Ordinary Adventures

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

2012-01-14T17:18:00.000-05:00

"Microbes" demonstration

One of the toughest parts of our jobs at Peace Corps Volunteers is trying to facilitate what we like to call "behavior change." Old habits die hard, and trying to convince someone to make even a small adjustment in their everyday actions is a very difficult sell, especially when it is a practice that has been around for generations. After almost two years of trying to convince people of "alternative solutions" and "best practices," many of us older volunteers begin to question whether or not we should even be tackling some of these issues. After all, who are we to insist that all sick people should be immediately taken to the local health post when the traditional healers have been serving the people's needs for hundreds of years?

Certainly on many issues there is room for compromise, but some things are more cut and dry. Like washing your hands with soap before eating or preparing meals. In a country where your left hand serves as your all purpose toilet paper, tissue and diaper changer, you would think a good soapy lather before meals would be a no-brainier. Instead, everyone lightly dips their eating hand into the same bowl of dirty water before chowing down, and uses the same bowl to "wash" their hands and mouths after the meal. Its tough to teach an old dog new tricks, and despite my best impression of a broken record it has so far been impossible to convince the adults in the village that the cost of a .50 cent bar of soap per month is worth the prevention of diarrhea. That's where the kids come in.

Transferring germs

Just like learning to love vegemite, or becoming a gymnast, or being brainwashed into a cult, its best to start 'em young. Ideally I would start with babies in the womb, but all I had was a gaggle of elementary school students, so I had to work with what I could get. Senegalese adults have a deeply ingrained resistance to trying new things, but the children hear are curious and open-minded, and most importantly, willing to play along with everything the weird American asks them to do. With that in mind, a met a group of about 60 kids on the steps of the school last Saturday morning, with the hope of changing a few minds, and at the very least having some fun. My counterpart Ngor, a school director in another village, started off the day with a lesson on germs ("microbes") that many of the kids had heard before in school. He explained what germs were, where they come from and how they can get inside our bodies and make us sick.

Demonstrating proper technique

Getting kids here to believe that something so small it is invisible can do them harm is a lot tougher than convincing American kids of a magical tutu-wearing fairy that comes in the dead of night to trade your discarded teeth for shiny quarters, so for good measure we threw in a demonstration. I coated one child's hand with glitter, and told everyone to think of the little specks of colorful glass as microbes. I then asked him to shake hands with a fellow classmate in greeting, and had them both display their hands to the class. Lo and behold, the microbes had transferred from one students hand to the next! I then asked them each to dip their hand quickly into a bowl of water, as if they were about to sit down to lunch, and then show their hands to the group again. Now, not only were they both still covered in microbes, but the water in the bowl was filled with them too. All of the students agreed that putting your hand in a bowl of water wouldn't make it clean, so I gave each of the students a dab of soap and a kettle of water and asked them to demonstrate to the group how they would wash their hands to get all of the microbes off. After rubbing and rinsing for about 30 seconds under a clean stream of water, they presented their hands one more time and were declared microbe-free by the group. To give the kids a time frame for washing their hands and enforce the message, we taught them a little song to the tune of "row row row your boat." Laxad, laxad, laxad xa bay (wash wash wash the hands) / Laxad xa bay a paax (wash the hands a lot) / Bar o wec safu of (dont forget your soap) / Laxadi boo te fax (wash until they're good)

Making promises

Once all the learning was done it was time for a game. We made two teams of 5 and had them each stand in a line. The first kid received a handful of "microbes" and was asked to turn around and greet the person behind him, who would greet the person behind them and so on until the first persons germs had been transferred to the whole team. Then they began a relay race to see which team could wash their hands clean the fastest. It just so happens that the race ended in a tie, which was a good way to enforce the lesson that "everybody wins when we wash our hands with soap." To seal the deal we brought out a large banner with the words "I will wash my hands with soap" written in Seereer across the top, and asked all of the kids who agreed to sign it as a contract by tracing their handprint and writing their name. The banner will be hung at the school as a daily reminder of their promise and of what they learned.

Pinata construction

To round out the day we hung a pinata (made by my brothers and sisters the night before) full of sample-size soaps, candy and stickers from the low limb of a baobab tree and let the kids have at it. The barely-contained excitement of the spectators on the outer circle quickly turned to chaos when the pinata burst open and there was an all out war to get at the goodies. I counted three kids that came out of the pile bleeding, clutching their hard-earned treats with grins on their faces. Certainly an exciting end to the morning.

Its hard to say whether or not any of the kids who attended the session will begin washing their hands with soap, but I hope we were at least able to plant the seeds of the idea in their impressionable little minds. As I near the end of my service I'll be spending most of my time wrapping up all of my projects, so it will be up to future volunteers to water them and re-enforce the message.

Kristmas in Kaolack

2011-12-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

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!

2011-12-15T08:09:00.001-05:00

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

2011-11-27T06:22:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-26T16:51:00.001-05:00

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

2011-11-08T07:55:00.001-05:00

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

2011-10-26T12:50:00.000-04:00

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

2011-10-21T06:27:00.000-04:00

"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 School
At 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?

2011-10-13T18:23:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-18T09:15:00.000-04:00

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...

2011-09-04T06:01:00.000-04:00

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

2011-09-03T09:35:00.000-04:00

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.

The Long Ride Home

2011-09-02T13:13:00.000-04:00

A few pictures from my last ride to Sambande from Kaolack

Rainy season floods on the side of the road

Add caption

A bike is preferable to being crammed into one
of those alhams with 40 other people!

The long, straight, empty road to Keur Socce

Cow crossing

Almost home, 3k to go!

Endurance

2011-08-24T10:43:00.000-04:00

This is how an expert sufferer looks with
a 102 degree fever on a 110 degree day.

If there's one thing Peace Corps has taught me these last sixteen months its perseverance. How to put up with inconvenience, deal with difficulty, and keep going despite any amount of pain, discomfort or misery. To accept any circumstance and continue on regardless, because most of the time that's the only option I've got. I never would have made it up Kilimanjaro without these lessons. I don't know what I would have done (sat down and cried?), but I wouldn't have been able to put one foot in front of the other and continued to the summit between bouts vomiting and diarrhea without the endurance I've learned here. I can endure a double-ended intestinal assault on a 60k bike ride, 8 hours in a cramped vehicle suffocating in gasoline fumes and body odor, or an infestation of spiders (or earwigs, or biting ants, or scorpions), with a resilience I never thought I possessed. In short, I am an expert in misery. Acknowledging it, coping with it, moving through it and accepting it as an inevitable part of life in Africa. Thats not to say its always easy, or that all suffering is created equal. For instance, I find it much easier to spend a rainy night squatting over a hole in the ground expelling all the fires of hell than to endure the millionth "xonknop" (red-ears) from a stranger in a country where I'm trying so hard to fit in. Not all trials are handled in equal grace, but none the less they are handled. It is somehow comforting to think, during a bout of illness or a period of abuse, that "this isn't the worst thing that will happen to me in Senegal." I don't know why that helps, but it does. I can't possibly allow myself to go to pieces over something if I know there is worse yet to come. What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger, and Senegal hasn't managed to kill me yet!

Shhh, Be Vewy Vewy Quiet, I'm Raising Rabbits

2011-08-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

Aput and Xa Ju'ua (lunch and dinner), my breeding pair

How often do you eat meat? Assuming you're not a vegetarian, I'm willing to bet the number is somewhere around 7 times a week...an average of one meal containing animal protein per day. In my village, as in most villages across Senegal, we're lucky to get meat once a month, and that would be one chicken shared between 9 adults and 12 children. A lack of protein in the diet isn't as big of a threat to people's health here as a lack of vegetables since most of our meals contain dried fish (literally just a fish, dried to leather in the sun), but it is certainly a threat to my tastebuds. That's where Bugs Bunny comes in.

The hutch built by my counterpart and I.
I was feeling patriotic on painting day!

I had been toying with the idea of raising chickens, but I couldn't stand the thought of adding more noise to the cacophony that is our compound. My newest rule is "if it crows, it goes," one feathered 4am alarm clock is enough. After rejecting the roosters I turned my mind toward other readily-available sources of protein. Cows are strictly for Pulaars to herd. Goats and sheep require too much space and food, and as I've been waging war against my aunt's goats for almost a year trying to keep them out of my garden I didn't fancy adding to their ranks. Rats and monitor lizards are another option here if you're a good trapper, but although I've got a seemingly endless supply of rats invading my yard and hut I don't fancy trying to cultivate them and monitor lizards, although delicious, don't provide much meat. That leaves just one option: Rabbits. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Rabbits don't moo, crow, bray or baa. They are one of the most efficient animals and produce an astounding amount of meat for every kilogram of fodder. Rabbits aren't picky eaters and its easy to find something for them to eat year round, even in the desert. Best of all they reproduce like, well, like rabbits! Two rabbits today quickly becomes twenty rabbits tomorrow, and so for a small initial investment I have guaranteed myself a steady supply of meat for the rest of my service. If things go really well I might even consider writing a grant to extend rabbit husbandry to other compounds in the village. We'll see how it goes.


My brother Samba with Xa ju'ua

Water, Water, Everywhere and Not a Bite to Eat

2011-08-09T04:05:00.002-04:00

Now that the rains are is in full swing my family and I are spending a lot of time in the fields plowing, planting, and weeding our crops; millet, peanuts and corn. Rainy season can be a bit misleading, because despite being surrounded by green lush crops, we've been in "starving season" for over a month now. Its the awkward time before the harvest when food from last year is running low and the price of vegetables skyrockets. Fortunately much of starving season overlaps with Ramadan so we're fasting from sunrise to sunset anyway and the lack of food is less noticeable. Our family has been able to supplement our dinners with vegetables from my garden so we're getting a few more vitamins than most, but the extra farm work combined with fasting food and water for 15 hours a day make August a tough month for everyone.

