan happenings. In Peace Corps everything seems to come at once! We might be attending an Expo May 5th hosted by the Embassy in honor of Mother's Day... if it can be organized in that short of notice. The details for the St. Louis Jazz fest are also coming together. Each year St. Louis, a city north of Thies on the coast, hosts a giant Jazz Fest which draws an international crowd and also boasts an artisan exposition. This year Peace Corps is working with the West African Trade Hub, an NGO devoted to helping artisans become export ready, to expose some of the artisans' work in a gallery. It's very exciting. We are also going to buy some booths at the general event (hopefully). A lot more planning has to be done, but hopefully everything will work out.

Dioss' New Works

2011-04-18T20:15:00.003Z

Things are pretty slow in Thies right now. Over the weekend Mme. Ly and Khady went to Dakar for a small Expo. They felt it necessary to keep me updated of their every movement by calling me constantly, which was sweet and totally unnecessary at the same time. They got back to Thies late this afternoon so I didn't go see them, but I did see the much more elusive member of their family: Dioss.

Dioss was really excited to see me because today, supposedly, is/ was the day when the catalog is finally being delivered to him...in completed form. I'll believe it when I see it. He was like a little kid on Christmas morning though which made him fairly worthless to talk to about anything other than the catalog. I took some pictures of his new technique to show the West African Trade Hub and then he kind of pushed me out of his house because he had a bunch of friends over. The pictures are in the Cape Verde album.

From Dioss' I walked over to the post office.

Shout Outs!!!
Thank you grandma for the amazing package including all kinds of delicious treats, magazines, and Easter goodies for Ahmed! I've already put a dent in the treats and the magazines.

Shirley! Thank you for two more amazing letters! I always look forward to cards from you!

At the post office I had a very annoying conversation about husbands, boyfriends, and marriage, which ended with me excusing myself after one of the peripheral post office characters called my boyfriend my "master." Conversations like that no matter if they are said in jest or not are not conversations I want to be a part of and I find them degrading. It's definitely not a mentality that I can understand and one that I don't have to tolerate when it's about me. I massage my ego with fruit snacks my grandma sent so everything turned out just fine.

I hung out with the fam for the rest of the day. Jeenaba and Abdou are back, which brought more life to the house since Khady is still sick. Little Awa is proving herself to a terror and I'm waiting for big Awa to pop out her baby!

Palm Sunday

2011-04-17T21:13:00.002Z

Palm Sunday usually doesn't mean much to me and since I'm living with a Muslim family, one would assume that it wouldn't mean much to them, but in the spirit of any holiday is a holiday we celebrate, my family celebrated Palm Sunday. I had been looking forward to today because we've been without water since I came back from Cape Verde and holidays are usually celebrated by the utility companies by actually providing service. And I was right. My mom obviously thought the same thing and therefore stayed up all night. She was still awake filling water jugs from the most pathetic trickle of water coming out of our spigot at 6:30am when I got up. I told her I would take over, but she doesn't trust me that much so I went to take a run and she locked me out of the front gate. Pounding on the door ensued until Awa came to open it for me.

Other than the luxury of having some water and a day full of electricity we also had a delicious lunch to celebrate. Whenever there's a holiday and "a lunch you will like," in the words of a female cook are uttered it means we don't eat lunch until old people are eating their Early Bird Special. Today was also a weird day since Jeenaba and Abdou were celebrating Palm Sunday with Thomsir, baby daddy, and his family... who are also not Christian. Anyway, that means that all of the cleaning fell on poor, giantly pregnant Awa while my Aunt Numbe cooked lunch. Numbe has been hanging around more than usual since her daughter, also named Awa, is out current "vacation maid."

Rice and chicken with crudites (finely chopped vegetables that are steamed and covered in vinegar) was on the menu for lunch. Numbe was cooking all day. Literally. I took a run, cleaned by room, uploaded a ton of pictures onto facebook, worked on an application, helped cut vegetables, took a shower, and watched an episode of the Amazing Race before we ate lunch at 4pm. Regardless, it was tasty and we had some watermelon for dessert!

Khady is really sick right now which meant that she wasn't helping the other adult women nor was she rangling Ahmed and little Awa so they bothered me. All day. I thought Khady was just dehydrated because she was complaining of a mysterious headache after pulling water all day yesterday and not actually drinking any of it, but she's been MIA all day today trying to recover. My favorite part about this was the "sick" outfit she emerged in to collect her lunch. The tightest pair of painted on jeans I've seen her wear and then a completely sheer caftan with no bra. How is that comfortable? Khady's lack of supervision meant that the kids were all over me.

Ahmed and I have a very defined set of unspoken rules that govern my personal space and the lies I tell him to get him to go away. It really is a beautiful relationship. Little Awa doesn't know any of these rules and is incredibly curious and precocious. Today she wiped open my door after I explicitly told her I was changing. I saw an expression flash across Ahmed's face that said "Oh my God, she's not going to give me presents and candy anymore!" I had to get my stern face on with Awa after the door opening incident but she didn't really get it because she continued to be really annoying. It mostly bothered me because she kept touching me all over and she has a super nasty and giant staph infection that I really do not want to get. I like to keep my kid touching to a minimum aka Abdou and Ahmed only.

Apart from trying to hide from/ kill little Awa, Palm Sunday was quite nice. Everyone was really chill. We had some visitors who couldn't have cared less about me and I got to eat chicken and hoard some water in my room.

Vacation as a Maid

2011-04-15T20:59:00.002Z

A combination of spring break, Easter (yes, I know it's still over a week away), and strikes mean that some if not most Senegalese children are not in school right now (if they go to public school, Ahmed goes to private, Catholic school which is in session). What does this mean? It means that there's kids all over all the time who enjoy taunting me and that there are little girls going on "vacation." Vacation is really a misnomer since these girls travel to different cities or villages to do house work. During Ramadan my family had two of these girls, Khady and Codou, who worked for us/ learned how to be a maid while the adult women in my family were fasting.

These past couple of weeks of vacation/ Easter/ strikes my Aunt Numbe's daughter, the one I really like, she's sassy, has been at our house. They live just down the street so she gets to go home at night, which is probably nice for her. I'm told she's around Ahmed's age, so she's five and is spending her vacation learning to pull water and being bossed around. It's definitely a little sad, but at least she's working for my family and she knows everyone.

Awa, the little girl working for us, is a spitfire. She's really funny and incredibly curious about anything and everything having to do with me. This evening Awa, Ahmed, and myself were hanging out on the porch of the bungalow having a little English lesson when she started peppering me with questions that no one else has ever asked me before. The most poignant question was "where are you parents?" It had never really crossed my mind that it's weird that I'm not living with my parents, but I am living with another family and calling a woman who is obviously not my mom "mom."

I explained to Awa that my parents are in the United States so that's why I have to live with a Senegalese family in Senegal. After laughing hysterically at the names Sharyl and Claude, Awa concluded they weren't real names. It also blew her mind that I have two names. One in Senegal and one in America. Another revelation was that my last name isn't actually "Toubab." Following this line of questioning we obviously get to the whereabouts of my husband. At this point, Ahmed pipes up and proudly explains that I don't have a husband I have a boyfriend who lives in America and who brought his a puzzle and a car. Duh. Ahmed also offered up the information that I have a brother as well as a cat that looks like a lion because it has so much hair and that it snows where I live. All very important facts.

This little episode was absolutely adorable until the conversation segued into how Awa is learning how to carry water on her head and I can't carry water on my head even though I'm really, really old. At this point I bribed them with candy to go away.

Getting Back In the Swing of Things

2011-04-13T21:36:00.003Z

Getting back in the swing of things has been easier than I thought because I'm really excited about artisan reseau prospects. I should know a lot more next week, but I'm pretty sure that the artisans are going to have an amazing opportunity to showcase themselves during the Jazz Fest in St. Louis in June and I'm really excited about it! That being said I still had a terrible time motivating myself this morning, lack of sleep is still a big issue after my trip, and ended up going to the post office (shout out to Shirley!!!) and pretending to clean my room. I really wanted to clean my room and I did move everything around and dust and sweep; I just need to scrub my floor which is difficult by the lack of water.

Demyst is currently going on for the Health/ Environmental Education PCVs who arrived last month and Thies is getting another new addition. Lisa, the new Health PCV, will bring the grand total to four regular PCVs (including me, Emily, and Clare), two Response PCVs, and one third year volunteer. Craziness. Since demyst and seeing your site for the first time is a little anti-climactic when it's Thies and you're already there, I took Lisa out on the town with me today to see Mme. Ly.

Madame Ly is a great person for a new PCV to know because she's always willing to hang out, she always makes you feel great, and she knows absolutely everyone. Mme. Ly and Khady were super excited to see me and we chatted and caught up while they worked on some necklaces and Lisa listened on and did a little shopping.

Everything is as usual with my family. Awa is getting huge and I'm excited to have another baby around. I still have no idea how far along she is, but she's really big so I hope she has the baby soon. Abdou jabbers constantly and really, really, really wants to walk. Ahmed is still obsessed with his rain boots and wants to play constantly now that I'm back. He actually watched me type my Cape Verde post. That's love.

My Trip to HAlfrica

2011-04-13T13:00:00.020Z

Cape Verde is spectacular. We had an absolutely amazing and unforgettable trip. But, we weren’t in Africa. We were in HAlfrica. PCVs in Cape Verde even call if HAlfrica because Cape Verde is this amazing place where highways are actually paved and don’t have potholes, where cab drivers know where they’re going, where solar lights operate on pedestrian thoroughfares, where some PCVs have hot water, and where you can eat pizza and Chinese food and have it taste like pizza and Chinese food. If you haven’t gotten the drift yet, Cape Verde is awesome.

When I came to Senegal almost 20 months ago I thought that Africa was going to be a more run down, decrepit version of Eastern Europe. We all know how I felt about that surprise. Cape Verde is more along the lines of what I was expecting. It’s probably nicer than what I was expecting. A lot of colonial architecture has been preserved and a lot of houses and buildings are painted in beautiful colors, not to mention that they are kept in good condition. A lot of roads are paved and those roads that aren’t paved are beautiful old cobblestones that are completely intact and feel smoother riding over than almost any road in Senegal. The cars are beautiful and new and feature such car parts as; door handles, automatic windows, shocks, and dare I say it, air conditioning.

The most HAlfrica thing about Cape Verde is the people. Cape Verde is a Portuguese colony, a European and Brazilian vacation hot spot, and home to people from mainland Africa as well therefore; the people are a beautiful mixture, in appearance, language, and personality of all of these cultures. Just Cape Verdeans’ physical appearances blew us away. We would walk down the street and could instantly pick out the Senegalese immigrants. Senegalese people have very defined features since they for the most part marry other Senegalese people and there’s very little mixture with other nationalities, races etc. Cape Verdeans come in a range of sizes and colors that don’t exist in Senegal. They also dress in a much more Western and provocative way. Cape Verdean traditional dress is old school European and very few people wear traditional African clothes. Interacting with Cape Verdeans was a huge change. They seemed much more relaxed, less aggressive, more helpful… we never got harassed. It was a wonderful change and really set the mood for our entire vacation.

Cape Verde Day 1
Arriving in Cape Verde was lovely. The airport is tiny, customs non-existant, and beautiful/ new cabs waiting outside. We were all instantaneously impressed by the roads and just super excited as seen by this picture:

After checking into our really nice hotel, complete with hot water and air conditioning, we walked around Praia. Delicious sweet treats were purchased in the incredibly calm market, SIM cards bought from an incredibly friendly woman who spoke good English, and the brightly painted colonial architecture was admired. That night we found a Chinese restaurant, a PCV favorite, for dinner.

A PCV had called this place a "hole in the wall" and there's no doubt that it was. The restaurant was instantly recognizable as someplace only PCV tourists would go. It was awesome. The only problem was the Kriolu (local language of Cape Verde) and Chinese menu. We had been told that the fried noodles were really cheap and really good so we attempted to order them. We assumed they were the cheapest thing on the menu so when the owner came over to take our order we told him four plates by pointing to the cheapest thing on the menu. He gave us a weird look and held up four fingers before shaking his head and walking away. This probably should have been a clue. A few minutes later... he returned with a giant, heaping, pile of 40 fried wantons. The disgusting part about this story is that we almost finished them. For the rest of the meal we simply pointed at the food that the Chinese people were eating at the table next to us and things went much smoother.

Jackie and the owner of the restaurant who had just made a delivery on his moto, hence the helmet.

Cape Verde Day 2
My biggest fear is flying. I know it's completely irrational and that the liklihood I die in a fiery sept-place crash is infinitely higher, but I hate flying. I dislike flying in America and I dislike flying in Africa even more. I like my planes/ airlines to be brand names. So, the idea of taking a prop plane is akin to throwing myself off a cliff without a parachute. Apart from finishing PST, boarding the prop plane in Cape Verde on my own man power/ not having to be sedated, is my proudest moment of Peace Corps. This approximates how I felt about the situation:

I survived the plane ride from Praia, the capital of Cape Verde as well as the capital city of the island of Santiago, to Sao Filipe on the island of Fogo. It's literally a 30 minute plane ride and I hate every single second of it. Fortunately, a PCV named Josh who lives on Fogo was waiting at the airport for us and immediately took us to a local restaurant to try the national dish cachupa and the national alcohol grogue, I needed a little booze to calm the nerves. The food in Cape Verde is one thing that is definitely more African than European. While there are amazing restaurants, way better than you can find in Senegal, offering Italian, Spanish, and American fare, Cape Verdean cuisine is definitely African. Cachupa, the national dish, is corn, beans, and mashed up fish mixed together and usually served with an egg on top. I thought it was good, but wouldn't want to eat it every day, kind of life ceebu jenn.

