Kristmas in Kaolack

No white Christmas this year...

While most volunteers chose to hit the beach for the holidays, I decided to take the budget option and spend Christmas at our regional transit house in the city of Kaolack. There were only three of us, so it was pretty low key, but we still managed to have a good time. We baked cookies while listening to Christmas music, watched all of the classic holiday movies, had a gift exchange for which we all raided our buckets and trunks to find random things we didn't want anymore, and of course we made a fabulous Christmas dinner that cost us a whopping $60. Totally worth it.

Christmas dinner! Green beans, roast beef, mac
and cheese, baked potatoes, yogurt dip with
cucumbers and of course, cookies!

  The worst Christmas gift I received this year was from Senegal itself...a fever, strep throat and an ear infection. I spent much of the day wrapped in a sheet and fighting to stay awake. On the positive side, the Peace Corps gave me one of the best Christmas presents I've ever received...the paperwork and manuals associated with my Close of Service! That's right, its time to start preparing to go home! Its still four months away, but with the amount of government paperwork, medical examinations and hoops we have to jump through before we can leave, we get to begin the process now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Merry Christmas!

Neem wreath.

Bon Appetit!

While everyone is planning holiday feasts and cooking up delicious family meals, I though I would share a recipe for a village delicacy I recently enjoyed. Feel free to put your own spin on it. Its called bush lizard, and after a year and a half of a diet consisting mostly of rice and peanuts, its a rare and welcome source of animal protein in my diet.

Step 1: Capture a lizard. Not just any lizard, a Faasa. A large, dinosaur-like monitor lizard that roams the fields and forests around the village. Bring a long-handled implement such as a shovel or a rake...these guys are notoriously fast and if you get too close they'll whip you with their tail. Once you've beaten it into submission immediately remove the head with your machete and let the blood drain out. Hold your faasa by the tail and beat it against a tree to expel all of the internal organs from the neck hole. Spectators should be aware that the first three rows are considered a "splash zone" and should occupy them in the understanding that they will be covered in small pieces of blood and intestine.

Step 2: Once your faasa is good and disemboweled, leave it outside on a firm cement surface in direct sunlight for several hours. This serves to begin the tenderizing process, which will continue until the following day. Once the sun begins to set, scrape off the top-most layer of scales from the skin and wash the carcass in soapy water. Be sure to reach inside and remove any remaining entrails. Then soak the carcass in a mixture of salt and hot pepper powder over night, to flavor the meat. In the morning go out to the forest and collect an armload of sticks, then start a pot of water boiling over a fire. Once the water is scalding hot, submerge your faasa and let it boil for two to three hours.


Step 3: Remove your faasa from the water and heat a small amount of oil in a different pot. While the oil is heating, take the time to cut the carcass into manageable chunks. First remove the legs, and then section the tail and torso. When the oil has reached frying temperature, rub the pieces of faasa in more hot pepper and drop them in the oil. Fry until crispy.

Step 4: Enjoy.

Step 5: Impale the severed head on your garden posts to ward off any other lizards who may be contemplating revenge.

All Aboard the Smile Train

The doctors and nurses of GSF and Barthemee hospital

Little Mohammed Ka before surgery...

At the beginning of November I was given the honor of working with a group of thirteen American doctors and nurses from the Global Smile Foundation who came to Barthimee Hospital in Thies to do cleft lip surgeries. In just four short days they were able to completely transform the faces (and lives) of thirty patients, from infants to adults, as well as provide additional training to a group of Senegalese doctors who perform cleft surgery locally. As a Peace Corps volunteer my role was to translate between the American staff and the Senegalese patients and families, as well as provide an extra set of hands wherever they were needed. I spent most of my time in the PACU, where the patients were taken to recover from the anesthesia, playing with babies and reassuring mothers and translating instructions for families. I also got to be in the operating room for a couple of surgeries to watch the magic unfold.

...and after!