Oumi taking a break from weeding the field

Since the beginning of Ramadan, the farming work falls
heavily on the shoulders of the kids who are too young to be fasting

Modu leads the donkey pulling the plow

Aladji putting the plow away

A monitor lizard caught in my garden.
Lucky for him we're all fasting for Ramadan
or else he would have been eaten

My brothers displaying the first eggplant
harvested from my garden

My rainy season garden in its early stage:
tomatoes, eggplant, basil, beans, corn,
sweet potato, mint, okra, green pepper

My eggplant had twins!

African lightning storm...natures television

Movie Night

2011-07-30T08:58:00.000-04:00

Every time I go to Kaolack and come home with a full computer battery I make a bowl of popcorn and host a movie night with my family. The kids love the cinematic adventures and I love listening to their commentary as they discover something for the first time. We've watched everything from Disney movies to Jurassic Park, and although I've tried to explain the concept of fiction to them, I think I've left them with a few false impressions of the world. My brothers and sisters are convinced that frogs and donkeys in America can talk (thanks to Shrek and Princess and the Frog), that white people can grow hair long enough to climb up (Tangled) and most terrifyingly, that dinosaurs still exist and regularly eat people. Its funny to watch them try and reconcile what they see on screen with their own world. They had a long argument over whether Aladdin was a talibe, a beggar child that attends Koranic school, or a Pulaar because his pants look like the traditional chaia that they wear. In they end I think they decided that he was a mixture of both.

Last week, having run out of fiction, I watched two episodes of the BBCs Planet Earth with them; shallow seas and great plains. It was especially entertaining to hear their commentary on the animals, which they tried desperately to categorize in terms of the things that they know. Some animals, like elephants and monkeys, they recognized, but most of them were too far outside their realm of experience so they tried to stuff them awkwardly into familiar boxes. Whales? Big fish. Not too much of a stretch. Lions? Large cats. Again, a reasonable extrapolation. Some things, though, were a bit off the mark. Seals became "dogs of the water," American buffalo were "Forest cows," and there was a long argument as to whether the Arctic Fox was a dog or a "cat of the forest." Any manner of gazelle was dubbed a "goat of the forest" and somehow a manatee and her cub became "water donkeys." I think they really enjoyed the fantastic imagery, although I don't think they always understood exactly what they were seeing. The views from space, for example, completely eluded them. Still, it is fun to try and broaden their horizons, even if they don't quite believe these things exist.

A Tale of Two Seasons

2011-07-25T13:27:00.000-04:00

Hot Season

Rainy Season

Camp de Conaissance et Croissance

2011-07-12T04:44:00.000-04:00

Group Photo, campers and counselors

At the end of June the volunteers of Kaolack region hosted a summer leadership camp for 40 local teenage girls who had just completed 5eme (8th grade) and were in the top 10 of their class. The purpose of the camp was to empower and inspire local girls and open their eyes to opportunities for their future beyond, or perhaps in spite of, early marriage. Each day involved leadership and team building games, crafts, sports and educational workshops that related to the day's theme. My main job at the camp was to work with the Seereer women in the kitchen managing the pantry and making sure meals came out on time, but I escaped the heat of the cooking fire to teach swim lessons and lend a helping hand with other sessions where needed. It was a long week, but worth all of the hard work to help provide such a unique and valuable experience for the girls.

Monday's theme was Identity, and journal prompts, discussions and sessions focused on how the girls viewed themselves and how they identified their roles in society and in their families. Individuality is stamped out of kids by the school system at a pretty early age, so sometimes it can be tough to get Senegalese people, especially women, to view themselves as unique. Group think is extremely influential in this culture and sometimes it can be difficult to get a girl to step outside the box and express original view or opinions, even about herself, that might be different from the crowd. The girls started off the morning with yoga (a daily occurrence at the camp) and then spent an hour personalizing journals with photos cut from magazines that expressed something about their personality. These journals were used each morning to record the girls thoughts, prompted by several questions relating to the days theme, and then again in the evening as part of group discussions with their Senegalese counselors. The first day went really smoothly, and as the day wore on the girls began to adjust to the rhythms of an American-style summer camp and really started to open up and enjoy themselves. We ended the day with a big camp fire and sang songs and taught the girls how to make s'mores.

The journal of Ami Mbodji, one of the girls from my village

Tuesdays theme was Health, and the big session of the day was an anonymous Q&A with several volunteers and a local midwife. Girls wrote questions on pieces of paper about everything from rape and violence, to sexual health and birth control, to pregnancy and periods and then they were read aloud to the group and answered. In a culture where sexual education is severely lacking and "general knowledge" is mostly just myths and superstitions, opportunities for women to receive accurate information about their own bodies are rare. The girls also attended sessions on making neem lotion (a natural mosquito repellent), fitness and exercise, and healthy cooking. The day ended with a spa night. Pedicures and facials and nail polish galore.

Tug-of-war

Wednesday was all about the Environment. In the morning we sent the girls off on a pirogue (boat) ride through the mangrove forest to a protected island with a local environmentalist, earning those of us who got up at 5am to cook pancakes for all 60 people at the camp a much needed break. In the afternoon the girls learned how to make a tree nursery and a container garden, and then participated in a team Olympics. We topped the day off with the movie Fern Gully, dubbed in French and projected onto a bedsheet along with popcorn and juice.

Counselors taking a hard-earned break

Thursday we spent the day talking about Gender. Girls were asked to contemplate what it means to be a woman, and were pushed to challenge conventional gender roles in society. In Senegal being female, especially in a small village, makes you little more than a baby-making machine. Many girls are pulled out of school early and married off at a young age, to men typically 10-15 years older than them. My 15 year old sister in Sambande has been married for over two years now, although she doesn't yet live with her husband, and my 29 year old brother just married a 17 year old girl. Women are the ones who cook, clean, work in the fields, take care of children, wash clothes and cater to the husbands every whim. Men are the ones who "provide for the family" by farming during the three rainy months of the year, or working as masons, taxi drivers or shop owners. We asked the girls to re-think traditional gender roles and consider the possibility that girls might be able to play sports and men can do laundry and cook. The girls spent the afternoon making friendship bracelets and tie-dye Tshirts and we taught them how to play softball and ultimate frisbee. In the evening a local drumming group came in and we held a Sabaar (dance party) for the girls.

A Fire eater at the dance party on Thursday night

Friday, the last day of camp, was career day. Building on the foundation of the day before, we examined opportunities for girls to do something other than pop out babies for the rest of their lives. We had several guest speakers talk about their own lives and careers, including teachers, midwives and business owners. One of the first questions the girls always asked was "are you married?" They wanted to know if it was possible to be someones wife and still have a career as a strong, independent woman. The answer was an inspirational "yes." The girls also discussed various jobs that were seen as either for men, for women, or for both and counselors gave examples of women performing and succeeding in male-dominated professions. The girls talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up, and there were some surprising answers. The most popular answers were teacher and midwife, but girls also expressed the desire to become lawyers, doctors, policewomen, firefighters and entrepreneurs. At the end of the day each group of girls performed a skit that they had worked on with their Senegalese counselors all week, based around one of the themes of the camp.

I think the girls that attended camp got a lot out of the week. They made some good memories, lasting friendships and learned valuable lessons, but most importantly they had fun. Girls in this country rarely get the opportunity to just have a good time, because as soon as they get home from school they have to take on the responsibilities of a grown woman...cooking, cleaning and collecting firewood while their brothers run off and play. It was nice to give these young women a chance to get away from their responsibilities and give them time to learn and grow and think about their futures.

Happy Birthday Amerik!

2011-07-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

Kedougou has an ice cream man...who knew?

This year I celebrated the 4th of July in Kegougou, a region in the south east of Senegal with a couple of waterfalls, some modest hills and a lot more green than anywhere else in the country. About 100 volunteers descended on the regional house for a weekend of all-American fun. There was a pool party at a local hotel, bike trips to local waterfalls, horseshoes, beer and a good old fashioned pig roast. Nothing says American like a cold can of beer and a plate full of pork, two things extremely hard to come by in a muslim country. In honor of the occasion, I've compiled a short list of things about America that I didn't realize were so amazing until I spent a year in Senegal.

Two pigs in the ground, one for the grill

1. Anonymity- In a country as racially diverse as the United States it's pretty easy to blend in with the crowd, even in predominately ethnic neighborhoods. Its not uncommon to see a black person in Chinatown or a Mexican in Harlem and most people don't give it a second thought. As a white person living in Senegal, however, its impossible to remain anonymous. As soon as I step out my front door I stick out like a sore thumb. Even if I dress in traditional clothes, speak three local languages and suck dirty well water out of a plastic bag that I bought out the window of a public transport vehicle I will never be mistaken for Senegalese. I stick out like a sore thumb and from the moment I leave my village people shout Toubab ("white person") at me from all directions, small children cry at the sight of me and street children follow me around like a pack of wild dogs pinching my skin and throwing rocks.

2. Cleanliness is next to Godliness- Hand washing. Trash disposal. Sterile medical facilities. Food sanitation laws. After a year of watching kids poop next to our food bowl, grown men mine for gold up their nose next to me on the bus and raw sewage flowing freely through the streets of Kaolack, American's penchant for over-regulating, over-sanitizing and over-medicating doesn't seem so bad.

3. Punctuality- In America you call a meeting and people show up five minutes early. In Senegal you call a meeting and people show up two hours late. In America now means now. In Senegal now means any time from 2-10 hours later. In America public transport operates on a schedule. In Senegal public transport barely operates and you should expect to wait 2-5 hours for a car to fill up and leave.

Large hills

4. One price for everyone- I can't wait to go shopping in a country where the price of an item doesn't depend on the color of your skin, where its illegal to charge someone 4x the fair price for vegetables just because they're white, and where people don't exert a "toubab tax" on public transportation.

5. Racism is wrong- In Senegal, racism is a way of life. You could never get away with addressing someone as "white person" in America as if it was their name, or shouting "xonknop" (red ears, the Senegalese equivalent of nigger) at them from across the street. People don't throw rocks at people who look different, charge different prices for different races or force white people to take the worst seat on public transport. I have so much more respect for MLK jr, because after a year of almost constant harassment because of my race I don't know how much more I can take.