Tamar and I eating cachupa for the first time in Sao Filipe on the island of Fogo.

With full stomachs, we went shopping for more food. Josh led us on a nice tour of Sao Filipe including the black sand beaches and the beautiful architecture before we hit up the main market to buy chili ingredients for our dinner. Food in hand we climbed into the back of a pick up truck heading up the mountain to a PCV house to meet another PCV, Rachel, and drop our stuff before heading to another site for dinner and to spend the night. At this point I need to explain the living situation for PCVs in Cape Verde. It's ridiculous. They either live with another PCV roommate or on their own in what I will call mansions. Everyone we met has a multiple room house to themselves with a full Western bathroom. We stayed with PCV Emma our first night in Fogo and her bathroom, featuring hot water, is literally bigger than the bungalow (there are pictures up so check them out). Since PCVs don't live with families that also means they cook for themselves and don't have to eat Cape Verdean food all of the time. They actually tried to get us to sample the various Senegalese restaurants on the island because they love the food. Needless to say we declined. Obviously the grass is always greener, but they have a pretty sweet set up.

Cape Verde Day 3
We spent the night with Emma and ate the left over chili we made for dinner before setting out for the reason we came to Fogo in the first place: the volcano.

Group shot with our lovely host Emma and our guide Josh.

Fogo is a volcanic island so the top is a giant crater. Inside this crater is another 6000 ft volcano and that's what we climbed. Before arriving in Cha, the city within the crater at the base of the second volcano, we had big transportation issues, as in there were no cars. We ended up having to rent a car and although we all enjoyed the beautifully scenic ride up the mountain to Cha, we arrived much later in the day than we had anticipated. In Cha we stayed with a Cape Verdean family who rents out rooms to visitors. They were extremely gracious and gave us fresh cheese and wine, both of which they make themselves, when we arrived. We pretty much threw our bags in the rooms and got ready to hike the volcano, but only after we picked up some water and a couple of bags of Cheetos at the local store.

You wish you looked this good in over-sized pants and tennis shoes eating Cheetos.

Hiking a volcano is totally badass if I do say so myself. It's also really freaking hard as there's only a "path" to follow. Fortunately we hired a guide who was from Cha and obviously half mountain goat as he bounded up the volcano without pause and without shortness of breath as the rest of us huffed and puffed our way to the top. It was an absolutely spectacular climb. The ascent starts out as a hike up the base of the volcano then becomes sandier with ash and other volcanic debris before becoming rocky, and then finally an almost vertical climb to the summit. It took us several hours but we all made it and reveled in our accomplishment and the view.

The four girls at the top.

The hike down from the volcano is the fun part. The hike up may take four hours, but getting down is a breeze once you get off the summit. Most of the way down you just run/ fall/ tumble through all of the volcanic ash/ debris that's accumulated. It's awesome and you get really, really, really dirty.

The white dust trail is following someone running down the volcano.

Since we got a lot start, we ended up doing the several mile hike from the base of the volcano into town in the dark. Fortunately our guide, Nene, was amazing and we had a delicious meal at a French owned campament afterward. Only when we sat down to eat did I discover that the pockets of my pants were completely full of rocks and ash. Not until midnight did we collapse into our beds in the Cape Verdean house we rented.

Cape Verde Day 4
A slight ankle sprain and complete exhaustion kept us from our planned day long hike, but we did still have to wake up only a few hours after we went to bed and head back to Sao Filipe. Early morning is the only time that public transit cars leave Cha so we had no choice but to get up and then try and catch a few more minutes of sleep will swaying in the back of a pick-up truck.

A hotel room provided us with a much needed shower as we were all too cold and tired to take a shower the night we hiked the volcano. We just went to sleep covered in soot, rocks, and sweat. After a hot shower and a power nap we ate a last lunch with Josh at KC's. KC's serves very good grilled chicken as well as traditional, American Phili Cheese Steaks. More Cape Verdeans actually live outside of Cape Verde than live in the country itself and the largest population of Cape Verdeans outside of the country live in Boston. Therefore, you can walk around Cape Verde and hear extremely thick Boston accents. A lot of people sound more American than I do with my MidWestern twang! KC is one of those people who lived in the States for years before coming back to Cape Verde.

The crew at KC's.

We had a quiet night and a delicious pizza dinner before turning in early to prepare ourselves for the prop plane flight back to Praia and Jackie's birthday celebration.

Cape Verde Day 5
Landing safely back in Praia on the island of Santiago we celebrated with another, although less successful, trip to the amazing Chinese restaurant followed by a trip to the bakery and then power naps because...it was Jackie's 26 birthday!!! Happy Birthday Jackie!!!

The celebration started in our hotel room and continued to a fabulous dinner, followed by some drinks and a rendez vous with other PCVs at "The Serpent's Venom" and finally a ridiculous club called The Cockpit, which I originally thought was an illusion to cock fighting, but which is really just lamely decorated like the cockpit of a plane as seen here:

To say it was a fantastic time would be an understatement. Jackie and I especially took The Cockpit by storm and took over the stage (by ourselves) for several hours.

Jackie and I breaking it down.

Cape Verde Day 6
After waking up less than four hours since leaving The Cockpit, we ate breakfast and then boarded public transportation for Tarrafall an absolutely beautiful coastal city two hours away across the island. I slept most of the way there and missed the scenery, but I caught it on the way back.

In Tarrafall we randomly went to the restaurant where the Tarrafall PCV was having lunch. He led us on a brief tour of town and on a wonderful walk to a cave absolutely full of shells which also featured an amazing view of other secluded beaches. The day was definitely worth the fairly miserable car ride.

Jackie, me, Tamar and Erin in Tarrafall.

Back in Praia for the night we moved from the hotel to John's house, our incredibly gracious PCV host in Praia who took us to a fabulous pizza restaurant before the four of us literally passed out due to exhaustion.

Cape Verde Day 7
Jackie left early in the morning for another island in Cape Verde to visit other PCVs we met during WAIST, but Tamar, Erin, and I stayed in Praia in anticipation of our return to Dakar. We spent the day visiting the old capital of the island Cidade Velha, which was abandoned because it kept getting attacked by pirates. Gotta love pirates. We saw the old fort and walked around town before heading back to Praia and eating for the rest of the day!

Erin, me, and Tamar at a monument commemorating explorers in Cidade Velha.

The trip to Cape Verde was amazing, our PCV hosts fantastic and welcoming, and the adventure with my friends unforgettable!

Thies Round-Up

2011-03-31T15:22:00.001Z

Dinner at Alyssa’s house was one of the more difficult things that I’ve had to do on my trip, and not just because I had to concentrate on not using my left (unclean) hand. Alyssa had prepped me pretty well on the etiquette. It was just going to be her host father, Alyssa and me at the table for dinner. I kicked big Ahmed off the table, so that started the awkwardness. The hardest thing for me though was the knowledge that the rest of the family was not going to eat until we were done with our food, and the amount of food the rest of the family (~8 people) was whatever we left in the bowl. In America I’ve been known to buy a rotisserie chicken, clever it half and eat it no problem; but knowing that people much more hungry than I am were waiting for my table scraps made me eat the bare minimum of chicken and then push my food around on the plate. Dinner was over around 11pm when Alyssa’s host dad proclaimed that we both had not eaten enough and that he was done. After dinner Alyssa and I watched some Senegalese music videos and I retreated back to her room for a Cliff bar. Now I am truly glad I bought about four 12-packs of Cliff bars and other assorted snacks for the rest of her stay.

I awoke the next morning to a sound that I’ve heard many times before during Skype conversations with Alyssa. It was Alyssa family’s two roosters crowing and the neighborhood mosques competing for who could be the loudest. The rooster/ chicken / sheep / pigeon pen is literally right next to Alyssa’s wall and this rooster is very fond of crowing loudly every 30 seconds no matter what time of day it is. As a side note I don’t really get why they keep pigeons as pets but cats are considered pests. Anyways, Alyssa brewed up some great coffee, which consisted of heating up some water on her propane burner and mixing in a Via packet, so then I was good to go. We had a long day ahead of us. We met up with Katherine to go see the infamous Madame Ly. We got to the Ly compound around 10 for an 11 appointment, which meant we had to entertain ourselves for about an hour and a half. Thus explains the copious amount of pictures of Alyssa on a Senegalese exercise bike. It was great to see someone that has impacted Alyssa’s service as much as Madame Ly and she was a gracious host. She really wanted us to stay for lunch and absolutely wouldn’t let us leave until we had a piece of meat with onion sauce.

After Madame Ly’s we went to the “Catholic Bar” which is a speakeasy outside one of the few Catholic churches in Senegal. We made ourselves at home in the back of the bar, outside where I met a lot of Alyssa’s PCV friends and distributed the treasure I brought from the US. By treasure I mean two large bags of tortilla chips, 3 kinds of dip, some cheese crackers, two packages of Oreos and a couple box if ginger snaps as a special request. Even Alyssa thought I brought too much food, but it was all devoured; washed down with a couple Flag and Gazelle Beers (shout out to “beercheese”). Alyssa has a great group of friends and I’m sure it’s one of the ways that she has stayed sane in an otherwise pretty chaotic environment.

We then made a trek to chicken Dibi. While I must admit that the décor wasn’t the best (dirty walls with one out of place French oil painting) the chicken was really good. It definitely helped my appetite that it was extremely dark inside and I had my back to the kitchen, but I would go back for the Dibi chicken challenge any time.
Alyssa was nice and only planned one night at her family’s compound, so we ended the night at her favorite hotel in Theis, Masa-masa which is thankfully much quieter and has western plumbing.

The next morning, Mary, Katherine, Alyssa and I met up at the post office, to meet her buddies there and to pick up a package. It was interesting to see the Senegalese postal system at work; let’s just say that they didn’t have to worry about Y2K. I was also a bit surprised they asked Alyssa to open it in front of them to make sure there wasn’t contraband.

We then got a cab to Mary’s site called Ngeye Mkehe which is home to a large basket market. After getting out and recovering from the diesel fumes we’d inhaled in a car, Alyssa spotted two of the artisans she collaborated with at the expo. Meeting them was a great stroke of luck as they were able to negotiate for us and we were able to get some good prices for the baskets. I could barely walk in the basket market without either stumbling on a basket or a person. The market was lined with trucks piled with baskets, making them twice as tall as normal (luckily there are no overpasses in Senegal). These baskets, made by the same people are exported and can be found in stores such as pottery barn. Some of the exports profits are re-invested back into the community as school fees for the children who live in these villages.

I was excited to meet Dioss as he’s worked with Alyssa a lot and does pretty impressive work. When we arrived at his compound he was painting in a new style that I’d describe as cubist-inspired. He was working on only his third piece of this style but it was already looking polished. After greeting him, Alyssa and I took a walk around his compound and looked at some of the more abstract paintings that I was interested in. Dioss went back to a cigarette and painting (typical Dioss protocol) until he offered us some tea. The tea comes in shot-sized glasses and has equal portions tea, mint and sugar and is boiling hot. The proper way to drink the tea is to slurp up, I believe the louder the slurp gives style points. Alyssa pawned the tea drinking duties off on me and I actually liked it, but probably wouldn’t make it part of my normal routine.

Dinner was at Massa Massa where I was dying to try the lasagna that Alyssa has raved about on her blog. We shared a bottle of wine and the lasagna which lived up to the hype! Dinner was only briefly interrupted by a blackout until Massa Massa’s generators kicked on, saving the day.

Alyssa’s Note: Shout out to the Onyshko’s for sending me a fantastic package! Katherine waited for a LONG time at the post office in order to get it since she thought it was the package you sent to my box for her! While Katherine may have been a little disappointed, I am really excited about all of the treats inside and the new, really cute shirt! Thank you! Can’t wait to see you in Chicago!

Vacation to Thies

2011-03-26T20:27:00.003Z

Today Alyssa and I left the big city of Dakar for her home town of Theis. I'm on a "word a day" program with Alyssa and yesterday's word of "bachna" came in handy. Bachna is a versatile word that literary means "I'm good" but practically means, "no thank you I am not interested in your ray-bands, rolex or tissues; nor do I need Orange credit". A Bachana and a hand in the air, possibly followed by "non-merci" usually will be sufficient to get the street vendor to realize that I'm not interested or at least loose interest in me.

Alyssa warned me that the trip to the Dakar garage to get a septpalce was going to be the toughest part of the trip yet. It definitely was a bit overwhelming, but Alyssa is a pro at negotiating and I'm truly impressed with how well she has acclimated to the country. There have been multiple occasions on my trip so far in which the person trying to sell us something mentions to another Senegalese person that it will be very hard to negotiate with Alyssa because she speaks such good wolof. I find this pretty ironic as they are acknowledging that Alyssa speaks wolof, in wolof, right in front of her.

Alyssa rated the septplace ride itself an 8 on the scale of 1 (terrible) to 10 (perfect). We only took one unplanned "shortcut" and the 25 year old French stationwagon held together (somehow). However even the tension from riding in a car with zero safety features driven by a teenager couldn't keep me from being in awe of what I saw on the road. Dakar gives the sense of an industrial city, however very quickly you are thrown back into a post-apocalyptic image of the world. It really struck me how different a world they live in and it really sunk in why the work like Alyssa is doing is so important.

Spending the first few days in Dakar was a good introduction to Senegal, but I was ready for the move to Theis today. After an introduction to the family they lost interest in me in 10 minutes because I don't speak wolof, so Alyssa and I took a walk into the peacecorps center. Instead of a bustling city street in Dakar where everyone is competing for your attention to may a buck, I was struck by the sense of calm in Thies. Only a few people really took notice of us and mostly it was children who just wanted to come greet a toubob.

