Ngoundiane: week 2

Note: I'm typing this entry on my laptop in my room on April 2nd. Its 11:58pm and I should be alseep, but there is a wedding going on next door and the constant yelling and drumming combined with the heat (still 88 degrees in here) is keeping me awake. I guess my loss of sleep is your gain.

 So much has happened in this last week...I don't even know where to start. Its hard to believe I was only in Ngoundiane for 10 days, it seems like a lot longer. My daily routine has remained pretty much constant. I've expanded the list of things I know how to buy from the boutique to include Foofi (water), o tengel (lolly pop), ananas (pineapple juice), o soo (yogurt), safe (soap), laalo (baobab fruit) and jus d'orange (orange juice). Ok, that last one is French but I can't for the life of me remember the Seereer word for orange juice. I look forward to my daily trip to the boutique like a kid looks forward to Christmas. To my surprise and delight things have actually begun to grow in our garden. The cowpeas, cucumber and eggplant have all sprouted, and I have a hunch the moringa and lucena trees aren't far behind. Children still shout "Toubab aaay!" at me every time I leave my house, and I have a feeling that is the one thing that will remain absolutely constant over the next two years. Oh, and its still hot. My thermometer topped out at 130 degrees so I don't know the exact temperature, but after a certian point I suppose it doesn't really matter.

My language is slowly but surely progressing. I understand a lot of what is being said to me and I can usually manage to express simple desires and needs to my family (although "I'm sick and I don't want to eat" in Seereer apparently translates to "please bring me a spaghetti and french fry sandwich"). I got a hold of a few pieces of paper last time I was in Thies so I was able to make flashcards, to the infinite amusement of my Aunt Badji, and those have helped me immensely in studying. When I get frustrated with my lack of fluency I have to stop and remind myself that three weeks ago I didn't even know this language existed. I do a lot of practicing with my younger brothers and sisters while they teach me their games. Children really are the best teachers...they speak slowly, are willing to repeat things a million times and are always excited to help you learn.

There was a big circumcision ceremony in our village at the end of last week and so for two days we were overrun with 8-17 year old boys. According to Assane there is a ceremony performed by the marabout and then the boys are sent out to live in the forest for a few weeks and taught "man secrets." Every day the boys go to a different village to eat and ask for money and then return to the forest to spend the night. Apparently every culture and village is different, but here in Ngoundiane they only do it once every 10 years, so if you miss your chance the first time around you have to wait another decade before you can become a man.

This week I discovered the magic of creme glace, the Senegalese equivalent to ice cream, and its just about the best thing ever. For 25cfa (about 10 cents) you get a small plastic bag filled with frozen bissap juice. Its made by boiling the heck out of bissap flowers or other fruits depending on the flavor you want and then mixing the water with powdered milk and freezing it. Ya Alima, one of the other mothers in my compound, sells them outside of the school every day and its a perfect reward for our hard work in the garden.

A few days ago I made another discovery that was decidedly less pleasant. After two weeks in Senegal without encountering anything worse than a few biting ants and some giat cockroaches I was starting to let my guard down. That is until I was introduced to a "pangalace" which is the Seereer word for big freaking spider. They are about the size of the palm of your hand, really flat, and move unnaturally fast even for something with that many legs. I don't know how I went so long without noticing them, but now that I know what they look like I've been seeing them everywhere.

Wednesday we painted a map of the regions of Senegal at our school, which was the first time a lot of those kids had even seen a map of their own country. I think I'll be painting a lot of murals during my first few months at site, because they're really fun and don't require a whole lot of language skills to accomplish. I'll leave things like organizing meetings and teaching people how to build things for when I can actually speak Seereer.

On Thursday the other trainees and I built a mudstove at our tutors house for his mom, and we got a bunch of the kids involved. It was nice to actually put the skills we had been taught into practice and I can't wait to go back in a few weeks when its dry and see her using it. My mom got really excited about the idea and wants me to build one here at my house, which I'll try to do before I go back to Thies, Insh'allah.

My biggest news from this week is that I survived my first bout with a major illness. Tuesday night I went to bed with a bit of an upset stomach and woke up around 1am on Wednesday with a full blown case of the pukes. I figured I had just eaten something bad or maybe my stomach was finally rebelling against all of the sugar and oil in the food here, but around noon that day I developed a fever and a cough. Miserable is the only way to describe the experience of having a 103 degree fever when the temperature in your room is already 107. Fortunately the major sickness really only lasted one day, although I was unusually tired for a few days after. I suppose what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, but I'm not in any hurry to repeat that experience.

If you're reading this blog entry it means I'm back in Thies and I'm going to have a few days off, so look forward to at least one more blog update this week.