6. Things that work- Senegalese people break EVERYTHING. Give a child a stuffed animal and they will immediately start dismembering it. Wheels fall off of moving cars, huts collapse in the rain because they aren't maintained, the only ATM in the city remains broken for weeks, and massive power outages cause riots in the streets.

Termite Mound

7. Common courtesy- Americans can wait in an orderly line. If a pregnant woman or old lady gets on a bus young men will give up their seat. If someone spits on your foot while washing for Friday prayers they apologize profusely. People say "please," "excuse me," and "thank you" regularly. No one demands you give them money / a present / the shirt off your back. These things are AMAZING.

8. Work Ethic- The American Dream means working hard to improve your life. People respect hard work and most people don't feel good at the end of the day unless they've accomplished something. The Senegalese Dream is to sit around under a tree drinking tea until some NGO shows up and gives you something for free. People refuse to do any work that does not have an immediate pay-off...investing in your future is not a wise decision since it involves hard work without visible results.

9. Women's Rights- I can't wait to move back to a country where I don't get asked to become someone's third wife on a daily basis, where my male friends don't get asked to sell me to some gross old man, where I can sit in the front seat of a vehicle, wear pants and "do sports" without getting yelled at by some sexist old man. A country where I don't have to explain to people why I don't want to be married with three kids at 23 years old, where people don't constantly remind me that my biological clock is ticking and where my worth is not based solely on my marital status.

10. FOOD!- God bless the land of variety. Mexican, Chinese, Thai, German, Vietnamese, Japanese, Diners, Italian...the list goes on and on. In Senegal you can choose from one of 10 ethnic dishes, although they all contain rice, fish and oil so why even bother to choose. God bless the land of availability. Supermarkets in every city, convenience stores on every corner, farmers markets in every yuppie neighborhood, 24 hour drive throughs, grocery delivery services. In my village I have to walk 2k to the nearest boutique and if I don't get the vegetables I need on Tuesday market I don't eat them all week.

ANTS!

Bittersweet Home Coming

2011-06-20T13:49:00.000-04:00

After a month away from site, coming back to my village really did feel like coming home. My mom swept the cobwebs from my hut, washed my sheets, and made my favorite dinner (millet and beans). As soon as I appeared on the road all of my little brothers and sisters started chanting my name and ran out to greet me and carry my luggage back to the house. All of the women at the well made a big fuss over my return and begged me not to be gone for so long ever again. Everyone in the village lamented about how AWFUL my vacation must have been since I got too skinny and lost my "jaifonde" (big butt), and insisted I stop by for lunch so they can fatten me up again. Being back in my own routine, among family and friends, in familiar surroundings has been really nice, but a recent tragedy has made my homecoming a bit difficult.

For several months my best friend Bassirou's wife has been ill, and on June 6th she passed away in her mother's village. No one knows exactly what she died of, but since I was told she had "stomach problems" and I watched her wasting away, it is very possible it was liver cancer caused by Hepatits B, which is apparently pretty common here. Rokhaya was a neighbor and really good friend of mine and I'm deeply saddened by her passing, but since she passed away a week before I got home my village and I are not on the same grieving schedule.

Death is handled very differently here than it is in the western world. When someone dies women throw themselves on the ground and wail and cry, but according to Muslim law the body is buried within 24 hours and after that people seem to "get over it" pretty quickly. I have no doubt that internally they continue to be saddened by the loss of a loved one, but the demands of a harsh life take precedence and once the funeral is over you aren't supposed to show any emotion. You shouldn't be upset that someone is dead because "Allah willed it," and if it was God's will then there's no sense in getting all worked up.

Fortunately my mom broke the news to me over the phone a few days before I returned to my village so I was able to spend a few days mourning my friend, but it was still difficult to go back to Sambande knowing I couldn't show any emotion when extending my condolences to my best friend and his family. It has been a bit of a tough week, but Bassirou is my best friend for a reason and I think he understood, and perhaps even appreciated it, when I wasn't always able to maintain my composure. Rokhaya was a beautiful person and a good friend and her presence is sorely missed. She left behind three beautiful daughters, Koumba, Aissatou and Marie, who seem to be taking the whole situation in stride. Dealing with tragedy is something kids learn how to do at a very young age here and they still have a loving father and a village full of mothers who will take care of them so I don't doubt that in the long run they will be okay. As for me I'm trying to celebrate Rokhi's life rather than mourn her death and I'm keeping myself busy with daily chores and planning upcoming projects. Prayers would be appreciated.

Zanzibar Island

2011-06-12T03:34:00.001-04:00

the boat that I snorkeled from anchored off Prison Island

Zanzibar was the final stop on my vacation, and I didn't have any real plans other than take the ferry over from Dar es Salaam and find somewhere to stay, since a lot of what I wanted to do on the island was dependent on how much money was left in my budget at the end of the trip. I managed to be pretty frugal throughout my travels so I was able to have a really nice time in Zanzibar instead of just sitting in the airport waiting to go home like I feared would happen. I left Dar es Salaam at noon on June 2nd for what was supposed to be a 3 hour ferry ride. Four and a half hours later I arrived in Stone Town, and immediately

Neighbor fish in their sea-anemone home

began winding my way through the narrow streets looking for the nearest dala dala stand. I had plans to stay at the Zanzibari on the north end of the island thanks to the generosity of Mike, my fellow climber on Kilimanjaro who had paid for 5 nights but could only stay for three. The 60 kilometer ride to the north end on the island on the dala (truck cab with a long open bed that is crammed with people) only cost me $2, as opposed to $45 for a taxi, but it made frequent stops and took about two and a half hours and by the time I arrived in Nungwe it was dark. My plan had been to either walk to the hotel if it was close to the bus stop or negotiate a cheap taxi or motorcycle ride, but all of that went out the window when the dala reached the end of the line; a dead-end dirt road in an impoverished residential area with no resorts, taxis or tourists in sight. With no other choice I hoisted my baggage onto my head african-style and began walking, reasoning that as long as I was moving I wasn't lost. I got vague directions from a man at a shop who insisted it was "very far," but with no vehicles in sight my only option was to try and walk there. Stumbling over uneven dirt roads in the pitch dark with 40 pounds of luggage (remember, I still had all my Kili gear) with absolutely no idea how far it was to my destination reduced me to tears pretty quickly as I imagined bandits and murderers around every corner. Finally, an hour later a local guy took pity on me and led me right to the hotel, and I arrived sobbing, sweaty and scared out of my mind at the most amazing place I have ever stayed in my life, making the whole ordeal totally worth it. After a glorious shower with real water pressure and variable temperature and a 3 course dinner that included free drinks thanks to a sympathetic bartender I collapsed into my enormous canopy bed for the most amazing sleep of my life.

Snorkeling at the reef off of Prison Island

The next morning I woke up early, ate an amazing breakfast and hiked back out to the road to catch another dala dala back to Stone Town. In the daylight the walk was short and actually quite pleasant, and everyone was so friendly that I felt a little bit embarrassed about my freak out the night before. Living in Senegal has really destroyed my trust in people and I realized that next morning that although it is important to be wary, there aren't murderers and thieves hiding around every corner in Zanzibar. Other than that one night, I never once felt like I was in an unsafe situation on my trip, and the majority of Tanzanians are extremely friendly and really just want to get to know you (more on that later).

Just in case you were tempted to ride the 185 year old tortoise

In Stone Town I rented a room on the third floor of an old house right outside the Darajani market. I mostly stuck to the Old City and spent the week exploring the narrow streets and alleyways, looking at the shops and marveling at the intricately carved doorways and architecture that was a a mix of Swahili, Arab, Persian and Indian architecture thanks to its ancient role as a center of trade. The maze-like streets aren't wide enough for cars so wandering around them sort of feels like stepping back in time, especially as I came across historical buildings like the former Sultan's Palace, the Hamamni Baths, the Old Fort, and several cathedrals, mosques and sites associated with the slave trade. The is a lot of culture and history to be soaked in on the island and I tried to make the most of it.

A plethora of freshly caught and grilled seafood at Forodhani
Gardens night market

On my second day in town I stepped into an excursion office on a whim and ended up joining a group that was going out to Prison Island to snorkel. Our boat, the Gladiator, took us out at 1pm to a coral reef just off the north side of the island and we spent about an hour just skimming along the surface admiring all of the beautiful underwater flora and fauna. The weather turned a bit stormy but since we were already wet it didn't matter, and by the time we went to the island to visit the tortoise sanctuary the clouds had cleared and the sun was shining again. After feeding spinach a 185 year old tortoise and taking a short walk around the island we headed back to the mainland for a drink at the sunset bar. Around 8pm I walked down the waterfront to Forodhani Gardens where every night the fishermen set up tables with white linen cloths and oil lamps and grill up whatever they caught for the day. Kebabs of lobster, octopus, shrimp, mussels and various types of fish are served with freshly baked chapattis and breads for just a dollar each. I chose a warm garlic pita and two skewers of reef shark and vegetables and was not disappointed.

Dolphin watching off the southern tip of the island

I returned the next night alone for an encore, and shortly after sitting down with my plate I was approached by a young Tanzanian man in his early twenties who wanted to sit and chat. In Senegal, anyone who wants to talk with you ultimately wants something, and especially men will usually ask to marry you within the first 3 minutes of the conversation, so I was a bit wary. Still I was in a good mood and stuffed with seafood so I politely answered his questions in what turned out to be perfect English. When he found out I had never tasted freshly squeezed sugar cane juice he disappeared and returned 5 minutes later with a cool glass and two straws. We sat and chatted about Senegal and Tanzania and traded Swahili and Seereer vocabulary until almost midnight when the vendors began dismantling their tables, and then he walked me home. He never once asked me to marry him, or for a visa, or made any indication that he wanted anything from me other than pleasant conversation. It was actually one of the nicest "dates" I've ever been on, and when he kissed me on the cheek and asked if he could see me the next day I agreed and we made plans to meet in the park. We met the next morning and spent the day sitting on a bench talking about everything from science to politics until well after lunchtime, and when we parted ways I was actually a bit disappointed that I wouldn't be seeing him again

Red Colubus Monkey in Jozani Forest

On my. last day on the island I signed up for a tour to swim with dolphins off the southern end of the island and met at 8am for the tour. It was windy and the seas were extremely rough (prompting several passengers to go "chumming" over the side of the boat), and it was actually better to see the dolphins from the boat than to jump in the water every time they swam past since none of them seemed inclined to stay and visit. After a couple of hours of battling the swells we returned to shore, but not before the tide went out, forcing us to wade100 yards through thigh deep, jellyfish infested waters alternately getting stung and stumbling on hidden rocks. After squeezing lemon juice on our stings (none of us were very inclined to pee on ourselves) we had a nice lunch on the beach before heading over to Jozani forest to see Red Colubus Monkeys, a species native only to Zanzibar that evolved without a thumb. After my tour I returned to my room to pack up my things and had street food in the Darajani night market for dinner before heading to the airport to wait for my 3:30am flight to Addis Ababa. I spent a miserable, mosquito infested night sleeping in a chair in the open-air waiting area before checking in at midnight and finally boarding my plane at 3am.