After the center we presented the family with gifts from america, which consisted of of post-valentines day chocolate that I bought and a couple puzzles and toys for Ahmed. New toys threw Ahmed into a frenzy; we had to assembly the puzzle twice, which was thankfully only 28 pieces. The toy car I got him needed a beef-ed up suspension for the tile floor on the compound so we transitioned to water rockets. Ahmed is eager to learn and wasn't even deterred when a water rocket leaked and he had to change clothes. Just by interacting with Ahmed and the rest of the family I can tell they see Alyssa as just another part of the family and one who is able / willing to take car of the baby and play with Ahmed.

And now a segue into food.

I have to be honest and say that every meal that I've had thus far has been at least pretty good (well its just before dinner time at Alyssa's host house so I'm sure I've jinxed myself). I've sampled some of the traditional food such as local Thiof (fish) with bissop-flower sauce. We also had one of the more surprisingly good meals at Goree island where we picked one of the many shacks on the beach to eat. I had one of the best burgers I've had in a while, complete with a fried egg and fries inside the burger. Alyssa had calamari which was fresh and almost perfectly cooked; it was truly good food karma to find this place. The only place we've gone to twice is a new bakery in dakar that opened up and serves pretty impressive quiches and the closest thing to a bagel you are every going to find in dakar. It had just opened up and Alyssa quickly started the Peace Corps phone tree on this spot. Finally, I had my first communal meal with Alyssa's host family. It was rice, fried fish and onion sauce. While I can completely understand how 2 years of repetitive taste like this could make it repulsive, I actually enjoyed it and after I was done I was only forced by Zibata and Alyssa's host mom to have one more bite before I left the table.

...For all of those that are confused by this post; I (Matt) am visiting Alyssa and will be "guest blogging" at least a few times during my week and a half stay. I hope you can cope with loosing Alyssa's great blog for a few days.

P.S. Pictures (will be) up!

The Cup Game

2011-03-23T20:57:00.002Z

Today Kerry and I taught our third Junior Achievement class (I missed last week because I was in Dakar saying goodbye to Oliver and Ankith). The classroom we use was occupied by the English Club when we arrived who took the opportunity to perform a skit they had been working on for us native speakers. I was really, really impressed by their level of English and the material that they decided to cover. The skit was about what the youth of Africa can do to change the continent for the better and even included a full length song mid skit. I'm always impressed by Senegalese skits. They really go all out, which is surprising since most students are so reserved in class.

Last week's JA less was about choosing an executive board and today's lesson expanded on that idea by introducing an organizational chart and supporting roles to the executive board. A president, VP, finance chair, secretary, and HR person were elected during session two and further roles were doled out today. In order to show how important communication is between board members and with people below the executive level we played "The Cup Game."

This is a game loathed by Katherine and played at girls' camp only when Katherine was in town on shopping trips. In "The Cup Game," each team is given 10 cups and a equal length strip of tape. The teachers go into another room and create a cup sculpture then one person from each team, in our case the president of each imaginary company, goes and looks at the sculpture for 30 seconds two times. The president then, without moving his/ hear hands, has to explain to the rest of his team how to replicate the sculpture. It's much harder than you think and some of the teams struggled, but I think everyone really enjoyed the game. It also was a great segue to discuss teamwork and communication.

Junior Achievement is really starting to take off. Kerry has been doing a great job at churning out the lesson plans after we discuss them and getting them to the teachers at the Lycee Technique who have started to take on greater roles with each class. The students are also starting to understand and fall into the rhythm of the class, which is great. We have a long break coming up due to spring/ Easter vacation, independence day, and a couple of other things so we wont be teaching again until the last week in April which is good for Kerry's and my schedule which are filled with visitors and vacations!

JA on TV

2011-03-22T21:41:00.005Z

Today was a day I've been dreading for approximately eight days. Last week Kerry called to let me know that the Junior Achievement office in Dakar was interested in doing a story on the classes that Jackie and I have been teaching (only because of our proximity to Dakar and not because we're any better than other PCVs and their sweet JA classes). By story I mean a videoed interview to air on national television. I don't necessarily enjoy getting recognized for my work, I'd rather fly under the radar, and the thought of other PCVs (mainly Katherine because I know she watches Senegalese national news with her family and she enjoys mocking me) and my family seeing the interview was something I would rather not thinking about. Therefore, for the past week Jackie and I have been praying that if we didn't say anything this idea would die a quiet death as so many projects have here in Senegal. No Such Luck.

Not only did all of the planning come together, but the Peace Corps car coming to pick me up was an hour early. I honestly thought I had died and gone to some strange pergatory. I wasn't ready for the car to come that early so, although I was dressed I was holding a naked Abdou and had boutique flip flops on. For the non PCVs reading this, boutique flip flops cost 500 CFA or about 1 USD, are plastic, and fall apart frequently. Mine happen to be white and therefore stained a lovely poop-ish color because of the dirt. Being frazzled about Peace Corps' early arrival, I didn't have enough mental capacity to complete two tasks so I gave Abdou to my mom, but neglected to put different shoes on so I looked like a bum... or a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Twenty minutes later Talla, Kerry, and I are in Pout to pick up Jackie and then we all headed to her school. Jackie just finished teaching two classes of almost 50 middle school students. Today was certificate presentation day and the national television station was there to film. I have a TON of cute pictures uploaded of Jackie and her students (Kerry has a bunch of pictures of me so I will upload those when I get them). Here's one to hold you over

Jackie with all of her students and their certificates.

Jackie looking around the camera crew to see her student being interviewed.

After presenting the certificates the TV crew interviewed the school principal, Jackie did a demo of a class, they interviewed some students and then Jackie herself! Exactly what we had been dreading. Fortunately for her, Jackie was released after her school's segment in Pout, but I soldiered on to the Lycee Technique in Thies.

Kerry and Mr. Badiane lead a short demonstration for the cameras and then several students and teachers gave interviews along with Talla and myself. For some reason (read: I had been psyching myself out all day), I was incredibly nervous for my interview and kind of flubbed it. I hope that editing will help. Unlike Jackie I didn't lead a teaching segment so the interviewers questions were very repetitive and I'm not sure that I did a good job diversifying my answers. I also had to redo the interview in Wolof, which I'm quite positive was a disaster even though I was told that yes, I can speak Wolof. The moral of the story is that at some point in the future Jackie and I will be on national television and Katherine and my Senegalese family are going to have a field day!

It was an incredibly long day filled with lots of introductions since people from the JA office in Dakar were with us for the day and the same questions over and over again. The students and the teachers were all really excited about the segment though so that's a good thing. Hopefully it will create more awareness about JA and more students will want to take the classes.

By the time we were done at the Lycee Technique it was well past lunch and Talla invited Kerry and I over to his house. Talla's wife made my absolute favorite lunch, which fortunately does not include rice, and there was a ton of salad which I promptly devoured since no one else wanted it and everyone else kept putting it in my section of the bowl. We had a really nice afternoon sitting under some trees in Talla's yard talking with his family and talking about Peace Corps. I especially enjoyed talking about Kerry's and Talla's hats:

Kerry and Talla... I need a hat.

I came back to my house where I got to babysit for about an hour before cleaning my room for a very special guest!

The Personalities

2011-03-21T22:24:00.004Z

Today was all about the personalities...

Talla burst into my compound this morning like a giant ball of energy wearing a fedora. I know that he was coming today for a site visit and I had been waiting for him all morning. As soon as I heard the rumble of the compound's, metal door, I went out to greet Talla. My mom heard it too and came to investigate since she thought she was the only person home. I briefly greeted Talla and was handed Abdou, who my mom was holding, and then the two of them talked about me like I wasn't there. Apparently Talla doesn't worry about me because I'm in Thies, where he also lives, and do great work and my mom rattled of what she considers my best attributes:

1. I bring presents back with me when I'm away
2. I hold the baby
3. I sit with the family

Yes, I have a highly sought after and cultivated skill set that involves being able to purchase tea and sugar and then sit staring off into space while holding an infant. It was nice to hear, even if both parties were exaggerating, that I'm a fairly good PCV.

Just as quickly as he appeared, Talla vanished and I was on with the rest of my day. I spent most of the morning waiting for Talla and cleaning my room so I only had time to run a few errands and stop by the post office before things started closing down for lunch.

Shout Outs!!!
Shirley - Thank you for another amazing letter!
Mom and Dad - Thanks for the package with all of the magazines! Mme. Ly LOVES American magazines now and all of the ideas for product development she can find in them.

Speaking of Mme Ly... I went to visit her this afternoon and when she saw me she did not look happy. She gave me a terrible look as I was walking up to her stand and I started to get really nervous because I didn't know what I had done. Mme. Ly grabbed me in a hug as usual and then grabbed the necklaces I was wearing, in an accusatory manner, and demanded to know where they were from. I bought the necklaces from her! She didn't recognize them because I was wearing three strands together. Mme. Ly proclaimed my styling expertise, I must say I agreed with everything she said, and then "came up with," the idea to make a three strand necklace. At least it looks like her creative juices are flowing and she's excited about product development. If you're interested in the necklaces I was wearing, go back and look at the pictures from the Murder Mystery party. Each strand is composed of dried grains (the small, brown pieces that look like glass beads) and traditional, multi-colored clay beads.

Back at home Ahmed had his friend Jean-Jacques over. I love Jean-Jacques. He is absolutely hilarious. Jean-Jacques is a 75 year old man trapped in a 5 year old's body. He's so incredibly polite, but too forward at the same time and has the funniest mannerisms. There is a very popular dance heating up the dance floors in Senegal right now and Jean-Jacques has it mastered and breaks it out all the time. The kid puts a smile on my face as soon as I see him especially since he always wants to hold my hand as I ask him about school. Too cute.

The First of the Goodbyes

2011-03-18T20:14:00.005Z

Earlier this week I was in Dakar to say goodbye. The first goodbye happened Tuesday night. Unfortunately, my boss Nicole is heading back to the States to deal with some health issues. Nicole came in as the head of the SED program just a few weeks before my stage arrived in Senegal and it's definitely sad to see her go. Most of the volunteers in my SED came to Dakar for a farewell dinner. The event turned out to be really, really fun. It was great to have time with just the SED PCVs, to reminisce a little, and have an absolutely delicious meal (Nicole got us a deal at a really nice restaurant). The most interesting part about the dinner was the breakdown of the group.

During PST, way back 19 months ago, my language group in Tivaouane was not in a good place. We weren't getting along, Tamar and I wanted to leave every single day, and no one thought that the entire group would make it. We were in rough shape to say the very least. At Nicole's goodbye dinner the Tivaouane 5 was the only complete group! It looks like we're all going to make it!

Ryan, Me, Byron, Tamar and Brian

The next night was the really sad goobye: Oliver's and Ankith's goodbye party. I am terrible at goodbyes. It never gets any easier for me. Katherine always says that if you're good enough friends with the person leaving that you'll see him/ her again and that's there's no reason to cry. I wish that I could practice what Katherine preaches, but I can't.

We spent the morning baking our brains out. Every cookie mix, cake mix, and brownie mix that my friends and I had were baked for the event. Since the oven at the regional house has one temperature "on," it took 5 hours to make everything and approximately 5 minutes for everything to eat everything later that night. The bake goods fest happened after a day spent lounging at the American Club and an amazing dinner at the Chinese restaurant.

Oliver, Ankith, and Jackie showing off some cookies.

I thought that the party would get pretty rowdy and that the fun would help me get over the tough goodbye. A combination of exhaustion (everyone at the party was really tired after hanging out all day and from being in Dakar for too long) and sadness put a damper on the party so by the time 3am rolled around and the boys were heading out to the airport, tears flowed. I held it together better than I thought I would, but it's really sad to see people go. Even though PCVs leaving means that my service is progressing and that I get to go home soon, it's sad because we all rely so much on each other and look forward to seeing other PCVs. Plus these were people that I looked up to when I first arrived. I can't wait to see everyone stateside!

I'm back in Thies as of yesterday and had a really busy day today. Kerry and I met this morning about Junior Achievement and this afternoon I went to see Mme. Ly. I'm starting to work with Mme. Ly on some product development. She's seems really open to all of my suggestions which is exciting. We'll see how things progress.

New pictures are up of recent events. And I'd like to say HAIL TO THE VICTORS!

Lately

2011-03-14T18:51:00.005Z

With all of the power outages (or more accurately, small windows of electricity), I haven't been able to post. One hour of power between 3 and 4am is not prime "posting" time even though I did wake up since I forgot to flip my light switch into the off position.

Here are some pictures of what's been going on...

The Fall 2009 Stage Girls at the beach at Popenguine before the Murder Mystery Party

My sept-place being pushed out of the sand during my epic four hour trip to Dakar.

All the boys thoroughly enjoying the water rocket!

Although I haven't been posting, I have been busy. The new Health/ Environmental Education volunteers arrived last Wednesday, which officially makes me a senior! Hooray! While I'm not going to play an integral role in their training since I don't know anything about Health or the Environment, I've been busy with them the past couple of days going over Muslim culture in Senegal and taking the new trainees on their first walk through Thies. These two events take place before they go to the village for the first time (they are on their way to the vil right now!) so no one has any idea what to expect and there aren't too many questions because of that fact. There was one girl in my walk around group who told me she was completely overwhelmed. I really tried to calm her and tell her about my experience. If you had polled my stage 18 months ago, 0 people would have thought that I would still be here... including me! The terrible part about PST is that you have incomplete information. You never know anything and you wont have full information until install. There's just no getting around how much PST sucks.