Cleft lips and palates aren't as prevalent in Africans as they are in other people groups, but when they do occur in countries like Senegal the odds that the family will find treatment for the child are pretty low. Not only are many cleft patients born into poor families who live far from medical care, but those families also rarely understand anything about the deformity or know it can be repaired. There are a lot of superstitions in Senegal, and many of the families we spoke to believed that the cleft was caused because someone scared the pregnant mother while she was sleeping, or because a cow looked the baby directly in the eye while it was in the womb, or simply because Allah willed it. Although they can make it difficult for a baby to breast feed, cleft lips and palates are rarely life threatening conditions, but in a culture where the smallest difference makes you a social outcast they can still be largely debilitating. It was amazing to see just how life-changing a one hour surgery could be. All of the patients looked so natural after surgery it was almost impossible to remember what they had looked like before.

Abdou Ba right before his surgery, still smiling!

One of my favorite patients of the week was Abdou Ba, a 10 year old Pulaar boy from the Tamba region with a complete bilateral cleft lip as well as a cleft hard and soft palate. I met him several days before the surgeries began when he arrived at the Peace Corps training center with his uncle, also named Abdou Ba, to stay with us throughout the course of the surgeries. Despite his major facial deformities and a pretty serious speech impediment he had the most outgoing and social personality of any Senegalese kid I've ever met. Everyone at the center, volunteers and guards alike, immediately fell in love with him and spoiled him rotten in the days before the doctors arrived. His charm wasn't lost on the Americans either, and he quickly became a staff favorite at the hospital. He was born in a small village in southern Senegal and when his father passed away shortly after he was born his mother remarried and moved to the north, and left him with his uncle Abdou, the man he was named after. Because of the speech impediment caused by his cleft palate he was unable to attend school, but his uncle did his best to give him a normal life and when he heard about the possibility of getting surgery through an NGO he made the 6 hour, $20 journey to Thies several times for screenings from other organizations before being approved for the operation by the doctors of the Global Smile Foundation.

To understand just how amazing this is, you have to first understand that Senegalese men are only marginally involved in the raising of their children and are almost never the primary care givers, and second realize that $20 is an obscene amount of money to the average Senegalese villager. Abdou was the only patient not accompanied by a mother or aunt, yet his uncle was by far one of the most nurturing and competent care takers there. It was really heart-warming to see the special relationship between the two of them, and to see just how much Abdou's uncle cared for him. All of the surgeries were amazing, but the fantastic job the doctors did on this particular case actually brought tears to my eyes. In just two hours he became a completely different person, and after the incision heals and the swelling goes down I don't think anyone will even give him a second glance on the street. He will still have difficulties with speech thanks to the enormous hole in his palate, but his uncle seems committed to finding him the help he needs no matter what the cost, so hopefully he will be able to receive further treatment from another organization.

Abdou just one hour after his surgery, still a  little groggy
but looking pretty good!

   Working with the people from Global Smile Foundation was the single most rewarding experience of my time in Senegal so far. So much of the work we do as Peace Corps volunteers revolves around behavior change and long-term initiatives, and by the time they start actually taking effect our short two-year service is long over. It was so refreshing to work on a project that provided such dramatic and immediate results. We could actually see people's lives being improved right before our eyes, and know that it was a permanent and lasting change. Both the families and the doctors were so thankful for our small contribution to the efforts, and it was then that I realized how infrequently I hear the words "thank you" associated with any of my work here. Not that I'm volunteering just so I can be thanked, but it feels really good to be recognized and appreciated every once and a while. Working with the American's was also a real treat...it almost felt like being back home. Everything was organized, efficient and timely, and we were given clear instructions and a specific task to be done, and then trusted to do it! They were also amazingly kind and accommodating, allowing us to observe and being patient while answering all of our questions about the procedures. Best of all they spoiled us rotten with dinner at nice restaurants and treats from America!

Abdou's before and after shots

After working and talking extensively with the nurses with GSF, I've actually been entertaining the idea of going into nursing. Its not a career path I'd ever given any thought to before, but the more I think about it the more I wonder why it has never crossed my mind? I really enjoyed working with the patients and feeling like I was really helping people, and the medical-related classes in my Exercise Science major were always my favorites. I haven't made up my mind about anything yet, but with my service rapidly drawing to a close (5 more months!) I've been doing a lot of thinking about what my next steps might be. If I did go to nursing school it wouldn't be right away, I would want to save up some money for a year or two before going back to school for any reason, but it's certainly something to look into. Who knows, maybe these cleft surgeries will end up changing my life as well?!