On Safari

2011-06-11T16:04:00.002-04:00

If you close your eyes and think of Africa, what do you see? Flat plains stretching to the horizon...herds of antelope and gazelles frolicking through long dry grass...a lion stalking its prey...a giraffe browsing the upper leaves of an acacia tree? For those of us raised on the Lion King and the Discovery Channel the Serengeti is Africa, and I got to see all of those things and more on our four day safari. As soon as we entered the park on the afternoon of the 26th we stepped into a slice of Africa that has been preserved just the way Livingstone might have found it 150 years ago, with the exception of a few dirt roads and well-hidden lodges. We spent the next several days traversing the park in our safari vehicles searching for "zoo animals" without the cages and keepers, and we found some pretty amazing things. Since words can hardly do justice to an experience like this, I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

Day 1: The Western Corridor

Herds of zebras grazing in the long grass

On our first day in the park was like stepping into a National Geographic nature special. We were treated to all of the regulars; zebras, impala, gazelles, water buffalo, ostrich, baboons, hippos and giraffes, but the big stars of the day were the wildebeests. Every year over a million wildebeests travel a circular migration path through several national parks searching for food and water. About halfway through the drive we turned a corner and stretched out on the plain before us was a giant herd of wildebeest stretching all the way to the horizon. Literally thousands of them, dotting the landscape like grains of sand on a beach. Even more amazing than the sight was the sound...they make kind of a small grunt for such a big animal and it was like being surrounded by a bunch of bullfrogs. For the next 15 minutes there were nothing but crowds of wildebeest all over the bath and as far as the eye can see. We continued driving through the migration and arrived at our lodge, the Mbalageti, just after sunset where we were escorted to our rooms and then to dinner by Maasai guards to protect us from animals that sometimes wandered into the open camp.

A small fraction of the great wildebeest migration

Giraffe giving us the star-down

Day 2: Northern Serengheti

We saw more wildebeest on our second day, but not in the staggering numbers of the day before. We saw a greater variety of animals as we moved North; zebras, baboons, thompsons gazelles, a leopard tortoise, topi, dik diks, ostriches, storks, hyenas, warthogs, a momma and baby giraffe and more hippos, but the day was dominated by the big cats. Shortly before lunch we spotted two leopards in two different trees about 10 meters off the road. They rarely come out of the branches during the day so is pretty rare to see them and we all felt very fortunate. Before we had even gotten over the excitement of seeing our first predator we turned a corner and there was a lioness sunning herself on a fallen tree. Unlike the leopards she was maybe 10 feet from the road and in plain sight. It took a minute for it to sink in that this wasn't some exhibit at a zoo...this was a wild lion in its natural habitat. She sat up briefly when we arrived, but she seemed entirely unconcerned with our presence, and soon laid back down and went to sleep. She knew she was on top of the food chain. Around 2:30 we stopped at an information center for lunch and observed a few humans in their "natural habitat." There were some particularly entertaining asian tourists. One guy in a baby-blue long sleeve, lime green polo shirt and neon pink safari vest really cracked me up...he was clearly a master of the safari camoflage. I also got a kick out of another plump asian tourist feeding orange slices to an even plumper giant rodent, despite the signs forbidding it.

lioness taking stock of her surroundings

After lunch we set out again in the direction of some large rocks and almost immediately spotted another lioness sunning herself high on a boulder. We drove on for nearly an hour after that, and just as the heat and the silence of the Serengeti were lulling me to sleep we pulled alongside another vehicle and learned that there was a momma cheetah and two cubs sitting on a rock under the shade of a bush, just at the edge of binocular range. Our drivers conferred briefly and we turned off the road and set off across the grass. I thought we would stop maybe 20 feet away, but we pulled up literally 5 feet from them. Even though she was with her babies the cheetah didn't give us a second glance and acted as if we didn't exist. She probably knew she could rip us to pieces if she wanted to and didn't feel at all threatened. We stayed for several minutes taking pictures and enjoying her presence, then began making our way to our next lodge. We made two more detours on the way, one for two lionesses napping in a dry stream bed and another for a lone cheetah on a rock. The cheetah got down and actually began running towards our vehicles, but passed between them at the last minute and we got to drive alongside it as it ran through the grass. We finished the day with an extremely pregnant hyena that waddled across the road just before we reached the lodge.

Momma and babies resting in the shade

Jon: "They look full"
Me: "I hope they're full"

lioness standing over a fresh kill

Day 3: Morning and evening game drives

We left the lodge at 6am for a game drive in the hopes of seeing some more big predators, who do most of their hunting in the dawn hours. Several kilometers down the road we came across a huge herd of buffalo and on the right side of the road was a lioness with a fresh kill, legs still twitching. I couldn't believe how close we were to her...just three feet or so. She had clearly dragged her prize some distance already and she was exhausted and just laying over the carcass. After a while she got up and began trying to move it over the embankment, but didn't get far before she stopped and looked off into the distance. Following her line of sight we saw two enormous male lions moving steadily towards her in the grass. She turned and ran back across the road towards the herd, and all of the sudden the males came after her at full speed, passing just inches from the bumper of our car.

Aslan appears out of the sunrise

The three of them raced off towards the rising sun, and after a few minutes just the males returned; they were from a different family and had stolen her prey. They dragged it into the tall grass, out of sight of the road, and chowed down. We drove around for another two and a half hours and saw a hyena pack devouring a leftover lion kill while vultures waited their turn in line, a juvenile male lion digesting his breakfast on the top of a huge boulder and a glimpse of a cheetah on a high rocky outcrop.

We spent the afternoon relaxing at the lodge and at 4pm we met in the lobby for another game drive. We headed away from the lodge in a direction we hadn't previously taken, through an area much more dense with trees. We stopped at a picnic area next to a partially dried up river that was home to a huge group of hippopotamus. We were able to get out of the car and walk towards the river, although there was a sign warning people not to get too close. More effective than the sign, though, was the smell. When over 30 hippos share a tiny pool that is only flushed seasonally the result is a lake of floating poo and filthy green-brown water. We watched the hippos for as long as our noses could stand, about 30 minutes, then headed back up the road. As we turned the corner there was a huge male elephant in the road that absolutely dwarfed our safari vehicle. Off to the right was a whole family grazing in the bushes and to the left were two smaller males, one of which was missing half its trunk.

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Handicapped Elephant

Day 4: Ngorongoro Crater

Hyena. The reason my family won't let me leave the village
at night

We left our lodge in the Serengeti and drove East into the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which was formed eons ago when a volcano larger than Mount Kilimanjaro collapsed. We crested the rim of the caldera and were greeted with a sweeping view of the crater floor 620 meters below. There was a big sulfurous lake, white and steaming, and several smaller freshwater lakes and streams. The crater is 19 kilometers from rim to rim and 196 square kilometers in area and is described as an ecological fishbowl. That gave me the impression that we would be seeing animals everywhere, but in reality it seemed more sparsely populated than Serengeti. Maybe it just depends on the time of year. There were still plenty of zebra, topi, wildebeest, gazelles and antelopes, but we only saw two elephants and giraffes don't live in the crater because there isn't enough vegetation to support them. We did see a ton of flamingoes that thrive in the sulfurous lake, and when they took flight they turned the air pink. Another animal unique to the crater is the rhinoceros. I was hoping to see one since they are really rare, but the closest we got was a glimpse of one far off through the binoculars so I didn't get a picture.

Lion playing king of the hill on our way out of Serengeti

There aren't as many roads crossing the crater as there are in the Serengeti so it was tougher to get close to wildlife, but even so we came across a lioness on her back right on the side of the road. She was very still and breathing heavily, and I thought she was a victim of a "traffic accident" (as our guide called it), but our driver insisted she was fine, and a few minutes later she rolled over and went back to sleep. We rounded out the day following a cheetah as she stalked her dinner. We spotted her laying low on the left side of the road staring at a small group of zebras. She wasn't being very stealthy and they clearly knew she was there, but they seemed reluctant to run and stood their ground stamping and snorting. The cheetah paused for a long drink then crossed the road and began prowling about in the grass on the other side. We though we were going to see a chase, but she was just scoping out the buffet and didn't seem too interested in deciding just yet, so we returned to the lodge. The next morning we stayed at the lodge just long enough to watch the sun rise over the crater before packing up and heading off to Arusha.

Climbing Kilimanjaro

2011-06-10T18:51:00.001-04:00

Mount Kilimanjaro:
Location: Northern Tanzania
Size: 641 square miles
Elevation: 5,891 meters (19,341ft)
Prominence: 5,882 meters, 4th in the world
Distinctions: highest point in Africa, worlds highest free standing mountain, 4th highest of the Seven summits

The start of the Rongai Route

Day 1: Rongai Gate to Simba Camp

We left Moshi at 8am on May 17th and headed to the park gate at the base of the Marangu route to purchase our permits and sign the log book. After getting all of the paperwork in order we drove another hour and a half around the base of the mountain to the Rongai route, one kilometer from the Kenyan border. I chose this route because it is a bit more difficult and therefore less traveled than some of the other routes, and descends via the popular Marangu route, so it would give me the opportunity to see two different sides of the mountain. We began our climb at the Rongai gate, with approximately 1950 meters of elevation under our belt. The trail climbed gently through a deciduous forest, and it was easy to imagine I was somewhere back in the states until a baboon wandered across the path to burst my fantasy bubble. After about 45 minutes we entered an older growth forest with lichen covered rocks and trees draped in vies and spanish moss. At one point we crested a small hill and turned back to see the Kenyan plains stretching away beneath us and another mountain range on the horizon. After a year of flat brown desert the sight was absolutely breathtaking.We traveled about 8km in two hours, crossing several small streams and passing out of the forest and into the moorlands before arriving at our first camp at an elevation of 2600 meters. We spent the night at Simba camp, sharing the area with a group of German climbers and some elephants who didn't show themselves, but left us a few "presents" around the campsite.