Today was another busy day. This morning Emily, Clare, and I journey out to an agricultural university on the outskirts of Thies. It was a reconnaissance mission for this year's girls camp. Moving to Thies would make all of the logistics for the camp much easier, especially since Katherine will no longer be in Bambay and a brand new PCV will be in her place. The Director of Education was very nice and spoke great English. He even had someone take us on a tour of the grounds, but we came up against an obvious problem. We were at an agricultural school and we want to have the camp during the rainy season. School will still be in session. It was definitely a strike out, but the Director gave us some good leads and we're on the case.

This afternoon I went to visit Mme Ly. I spent the entire afternoon with her and we talked about potentially having another expo during the annual Jazz Fest which is held in St. Louis. She has a bunch of problems with the idea since she's had bad experiences in the past so I need to do a lot more research on the event and speak with the coordinator in St. Louis. We'll see what happens. Even if Mme. Ly doesn't go there are several other artisans who are very interested.

Tomorrow I'm off to Dakar for a couple of days to say goodbye. Oliver and Ankith are leaving! I can't believe it and am already dreading the goodbyes although I'm ready to get out of Thies again!

Some Electricity and Packages

2011-03-10T19:47:00.002Z

There are some days when it's unbelievable difficult to motivate yourself. Today was one of those days. I had no problem getting up or going for a run, but I could not force myself to leave my compound this morning. I actually had electricity for a while this morning so I had to plug in everything and catch up on news which greatly decreased any slight motivation that I may have had to leave. And, even though I had a good day yesterday and nothing bad happened, I knew that I couldn't face someone being mean on the street. It seems like the name calling and general not nice-ness on the street has increased since WAIST and today I knew I couldn't handle it and needed a break so I took one and streamed NPR while reading People.com... aka living the good life.

The news that I wasn't leaving this morning spread quickly even though I didn't tell anyone. 10am is usually the absolute latest that I ever leave my house so at 10:01am Jeenaba promptly knocked on my door and handed me Abdou who was sleeping so I was a little confused why she just didn't lay him on a bed somewhere, but we listened to NPR together in peace. I was also asked to make change several times, find a mango from the tree to make mango sauce (I'm apparently a competent mango peeler), and went to the boutique to buy soap for Jeenaba. The blissful period of time with power lasted almost two hours before it cut for the next eight, but I got a lot done even with Abdou in tow.

After lunch everyone took naps because there was no power and I decided to actually leave the house (the hottest part of the day means there's less people on the street), and run some errands. The plan was to build confidence with easy transactions at the post office and paying my internet bill and then working up to Madame Ly. I successfully paid my bill, but was waylaid at the post office because I had three packages!!!

SHOUT OUTS:

Shirley - Thank you for more amazing letters. I got two today!

McKeown Family - Thank you so much for everything! I did not know that there are varieties of Trader Joe's trail mix that I have yet to love, but apparently there are and I'm currently trying to decide which one to open and devour. All of the magazines are great. I've been reading everything in sight since I never have electricity anymore. I'm seeing a bunch of friends tomorrow and a couple have already made New Yorker requests. The water rocket is currently hidden in my room, but Ahmed is going to LOVE it when I bring it out this weekend! Thank you so much!

Aunt Lu, Uncle Scott, Ana, and Kyle - Thank you for the package! It's great. I seriously needed another pair of pajamas! I was wearing shredded boxers that were too inappropriate to live my room in! The Clif Bars, hundred calorie packs, jelly beans, and Fig Newtons all look delicious! And I've already started reading the People year in review - you really know the way to my heart! Thanks!

Mom and Dad - Thank you so much for another great package. I ate my last homemade apple sauce this morning and shed a silent tear so I'm happy I have a couple more for a rough day ahead. The salty snacks stash may or may not be already significantly depleted and the InStyle will be looked over many, many times! Thanks!

While I never did make it to see Madame Ly (carrying all of the packages there would have been impossible), I did sit around with my post office friends for a couple of hours which is always nice.

Back at the house I've come to a very important decision: I think Awa is pregnant. I'm making a public announcement since it was highly embarrassing that I realized Jeenaba was pregnant at 7.5 months. Awa (Ziabata's wife) has a ridiculous body that I envy. She's totally ripped, but still slender and has washboard abs. Last night while she was cooking I noticed she had a tummy and then today she was wearing a pretty tight outfit and I saw a bump. Reconnaissance will take place until I know for sure!

Lesson 1

2011-03-09T17:19:00.002Z

Bright and early this morning I took a deliciously hot shower at the regional house in Dakar and Katherine and I headed off to the garage and back to site. Usually poor Katherine has to sit and wait for her car to fill up as Diourbel is a far less common destination than Thies. Today, Katherine was one of the last people in the car while I was one of the first so I watched her drive away as I started to have a panic attack that I wasn't going to make it back to Thies in time for Junior Achievement. Soon enough my car filled up and started rolling which meant I promptly fell asleep (Matt can attest to my horrible road-trip companion capabilities) and could not longer worry about making it to class. The traffic nightmare I experienced yesterday had a lot to do with entering Dakar. Leaving Dakar is easy and we were back in Thies in little more than an hour, which left me enough time to power nap, talk to Tamar, inhale a Clifbar and grab all of the supplies for JA before heading over to Kerry's house.

We strategized a little bit before going over to Lycee Technique to set up. Mr. Badiane, the teacher in charge of helping us, let us into the room and we rearranged the tables and chairs, taped up pieces of paper to write on, and made small talk with some of the teachers before the students arrived - very, very, late.

The lesson went mostly as planned. Kerry did the majority of the direct teaching and I did the icebreaker and went around to each group that needed help. Every time I do an icebreaker I'm shocked by how much people enjoy them. The first one I always do with a group in Senegal is to name their favorite local dish since food is so important here. Everyone always gets a kick out of the fact that I know all of the different plates and that I have an opinion about each and every one as well.

After introductions, we had the 8 teachers who are helping us break the students up into groups. We had discussed how the groups should be split by field of study, but that didn't happen. The groups are composed of random groups of students and one professor, but by the end of the class they had come up with some pretty good business ideas like solar ovens and a high quality print shop. The goal is to teach the professors at the Lycee Technique the JA method of teaching: "Learning by Doing." Therefore, Kerry and I don't talk too much and we rely heavily on the professors to explain concepts to their groups and get them talking. I think today went pretty well. There are definitely some amazing and engaging teachers in the group and then some others who need a little more help. Hopefully as both teachers and students start to get a better grasp on Junior Achievement and "Learning by Doing," they will start to become more interested in the class!

Pictures of recent events should be up soon. I never have electricity at my house and I'm out right now, but don't have my camera!

"Shortcuts" and Backseat Driving

2011-03-08T15:54:00.005Z

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

Last night I decided to make a quick and easy day trip into Dakar to take care of a few things. I obviously forgot that "quick" and "easy" are not adjectives that can be used in conjunction with Senegal. There was a 12pm meeting that I wanted to attend so I was at the garage in Thies by 8am. The trip to Dakar usually takes me between 1.5-2 hours so the fours hours I allotted should have been plenty. "Should have," being the operative words.

I absolutely refuse to believe that there are shortcuts in the country of Senegal. The word alone scares me to death because it usually means dirt tracks (read: sand traps) and myriad other terrible possibilities. There was a lot of traffic on the road to Dakar; I will give the driver that. His decision making is what really made the ride excruciating/ long/ unbelievably frustrating. Quite often sept-place drivers will take side roads around Rufisque (a suburb of Dakar often referred to by PCVs as our own personal hell) so as to circumnavigate the traffic on the two lane national highway. I'm not sure that these routes are ever faster, but sometimes they do make you feel good since you're actually moving instead of sitting in a standstill.

We took our first off the national highway excursion well East (toward Thies) of Rufisque. I knew I was in trouble. My sept-place somehow ran over a giant rock and rear-ended another vehicle at the same time. I was actually quite impressed with this feat and that the car was still operational once we restarted it several times and a couple of boys in the road gave us a nice push. At this point I was getting a little irritated especially since I was sitting in the back middle seat (the absolute worst seat in the car) and my derrière was falling asleep. We jump back onto the national highway and I'm placated until we vere off again. I can't stop myself from becoming a backseat driver. After everyone in the car comments on my ability to speak Wolof and that what I'm saying (stay on the freaking national highway) is actually good advice, the other passengers join me in my rant against the driver. Unfortunately he doesn't head our warnings not to drive into a giant sand box so we get stuck.

The tires of the car are literally covered in sand up to the bottom of the car. The driver spins and spins the tires as I text Katherine to tell her there's no way I'm going to make it. The texts may or may not have also been laced with profanities. We all pile out of the car to survey the damage. Fortunately, there are some construction workers nearby who start trying to shovel the car out of the sand. About half and hour later and with the help of 20 little kids playing nearby we are able to push the car out of the sand and onto "firm" ground.

I'm really grouchy by this point and tell the driver that he should take the path directly in-front of us back to the national highway. I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, but I couldn't and he obviously didn't take my advice. Instead, we drove a little ways and then turned down a path where we found our car 20th in line to get back on the national highway. The best part? There was no intersection so we had to drive East back toward Thies until we found a round-about where we could turn back West toward Dakar. A Gendarme (type of police officer) was guiding the traffic (other people who had try to game the system by taking back roads) and let one car go every 5 or so minutes. I was exceedingly frustrated. Fortunately, after we made it back to the national highway we stayed there and eventually made it to Dakar... FOUR hours after I had left Thies.

Arriving at the office calmed my nerves. My meeting had been postponed so I made it and I got to see a bunch of my friends and a couple of PCVs who are leaving too soon. The usual peer pressure to stay in Dakar ensued and I caved. Although I had wanted to return to site before dinner, the lure of friends, buy one get one free pizza, and happy hour was too much. I ended up staying the night to hang out with my friends that are leaving next week and to placate Katherine who was giving me grief!

Crazy Dayz

2011-03-08T15:11:00.004Z

Monday, March 7th, 2011

This past weekend was the fabled/ much talked about Murder Myserty party. Since watching the movie Clue during the girls' camp last summer, we have been obsessed by the idea. Originally the plan was to use an already developed game called "Murder On the Gambia River," because the context is so fitting. Unfortunately, that game only called for 8-10 players and since my friends and I find it impossible not to talk about all of our ideas all of the time and at length, everyone knew about the party and everyone wanted to come. Katherine took on the task of writing our very own Murder Mystery party concept entitled "Murder Bus," named in honor/ fear of the Senegalese transportation system.

Katherine put in a ton of work on writing everyone's parts for the party as well as keeping track of attendence and we forced the first year SED girls to make dinner for everyone (it used to my our job), so I got to have a LOT of fun. I played the part of a drianke, which is an older, single, wealthy woman. I played the part well and mixed a little bit of Madame Ly into the character. Jackie just so happened to be a diskette aka a promiscuous tweenage girl (she sported pink pants with rhinestones), Tamar was the murder victim, Emily was a bayefall (a sort of religious begger), and the rest of our friends were other stereo-typical Senegalese personalities. To say that everyone's customes were hilarous would be a gross understatement. Pictures will be up soon.

The party came at the perfect time for me. Senegal and I were not getting along well last week and I really needed to get out of Thies. The Murder Mystery party at the beach was just the ticket to the sanity that I needed. Apart from being utterly exhausted from a one day party, my mental state was much better and I was ready to work this morning. Dioss who usually loves to sleep in and finds my preferred meeting time of 10am abhorrent called me at 8:30 and said he really wanted to meet with me. I trekked over to his house where he told me that he wanted me to take pictures of his new paintings with the new camera he bought. He supposedly doesn't know how to use a brand new point and shoot camera, but I really think he wanted me to sit there and take bunch of pictures while he talked on his phone. The taking pictures part was fine. The not fun part was realizing that Dioss has a pirated version of Windows which doesn't have the capability to create Zip files. Therefore, I sat at his computer for about an hour attaching pictures to emails to send to one of his friends who is making him a personal website. In case you haven't noticed, Dioss is obsessed with websites.

I was rewarded for my efforts by an amazing concert. One of Dioss' friends is a fantastic guitar player and singer and sang for a group of us all morning. It was so relaxing and nice. I had to pull myself away from the music in order to make it home for lunch. Dioss' friend played a bunch of Eric Clapton which was great except for the fact that he sang along and knew approximately 3% of the correct words. Still a completely enjoyable and very memorable morning.

My afternoon started out with a trip to a boutique to help out Erin. The sole village volunteer in the Dakar region didn't have any credit on her phone so I sent her some. In Senegal, we use pre-paid credit to make phone calls. People on the side of the street, stores, boutiques, and practically everywhere/ everyone else sells cards of credit. The cards have a scratch off number (like you see on lotto cards) and you enter that number into your phone to put more time on the phone. You can also send credit to other people and that's what I wanted to do for Erin. Usually people send 25 or 50 or maybe 100 CFA of credit to someone. I wanted to send Erin 2500 CFA. This was such a ridiculous idea to the people in the boutique that they wouldn't let me do it. They wanted me to buy a card of credit, which would not help Erin at all. I'm realizing as I'm typing this that is probably doesn't make sense or seem frustrating, but it was.

Confirming with Erin to make sure she got the credit, I left the boutique and headed off to see Madame Ly. I gave her the minutes/ rules and regulations from the artisan meeting a couple of weeks ago. She seems to be really interested in the artisan association still, which is good, but I feel like there's still a little bit of awkwardness between us because of the whole thing with her dying aunt and not being able to attend the meeting. I'm sure this will all pass. I've been busy with Junior Achivement and other things so I haven't had as much time to spend with her lately. I'm hoping to change that later this week and start discussing the next Expo with her. We did talk about creating business cards for her business which she seems very excited about so hopefully that will sooth any lingering whatevers.