Happy Thanksgiving

The essentials for celebrating an American Thanksgiving in Senegal

A sheep dressed as a Native American

Deep fried turkey

Tons of food

Turkey Pinata

Tabaski

Warning: This post contains blood and guts

Another Senegalese holiday come and gone...if I'm not mistaken its my last one. It went much as one would expect; men to the mosque in the morning, followed by the killing of some less-than-appetizing animal, hours of cooking for the women and sitting for the men, eating copious amounts of oily macaroni with onion and meat sauce and, finally, putting on fancy clothes as the sun goes down. The general program remains the same no matter what the holiday. Since yesterday was Tabaski, the animal of choice was the ram that's been bleating outside my door every night this past week. Needless to say I wasn't sorry to see him go. We killed a total of 4 rams among the men of our household, slitting their throats and letting the blood drain into a hole in the ground. The slaughter didn't go off as smoothly as last year, and two of the rams took a good 3 minutes of sawing and hacking at the spinal column with a dull knife to dispatch. The men then proceeded with the still-kicking carcasses to the mango tree, which they turned into a slaughterhouse of startling efficiency. I observed the undressing of the sheep from the lower branches, perched well above the clouds of flies and safe from errant splashes of feces and blood. Many hands and a few sharp machetes made quick work of the bodies, thus concluding the most exciting part of the day.

Teamwork

  
 

Talk about grabbin' a sheep by the balls

Prime cut

Liqueur de Warang

This past weekend 12 volunteers converged on Liqueur de Warang, a local distillery just outside of Mbour that makes fruit liqueurs from local ingredients and spices. It has been on my Senegal bucket-list for quite a while now, and the simultaneous birthdays of two of my stage-mates was the perfect excuse for an 11am tasting.

The distillery looks like a cross between a monastery and a botanical garden, and has a beautiful outdoor bar. There are six or seven different liqueurs available for free tasting that vary depending on season and availability.We quickly made good friends with the guy behind the bar, who poured us more than our fair share of free shots, and explained how they were distilled and flavored.

Tasting options

Kombonella was an orange, lemon and grapefruit concoction that tasted just like a lemon drop. It had a sour first bite and an alcoholic bite that delivered a swift kick to the uvula on the way down. In my opinion it was better taken as a shot rather than sipped, but then again I'm not a huge fan of sour. My favorite part was the chunks of real fruit resting on the bottom of my shot glass.

Passion Warang was a sweeter liqueur with a slightly lower alcohol content that was distilled from passion fruit. It had less of a bite, which made me feel less guilty about drinking it at 11 o'clock in the morning. I could imagine sipping it poolside on a hot summer day.

Cocana was a pineapple and coconut concoction that tasted more or less like a pina colada. You could definitely taste the coconut.

Menthe was, in my opinion, exactly what Senegalese attaya (tea) should taste like. The only ingredients are sugar and mint leaves bought in the local market, yet the whiskey-colored liquid managed to conjure up all kinds of different associations. It was like pepperment hot-chocolate, but without the chocolate. Not a toothpaste/mouthwashy mint flavor, but the sweet minty aftertaste of a glass of attaya without  the bitterness of the green tea. I liked it so much I bought a bottle.

Kombonella

Pomme Cajou is made by fermenting cashew apples, and it was the flavor that surprised me the most. I'm not a big fan of cashew fruit, because although the fruit itself is extremely juicy (and messy!), it has so many tannins that it immediately sucks all moisture out of your mouth and turns your lips inside out. I have a really hard time getting past the dryness to even recognize the flavor, so I was pleasantly surprised to have my first real taste of cashew apples in the liqueur. Delicious!

Creme de Warang was last but certainly not least on the list. This one was my absolute favorite, a creamy mix of milk, cocoa, coffee, sugar and bananas. It would be perfect in an Irish coffee. I was so taken with it that the bartender offered me several more shots, and I ended up leaving with two bottles; one to be carefully rationed for the rest of my service and one to bring home to America to share!