Sunrise at Simba Camp

Day 2: Simba Camp to Second Cave

Uhuru Peak, summit of Mount Kilimanjaro

I woke up at 6:15 the next morning, just as the sun was beginning to break over the horizon, and immediately walked a few minutes back down the trail and found a good vantage point to watch the day begin. I was so distracted by the sunrise that I didn't even see the mountain until I turned around to walk back to camp, and all of a sudden there it was. It was my first glimpse of Kilimanjaro since arriving in Tanzania, because it had been obscured by the clouds every day. We started hiking at about 8:30 after an amazing breakfast of rice porridge, toast, eggs and sausage. I ate better food on the side of a mountain than I do in my village! The trail was steeper and rockier than the previous day and passed through the moorlands and open grasslands. To our left was Mawenzi, a smaller second peak on the mountain, and ahead of us was Uhuru peak, the summit of Kilimanjaro and our final destination. We were above the clouds to start the day, but they slowly chased us up the mountain, overtaking us two and a half hours later, just before we reached camp. The clouds were streaming past all afternoon on their way to the top of the mountain, obscuring all but our most immediate surroundings, and the air was cold and damp. Our campsite was called Second Cave, thanks to a small overhanging rock roof about 10 feet deep, and was about 3,400 meters in altitude. I spent the afternoon writing in my journal and playing spades with my fellow climber Mike, our guide Edward and our porter Deo. For lunch we had chicken, a luxury I can afford once every two months in my village yet we had it every day on the mountain!

Sunrise viewed from inside the Second Cave

Day 3: Second Cave to Third Cave

The night was significantly colder than I had expected it to be, and although I slept in two layers of capeline and my down jacket I never truly got warm. It wasn't easy after a year of desert temperatures to all of a sudden find myself above the frost line. I was treated to another amazing sunrise the next morning over a blanket of clouds, and I woke up at 6 and climbed to the top of an outcrop of boulders to watch it. The sky above was clear and I had a great view of the summit back lit by a full moon. The group of Germans that we shared our first camp with had taken a different variation of the route, so we had the area all to ourselves, and it was amazingly peaceful. It wasn't until that moment that I realized just how much of my stress in Senegal was due to not being able to be alone in the wilderness. Our elevation gain for the day was small, only 475 meters, and we hiked several hours through alpine desert over a relatively flat plain to our camp at the creatively named Third Cave. We had circled around a bit to the left side of the peak and it now towered over our camp which was situated next to a dry riverbed and surrounded by enormous blocks of volcanic rock.

View of Mawenzi peak from Kibo Camp

Day 4: Third Cave to Kibo Camp
Our final hike before the summit bid was our longest yet, cruising over mostly even terrain at a steady incline. We gained about 830 meters of elevation and left most of the vegetation behind us before arriving at Kibo camp at 4713 meters. Here our path converged with the Marangu route and there were several other groups of climbers already hanging around camp, including the Germans we met on our first night. The clouds that had been creeping up behind us all day brought a light rain that fell as tiny little ice crystals, and we spent most of the day napping and resting up for our hike to the summit, which was to begin at midnight. We went to bed immediately after dinner, but 11pm still came too quickly. I dressed inside my sleeping bag, putting on every layer I had before stepping out to brave the cold night air. The clouds had dispersed and the full moon shone clearly, illuminating our final destination as we switched on our headlamps and began to climb.

Shrinking glacier on the summit of Kilimanjaro

Day 5: Kibo Camp to Uhuru Peak to Horombo Camp

The weather as we started our climb was cold, but not unbearable, and I warmed up nicely as we began moving. We maintained a slow but steady pace as we switch-backed up the steep volcanic slopes and the terrain was challenging but not technical, so for 5 hours I plodded away feeling confident and strong. I didn't have any shortness of breath, dizziness or headache from the altitude, and I (foolishly) began to wonder when it would become "the hardest thing I've ever done" like everyone said it would be. That moment came at about 5am, when a mildly irritating stomach bug from the day before turned into a full-blown intestinal rebellion. I just kept willing myself to put one foot in front of the other and not look too far ahead, but my stomach was churning and I began to feel winded and my legs were shaky. Finally, just after I was passed by the German climbing team I had to make a pit stop just off the trail behind some rocks. I felt marginally better and managed to climb the last few meters to Gilmans Point, at 5,681 meters to take an extended rest and watch the sun rise. Up until that point the climbing had been extremely steep and rocky. From camp we had switch-backed up loose gravel, which had given way to scrambling over large boulders. Now that we had reached the crater rim it was mostly a flat or gently undulating gravel trail around to Uhuru Peak and I was feeling stronger after my 5 minute rest so we continued on. Unfortunately shortly after leaving Gilmans Point my stomach began protesting again and I threw up pretty violently on the side of the trail, after which my guide JJ pronounced me "cured" and we marched on. I reached Uhuru Peak at 6:47am, just after the sun had fully risen, and after snapping the obligatory summit photo I spent some time just sitting and soaking in the view from the "Roof of Africa."

My guide JJ and I on the summit

Although we had already been awake for 7 hours, our day was just beginning. The descent was steep and rocky and at times felt pretty precarious. We spent several hours "ski/sliding" straight down the steep gravelly slope and then another 45 minutes on a bone-jarring downhill stomp back to camp. I kept turning around to look back at the distance we had come and wondering how I managed to get up there in the first place. I finally stumbled into camp around 8:30, utterly exhausted and looking forward to resting my legs and going to sleep. What I got instead was a 20 minute nap and a 9.8 kilometer hike to Horombo Camp. At first the walk wasn't too bad...I seemed to get a second wind and I set a pretty brisk pace, hoping to get there as soon as possible so I could finally rest. For the most part the trail was just a gradual down-hill slope and as we lost elevation we began passing more vegetation and the trail became rockier. Soon we were traveling through rolling hills with streams crossing the path and we had all but lost sight of the summit. It was certainly a much different experience than the route we came up. After several hours I began expecting to see camp around every corner and over every ridge, but we didn't arrive until 2pm at which point I collapsed into the tent and almost immediately fell asleep. I woke up ravenous at 5pm and ate some popcorn and forced myself to wash up and put on clean clothes before passing out again. My hips and knees protested through most of the night and I slept fitfully thanks to the cold.

view from our tent at our final camp

Day 6: Horombo Camp to Marangu Gate
I woke up the next morning feeling a lot better than I had expected to, and I tried to really soak in the view from above the clouds since we would be descending below them soon. We broke camp at 7:30 to begin the 17 kilometer hike to the base of the mountain, passing back through the moorlands and into the rainforest. The Marangu route isn't as steep as the Rongai, but the distance hiked per day is a bit longer and you don't get your first glimpse of Uhuru Peak until your third day of climbing. I'm glad I chose to hike the Rongai route because not only did I get to experience two sides of the mountain, but it was much less crowded and the views were better. We hiked 11.2 kilometers from Horombo to the Mandara Camp before taking a 30 minute break for lunch. It took about 3 hours of steady descent and there were numerous small streams crossing the trail or running along side of us and a few big bridges spanning little rivers and gorges. Once we entered the rainforest the trail became slick clay and required a slower pace and some concentration to navigate safely. After lunch we hiked the final 6 kilometers to Marangu gate where we stopped 6 days ago to buy our permits. At the gate I signed the summit register and we said goodbye to our guides and porters before heading to the Babylon Lodge for a long hot shower and some well-earned rest.

My guides Edward, JJ and I at the Marangu gate

Trip Report: Tanzania

2011-06-09T17:30:00.003-04:00

I arrived back in Senegal yesterday, exactly one month after leaving my village, and I have to say it feels good to be back. After a month of adventure in Tanzania I feel rested and refreshed and ready to go home to my village and get back to work. I had an amazing time on vacation. I arrived in Moshi on the 13th after two days, three flights and a fourteen hour layover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I spent a couple of nights at Twiga Home, exploring the city and resting up for my climb of Kilimanjaro.

View of the summit of Kilimanjaro from our first camp

On the 17th I left Moshi and traveled north, one kilometer from the Kenyan border, to the start of the Rongai route at the base of the mountain. At 5,895 meters, Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa and the fourth highest of the Seven Summits. Its also the world's highest free standing mountain. We left Horombo camp at midnight on the first day and reached the summit at 6:47am after watching the sun rise at Gilman's point. Over the next two days we descended the Marangu route on the opposite side of the mountain, and I spent the night of the 22nd recovering at the Babylon Lodge in Marangu and two more days relaxing in Moshi and planning the next stage of my adventure.

Uhuru Peak, summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro

At 6am on the 25th I boarded a bus for the 15 hour journey to Mwanza to meet up with Dr. Koesler, a former professor of mine from college, and a group of students from Longwood University. I got a window seat so I could enjoy the scenery, but spent most of the ride crushed against the glass by an enormous woman, although other than that it wasn't a bad ride. 8 hours later the bus stopped in Singida for our first (and only) bathroom break, and at 8:45 we arrived in Mwanza, a small city on the shore of Lake Victoria. I spent the night in the type of hotel where you barricade your door before going to sleep and met up with the Longwood crew the next day at a hotel a couple of kilometers out of town.