Kerry came to meet me at Madame Ly's stand because we needed to do all of our shopping for Junior Achievement. We went to the usually supply store. They know me quite well from all of my girls' camp purchases so the shopping trip was quick. I then hung out with Kerry at his house listening to stories, drinking a beer, and eating Pringles. After that I went home to sit in the dark with my family and watch Ahmed through a huge tantrum.

JA Overload

2011-03-03T18:48:00.004Z

The power is out again, but I spent the day with Kerry working on Junior Achievement. We did a TON of work today! We started on planning the Junior Achievement sessions for the upcoming PST in June and we did the second lesson plan for our class at the Lycee Technique. The lesson planning while tedious is fairly interesting. I can definitely see how last year I was presenting about being an entrepreneur while Kerry is helping me actually teach. Or rather he will be the majority of the teaching while I'm the ideas man and cultural interpreter in the background. We are definitely making progress so next Wednesday when we actually teach our first class.

When I went home for lunch my entire family was sitting outside hanging out since we didn't have power. The main entertainment was watching Khady wash her feet/ give herself a pedicure. Seriously. It was the talk of the family circle. She was scraping her feet with a straight razor blade, which was sending shivers down the spines of all the boys in the family. Everyone then watched as Khady gave Abdou a bath, which was adorable. There are more pictures in the WAIST album.

This afternoon I met up with Kerry again at Pamanda's to finish up our lesson plan. We are trying to be at least one lesson in advance so we can show the lesson plan to the teachers before we do the session. I also talked with my Aunt's class back in Michigan.

I'm about to pack up and go home to sit in the dark with my family. Hopefully the power will come back at some point. Water would be amazing too!

Also, this is my 400th post! Go me!

Blackout

2011-03-02T21:42:00.003Z

The blackout has finally ended. I know I shouldn't complain about power since a lot of PCVs don't have electricity at site, but my quartier here in Thies didn't have power for the last 37 hours and it was driving me mad. Mainly because it was driving my family mad, who then started arguing with each other and no electricity definitely means no water and that's just depressing. The second the power came back everyone scurried to plug in phones and watch Wolof soap operas on television.

Today is a good day not only because the power came back (at least for a little bit hopefully!), but also because it's day three of the bad amoeba meds. I hope that when I start the second drug tomorrow the nausea and exhaustion that's I've had with this first pill go away. This odd state did not make my Junior Achievement meeting fun this morning.

Kerry and I met at his house this morning to go over what we wanted to accomplish at today's meeting. The goal was to set dates for the classes since getting ten weeks in before the new SED stage arrives in June is going to be a challenge with Spring/ East Break and other various holidays that are crammed into the schedule. We also wanted a estimate for the number of students who would be attending as well as teachers and feed back on the lesson plan that Kerry made. I think we were both surprised when a ton of students, not just teachers, attended the meeting. Obviously the meeting was all kinds of chaos since maintenance workers refused to leave the room while we were meeting and kept dropping things. It was hard to hear, hot as hell, and I was becoming delusional with hunger.

I think we got most of the information we needed. The teachers seemed much more interested after they got to see a lesson plan and we further outlined their roles as overseers of student teams. I'm not so sure what the students thought about JA since they were having problems hearing and understanding Kerry and I over the din of the maintenance workers. We were having problems understanding them as well. The first class is set for next Wednesday so we'll see how many people actually show up and how it goes. Regardless, I'm learning a lot from Kerry about teaching and lesson planning neither of which I'm particularly good at!

The rest of the afternoon I spent at Les Delices filling my stomach with food that was not ceebu jenn and trying to get some computer work done at a place with a generator. I know that my quartier is abnormally bad with power and water, but it does seem to be a Thies wide problem since Massa Massa didn't have water when I was there yesterday with Leslie and all of the restaurants were running generators today.

Rookie Mistakes

2011-03-02T15:13:00.002Z

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

This morning I made a rookie mistake. Today is the first of the month, which means that bank lines are giant because everyone is trying to withdraw from their new paychecks. Yesterday I spent all of my money on amoeba medication to so I had no choice but to wait in a exasperatingly long line and text Tamar every minute or so with my progress. I was the 23rd person in line and it took close to an hour an a half for me to get to the ATM. I have no idea what people are doing in there. Checking balances? Using multiple cards? Enjoying the air conditioning? It is amazing how long it takes people to withdraw cash.

Cash money in hand I walked over to the post office. The first of the month apparently brings chaos to my friends with the mail as well, but it also brings packages!!! SHOUT OUTS:

Shirley - Thank you so much for another great letter! I hope your knitting is going better and I can't wait to try one of your California rolls when I come home!

Lynn - You're package was out of this world. I absolutely cannot wait to make Matzo ball soup! Tamar and I are planning on going to Dakar for Passover, but one can never have enough Matzo ball soup so I'll definitely be making a homemade and delicious batch myself! I'm also really excited about the St. Patrick's Day cookies because we have to say goodbye to some of our third year PCV friends that day. Green cookies will be an amazing send off. While I was opening your package, Ahmed walked in on me and saw the Power Ranger band-aids. Lets just say that the supply is now depleted. Unfortunately, my camera was dead and we didn't have power so there's no photographic evidence! Thanks again for everything!

Matt - Onion rings in a bag: you really know the way to my heart! I'm already eating my way through the dried fruit. I doubt it will last another 23 days! And your card was AMAZING. I loved it. Thanks!

After the post office and after an almost too late lunch at home, I rushed to Massa Massa to meet Leslie, the American woman who exported some of Dioss' cards last fall. She's back in Senegal making the rounds of her suppliers and she needed a translator to help her at the artisanal village. There, we went over her latest shipments, problems (trying to explain "mold" when you don't know the word is extremely difficult by the way), future orders, and samples. The majority of what she buys from the artisanal village are leather bags with batick (tie dye) designs. It was fairly exhausting, but also pretty interesting to see how Leslie goes through the design process with the producer and how she remains objective for her niche market clients. The artisanal village was followed up with some delicious lasagna at Massa Massa - so much better than what my family served for dinner!

Back at home we are still without electricity (going on 14 hours) so I sat around, in the dark, with my host family. I don't like having a ton of cash on me here so I wrote up the usual receipt and went to give my mom the money. This is totally normal and we have it down to a science. I've never thought about when I give it to her or anything like that so I was surprised when she pushed me back into my room when I came to give her the money. Once in the safety/ pitch blackness of my room she told me that she didn't want my host dad to see our transaction. This blew my mind. I always gave the money to my mom because she's the one who is around and because women usually use money for food, schooling, and other necessities while men might use the money for other goods (obviously a generalization). What I realized was, the money I give my family for food and rent is my mom's and Khady's play money! She didn't want my dad to see the extra cash she has on the side. Classic.

Amoebas

2011-02-28T20:16:00.002Z

The verdict is in! I have amoebas.

The Good News: I didn't miss out of the biggest/ greatest party of the year for nothing; I had amoebas.
The Bad News: I have amoebas.

Disclaimer: This post contains TMI (too much information) and is not for the faint of heart.

Today, I learned that I joined a very illustrious club of PCVs: PCVs who had/ have amoebas. Katherine and Jackie welcomed me into their ranks with open arms. I actually found out when the Peace Corps medical officer called me to tell me that my stool sample was back from the lab and that amoebas were present, but let's rewind to the beginning of the saga...

The night of the Oceanium party (aka the best night of WAIST) I started to get really cold while I had a fever, my entire body was so sore I couldn't move, and I had gastro issues galore. I had to leave the party and by the time I told Jackie, Katherine, and Tamar about my health issues the next morning Jackie and Katherine thought it was amoebas. Discussions about bodily functions and illness is where the line between normal human beings and Peace Corps Volunteers is drawn. A lot of my friends realized that I had to leave the party and started calling me the next morning and offering condolences, advice, and their own diagnosis. After telling each person my symptoms, they replied with their symptoms when they had amoebas. "Does it feel like a hot poker is going from your back through our uterus?" is how one kind friend put it.

After talking explicitly about my symptoms to half of Peace Corps Senegal, I decided that I had amoebas and started the hunt for a MIF kit. A MIF kit is a stool sample kit. Unfortunately, it was Presidents' Day so the PC office was closed therefore, I decided to call people I knew were staying at the regional house. Let's just say Richard was confused and amused when I accidentally woke him up and sent him on a search of a MIF kit around the house. Exactly the way one wants to ease the pain of a hangover. There were no MIF kits at the regional house so I had to pick one up at the office the next day and then take the test in Thies since I had to immediately return for the artisan formation.

What exactly is a MIF kit/ what does it entail? This may be the portion of the blog that you do not want to read...
A MIF kit is a plastic tube with a little scraper attached filled with a formaldehyde mixture. I wont go into graphic detail about what happens next, but it involves a piece of paper and a bathroom. The next step is one of the great things about Peace Corps. Now that I'm in Thies with a completed MIF kit, the test has to go back to Dakar. What to do? Ask another PCV to carry your MIF kit in a brown paper bag to Dakar for you! There's no sign of disgust, only sympathies for your current plight. Comradery at it's best.

Once the test makes it to Dakar all you have to do is wait until the medical office calls you to tell you that you have amoebas. The funny thing about amoebas is that they're cyclical. I felt terrible during WAIST and the artisan formation, but since then I've felt fine. This also means that they may not present in your MIF kit and that you have try several times before you catch them. I'm happy that I know I have amoebas and I've already started on the meds to obliterate the parasites from my system.

The drugs are intense to say the least. The first three days I have to take a set of four pills all at once. After the first three days, I have to take two pills twice a day for ten days. The best part about this is that the drug boxes are completely in Arabic and I have no idea what they say. The medicine also makes you feel like crap, which is icing on the cake. I don't feel nearly as bad as when the amoebas were having a party in my system, but I don't feel great. My friends had terrible reactions to the meds so I'm hoping my medium level nausea and fatigue are as bad as it gets.

That's the story of amoebas. I have no idea where I got them since they thrive in poorly prepared food and water. And as Tamar pointed out I also live in a barnyard which probably isn't helping the situation. The amoebas are under attack from all the meds I'm taking and I should be amoeba free in 13 days!

Haze

2011-02-27T20:55:00.006Z

The past couple of days have been a haze; literally and metaphorically. Since coming back to Thies after WAIST, Senegal has decided to b@#$h slap us across the face with the hot season. Last year I don't even remember the cold season - because it wasn't cold. I never needed a sweatshirt and never woke up freezing cold in the morning like I had been the past couple of weeks. Because it never got cold last year, I don't really remember a return to the norm aka oppressive heat. Let's just say that the cold season is over and there was no gentle reminder that the heat would return nor was there a daily increase in temperature each day. A flip was switched and a good 15 degrees were added to the daily heat index. In addition to the return of the heat is dust storms. From the Mauritanian PCVs and even the PCVs in northern Senegal we hear stories of sandstorms and having to stay in the house to wait out the swirling dust. Thies definitely isn't experiencing these types of storms, but the sky is hazy and absolutely everything is filthy. Just covered in dust. My bed, my desk, my floor, my fan...everything. It's gross. The heat and the dust are being exacerbated by this:

A picture of all of my family's empty water containers sitting sadly in the courtyard.

We haven't had water since I returned home from Dakar and it's getting really old really fast. This morning Jeenaba and Awa pulled water for hours and hours. They were both exhausted and I felt terrible for them since they still had to make lunch and dinner. I was not allowed to pull water because I'm useless for most things, but I did try and help by taking care of this little one for hours and hours.

Photo courtesy of Ahmed.

The metaphorical haze I'm experiencing is due to epic boredom. Boredom is sweeping the Thies region. With boredom comes restlessness, bitchiness, and hermit like tendencies. I know that the last one doesn't really make sense. When one is bored it does make sense to interact with the crazy family shouting in the courtyard outside one's window, but one can only take so much discussion about roasting peanuts or watching Senegalese sitcoms. I can no longer watch Senegalese television. The boredom is a manifestation of not having a lot planned for next week, an insanely low key weekend after the madness that was WAIST, and the feeling that I'm so close yet so, so, so far from completing my service. Fortunately, I have a lot of things to look forward to in March which is only 1 day away!

This last little anecdote is totally unrelated to "haze:"

Myself and other PCVs often find ourselves dumbfounded by what Senegalese people do not like. Take for instance no-bake cookies. No-bake cookies contain peanut butter, chocolate, butter, and sugar. Delicious. My family didn't like them although they like all of the ingredients. I always say that my problem with ceebu jenn isn't the ingredients; it's the frequency, which it is. But, I have discovered a dish, much like no-bake cookies, where I like all of the ingredients, but the preparation makes it almost unedible. Tonight I made macarroni with tomotatoes canned from my grandma's garden. Amazing. My family brought me nglach anyway. Nglach is millet (delicious) covered with a peanut butter, yogurt, chocolate sauce (should be delicious, but is not. I like all of those things, but they make a bad, bad, bad combination.

Sorry for the disjointed and hazy post. I hope I can get back on track this coming week and get things moving again!