The Latest Goings On

"Zazu Bird"

As promised, here are a few bits and pieces from my last month or so at site. Its been a bit of a slow month as I wait to see if my latrine grant will be approved for funding. In no particular order, here is how I've filled my time:

Showing off the germs

Global Hand Washing Day  

October 15th was Global Hand Washing Day, and my neighbor Aimee and I celebrated it in her village with a hand washing demonstration with the kids. Aimee led most of the session and I was just there for moral support and crowd control. We started out with an explanation about germs, given by the local health worker, and then moved on to some hand's on demonstrations. Using glitter to represent "microbes," we showed the kids how just dipping your hand into a bowl of water, the way most families "wash up" before meals, doesn't remove all of the germs. Then we had the kinds wash their hands with soap and lo and behold all the germs were gone! Then we demonstrated how germs get transmitted from person to person by coating one child's hand and having them shake hands with the kids around them. We wrapped up the day with a hand washing relay race and a banner pledging "I will wash my hands with soap" that all the children signed by applying their hand-print in paint (and since it was automobile paint, the only kind available here, the kids subsequently spent the next 45 minutes trying to wash it off their hands, thus reinforcing the message).

Kids in their back to school T-shirts and hats,
thanks to "Uncle Mike"

Back To SchoolAt some point this month the kids are scheduled to start going back to school. The school "opened" on October 6th, meaning all of the teachers showed up and had the students weed the school yard and sweep out the classrooms, at which point they promptly disappeared for two weeks. There has been some activity at the school these last two days, so perhaps the real learning will start soon. As soon as the school is back on a regular schedule we will start back up with the school garden. The womens' group has been taking care of it over the rainy season, but besides a healthy crop of eggplant there isn't much going on in the garden right now.

Sidewalk Chalk Goes Vertical
My brother who lives in Dakar recently started construction on the first ever cement structure in our compound. Its a one-room building with a small 4x4 foot porch and a little closet, for his wife and new baby. As exciting as it is to build something that will last more than two rainy seasons, its not exactly the most beautiful addition to the middle of our compound. A bag of sidewalk chalk and a handful of my little brothers quickly remedied that situation.

Found: Cutest Puppy Ever

On the way to the road town I found a lone puppy, in the middle of the path in the middle of nowhere. I searched the road town for his mother but couldn't find her, and he was too small to be left on his own, so I took him home. I named him Mo' which means "lost" in Seereer. I knew I couldn't adopt a dog here, because I would fall in love and have to take it back to America, so I spent a week trying to find it a new home. Eventually the woman that runs the French Epicerie in Kaolack adopted him, so now I can rest easy knowing he'll be well taken care of.

Latrine Project
Before writing my latrine grant I went from household to household in my village to observe the bathroom situation and make this map. The compounds shaded in grey are part of the Wolof neighborhood, where I can't work because the Imam who controls it refuses to work with white people, or women, or both, I'm not really sure. The compounds shaded in green have a functioning latrine, and the compounds shaded in red have no latrine facilities at all and have to go out to the fields to do number 2. As you can see, the red far outweighs the green, so we're in serious need of some latrine building. Hopefully my grant application will be approved, and we will be able to build at least 15 more latrines spread around the village.