A cheetah just feet from our safari vehicles

On the 27th the 10 of us piled into two safari vehicles bound for Serengeti National Park. For three days we traversed the grasslands with our guides Henry and Mr. Sweaty (I'm aware that's probably not how his name was spelled, but I swear thats how it was pronounced). We crossed paths with the great wildebeest migration on our first day, spotted a rare leopard and a cheetah with cubs on our second day, and were treated to a fresh lion kill first thing in the morning on the third. In between we saw everything from zebras in their striped pajamas to 30 hippos wallowing in their own filth, to an elephant with only half a trunk. On the fourth day we drove into the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area where we visited a tradition Maasai village and watched a cheetah stalking her dinner before spending the night at a beautiful lodge on the North rim of the crater.

Sunset over Ngorongoro crater, viewed from the North rim

The next morning we drove to Arusha where we spent the day bargaining at the market before I started planning my next move. I knew I was going to Zanzibar, but I wasn't yet sure how I was getting there. After some failed attempts at contacting local airlines I stopped by the Dar Express office and bought yet another bus ticket. At 5am on the 1st I parted ways with the Longwood crew and boarded yet another bus bound for Dar es Salaam, with plans to take the ferry to Zanzibar that evening. Unfortunately what was supposed to be a 9 hour bus ride turned into 11 and so I missed the last boat of the day and had to spend the night at the YWCA.

A fishing dhow off the coast of Zanzibar

The next day I took the noon ferry, which was the cheapest, and arrived in Zanzibar at 4:30. I took a dala dala to the North end of the island, which was much farther than I realized, and arrived after dark. I was staying the night at the Zanzibari thanks to the generosity of my climbing partner on Kilimanjaro, but I had no idea where it was and there wasn't a taxi in sight. I spent about an hour wandering down scary dark streets with my luggage on my head hoping for a miracle, when finally a man led me to my hotel. The upside is the people at the hotel felt so bad for me they gave me free drinks with dinner. For the rest of the week I rented a room in Stone Town for $10 a night and stayed fairly close to home. I spent the days wandering the maze-like streets of the old neighborhood, eating street food (chicken and chips!), snorkeling, and eating freshly caught seafood at the night market. It was an excellent way to relax and wind down at the end of a long trip, and by the end of my time in Zanzibar I felt ready to go home. I spent the night of the 7th sleeping in the airport waiting for my 3:30am flight to Addis, where I spent another couple of hours sleeping in the airport waiting for my 9am flight to Dakar.

It has certainly been an action packed month. I'm staying in Dakar for a few days for my mid-service medical exam, so I'll work on individual posts for the three big portions of my trip; Kilimanjaro, Safari and Zanzibar. Stay tuned for more pictures and stories!

A view from the road in Moshi, Kilimanjaro is obscured behind the clouds

Bits and Pieces

2011-05-11T07:00:00.001-04:00

Hot season has officially arrived. If you want a little taste of our weather go into a dry sauna, sit under a heat lamp and use a hair dryer on full blast to blow hot sand into your face. Thats kind of what it feels like on an average afternoon in the village. 115 degrees in the shade and a hot desert wind pretty much guarantee that the most work anyone will do between the hours of 11am and 5pm is lift their arm to pour a glass of tea. Productivity of locals and PCVs alike drops to an all time low and so there isn't much in the way of projects to report on. The kids are still watering the school garden and Jen and I have begun drawing another giant world map at my school but other than that its been a slow couple of weeks. Most of my news this time is of a more social nature.

Twins!
A few weeks ago my sister Ami came back from her husbands village, Diofior, to stay with us and brought two new additions to the Diouf family. The boys were born in Kaolack by C-Section quite a few weeks premature. Although they are extremely tiny, both babies seem to be otherwise healthy which is a real blessing in a country where infant mortality is still so high. New babies are typically named after a family member or close friend, which is why families of thirty often have two Aladjis or three Awas, but it is traditional to give all twins the same names. If they had been girls, or a girl and a boy their names would have been Awa and Adama. Twin boys are always named Ouseynou and Assane. Since "it takes a village to raise a child" and you can only feasibly tie one baby on your back at a time everyone in the family has been pitching in and passing the boys around. I was a bit shocked the first time someone handed me a newborn baby and then just walked away, but I've gotten used to it now. Ami will stay with our family for at least a month and eventually go back home to her husband's village.

Roofing Season
With the first of the rains just a few months away its time to start thinking about patching up the grass roofs, so the boys of the village spent the last week under the shade tree tying up long lines of thatch. They stretch a piece of rope bark tight between two sticks, lay down a row of grass, then weave another piece of bark over and under the individual bundles. Once everything is secure they us a machete to straighten up the edges then roll it up to be transported and eventually unrolled around the frame of sticks that make up a roof. Since nothing goes to waste here the extra grass cuttings get swept up by the women to be stuffed into mattresses and the roaming donkeys and goats eventually come by to clean up the leftovers.

Sleepless in Senegal
Donkey's braying, babies crying, dance parties that last until 3am, roosters crowing, the dawn call to prayer...there are a lot of things in this country that could interrupt a good nights sleep. Fortunately for me I've learned to tune out these nightly noises and I normally manage to sleep through the night. Unfortunately these past two weeks have been a different story. Since the hot season keeps my hut at a toasty 95 degrees until well after dark I have elected to sleep outside on my newly constructed cement slab, where I at least have the benefit of some air circulation. Falling asleep under a starry desert sky is infinitely more pleasant than sweating to death in my hut, but along with the hot season have come a couple of new neighbors that make staying asleep nearly impossible. Several weeks ago I awoke to loud rustling, fumbled around for my headlamp, shined it across my yard and was greeted by the sight of not one, but two cat-sized rats climbing over my millet-stalk fence. Apparently that mysterious hole that appeared next to my latrine last month has been inhabited by a family of gigantic, man-eating rats who have been coming into my back yard every night and walking me up with their terrible squealing and fence-top acrobatics. My family insists that they make good eating and so I sleep with a shovel next to my bed in case I manage to corner one, but so far no luck. I don't think I can count on Bin Bin to take care of this one, because these rats are easily just as big if not bigger than he is. Looks like I'm on my own.

Spa Day in the Village

The worst part about hot-season isn't the heat...its the boredom. Finding a way to entertain myself for six hours a day in a way that doesn't involve any physical activity has forced me to get pretty creative. I'm already reading an average of 4 books a week (I'm currently reading every novel Michael Crichton has ever written), but I can only read for so long without feeling sleepy so this past market day I bought some henna in the road town and had a spa day with my mom. I spent about an hour trying to scrub my feet back into a presentable state and then spent another hour chatting with my friend Binta while she taped them up in a traditional pattern. Then I spent the next 5 hours sitting in my hut with my feet covered in mud and tied up in plastic bags. Turns out that waiting for henna to set is just as boring as waiting for the temperature to drop, except that you can't get up to go to the bathroom. Whoops.

Bombs Away

I was startled awake the other night by an enormous crack and awoke the next morning to find this baobab tree behind our compound had come crashing down in the middle of the night. The bottom had rotted out and was completely hollow inside, and I guess the weight of the top of the tree was just too much to support, so it snapped clean through about 9 feet above the ground. There was no wind that night, so I wonder what the straw was that broke the camel's back. Maybe a lizard ran up the wrong side of the tree or a bird landed too far out on a branch. The trunk has to be at least 10 feet in diameter...if you turned it on its side you could drive a car right into the open space. Amazing that something that has been standing for hundreds of years could just come crashing down without the slightest warning. I climbed up to the top of the wreckage and took a really neat panoramic shot of the outskirts of my village.

Fear is Relative?

Will someone please explain to me why Senegalese people are terrified of frogs, chameleons, and baby chickens but not of camel spiders? In Seereer they're called horse scorpions, and in the hot season they appear in droves. They average about 6 inches long, run up to 10 miles an hour, and have gigantic pinchers that open both horizontally and vertically (think the movie predator). What's not to be afraid of?!? Even though they're not poisonous I would much rather have to deal with a scorpion than a camel spider. Scorpions run away. Camel spiders run directly at you at 100mph holding their scary little feelers out front and then dodge your flip flop at the last second to sprint between your legs and hide under your mattress. Its an absolute nightmare.

Extreme Makover, Hut Edition

These past couple months I've been working on sprucing up my living situation. My wall had started to split again in the same place it did during the rainy season so I bought a sack of cement and had it patched up. Then I went the extra mile and filled in most of the holes in my floor to try and keep the biting ants at bay. I built a shade structure in the back yard out of neem branches and sacket fencing so I can hang a hammock, trucked in 50 buckets of dirt and 20 mud bricks to make a cement bed outside and bought some string to make clothes lines so I don't have to drape things over my fence anymore. A while back I bought some chicken wire and set up a large garden space on the other side of my fence so I got rid of the back yard garden in favor of more lounge space. It might not be a four star hotel but it sure feels like home.

VACATION!

Between the heat, babysitting duty, giant rats, and horse scorpions I think this is a good a time as any to take a break from the madness of Senegal and visit a different hot, buggy, African country. For the next month I'll be trekking around Tanzania, seeing the Africa that everyone imagines when you mention this continent. I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro, relax in Zanzibar and verbally abuse lions from the perceived safety of a safari vehicle in Serengheti, Ngorongoro crater and Uldavi gorge. Look forward to a nice long trip report when I get back. See you in a month!

School Garden

2011-04-25T05:51:00.000-04:00

O bugaanga daam a koy no kop ale kaa waaraa naay o ndong o ndong.
If you want to catch a monkey in the forest you have to walk slowly.

This Seereer proverb is so fitting for describing work in Senegal. Nothing happens quickly. Projects take time. Big projects take even more time. If you want something done well, expect to do a lot of waiting. At the end of January I submitted a grant application to USAID for fencing and tools to start a garden at our school. We received funding at the end of February and began purchasing supplies. It took nearly the entire month of March for the fencing to be installed, and after that a two-week surprise school vacation put the project on hold. Patience is key when working in this country. So now, three months after the official start of the project, we are finally beginning to garden. I suppose all good things come to those who wait.

Machete: the Senegalese equivalent to WD-40 or duct tape.
Fixes any problem, anywhere, anytime.