Artisan Reseau

2011-02-23T20:35:00.004Z

Wednesday, February, 23rd 2011

The first Artisan Reseau meeting was held yesterday and today. After working furiously last week to make it happen, I began to have my doubts over WAIST weekend and they all came to fruition yesterday. Only eight out of the confirmed thirteen artisans showed up and several PCVs didn't attend either. Mamadou the wood carver from Diourbel who I had so much faith in, he came to the mini expo a couple of weeks ago, and had so many ideas for the Reseau told me after WAIST, where he sold a bunch of stuff, that he was too tired to attend the training. He was the only one I knew going in had RSVPed and wasn't coming. There were a couple of women's groups that told me they were sending two representatives when it turned out to be just one, which I can't get too angry about, but there were also people who just didn't show up and then didn't answer their phones when I called them. The excuse of not understanding me over the phone doesn't apply because Madame Ly called each and every one of them.

Madame Ly didn't attend because one of her aunts is in poor health and today they were holding something which sounds like a pre-funeral ceremony for her. After 18 months in Senegal, there are still cultural things I can't fully understand and that still rankle me and this is one of them. When asked if one or if someone else is feeling better, Senegalese people always say "yes." Even if you just coughed up a lung, you're still feeling better. So, even though it shouldn't, it upsets me when I ask Madame Ly how her aunt is and she says she's getting better. I want to hear that she's on death's doorstep and Mme. Ly is so happy that she's there to be with her aunt. All of the artisans seemed to completely accept this reason for her absence, which is good.

Khady, Mme. Ly's daughter, was supposed to serve as her proxy at the meeting, but didn't. This sent me over the artisan edge and into a controlled rage. One thing to note is that the Ly family has more cell phones and more cell phone numbers than anyone/ any family I have ever met. I have a bazillion numbers for them in my phone and have no idea who they are actually attached to because everyone answers each other's phones. I called what I thought was Khady's number yesterday afternoon and got Madame Ly who told me that Khady was in Dakar. Interesting since I was told she left Dakar Monday night and it was Tuesday afternoon. Madame Ly assured me that she was en route an would be at the center soon. No dice. Nor did Khady call me. This morning when I called her she told me that her mom, aka Madame Ly, told her to come to her aunt's village. When I asked about her aunt the aunt was obviously feeling better. So frustrating.

Regardless, the meeting seemed to be a success. The artisans who came are obviously the ones who are enthusiastic and committed, which is great. Although, they did elected Madame Ly as president again so I'm not quite sure what that says. What I can say is that the women from Kebemer are freaking awesome and I wish that I could work with them even though they don't have a PCV to work with anymore and don't need one. They are amazing and so on top of things. Did I mention that they also showed up dripping in over-sized jewelry? Need I say more? I think it's obvious why I am in love. They pretty much ran the show and told the men at the meeting, who were trying to take control, how it was going to be which I appreciated since the men wanted an artisan I'm not a big fan of to be the president.

I will label the artisan meeting a success for now. We accomplished our goals of electing an executive board and coming up with a constitution of sorts for the association. The artisans also thought the meeting was a huge success and thanked all of us PCVs profusely afterwards, which was extremely nice considering I only organized - Talla did all of the work with them and the teaching during the formation. The next test will be to see what happens in the next three months until we have our second meeting. Will the secretary actually call the other artisans to tell them what happened at the meeting? Will artisans pay their dues?

WAIST II

2011-02-22T19:27:00.004Z

The West African Invitational Softball Tournament is an epic event to say the very least. Not only do I get to see my Peace Corps friends from other regions who I only get to see a couple of times a year, but I get to meet PCVs from other countries including Niger (ok, they were actually refugees who had to leave Niger and come to Senegal to be volunteers), Mali, The Gambia, and Cape Verde (where I just happen to be going on vacation in a couple of months!). WAIST features plethora of events, including softball - it's actual purpose.

The festivities kicked off Friday night after I arrived in Dakar from a catastrophe of a JA meeting (to be detailed at a later time). The night quickly got off to an amazing start because we unveiled our Thiest Region t-shirts. Now, what is the Thiest Region you may ask? Way back in 2009 when I first installed into my site, myself, Jackie, and Katherine received the nickname "Thiest Girls" because we are all short, brunette, live in the THIES region, and are fairly well endowed. It actually took us the better part of a year to discover our nickname, but after that we ran with it. Let me give a better explanation. I live in a city named Thies, which is pronounced "Chess," like the game. When you add a "T" to the end of it... I'll let you put that together. To make the situation more hilarious there are ZERO boys in the Thies sub-region. There are 7 girls from my stage and another 6 girls from the new Ag/ SED stage. Therefore, when I was in American I took the initiative to create grey shirts with pink lettering across the chest region. We also gave one to Oliver who is an honorary member of the Thiest gang and who coined the nickname. Disclaimer: If you don't find this as hilarious as I do, please do not tell me and spoil the fun. Other than unveiling our Thiest Region t-shirts Friday night we also attended a PCV talent show complete with photo contest and made the rounds of downtown Dakar.

Bright and early Saturday morning we were up and making a delicious breakfast while putting on our team outfits for the first time. Lederhosen ended up being a smash hit. The hats I brought back from America really set the entire ensembles off, if I do say so myself. Other key attributes of our lederhosen costumes were that they were absolutely unflattering on every single team member, plastic beer steins, and facial hair grown by the infamous Brian. The thing that really set us apart was that all of our costumes were uniform. Huge shout out to Katherine who had her tailor make the outfits for our entire team. While the Kaolack ballerinas and the Tambagou Cops and Robbers were hilarious and well done, no one had the uniformity that Dakar had and that really pulled us together and took the breath out of our competition when we took the field. Not that we needed to intimidate our opponents since we had no intention of winning since winning meant waking up early in the morning to play more softball.

Softball at WAIST takes two different forms: serious and ridiculous. Fortunately there are two brackets: serious and ridiculous or normal people and PCVs, however you want to look at it. The serious teams are Embassy workers, really, really, really good Senegalese teams, and Little Leaguers. The ridiculous teams are made up of Peace Corps teams who wear lederhosen, make people play leap from first to second base, and have people bat on piggyback, while reveling in being in Dakar, having fun, and getting a little rowdy. The Peace Corps teams also bring joy to the crowds with our fabulous costumes.

Saturday night after softball was another good night at the Marine house for Tamar and I who attended the SeneGAD (Senegal Gender and Development) date auction. The SeneGAD date auction, raises money for gender and development work by auctioning off male PCVs along with gift certificates to Dakar restaurants. This year's hot commodity was my lovely sitemate Emily since none of the Dakar boys would step up. She dressed up as a man and pulled it off spectacularly so we can all have a little bit more money for gender and development projects. Sunday softball was also fun, but we left the field after our games to nap because Sunday night is the all night party at the Oceanium club on the water. I was so excited and all ready to go and that's obviously when disaster struck...

On the cab ride to the club I started feeling car sick, but thought I was just car sick. Things started to take a serious turn for the not good once we arrived and I started shivering uncontrollably while my fever skyrocketed. I had to go home where I proceeded to get pretty sick. Within the next week I should know what's up, but other PCVs are diagnosing me with amoebas. I will go into way too much detail about how one acquires amoebas, how one discovers they have amoebas, and how one gets rid of amoebas if I do have them raging around my body. Just an FYI, that post will not be for the faint of heart. Anyway, I'm back at home alternating between the bathroom and shivering under five blankets when Katherine arrives back at home in the wee hours of the morning. I'm fairly delirious and cringing in pain, but when she asks me "did you kill that scorpion," I instantly regained my sanity/ ability to move - and quickly. The conversation:

Katherine: Hey, did you kill that scorpion on the stairs?
Alyss: What scorpion?
Katherine: The dead scorpion on the stairs.
Alyssa: What? No. I just went to the bathroom 30 seconds ago (this was a trend that night) and didn't see a scorpion... it's alive!!!
Katherine: No it's not; it doesn't have one of it's pincers.

We both approach the scorpion with plastic sandals bought for less than one dollar at a Senegalese boutique. Katherine throws a sandal at the scorpion and it scampers across the landing. Not dead.

Katherine/ Alyssa: Screems.

We then alternate smashing the crap out of the scorpion with the plastic sandals. I then use the two sandals to chop stick the dead/ mutilated scorpion and throw it into the toilet. After the scorpion is safely flushed away, Katherine convinces herself that she has been stung on her foot by the scorpion although she has no mark nor does she have massive pain in her foot. While she continues to google and worry, I fall back into my fitful amoeba coma...

Monday morning we all wake up worse for the wear and must sleep for most of the day before heading back to the American Club (the site of all of the softball games and a favorite PC Senegal hang out site) for one last pool party/ bbq. I'm still struggling with illness, but I totally rallied and stayed out the whole night although I was shivering and wrapped up in a long sleeve shirt, jeans and a scarf.

WAIST II was fantastic. Definitely better the second time around. Unfortunately, I had to leave Dakar this morning to head back for Thies and an artisan formation, which is much less exciting.

The latest pictures are up in the WAIST II album. Click on the picture of Jackie eating pie to see all of the pictures as it seems that this album refuses to scroll like the others.

Insanity

2011-02-17T21:45:00.002Z

The last few days have featured me cancelling, rescheduling, and then reverting back to the orginal plan for the artisan formation next week. It involved quite a bit more running around than one would think.

Today I...

- Met Tamar at a random government office so she could renew her residency card.
- Went to the bank where I almost had a nervous breakdown due to incredible inefficiency and ineptitude (this was compounded by the fact that it took Tamar FOREVER to renew her papers).
- Ran back to the Peace Corps center to go back and forth about the artisan formation
- Made a trip out of Thies to Pout to pick up some very important things that Jackie had forgotten at home. Her family now thinks we're both crazy since her brother had to pick me up on the side of the road, walk me to her house, watch me rummage through her things, and then take me back to the main road. The best part of this interaction was her toddler aged host brother whose name just happens to be Ahmed. This is the conversation he had with his mom about me:

Ahmed: Jackie? (Looking quizzically at me)
Ahmed's Mom: No Ahmed, that's Jackie's friend.
Ahmed: Jackie!
Ahmed's Mom: No, that's Jackie's friend. It's not Jackie.
Ahmed: Toubab.
Ahmed's Mom: Yes, that is a toubab.
Ahmed: JACKIE!!!

He was really cute and can't tell the toubabs apart which makes him even cuter.

- Back in Thies I ran to see Madame Ly to confirm everything for selling at WAIST this weekend.
- Taxi back to my house where I packed my bags for WAIST. My bag weighs at least as much as I do mostly due to all of the delicious snacks that my mom has sent over for our gorging pleasure. But, this isn't my problem...
- Because then I took my bag back to Peace Corps so that Katherine and Tamar could take it to Dakar for me so that I can travel light/ quickly tomorrow since I have a JA meeting tomorrow morning.
- This was followed by breaking, but uninteresting news to all of you, Peace Corps news.

I did this while constantly talking and texting on my phone. Furthering my family's belief that I'm completely insane and there's just nothing they can do about it.

I'm really, really looking forward to WAIST. It's definitely going to be amazingly fun and I'm excited to see my friends who live in different regions. To get all of you excited I will reveal the Dakar region's theme: lederhosen. Yes, I brought hats from America from the entire team.

Gamou

2011-02-15T23:01:00.002Z

Today is the Prophet Muhammad's birthday which is called Mawlid throughout much of the Muslim world, but is called Gamou here in Senegal. Gamou is th big religious pilgrimage for Tidian followers. The religious center for Tidians is Tivaouane (my old training city), which is near Thies so the traffic has been insane and everyone is talking about making the pilgrimage. People inevitably ask me if I'm going to participate. I have myriad feelings about participating. Large crowds of very excited people are a little scary and I would be there mainly to observe and not to participate therefore, it's better that I stay at home.

People have been making their way to Tivaouane for several days, but today is the Prophet's birthday so it's the craziest day. Thies is, for some unknown reason, overrun with motorcycles. It's like Hells Angels descended on Thies. Odd. Most of my family identify with the Tidian teachings of Islam so have been talking about the holiday, but in their usual non-committal terms. They kidded with me about making the trip then told me that I was babysitting and then proclaimed that they were too tired to go at all. I left this morning and spent the day out and about so that I wouldn't be roped into going if they did decide to make the trip, which they actually did! I was surprised since Khady proclaimed this morning that she needed more beauty rest and would not be going.

I came home tonight around 10pm to a bolted front gate. Not cool. I was worried right away, but after pounding on the door for several minutes my mom came out and let me in. She was the only person at my house. Every other person including Ahmed and baby Abdou made the trek to Tivaouane and my dad apparently went to Dakar. My mom was really happy because she hates both big groups of people (aka the pilgrimage) and being alone. She was doubly happy when I told her that I had already showered at Peace Corps (we haven't had water in about a week and since everyone is gone no one pulled water, my mom had to pay another women to pull her bathing water). She asked me to sit in the living room while she bathed and then told me to go into my room so she could lock the door to the main house. Thanks mom. I feel the love.

Before telling me that she was going to bed and I was going to the bungalow, my mom did tell me that everyone was coming home tonight around 3am because they didn't want to stay in the "village." Only my delightfully elitist family would call Tivaouane a village. It's a city of 50,000 people and has drastically better utilities than Thies. Regardless, I will probably be woken up by two crying children, to angry mothers, and a heard of other family members at the wee hours of the morning upon their return. It's OK since all of the mosques are going at it 24/7 at maximum volume anyway.

If you're interested in learning more about Mawlid, Gamou, the Prophet Muhammad's birthday check out this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mawlid

If you're interested in coming to Senegal, but need Jon Stewart's enthusiastic endorsement check out this link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-31-2011/let-s-go-exile----hosni-mubarak?xrs=share_fb

A Junior Achievement update is coming tomorrow!