I've got the bullet hole, now I just need to come up with a
good story

Badge of Honor


Something funny happens when you enter the Peace Corps... things that should be deeply personal and embarrassing suddenly become a source of pride. Poop your pants? Call your neighbor! Diarrhea and vomit at the same time? Announce it to every volunteer you meet! We are constantly exchanging stories, comparing and contrasting diseases, and discoursing on bowel movement consistency. Its probably some sort of coping mechanism...a way of reassuring yourself that you aren't the only one suffering these horrors, and bonding with your fellow volunteers. So when I developed a skin infection on my leg at the beginning of the rainy season, a fate that every single volunteer suffers at some point during their service as a result of wading through feces infested waters, I wasn't ashamed. Actually, I was a bit proud. When it persisted a month, and then two months,  I started to get a little worried, but other volunteers found it absolutely fascinating. The first thing out of their mouths when they found out the reason for the bandages was "Oooh let me see!" Then followed a hearty discussion about similar conditions, possible diagnoses, and alternative treatments. Three months, two tubes of neosporin, a bottle of hospital disinfectant and a full round of antibiotics later, the little infection that could was still going strong, so I made a trip to the med office in Dakar to have it checked out. Turns out I had a strep infection, yea like the kind in your throat, in my skin. Nothing an extremely painful pressure-washing, another 14 day course of penicillin and a bunch of fluffly clean bandages can't cure...right? We're now on month four, and although the infection is gone and its beginning to heal, the crater in my leg has far from disappeared. Its going to leave a terrible scar, one that I'll wear as a badge of honor, at least as long as I'm in Senegal. But you can bet I'll be making a trip to the dermatologist not long after I get home.

What do you call a camel that cries?

A Humpback Wail!

I know been a few weeks since my last post I've been in and out of village working on various projects but there hasn't been anything worth sitting down and writing an entire blog about. I've got some pictures and a few bits and pieces that I'll try and get around to sometime next week, but for now this will have to do. Here are a few pictures from my trip to Lompoul to stay in a tent in the desert and ride camels.

Windswept dunes

Our camp in the desert

My camel

Eric and I

Our Trio's Down To Two

Jen and Peter sorting out the cheese

Last week my closest neighbors and I got together for a little goodbye pizza party in Peter's village. His community counterpart Pap bakes village bread and he agreed to let us use his mud-brick oven for the afternoon. We had to make our own sauce, and use Laughing Cow cheese instead of the real thing, but it was still hands-down the best pizza I've had in a long time. We even made herb and garlic flat bread as an appetizer.

 Since the three of us live within a 10 kilometer radius of each other we've collaborated on a lot of work projects over the past year, working at the master farm, painting murals and planting trees (not to mention cooking some gourmet hut cuisine). Sadly our trio is about to become a duo, as Jen's two years is coming to a close. She is COSing (close of service) this month and Peace Corps has decided not to place another volunteer in her village. Peter and I will both still spend a lot of time over there since we work closely with Abdoul Salaam, the master farmer in her village, but it will be different when there isn't another volunteer to drop in on.

Everyone knows the best pizza comes from a
wood-fired oven

    It's been strange saying goodbye to everyone in the 2009 Ag/AgFo/SED stage as they depart Senegal for bigger and better things. Although a few of them have signed on for third-year extensions, the majority of the stage will be gone by the end of September. I've seen several groups of volunteers come and go, but these are people that have been around for my entire service, and it feels strange to watch them leave without me. Our Health/Environmental Ed stage is now the "senior stage" in country, the "older and wiser" volunteers who are supposed to have all the answers and bestow all of their wisdom on the younger generations, and the next in line to COS. In 8 months our services will be winding down too, and we'll be the ones planning COS trips, saying our goodbyes and passing on all of our old clothes and half-used cooking spices to a new generation of "leaders."

The Finished Products

   I expect these next 8 months to go flying by. It's hard to believe I've already been in Senegal for 18 months. I could have given birth to two babies in that amount of time (and no doubt my village is wondering why I haven't)! There are a lot of things I still want to do before I leave, and a lot of them involve a bit of travel and maybe another vacation, but I've also got a few work projects that I've been keeping on the back-burner that I would like to see finished. It's going to be a busy year, and before I know it it will be time to start thinking about heading home! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't just a little jealous of the volunteers leaving this month...I envy them their big backpacking trips, welcome home parties, access to supermarkets and ability to drive motorized vehicles again. But I know my turn will come soon enough, and so I'm also grateful for the time I have left to travel around Senegal, play with my little siblings, joke with my friends in village and maybe even do a bit of work now and again.

Our work "pocket" and Pap

I Can Show You The World...