Last week I stopped by the school to discuss a timeline for the next couple of weeks. We needed to begin planning and digging garden beds, fill sacks for our tree nursery and start a vegetable pepiniere. I expected to come away with a vague idea of when these things would be done. Instead, I witnessed an entire class of 11-13 years olds mobilized into an army of shovel, rake and machete wielding gardeners. In the span of one morning (when they should have been memorizing their textbooks), the oldest students measured and double dug eight 1x3 meter garden beds and committed to planting a tree nursery the very next day. The monkey has yet to be caught, but I think we've got him cornered up a tree.

Our director handing out tree sacks to enthusiastic students

The next morning, during their lunch break, the entire student body showed up to help fill sacks for the tree nursery. Everyone from the oldest class down to the five year olds participated; some were sifting sand, others hauled buckets of water, and everyone pitching in to fill up the bags. The kids' enthusiasm was inspiring. Watching them get so excited about manual labor in the hot African sun made me realize just how little hands-on learning kids get to participate in. The Senegalese education system is largely based on rote memorization. Kids recite their lessons in class, copy them down in their notebooks, read and re-read them at home and then are expected to regurgitate them word-for-word on the next exam. Having this garden will give kids an opportunity to get out of the classroom, apply some of their math and science lessons in real world situations and develop some practical skills in gardening.

Filling the tree sacks with a mixture of sand and manure

In the afternoon we came back and planted over 200 trees in the nursery. Moringa, Leucena, Cashew, Papaya and Flamboyant. Inshallah these trees will be ready for outplanting in several months, just as the rainy season is beginning. Each student will be given their own tree to "adopt" and plant somewhere on school grounds along with a meter of chicken wire to protect it from the goats and cows. Hopefully in several years our currently barren schoolyard will be green and shady, and the students will have a sense of pride and ownership in the beautification of their school.

Using multiplication to figure out the number of tree sacs filled

I'm a Traveling Mu(ral)sician

2011-04-19T11:06:00.004-04:00

In keeping with my trend of painting a mural on anything that stands still long enough, I recently just wrapped up two more projects with volunteers in different villages. This past week Jen, Mollie and I spent a day in Fasstoucouleur beautifying Ndeye Ba's boutique. Mollie has been working with Ndeye over the past year on accounting and helping her get a $50 loan to increase her inventory. She is the only boutique in town so in order to encourage people to "buy local" instead of shopping at the boutiques in Keur Socce we thought it would be nice to ramp up the visual appeal of her shop. Her previously plain gray cinder block window is now visible from down the street, and don't that coffee cup just make you want to buy some Nescafe?

All the basics, Vitalait, Nescafe, Tea, Bread, Butter, Biscuits,
Macaroni, Potatoes, Onions, MSG Cubes...

Since the kids can't reach the window most of them come
to the side door for their candy

Issatou Ba with her tomar (namesake)

Today I returned from Koungheul where I was following up and putting the finishing touches on a rather ambitious mural project to beautify the house where the wolof reading and writing class and the handicapped women's group meet. Ryan originally organized the project as a way to occupy two study abroad students who were visiting his village for a week, and since we had so much man-power it quickly grew from one mural to six. Mollie and I traveled down last month to get them started, and with the help of the two students, 4 volunteers and several of the handicapped women we made quick work of a wolof alphabet, two maps and two health-themed murals over the course of two days. On this last trip back I painted a third health mural about sleeping under mosquito nets and Ryan filled in all of the food groups on the nutritional pyramid. You could tell the handicapped women were really proud of their work, and the drab white room has been transformed by an explosion of color.

Proudly displaying the finished product

My newest foray into the world of health murals...mosquito nets

The full room, from left to right:

Hand washing, mosquito net, nutrition pyramid,

senegal map, africa map, wolof alphabet

Climbing the Water Tower

2011-04-18T09:51:00.000-04:00

Here are a few shots from the top of the forage (water tower) in my road town, Keur Socce. This is where the water that comes from the robinet in our village originates. Water is pumped up from the ground, stored in this massive tank and piped out to most villages within a 25 kilometer radius. Robinet water costs about 5cfa ($.01) per bucket which for most people in villages is a pretty expensive way to fulfill the daily water needs for a family of 30, but it can save women several hours a day which they would have spent pulling water at the well. Unfortunately for us the water from our forage is too salty, so my sisters and I still have to trek out to the well every evening for an hour or so to pull water for drinking, cooking and gardening. Still, its convenient to be able to just walk 20 feet from my hut, turn a tap and fill up a bucket for a nice cold bucket bath at the end of the day.

From the top of the tower you can see all the way to Kaolack 20k to the North, my village to the West, Peter and Jens villages in the East and Jessica's village 18k to the South. The village in the panoramic shot is Keur Socce, where I go to buy food or catch a car to the city. Its pretty obvious where the village ends and the fields begin, because they have been entirely cleared of trees in order to plant more millet, peanuts and corn.

And on the 10th Day the PCVs Rested

2011-04-11T11:45:00.000-04:00

It only took God 6 days to create the earth...we managed to do it in 9. Granted its a much more scaled down version, but I think it's pretty impressive none the less. Jen, Peter and I have been meeting on weekends and school holidays to paint this map on the back wall of the classroom in Fasstoucouleur. I'm ashamed to realize I didn't know nearly as much about geography as I thought I did (guess I should have paid more attention to those map quizzes in high school). This month we're going to get started on another one in the classroom in my village and then later do a third in Peter's village. Maybe by the time we finish I'll have a better grasp of this planet we live on.

Gone Fishin'

2011-04-03T20:37:00.000-04:00

This weekend I took a quick two day trip to Popenguine to go fishing with some of my fellow volunteers from Kolda, Thies and Dakar regions. The eight of us rented out a pirogue and spent 5 hours Saturday morning zipping up and down the coast catching fish and then rented a beach house for $10 a person and spent the afternoon attempting to clean our catch. We ended up with about 20 medium sized fish and by the time they were all cleaned (we eventually enlisted the help of some professionals) we had been drinking and snacking all day and weren't really hungry, so we saved them for the morning and made a delicious chowder for breakfast.

Rolling the big heavy wooden pirogue out to sea with the help of two logs and a random "old french man and the sea"

Our fearless driver and his magical fish-finding GPS

One of the many fish Cara caught

About the least complicated way to catch fish there is...bait two hooks, tie them to some line and dangle it over the side of the boat. When you feel a nibble, yank!

Our boat had several rather large leaks and had to be continuously bailed. Even with the bucket brigade at work the fish we caught spent most of the trip swimming around our feet.

The catch of the day

Cleaning fish with butter knives requires a lot of concentration...

Uninvited Dinner Guests

2011-04-01T06:43:00.001-04:00

Sure sign of the hot season: the scorpions are back!

My mom stunned these two within the span of our 10 minute dinner.

(One of them ran right between my legs).

She impaled them and hung them on the fence as a warning to the other scorpions...my theory is their screams of pain just attract more.

Reasons I Tolerate A Cat

2011-03-21T17:40:00.000-04:00

I'm by no means a cat person...in fact I'm highly allergic and I find them to be rather stuck up and snobbish. But there are two reasons why I gave in and adopted my cat Bin Bin:

Reason # 1: as a kitten he was irresistibly adorable

Reason # 2: despite his adorableness I refuse to feed him more than the occasional scrap so he's become a master hunter...lizards, mice, camel spiders, giant rats...you name it Bin Bin kills it.

Mary Gets Married

2011-03-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

Peace Corps is all about promoting cross-cultural understanding, getting to really know your village and letting the people in your village really get to know you. Sometimes you get to know someone so well you realize you want to spend the rest of your lives sharing your cultures. Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the wedding of Mary and Malik in Jilor. Since they will be having an American wedding when they travel back to the States at the end of Mary's service in a few weeks this was a primarily Senegalese affair, although with a few American touches.

At 11am about 30 of us dressed up in our Senegalese best and piled into an alham (made to seat 20) for the hour long drive out to Mary's village. Weddings in Senegal are an all day affair, and throughout the day the bride and groom are each occupied with their own wedding obligations. The men get to chew cola nuts and go to the mosque for the "official" marriage ceremony (no women allowed, not even the bride!) and the bride spends the day being primped, prepped and presented to the whole village. After greeting her family the Kaolack crew wiled away the hours in the shade of a large tent chatting and dancing to some good old fashioned Senegalese drumming until it was time for Mary to greet the whole village in her wedding day best. She was gorgeous in her white complete (the color being one of the few American traditions that were blended into the wedding), and I was glad to see that she chose to skip the dreadful drag queen-esque makeup that Senegalese brides wear in favor of a more natural look. A whole procession of people including her American, Senegalese and volunteer families marched here around to all of the compounds in the village in the heat of the day then retired to the shade while the men went to the mosque to pray.

Lunch was served around 8pm (not a typo, meals at weddings and baptisms are always served really late) and then the real dancing began. There was a group of drummers and a guitarist that played traditional Seereer music, but there was also a DJ with a generator and huge speakers to blast the latest hits. Around 10pm the bride and groom shared their first dance, which I think was another custom borrowed from the states since I haven't seen it at any other Senegalese marriages. After that was the presentation of the gifts, at which point us volunteers gave our gift to the happy couple and then performed the Macarena for the crowd. After that it was dancing until dawn, although we stuffed ourselves into an (even smaller) alham for the journey back to Kaolack a little after midnight.

It was a beautiful day and I'm so glad Mary invited us to share it with her and Malik, and I wish them the best of luck in their new life together.

W.A.I.S.T.

2011-02-23T06:31:00.001-05:00

I spent this past weekend in Dakar with almost every other Peace Corps Senegal volunteer and a considerable number from The Gambia, Niger and Mali, for the West African International Softball Tournament. Three full days of softball and three full nights of dancing (until dawn) later and most of us are ready to head back to the village and get back to work. The tournament is divided into a competitive league with teams of high schoolers, embassy officials, and ex-pats, and a social league which is mostly made up of teams from various peace corps regions and countries.