Art, Artisans, Apocalypse

2011-02-14T20:16:00.002Z

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours making Valentine's with Ahmed. I had planned to do it anyway since my mom had sent me a ton of supplies, but when Jeenaba knocked on my door and presented me with a crying five-year-old and then walked away, I didn't really have a choice. Ahmed was all about the Valentine's cards and quickly took command of any and all stickers that he could find in the crafts packets. The majority of the work fell to me because Ahmed is still terrified of making mistakes even with me. He wouldn't cut out construction paper hearts even after I had drawn an outline, but he was very impressed when I cut out a perfect heart after folding the paper in half (yes, that is the extent of my artistic abilities). I was instructed to cut a heart out for each person in our family and then Ahmed plastered stickers all over them, used an entire bottle of glue, most of which is on my porch, to attach doilies, and scribbled "names" in crayon. When Khady came to see what we were doing Ahmed shrieked and tried to hide all of the cards so they would be a surprise today, Valentine's Day.

Today when Ahmed got home from school the excitement was palatable. This was probably mostly my fault since I told him that I had candy to go with the cards. My mom put a hold on the cards until everyone got home for the day so I played "run," and hide and go seek with Ahmed. "Run," is a very involved game about running where Ahmed runs from one end of the courtyard to the other. The integral role that I play is that of counter. I count to three, five, or ten, depending on Ahmed's wishes, and then he runs. "Run," is the one place that I've actually been working on my goal of teaching Ahmed English and he can now count to ten in English, which is pretty cool.

Once everyone arrived back at home tonight the Valentine's were distributed and they are were a bid success. Everyone loved them and the candy that went all with them. Valentine's day is actually a big deal here in Senegal; all of the restaurants in town have special deals and delightfully tacky decorations on display. Of course I was given grief over not being in America with Valentine today, but no one else did anything either.

After missing Madame Ly at her jewelry stand on Saturday, my main goal of today was to check in with her and make sure that she had called all of the other artisans to confirm that they will be attending the training after WAIST. When I arrived Madame Ly was just setting everything out and she handed me a big stack of necklaces to arrange (which she later re-arranged), and then metaphorically slapped me with them. Madame Ly is not coming to the training next week. She's the president. And with that my day took a terrible turn for the worst and I was thrown into crisis mode over what to do. Apparently her aunt is dying and they are having what I'm going to call "a funeral when one's still alive" ceremony the two days of the training. She can still come to WAIST to sell things (Lynn, we've already arranged for a group of artisans to sell at WAIST!), but right after that she has to head to her aunt's village. I tried to see if I could call in another artisan to sell at WAIST so Madame Ly could go to her aunt's village and then make it back to Thies for the training. No such luck.

I panicked and sent texts to all of my friends and called Talla before a wise third-year PCV tried to put a positive spin on the situation. Khady, Mme. Ly's daughter, can be her proxy and we can use it as a teaching experience and an example of the VP's responsibilities. I really wanted to change the date of the training, but with availability at the center at a premium and almost all of the other artisans confirmed, we are sticking with the original date.

Artisan pandemonium continued to reign as I fielded a call from one of my friends who was at her breaking point because her artisans absolutely refuse to create any type of production timeline. Madame Ly also called two women from Tamar's women group, but the group president has no idea who these women are. But, we may have more artisans joining the group and I think almost everyone is confirmed. Or at least people told Madame Ly they were coming while I sat next to Madame Ly making sure she actually called everyone. We will see what happens!

We Are Family

2011-02-11T22:30:00.002Z

I've decided that the threshold has been met. When do you actually become family with people? When you could absolutely care less what they have to say and you can laugh about it together. During my delirious, congestion filled, cold days, I was feeling guilty about not spending enough time with my Senegalese family, but then I realized they are my family and therefore, I have spent enough time with these people and while I was sick what I really did need was to live in my bed reading about politics and watching Grey's Anatomy. I came to this conclusion over lunch today.

Returning to Senegal last month I felt refreshed and ready for the rest of my service in every respect except one: the food. I'm totally over pretending that I enjoy eating white rice covered in fish gravy. Force feeding myself to make my family feel good is no longer a concern of mine and my family has taken notice. Today at lunch Khady accused me of not liking ceeb (rice) and I look her square in the face and told her that no, I do not eat ceeb for lunch every single day. This brought up one of the most frustrating and recurring conversations of my service. Everyone in Senegal eats ceeb every day for lunch therefore, everyone in the United States eats pizza every day for lunch. You might remember that a few months ago I was ready to cut off my right hand for a Pizza Hut pizza (yes, I know it's gross), but there is nothing on this Earth that I could eat every day and not hate it after a year and a half.

I've attempted to explain that in the US I have a very varied diet and that I barely ever eat hamburgers and pizza no matter how valiantly my family attempts to convince me otherwise. My mom then accused me of wanting to eat pasta covered in fresh vegetables to which I responded that she was completely correct and that sounded delicious. This sent them all into a fit of how disgusting that sounded and sent my head spinning because I cannot wrap my head around the idea that they don't understand or at the very least acknowledge that we have different tastes. Therefore, it is possible for them to like ceeb every day while I don't and for me to like fresh vegetables which haven't been boiled in oil for hours when they do not.

While no mutual understanding was reached, I do feel we've moved into a new food era and time of honesty. I'm obviously not wasting away and they see that. They also eat snacks all the time so why can't I? They know I do. When I got up from the bowl to everyone telling me that I hadn't eaten enough I told everyone that I was going to make something in my room and left it at that. I didn't hurt their feelings and I no longer care when they try to get me to eat more and we can honestly tell each other how terrible we think each other's tastes are. If that's not family I don't know what is.

Speaking of forging deep, personal bonds with my family. Jeenaba and I became a little bit closer today. The power was out and I had been laying in my bed with my iPod and then decided I should go spend more time with my family. The main house was dead. I didn't hear any voices. I didn't see any flashlights/ the solar lanterns that have both become my family's instead of the one I gave them. I opened the door to the living room to lay on the couch and read a magazine with my cell phone flashlight and heard a scream. It was Jeenaba who was telling me that she was in the room. Jeenaba could obviously see me because I'm a glow in the dark toubab. I raised my flashlight to see her (I'll you put this one together for yourselves) and found naked Jeenaba. That was probably why she was screaming at me...

Hands On Mothering

2011-02-10T20:21:00.003Z

Thermometers, a mother touching her child's head are both familiar ways to gauge one's temperature. I've never heard of ripping someone's shirt open and putting their hand between your breasts, but Senegal is excellent at reminding me that there's a first time for everything. This first occurred for me last week at the mini Artisan Expo when I was too delusional and exhausted to really put together how awkward this experience was. When Madame Ly did this for the second time today I realized that it is a a little weird to have another woman's hand in between your breasts especially when you are standing on a busy street in a Senegalese market. The situation was only compounded by my toubaby-ness.

Madame Ly calls me her child and is the sweetest woman on Earth and if neither or only one of these things were true then I would be creeped out by this situation, but every day she has been calling me to make sure that I'm better or at least getting better. As soon as I walked up today she was in a tizzy because of my "rapid weight loss" which is totally untrue since I've been gorging on my recent packages and my "paler than usual skin," but it's been cold and cloudy! That's when her hand went in between my boobs and she proclaimed that I had a fever. I don't know if it was true, but she sat me down and proceeded to give me a nice head rub for the next hour so I can't really complain about it.

The entire situation was quite the spectacle. My hair was, I'm sure, beyond disheveled, Madame Ly had me mostly covered with her shawl, and told every and all passers-by that I was her sick child and don't we really look a like? While I was receiving a nice head rub in the middle of the market next to a mountain of Madame Ly's jewelry I was also privy to a discussion between Madame Ly and the old man selling newspapers next to her about "the clothes kids wear these days." This discussion was really the icing on the cake. Hearing them ranting about boys wearing tight red jeans was just too much especially when I was told not to laugh because it was causing wrinkles on my forehead which Madame Ly was holding and pressing to extract my sickness. When she was done she took all of my "sickness" that was now held in her hands and put it into the ground. Now, I don't believe this will work nor do I feel better, but I sure hope Madame Ly knows something because I'm still hacking up a lung.

After getting a fantastic head rub/ sickness banishing procedure, Madame Ly and I did get down to business. It looks like we are going to have a meeting/ training for all of the artisans at the Peace Corps center in Thies the two days after WAIST. I'm really excited a bout this because I think the artisans will be excited about it and I'm interested to see if people other than Madame Ly will step up and take responsibility. It would be amazing if a real group forms and they can start organizing expos themselves and collaborating more. Madame Ly is going to call the artisans in the next couple of days to tell everyone about the formation and I'm going to email all of the PCVs to make sure we have our bases covered. I also got to see Baye's, Dioss' brother, cards. He's finally taken a hint from all of Dioss' success with his cards and made cards of his own which are really cool. There are a bunch of pictures on my blog if you want to take a look.

Progress and Standstill

2011-02-09T21:26:00.003Z

After spending all morning in my bed reading, I'm still exhausted from my stupid cold and at the same time highly unmotivated, I gathered all of my strength and my patience for a Junior Achievement meeting. I didn't have to gather all that much strength since Talla picked me up at my house in a Peace Corps car, but nonetheless I did have to make an effort to shower and I find one of the teachers we have to work with incredibly taxing. Talla never ceases to amaze me. For one he rolled down his window approximately 15 times on the 10 minute drive from my house to the Lycee Technique. I swear the man knows every single person in this country. Talla is also able to talk around every problem and make everyone feel like their idea/ position has won the day even if it has not. I know that part of what makes him so valuable to us SED PCVs is not something that would be called a skill: he's Senegalese and therefore he speaks French and Wolof and understands cultural nuances while I bumble about like a 1.5 year old child. But, Talla is also a great salesman and he really helped Kerry and I out today by smoothing our path to eventual JA classes and getting the Lycee Technique teachers on board with the program we want to put in place.

The plan is to hold JA classes for students and teachers at the same time so both groups are participating in JA's "Learning by Doing," philosophy. The hold up was that the teachers previously wanted their own training so they could critique the program, but we are hoping to do everything at once. The teachers and students leave the JA curriculum together and make suggestions so we can tailor JA to Senegalese students. Kerry and I are presenting the idea to interested teachers next week so we'll see what happens. Unfortunately, Talla wont be there to back us up, but I hope that everyone is on the same page now.

Post JA meeting, I met up with a bunch of other volunteers who were in Thies for various reasons. We all had lunch together at Pamanda's. It was fun to see people and eat salad and hummus. Everyone is getting incredibly excited about WAIST - the softball tournament that I wrote about last year - and we are all convinced that are costumes are going to be the best, which they are.

I left Pamanda's reluctantly because Erin and Emily were still there, but I was exhausted and needed a nap. All I want to do is rest and read and have alone time and it makes me feel incredibly guilty when I do that at home. Usually PCVs hit the year mark and the guilt of hanging out with the Senegalese family slowly fades as the volunteer hits his/ her stride and confidence grows, but I still feel badly when I'm home and don't hang out with the fam. Lately, and I know I've been sick, but I've been mentally willing myself to participate/ sit in silence with my family, but I can't do it. My body refuses to leave my room to sit in another room. My family has totally backed off and understands that I'm a weird American who can read in my room for hours by myself and actually have an enjoyable time, but I still have the guilt. Living with a family who is and is not yours at the same time is very difficult. The sense of responsibility and of not belonging pulls both ways. Hopefully once my body stops hating me my mind will quiet as well.

THE Website

2011-02-08T20:22:00.003Z

Staying up until 4am to watch the Super Bowl while you have a cold is not a good idea. I was an absolute waste of life today. After sleeping in and procrastinating doing anything by reading the New York Times, it took me close to 5 hours to clean my room just because I could only pick up one thing before sitting down to blankly stare at something. Therefore, between 8am and 2pm I did nothing other than organize and clean my room.

It took every ounce of my energy and telling myself that I was lazy in order to leave my compound today and head off to Dioss' after lunch. I needed to give Dioss money from the Expo last week and I hadn't seen him in a while so I just needed to go and visit. None of the boy posse was around so we sat and chatted for a while. He's been very busy lately as well with the French NGO coming and supposedly sending the infamous magazine off to the printer. Dioss is very excited because the people from the French NGO were able to launch a website for AdapThies, the artist association in Thies of which Dioss is president. This is the link: www.art2thies.com The site is in French, but google should be able to translate it for you and the pictures are pretty cool to look at regardless. Dioss and I had a good chat and I attempted to plan some more ateliers with him, but he was distracted because a newspaper reporter was coming to interview him about the website. When the reporter came I left and walked back home.

Nothing too much is new at home. Deenba is officially not working for my family anymore. She decided that she wanted to live in her village where she is the oldest and therefore the most powerful sister instead of being bossed around all the time at my house, understandable. Therefore we've had a revolving door of neighborhood girls helping us since Jeenaba and Awa are totally overwhelmed. Mami also packed her bags today and is heading off to Dakar to start school again since her basketball days are apparently over and she doesn't want to get married. Mami leaving will have no bearing on the workload of the other girls since Mami is just about as helpful as I am with the house work and the cooking. What I am fantastic at is babysitter. Or at least I'm deemed competent enough to be left with Abdou. Jeenaba's most used phrase with me is "go greet Alyssa." This is a not so subtle hint that it is now my turn to take Abdou and at some point in the fairly distant future Jeenaba will come back to claim him. Jeenaba is a fantastic mom so I'm happy that I can take the baby off her hands for a little bit and hanging out with Abdou helped me feel like I wasn't a complete waste today.

Starting to Feel Better

2011-02-07T18:26:00.002Z

The haze of my cold is finally lifting (I'm able to function as a normal human being although I'm still not 100%) and I find myself back in Thies. I'm currently sitting in my absolutely filthy room, since I forgot to close my window slats, after a really long run in Dakar.