Last week I finally finished the giant world map mural at our school in Sambande. Like the one we painted in Fasstoucouleur it takes up the entire back wall of the classroom and is over 7 feet tall. Each continent is labeled and each country numbered, and there is a corresponding key painted on the side of the cabinet next to the map. Once you've conquered the world there isn't really anywhere else to go, and I feel ready to hang up my paint brushes and put and end to my muraling career. Not that I couldn't be convinced to come out of retirement to help paint at another volunteer's site or do a training session with new volunteers, but I don't want to be buying any more paint or starting any more big projects in Sambande.

Corresponding list of continents and countries

Muraling by the Numbers:Murals painted in Senegal: 26

Mural trainings taught: 2

Villages muraled in: 6

Cans of paint purchased: 56

Days spent muraling: 43

In case you were wondering, this is where I am!

Korite

Aladji in his Korite Best

 Ramadan officially came to an end last Tuesday night with everyone crowded together in our compound staring up at the sky. My dads first wife Ami was the first to spot the thin sliver of moon that marks the end of the month of fasting and suddenly everyone was jumping up and down, pointing to the sky and cheering. For the past week Korite (Eid-al-Fitir), the end of Ramadan feast, was the only thing people could talk about. To celebrate our return to a normal eating schedule everyone puts on their nicest clothes and spends the entire day feasting and drumming and going from house to house to ask forgiveness for any wrongs you may have committed in the past year. The kids get together in little groups to show off their holiday best and ask for money and treats at each house.

Preparing the meat

 I spent the morning helping my mom peel potatoes, onions and garlic for the french-fry/onion/macaroni sauce that goes with the meat. Our meat this year was one kilo of questionable beef parts and two cows feet, so I went ahead and bought a chicken so there would be something worth eating in the bowl. Once All the kids were washed and dressed I took an individual portrait of each one looking as clean as they will probably ever be, and gave each of them a little goodie-bag of toys that I'd saved from care-packages sent over the past few months.

My dad doing what he does best

 Around 2pm all of the men and boys crowded around the bowls for lunch (they must have been hungry after sitting around doing nothing all morning) while the women waited in a different part of the compound. Once the men had eaten their fill me and my moms and sisters got to dine on what was left. Fortunately for me, my mom and I squirreled away the two drumsticks of the chicken which I breaded and fried, so we got a little more than just stomach parts and oily macaroni.

My sisters in their new complets

 After lunch everyone made the rounds to atone for their wrongs in the past year. Someone would pop into the compound with a resounding "Forgive me!" and everyone would answer back "There's nothing to forgive!" and then they would start in on the blessings. "May Allah give you health," "May Allah give you money," "May Allah give you good crops," "May Allah bring the rains," etc. etc. for up to ten minutes. Everyone in the compound just agrees with an "Amin." Most of the blessings I received seemed to be hinting at something. "May Allah give you a husband," "May Allah give you a lot of sons," "May Allah give you a good marriage." My favorite was, "May Allah bless your vagina to bear many children." I think my village wants me to hurry up and get married already. After all, I'm getting old and I'd better start now if I hope to reach the double digits with my offspring. At this point in my service I'm tired of arguing...I just said "Amin."

Babies in their best

As the day wore on and everyone slipped into their own private food comas the activity settled down and I slipped back into my room for a few hours to read and relax. Around dusk the drumming started up from several different parts of the village and everyone in my family made their way out to the dance parties. The women danced until dawn and the men stayed awake until all hours of the morning blasting religious "teachings" on their radios. I must admit, these "teachings" (I prefer to call them screechings) are my absolute least favorite part of life in Senegal. Noise ordinances don't exist in Africa, and so when things get too quiet at say, two or three in the morning, people decide to fill the aural emptiness with various forms of repetitive "prayers on tape." For an ear-splitting example, visit my friend Justin's blog post Here. There is no escaping them...blasting from stalls in the market, blaring from speakers attached to the top of public transport, descending from the minarets of mosques and, especially on holidays, scratching out of the tinny speakers of a thousand made in China radios in my village.

Cows foot, anyone?

Around 3am the festivities finally wound down and people made their way back home. I'm looking forward to going back to the normal routine of lunch at 3pm and dinner at 9 and being allowed to drink water in the heat of the day.