Photo Frenzy

I recently had the pleasure of hosting Lora and Evgeni, two Couch Surfers from Bulgaria who are working on hitch-hiking their way around the world. They stayed in my village for two nights and while they were here Lora took some absolutely amazing photos of my world. Seeing these really makes me wish I had decided to bring a nicer camera with me...her fancy pants camera with all of its lenses and buttons really puts my little Fuji to shame. They also make me wish I had taken a photography class in college just so I could capture my experiences as brilliantly as Lora can. Hopefully she won't mind that I borrowed a few of these to share with you. To see some more amazing pictures (of my village and other places they have been) and read more about their epic journey around the world you can check out their blog Here (or the slightly less frequently updated english version Here).

The outskirts of Kaolack, known to volunteers as the city of trash.
All garbage is dumped on side of the road and is periodically burned, filling the air with a suffocating acrid smoke. As bad as it looks, this is also a sign of city-dwellers relative wealth. Most of these things would never be thrown away in my village...clothes, containers, old tires...all are used and reused until they just simply cease to exist. I have been known to occasionally salvage a treasure or two from this pile when biking by.

A great shot of a typical day in my compound:
My sisters braiding hair and shelling peanuts, my dad lounging on his cot, kids hanging out, someone nursing a baby and people just sitting around relaxing

One of the boys returning from the forest with a pile of wood. The bark will be stripped to be used as rope and the sticks will be burned in cooking fires. 

My little sister Oumi...its tough to get a shot of her smiling, she usually clams up in front of the camera 

Sine and her baby Omar...possibly the most unhappy child I've ever met. He cries 23 hours a day.

A little girl in desperate need of a bath 

Fatou and I pulling water from the well. Every evening I pull four of those big buckets you see in the foreground and carry them home on my head for drinking, cooking and watering the garden. Women with families carry many more.

My little brother Modou, age 4 

A typical ladies table on market day. 

Bags of peanut butter, packets of spices, bouillon cubes, some ragged looking vegetables, dried fish, and a big knife to divide up the vegetables and fish into even smaller parts to be sold. Can you imagine trying to buy 1/8 of a cabbage in America?

My dad Mamadou Diouf and his newest grandson. This baby has the most comical bulging eyeballs, its like he's staring at everything with such intensity it makes his eyes pop.

Ida, a little girl in Keur Socce who always charms me into giving her a bit of whatever treat I happen to be eating.

 A clothes seller at our weekly market. He just lays on his wares while the megaphone in front of him screeches the prices over and over again. Most of the clothes are cast-offs that didn't make it past quality control in Chinese factories and weren't fit for our dollar store shelves. Some of the "English" phrases on these clothes are downright hilarious. 

My favorite little brother Aladji eating a big slice of watermelon on my doorstep. 

Two of my friend Bassirou's daughters, Rokhya and Koumba.
Koumba cried every time she saw me for my first two months in village. She's no longer afraid of me but was still wary of the white person with the camera.

Kaolack Girls Camp

An open letter from those of us working to organize this coming summer's girls leadership camp in the Kaolack region:

I'm working on a side project with other Peace Corps volunteers in my region to organize a week-long leadership camp for 40 middle school aged girls in Senegal.  

The camp will serve as a reward to girls who have worked hard throughout the school year and encourage them to continue their education and develop strong leadership skills which will benefit their community.  Our goal is give motivated girls in the area a chance to see what opportunities are open to them and how they can take advantage of them.  Developing leadership skills of the youth of Senegal is important for developing the country as a whole.    

The Girls’ Leadership Camp for the regions of Fatick, Kaolack and Kaffrine will bring together 40 of the top middle-school aged girls to help them increase their independence, improve their leadership skills and encourage them to become strong leaders in their communities. The camp will be offered to girls who have excelled academically, have a good reputation among their peers and teachers and have shown the motivation to learn and reach for the next challenge.  

At the camp, there will be a range of activities including interactive sessions on topics such as personal health, careers, and the environment.  The girls will have the opportunity to meet positive female role models in their community because they will serve as counselors and guest speakers at the camp.  Other activities like arts and crafts, swimming lessons, skits, team-building and trust games, will also be part of the camp curriculum.    

The week-long camp will be held at the Caritas Badoudou Conference Center, located on the Sine Saloum Delta which provides an ideal environment not only for swimming activities but also for learning about one of the most important ecological systems in the country, the mangroves. 

This is the second year this camp will be held.  The camp last year was a very successful and created a sense of empowerment and independence among the participating girls.  Because of this the number of campers has been increased from 27 to 40 to give even more girls the chance to experience this unique opportunity.  It will foster leadership skills in the younger generations and provided a positive environment for girls to develop as leaders of their communities.

If this sounds like something you'd like to support you can donate through Peace Corps Partnership here. Even just $5 would make a big difference. Your contribution will help pay for transportation, lodging, food, and supplies for activities.  Donations are tax deductable and can be made online on the Peace Corps Website:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-163   

(Nearly) A Month in Review

I know its coming up on a month since my last post...December seems to be flying by! I haven't been up to too much mischief since my last post, I've been tying up some loose ends with my latrine and well cover projects (reports and such) and regrouping for phase two in Mission: Sambande Sanitation which is building a latrine for each family. The local government has been working with our village to restructure and redistribute property and inshallah the work will be finished within the month and we can begin digging pits.