Thursday was the second and last day of the mini Artisan Expo. I was legitimately a zombie. My cold was at its peak and I could barely sit up straight let alone talk to people about artisanal goods and make change for their purchase. I actually didn't even make it through the entire day and after apologizing profusely to Madame Ly for leaving her at the Expo, I packed up the goods I was responsible for and took a taxi back to the Peace Corps office where I was able to acquire sudafed, a giant bag of cough drops, and promptly sink into a deliciously comfortable couch in the air conditioning with a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Although I was barely functioning during the mini Expo and the event wasn't exactly what I thought it would be, the Expo itself was fairly successful. The artisans sold approximately 800 USD combined. Madame Ly was the big seller accounting for almost 500 USD. It was also nice that the artisans trusted each other, called each other during the event to check in, and are excited to try the entire process again later this month at WAIST. We are also planning a day or two long training in Thies for the artisans where they will elect the rest of an executive board (Madame Ly as president is the only elected official right now), talk about bylaws such as dues, and just meet again to hopefully further collaboration.

Surprisingly, after a night of American food, trashy television, sudafed, air climate control, I did wake up feeling slightly better. Unfortunately, my cold did take over my ears and I could barely hear anything which made it very difficult to communicate with the doctors on Friday. I had to go have some tests done on my knee Friday morning, I will hopefully have results or at least next steps later this week, and the doctor thought I was a complete idiot who didn't understand a word he said in French, but I just couldn't hear him. The rest of Friday was very low key hanging out at the office and eating delicious food including a very romantic date with Katherine at a Thai restaurant.

I continued to feel progressively better throughout the weekend so my friends convinced me to stay for the Super Bowl, which ended up being very, very fun. Since the always excellent Detroit Lions were not featured in this year's Super Bowl, I did cheer for the Steelers. The US Marines stationed in Dakar invited us Peace Corps Volunteers and some Embassy employees over to their house for the festivities, which started at 11:30pm in Senegal! My friends and I had made some delicious vegetable dip and cut up a bunch of veggies since eating is always on my our minds and one has to have snacks at the Super Bowl. We thought we would be the lame girls who brought veggies and that there wouldn't be any other food, but there was and everything was delicious and really set a great atmosphere for the game/ helped me stay up until 3am when the game finally ended! It was a very fun party. There were a bunch of PCVs and other Americans and the room was fairly evenly split between Packers and Steelers fans. Unfortunately we didn't get to watch any of the commercials since we were watching military TV, but that's what I'll be doing the rest of the night online!

After lunch in Dakar I headed back to Thies with Jackie and Emily and went to the post office where I had a ridiculous amount of mail!

SHOUT OUTS!!!

Shout out to my mom and dad for the non-disclosed number of packages today. My friends are going to be very, very, very excited about all of the treats I'll be bringing to WAIST. THANKS!

Shout out to Ma for the wonderful Valentine's package. My family with love all of the candy and Ahmed is already coloring in his new coloring book while I'm typing this post! Thanks.

Shout out to Leigh and Shirley for two wonderful letters. You guys are the best!

That's the update from Senegal. Tomorrow I'm back to work in Thies. Dioss and I have a lot of work to do since his cards were finally received in the US of A. We are going to work on a bio that will be featured along with the cards!

The African Walk Away

2011-02-03T11:24:00.005Z

Wednesday February 2, 2011

Mini Expo: Day 1

This morning I woke up bright and early to get ready for the mini Artisan Expo. Actually it wasn't bright, it was pitch black, and I felt like had been run over multiple times by a sept-place without an exhaust pipe. In the dark I carried all of the artisanal products that had been hanging out in my room for the past week out to the road, threw all of my dirty clothes into my bag to wash in Dakar, and then finally flagging down a cab and heading to the center to re-load everything into the Peace Corps car where Kerry was already waiting. We then went to pick up Madame Ly who, unsurprisingly, did not take my advice to reduce the amount of product she brought to the MINI expo so the car was absolutely packed.

A quick and comfortable ride into Dakar later, I picked up more artisanal products at the office and then we headed down to Hotel Savana, which is the site of a Peace Corps training conference and therefore the expo. Mamadou, the wood carver from Diourbel made famous from Katherine's and my trip to pick up our chairs, met us at the hotel with giant chairs and huge drums even though I specifically told him that people would be traveling and therefore only want smaller products. Oh well.

After trying to smooth out some miscommunication issues about where, when, and why we would be selling, Madame Ly, Khady, Mamadou and I started setting up the expo outside. This would normally be fine since we are in Senegal and Senegal is usually damn hot, but this year we are actually experiencing a "cold season." While I was able to survive the sub-zero temperatures of Michigan while I was home for vacation, I am unable to function when it dips below 75 in Senegal and am reduced a blithering idiot wrapped in a scarf and blanking sitting in the sun. And no I've been refusing to have pictures taken of me. Thies has been experiencing the cool temperatures much like Dakar, but the Hotel Savana is right on the water and the wind is BRUTAL. My debilitating cold probably didn't help.

This Expo was put together at the last minute as a way to test Madame Ly's ability to organize artisans and sell other peoples' products as well as see if the artisans could trust Madame Ly and myself with their goods. We had a pretty good representation of Senegalese artisanal products. At the event: Madame Ly and her jewelry, Dioss sent small paintings and cards, Madamou has wood products, Matar (Katherine's artisan) sent bags and pret-a-porter clothes, Tamar's women's group sent batick (tie-dyed cloth), baskets from Tivuouane, and Demba (Alys' artisan) sent leather products. I thought it was a pretty good showing. The Expo is also a departure from what we've done in the past because we're selling mainly to Africans (they are Peace Corps employees from across Africa in Senegal for a training) and before this I didn't understand what that would mean.

Apart from feeling terrible while we were selling in the morning, I also thought the Expo was going to be a spectacular failure. No one was buying anything. People were upset that they couldn't bargain for all of the products (I ended up selling for the artisans who were not present and I did not feel comfortable reducing the price lists their volunteers had given me). I was really, really, really worried that I had wasted Madame Ly's, Khady's, and Mamadou's time and that this little foray into other Expos was a horrible terrible idea. As time slowly crawled by and I resigned myself to the fact that we weren't going to do any business, I realized that they were pulling the Africa Walk Away on me!

The African Walk Away: A very important and useful price negotiating technique. When one does not like the price simply walk away and have the seller run after you with a lower price or upon realizing that the price will not be reduce you, as the purchaser, finally give in and pay a slightly higher price.

The afternoon selling sessions really picked up and I think the artisans are happy. This expo is nowhere near as large or as well publicized as the Expo this past December, but the artisans will still make several hundred dollars for two days work, which isn't a bad deal. Apart from the African Walk Away, it was very interesting to see what people were buying. At the Expo in December we sold to a mainly Peace Corps Volunteer and Ex-Pat audience who were interested in Dioss' cards and art as well as wood products as gifts for their friends and family at home. The African Peace Corps trainers attending the conference were much more interested in the dyed fabrics, apparel, and jewelry (although Madame Ly also made bank at the PC Expo in December). It was definitely a good lesson for me.

The day was excruciatingly long. I was dead tired and really sick by the time we packed up and I got in a cab headed for the regional house. Fortunately, the house was dead and I made a delicious pasta dinner with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and basil. After eating my home cooked meal and watching Love and Other Drugs I felt a lot better, but who wouldn't feel better after watching Jake Gyllenhaal romp around naked for the better part of two hours?

Joal

2011-01-31T18:28:00.004Z

For some reason I cannot blog during the day and since we haven't had power at night, I haven't been blogging. Due to exhaustion and hunger I'm writing early today so I can get a post up!

The mini Artisan Expo is finally starting to come together. Last Friday when people came in for lunch I got a lot of products, some products have safely arrived in Dakar, and tomorrow I'm picking up some new stuff from Dioss including Valentine's Day cards. Today I went to Joal (a city along the coast, where two other PCVs live) and met Tamar so she could hand off the dyed fabric that her women's group makes. The adventure began bright and earlier this morning when I met Kerry at the garage. We were the fifth and sixth people in the sept-place so we were soon on our way to Joal. While I had spoken with Tamar extensively about the plan and had even invited the other PCVs to lunch, I had totally forgotten one important thing about Joal: I know nothing about Joal.

Once Kerry and I arrived at the garage in Joal I realized that I didn't know where we were going or what we should do until lunch. At this point it was just a little before 10am. I decided to wait for Tamar to arrive since she had been to Joal before, but when I got a hold of Brian he told me that Tamar and I would arrive at different garages so I decided to jump into a clando (shared taxi) and head to Fadiouth, which is the island connected to Joal via a giant pedestrian bridge. Kerry and I walked around the artisan stalls and little restaurants near the bridge until Tamar arrived and then we all walked across the bridge to Fadiouth.

Joal itself is a very long town. There's one main road that the runs the length of the town and everything is built around the road. It's actually pretty cute and much more quaint than I expected it to be. For some reason Fadiouth is super touristy. There were cars filled with tourists and guides getting out and walking across the bridge and then around the island. The three of us decided to go without a guide and just walked around. The view from the bridge is quite beautiful and the cemetery that's on an island adjacent to Fadiouth, which is connected by another bridge, was really cool. The giant baobab trees next to the white, white tombstones made for some pretty pictures.

On our way back Tamar and Kerry noticed a man weaving traditional Serere cloth. Serere people is another ethnic group in Senegal who are mainly concentrated in the delta region. Tamar's village is predominately Serere. Tamar sweet talked the man and his wife while holding their infant daughter and Tamar and Kerry bought some beautiful cloth while I took pictures and played with little kids, which was funny since they didn't speak Wolof and I don't speak Serere.

With purchases in hand we headed back across the bridge where we found Brian who took us to a restaurant for lunch where Steve joined us. We spent a very pleasant lunch time eating garlicy shrimp and grilled fish before heading our separate ways. Kerry and I returned to Thies where I had to run over to Madame Ly's stall to talk about the artisan expo and answer some of her questions.

I posted pictures of today's trip as well as pictures of my family that Ahmed took yesterday. If you are interested in learning more about Joal-Fadiouth here is the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joal-Fadiouth

Chicken, Fries, and Salad and Salad

2011-01-28T21:48:00.003Z

This week has been a very exciting food week mostly because I've had plenty of reasons to be out and therefore not eating ceebu jenn every day. Today was no exception. Since the entire "Thies Region" aka all of the people who can easily day trip Thies (who are all girls except Brian and now Kerry!) hadn't gotten together since before we all left for America/ ever since the new stage installed, we decided to get together under the guise of having a camp meeting. We actually did discuss how my stage can help the stage a year behind us plan a camp for next year, some best practices, and maybe even moving the camp to Thies which would make logistics much, much easier.

I'm always a little worried when people ask me to organize a Chicken Dibi event. Not because it's a high class establishment or anything, but because I never know if I've actually organized anything. Usually Chicken Dibi doesn't open until 6:30 or 7, but they will open up for us when we call in advance since Peace Corps is such a good customer. Mohammad, the main guy at Chicken Dibi, and I bonded early in my service because he speaks Arabic and ever since I've been the de-facto Chicken Dibi coordinator - this also probably has something to do with the fact that I live in Thies. Anyway, I called Mohammad on Wednesday and told him and myself and a group of PCVs would love it if he would open early on Friday. I asked if he could open at 3. He was outraged at how early it was and said he couldn't possibly do that, but 3:30pm was OK. I told him how many people and that I would call him the next day. I called Mohammad back yesterday and he was completely bewildered at the fact that we were coming the next day even though we had spoken the previous day. Again I gave him all the details and we agreed that incha'allah me and my friends would be eating chicken today. We ate chicken today so all is well in the world. Kerry proclaimed that it lived up to my hype and everyone left feeling grossly full and totally content.

Katherine and I left Chicken Dibi for Dioss' to pick up some fabulous Valentine's day cards. Dioss wasn't there, but the boy posse made sure that I was well taken care of and Katherine thoroughly enjoyed the scene which was accompanied by loud rap music. Katherine jumped in a taxi headed for the garage and I got in a taxi for my house...with all the artisanal products other PCVs brought for the mini Expo next week. My family was thoroughly amused when I came in with giant bags of baskets and cloth goods. They think I'm crazy.

Even though my family didn't eat dinner until 9:30 I wasn't hungry because I had stuffed myself with dibi. Usually I would be really happy that I was too full for dinner, but tonight we had chicken which was kind of heartbreaking. I told my family I was full and they were horrified because it's my favorite meal and refused to take "I'm full" as an answer. I hid in my room and awaited the inevitable bowl of food that they would bring me because they knew I was hiding and trying to avoid dinner. After Chicken Dibi which consists of chicken, fries, and salad, I didn't really want the same dinner even though it's delicious. When Jeenaba came to my door with the dreaded bowl of food it was only salad! In Senegal one should always drink tea as it's a sign of friendship, I can't stand the sugar so in a highly culturally insensitive move I almost always politely refuse. Salad is a different story. There is no way I will allow my family to think that I wont eat vegetables and that I don't want more. So, I promptly walked back into the house and devoured the salad in front on my mom.

That's the news from Senegal. I'm now going to try and roll myself into bed because I'm so full.

Almost forgot... SHOUT OUTS!!!!

Shout out to Shirley! I got FOUR letters from you today. Ah Senegal and the way the postal system works! Thank you for the birthday wishes and all of the other cards!

Shout out to the Kogelschatz family!!! Thank you so much for the birthday card. I wish it came with some of the wine featured in the card!