Early in the month I traveled to Thies for the Peace Corps West Africa All Volunteer Conference, which was attended by every volunteer in Senegal as well as representatives from Mali, The Gambia, Benin, Cape Verde and Togo. It was several days of volunteer led presentations and round table discussions. There were opportunities to find out what sort of projects other volunteers are up to, view and learn about appropriate technologies and talk about ideas for cross-sector and cross-country collaboration. I believe there were over 300 volunteers and staff in attendance and a good time was had by all.

After the conference I returned to my village to find a family of mice squatting in my hut, chewing through plastic food containers and pooping in my bed. Since I'm pretty sure squatters rights don't apply in Senegal I waged an all out war to evict them, and so far I have won several battles if not the actual war. After a viciously fought battle over the peanut butter the mice have finally vacated my armoire, only to take up residence in my thatched roof. My biggest problem with the mice isn't so much their living habits as the type of company they tend to attract. Mice like to eat my food, which is annoying, but snakes like to eat the mice, which is a tad bit dangerous. After chasing the fourth snake over 2 feet long out of my hut my family insisted on bringing over the local Imam to bless my room and sprinkle some smelly liquid around the perimeter. I guess I'll find out if it worked when I get back.

With the less than pleasant visitors lingering in my hut I spent as much of last week out of it as possible. I traveled to Fasstoucouleur to help start a new compost pit in the master farmer field, hauled about 20 buckets of manure to my garden to start a moringa intensive bed and plant some bissap, and took a bike ride down to Keur Madialbel to help Jessica paint another mural at the Case de Touts Petits. I also spent a day at the elementary school helping the kids write letters to a French class in Maryland that was kind enough to agree to correspond with us. It was a lot of hard work trying to get the kids to think creatively and even just respond to questions the other students asked. Kids here spend their entire lives in school copying exactly what the teacher writes on the chalkboard and then reciting it over and over again until they can regurgitate it word for word on a test. They are never asked to apply information learned or think critically, so it was a bit frustrating trying to get them to write letters of their own when all they wanted was for me to tell them what to write. It took a long time but most kids seemed to manage to string together a couple of sentences that were somewhat unique, although as soon as I told one student they were doing well everyone else wanted to copy what they had. I find it highly unlikely that every single student in the class likes to play futbal and shell peanuts on the weekend, but at least its a start.

Thursday I headed back to Thies with my neighbor Jen to teach a new generation of volunteers how to paint murals during their In Service Training. I designed some templates and after a short power point presentation we divided them up into two teams and let them take over two of the language classrooms at the training center. Each group did a great job adding their own personal touches to the murals and my hope is that some of them will feel confident enough to go back to their villages and paint everything that stands still long enough. I'm currently spending the night in Kaolack, getting ready to bike back to my village tomorrow afternoon after I run some errands.

I'm planning on staying in my village for Christmas and spending a nice relaxing day at the campement in my road town with a few other volunteers playing board games and having a few drinks. If I don't have the opportunity to post again before then Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Dear Santa,

   How are things up there at the North Pole? I hope this global warming thing hasn’t been giving you too much trouble. It’s hard to believe Christmas is coming up soon….it still feels like fourth of July weather down here, although at night it has been an absolutely frigid 70 degrees. I’m sorry to inform you that although I frequently cook over an open fire my hut doesn’t have any chimney to speak of. I wasn’t expecting you to come and visit, but since you insisted on stopping by I figured I would send along my wish list. Of course I would appreciate anything you bring, but since its such a long and expensive journey I thought maybe you would want a few suggestions to help you pack your bag.

Things for me:Letters and photos from all of my friends
M&Ms (all kinds)
Summer Sausage
Cow Tails
Tootsie pops
Cream of Wheat
Brown Sugar
Tuna/chicken/salmon
Just add water meals
Muffin mix
Chai powder
Pop tarts
Velveeta cheese
Bacon bits
Cereal
Sharpie Pens (http://pen.sharpie.com/)
Moleskine Notebooks
Climbing magazines
Your last good book
Burned CDs
AAA batteries
Raisins
Banana chips
Smart wool socks
Nutter Butters
Cheez its
Wheat Thins
Cliff Mojo bars
Jack Daniels Whiskey
Pancake mix
Light my fire Spoon/fork/knife
Dried Strawberries
Trail mix
Battery powered hand fan


Things for the kids:Coloring books
Matchbox cars
Colorful hair rubberbands (for corn rows)
Balloons
Beach balls
Temporary tattoos
Glow sticks
Children's books (in French)
Cat treats (for my cat, not the kids)
Very simple games (memory, puzzles, etc)


Things I have enough of / Can get here:Tea
Drink Mix
AA batteries
White sugar
Spices (unless its really unique)
Medications
Soaps/hygiene stuff
Toilet Paper

Thanksgiving

  You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey, but here you can't just run down to the local safeway and pick up a perfectly shrink wrapped, hormone enlarged frozen hunk of meat. If you want to do the holiday up right in Senegal you've got to get your hands a little dirty. Thats why, several days ago, I found myself in Keur Madialbel elbow deep in blood doing autopsies on four dead turkeys. Jessica had called me the night before begging for some assistance and I was more than happy to oblige. After all, what could be better than experiencing Thanksgiving like a true pilgrim with a little good old fashioned slaughter.

    I took a car to her town first thing in the morning and we got right down to business. We bought four big fat turkeys from her neighbor which ended up costing us roughly $120 and were just enough to feed the 30+ people coming to Kaolack for Thanksgiving. Then we carried then back to her house, cut off their heads and got down to the dirty business of de-feathering and gutting our future meal. Once the hard work was done we wrapped them up in plastic bags, threw them in a bucket with a couple chunks of ice and loaded it all onto the back of a truck to be driven up to the city and stored in the regional house freezer until the big day.

For two whole days our amazing cooks slaved away to produce one of the most delicious Thanksgiving feasts I've ever had, probably because it was seasoned by the hunger of weeks in village eating rice and bird food. We grilled two turkeys, roasted one and deep fried another as well as making stuffing, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, corn bread, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, gravy, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Some people had requested ingredients in care packages months ago and some things, like cheese, we had to purchase at ridiculously inflated rates ($2 an ounce) so it really was a once in a lifetime meal. Sadly after months of village diets our stomachs were all so shrunken that we couldn't handle all the food we had loaded onto our plates, and most of us ate ourselves sick. We spent the evening sipping sangria and massaging our bulging bellies and trying to fight off the impending food comas.

One of the turkeys had eggs, so I guess I actually murdered 9 turkeys

Tabaski

WARNING: This post contains graphic images, viewer discretion is advised

Oumi, Samba Gaye and Birame in their Tabaski best

  While all of you at home were planning menus and grocery shopping, the people of Senegal were getting ready to celebrate their own Thanksgiving-like holiday; Tabaski. Every family kills a ram in remembrance of Abraham's test of faith where God asked him to sacrifice his son, then they put on their fanciest clothes and sit around eating meat and potatoes and onions until they can no longer fit into said clothes. I was looking forward to Tabaski as a change of pace, but like most Senegalese holidays it was pretty anti-climactic...basically everyone spent so much energy and money in the weeks before getting new clothes made and buying new shoes and picking out their ram that when the actual holiday arrived it was almost a let down. There also wasn't much mention made of the actual reason for the holiday. Tabaski reminded me a lot of Christmas in the US, when everyone is so concerned about shopping and material things that they completely forget the meaning of the holiday in the first place. Even a deeply religious country like Senegal has managed to secularize one of their most important holidays and turn it into nothing more than another reason to spend money on things that they really can't afford. Maybe Senegal and America aren't so different after all.

How many Senegalese men does it take to kill a ram?

As far as holidays go this one certainly won't go down in the history books for me. I spent most of the day trying to eradicate a termite colony that had chewed its way into one of my storage trunks and being interrupted to greet distant relatives that I'll probably never see again. I did take a break to help my family butcher the rams. Since there are 5 adult men living in our compound we killed 5 rams and ended up eating left-over (and increasingly rancid) meat for the next 5 days. I'm in no means a squeamish person and I have no problem killing animals to eat, but after watching the way these animals were dressed (or undressed...) I opted just to eat a bit of the liver and leave it at that. The intestines weren't treated with much care and barely rinsed before being thrown into the bowl of meat which they then contaminated with fecal matter and E coli and who knows what other diseases. As starved as I am for protein in this country I just couldn't convince myself that all of the bacteria would be boiled out of those.

Preparing the onions and potatoes

Turning the mango tree into a slaughterhouse

Sheep's clothing

Why you should be careful when handling small intestine

Bassirou "cleaning" the intestines

Modous fancy pants were a little too big

No meat goes to waste

A 50lb ram reduced to the sum of its parts 

Mission Accomplished

  Well its been a long month but both the school latrine project and the well cover project are finished and fully functional. Its a bit stressful trying to get Senegalese people to work on a deadline and there were a few hiccups and frustrations along the way but everything had a happy ending and both projects turned out well. The community really came together to contribute to the project through monetary donations when we ran into unexpected expenses as well as one very long day digging a very big hole. The teachers are currently on strike so I'm still waiting on feedback about the latrines, but the women were ecstatic about the well covers. I'd like to extend a big thank you to Appropriate Projects for providing the funding. As of now no donations have come in on their website for either project and if it weren't for them we would still be waiting around for money. 

1 latrine = 36 sacks of cement = 625 bricks, all made by hand

My dad attempting to keep the cows from trampling the bricks

Digging the 2m x 2m x 2m septic tank

Finished product

My sister-in-law pulling water from the new well cover

The space for a lock means no more tricksters will be
throwing cats down our well and contaminating our
water source

Peanut Party Photo Session

Ba Birame and his sons

Marie and Me

Ndeye

Baby Ngenar

My little brother Aladji

My brother Birame

My brother Samba Gaye

Ndeye and Dene

My sister Oumi

Mbodji