It can be debated that the team "uniforms" in the social league are taken even more seriously than the game itself. This years Kaolack's theme was ballerinas, and although everyone put their own spin on their costume we were all united under one common banner: tutus. The vast array of outfits was a real tribute to both the creativity of Peace Corps volunteers and the ingenuity of Senegalese tailors. Other regions were Cops & Robbers, The Jersey Shore, and Lederhosen. Despite a pretty respectable showing (can YOU field a pop fly wearing nothing but a tutu and boxers with a beer in one hand?) we didn't win any games, but Kaolack was definitely first place for continuity and team spirit. I think our pirouettes could give the Russian ballet a run for its money!

The part of WAIST that Peace Corps volunteers look forward to the most isn't the softball, but the chance to eat something other than rice and millet, and dance to music that doesn't involve drumming on buckets or old ladies wailing. Dakar has a great selection of insanely expensive (on a village salary) but insanely delicious restaurants, and parties are hosted by the Marines, Peace Corps, and the American Club. Since my bedtime in village is no later than 8pm I was worried I wouldn't get to enjoy much of the Dakar nightlife, but I rallied and managed to keep dancing until last call at 5am! I think I was more sore from the dancing than from the softball. It was great to spend a weekend forgetting that I still live in a mud hut and eat birdseed for two meals a day, but I am starting to miss my family and its time for me to get started on the school garden, so its back to the village in a few hours!

Dakar's Finest:

a police officer, the Hamburgler and a banana in a tutu.

Master Farmer Madness

2011-02-13T06:45:00.000-05:00

This past week has flown by in a blur of manual labor. I made several trips to the master farmer field in Fasstoucouleur to prepare for a "Permagarden Party" that Jen and Peter hosted this past Friday and Saturday. Permagardening is a method of cultivating that involves double digging garden beds and creating berms (mounds of dirt) and swales (trenches) to maximize water retention and provide plants with an optimal growing environment. All week we saturated the area to try and soften the cement-like soil and took a pick to the ground to loosen up the first layer so that when Carla, Cora, Toby, Andrew and Mollie arrived they would already have a bit of a head start.

The first order of business when everyone arrived Thursday night was to have a little cocktail ($2 bottle of warm wine and fosters clark) and catch up. I had to bike home before it got dark so I missed dinner but I heard it was a colossal mountain of beans on top of millet (my favorite!). The next morning I had to travel to 15k down the road to check out another possible site for the incoming stage so I missed the first few hours of work, but by the time I biked back to Fass the group had made amazing progress. All of the beds had been double dug to 20cm and I arrived just in time to help amend the beds by adding manure, ash and leaves to the soil like a layer cake. By the time we broke for lunch (rice and fish and veggies!) we had three 1x4 meter garden beds surrounded by a 1m x 7m square raised berm and two holes on the downhill side for collecting runoff water.

After lunch and a couple rounds of dice most of the volunteers headed back to Kaolack and Mollie, Jen, Peter and I went back out to the field. Abdoul Salaam and his friends had already watered and manicured the new beds so they were ready for planting by the time we arrived. While the men watered the 24 regular garden beds, various trees and starter plants we transplanted tomatoes, eggplant, and hot peppers into the three separate beds and intercropped them with lettuce. By the end of the day we had transformed a bare patch of earth into a textbook worthy permagarden, and we even had time to play with our new mascot, a puppy that Abdoul Salaam has adopted to guard the field.

The regular garden beds, already bursting with tomatoes

Celebrity Guest Bloggers

2011-02-12T13:33:00.000-05:00

Greetings from New Jersey...we are back from Africa. Jennie has invited us to write a guest blog about our of visit to see her in Senegal.

I must say that we came back from the trip very proud of what Jennie has accomplished since March, 2010. We were able to see the projects (well covers and latrines for the school) that she was instrumental in completing. We met her family and were introduced to many others from the village who tell us that she is a very hard worker. Jennie is a master at speaking Seereer, her village language, and has learned enough Wolof (another of the local dialects), and remembered enough from her French classes to get us safely through our trip.

We were also able to meet about a dozen of her fellow Peace Corps volunteers from the Kaolak region and enjoyed hearing them discuss their grant applications and plans for projects in their respective villages. She and her PCV friends have a really good networking and support system going.

We experienced what it's like to live without electricity or running water. We helped Jennie pull water from the well to water her garden, took a bucket bath in the evening and made visits to the pit latrine at night using battery operated headlamps. And imagine waking to the sounds of a rooster crowing, donkey braying and the sights of donkeys and goats wandering outside Jennie's hut. Really a huge step back in time!

Jennie's village mother, Funjai, made us some traditional meals over an open fire and we shared the food with Jennie from a common bowl in her hut. But we cheated and used "sporks" instead of eating with our hands. Although the food was different than we are used to, it was quite good.

As we loaded our things onto the charette (donkey-pulled cart) for the ride to Keur Socce for the beginning of the journey back to Dakar and our flight home, many of Jennie's family were on hand to say good bye. It was a cheerful end to a good visit. We really enjoyed the African experience and wish Jennie nothing but the best in completing her upcoming projects.

May God bless you, Jennie, for all that you are accomplishing in Senegal!

Mike and Patty Wysong

Dad and Ba

Mom and Ya

New Year, New Life

2011-01-16T06:59:00.000-05:00

In Senegal pregnancy isn't something you talk about. In a country where people can greet complete strangers by asking "How is your father's penis?" (Still haven't figured out how to answer that), it is considered extremely rude to discuss someone, even a close family member, being pregnant. I know, I don't really get it either. Maybe a lot of it has to do with not wanting to get too attached to a baby...there is still a pretty high infant mortality rate here, and people wait a week before they'll even call a baby by its name.

So even though my sister Somong has been big as a barge for a while now I was a bit surprised to come home on January 1st to find out that she had given birth at 5am that morning our villages first baby of the New Year! I'm not the most perceptive of individuals (and I don't make it a habit of studying other women's bodies) so I'm sure I was one of the last people to notice that she was pregnant in the first place...but I was totally unprepared for the baby to arrive this soon! Also, if you do the math you'll realize that the baby must have been conceived around the same time I moved into my village...kind of weird to realize I've been here long enough for someone to completely grow another human.

I arrived at the health post about 5 hours after the baby was born, and since for everyone else newborn babies have long since lost their charm I got to monopolize the baby for a couple of hours while his mom rested. There was another mother at the health post, a girl of about 15, who had given birth the day before to her second child. Since hers was a girl they joked that when the two babies were old enough they would marry them to each other. 5 hours out of the womb and my nephew already has a wife lined up for him.

Since this was the couples first baby and its a boy, the baptism/naming ceremony, held exactly 7 days after the baby is born (both to give the mom time to recover and to make sure the baby is going to live), was a HUGE affair. Relatives from as far off as the Gambia started converging on our house at 6am Saturday morning, and all of the women in the village were recruited to help cook massive amounts of food while the men sat around in the shade and talked. Like any other Senegalese party, it wasn't complete without some constant source of noise, so my brother hired a DJ who brought a generator and speakers and played every Akon song known to man remixed a thousand ways until 3 in the morning. As far as baptisms go it was shaping up to the biggest event of the year. I didn't actually see the baby all day, even the naming and ceremonial shaving of the head was done without announcement or fanfare. Mostly the day was about everyone in the village celebrating life in general. For the record though, the baby's name is Abib.

Cooking breakfast for over 100 people

Breakfast is served...cery ak kosam
(sour milk and millet)

The women eating their "breakfast" around 11am,
after the men had been served and dishes washed

You know its a big event when someone goes to the trouble of renting plastic chairs!

One of the 6 gigantic cooking pots for lunch.

Photo Frenzy

2010-12-31T06:01:00.001-05:00

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

2010-12-29T17:07:00.000-05:00

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

2010-12-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-26T16:30:00.001-05:00

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

2010-11-26T03:13:00.000-05:00

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 supposed I technically
murdered 9 turkeys.

Tabaski

2010-11-25T08:31:00.000-05:00

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

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.

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.

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

Preparing the onions and potatoes

Turning the mango tree into a slaughterhouse

The sheep after being undressed

This is why you should be careful when handling small intestine

Bassirou "cleaning" the intestines

Modu's fancy pants were a little too big

Oumi, Samba and Biram in their Tabaski best

No meat goes to waste...The brains are reserved for the kids to make them "healthier"

A 50lb ram reduced to the sum of its parts

Mission Accomplished

2010-11-22T16:59:00.000-05:00

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

Every day my dad had to stand out in the field at sunset to keep the cows from trampling the bricks as they returned from the fields

The men digging the 2mx2mx2m septic tank

The beautiful finished product

My sister-in-law pulling water from the new cover for the first time

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

2010-11-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

Father and Sons

Mari and Me

Nday

Baby Ngenar

My favorite little brother Aladji.

My brother Biram

My brother Samba Gaye

Nday and little Babacar

My little sister Oumi

Mbodgi

Rokhaya

Change is Hard

2010-11-02T04:46:00.000-04:00

How many people do you know that are miserable in their job, but stick around because of the money/benefits/stability it affords? No one grows up dreaming about working long hours, having no control over their schedule or being under appreciated...so why do so many people put up with it? Because stepping out on a limb to follow your real dream can be scary. In America we derive so much of our identity by what we do to make money. Notice I said money, not a living. There is a difference. Think about it, if someone asks you to describe yourself do you say "I'm a school teacher" or "I'm a reader" or more appropriately... "I'm a pilot" or "I'm an adventurer." What we do has somehow become synonymous with who we are, so striking out on a different path can sometimes feel like losing your sense of identity.

That's why I'm really proud of my friend and fellow climber Kevin. He works as an airline pilot and he does a really good job at a really hard job, but he's ridden that bus to the end of the line and he's ready to make a change. So instead of languishing in a job he is no longer passionate about for another 20 years he's done a lot of hard work to realize a new dream in the outdoor industry. Kevin is taking a chance on the American dream and opening up his own business, Take a Hike GPS.

Kevin is passionate about hiking, climbing and spending time in the great outdoors and he's combining that passion with his expert knowledge of technology to get help people "find your adventure with GPS." His company specializes in all kinds of hand held GPS devices that can help you get from point A to point B whether your in the middle of the woods or downtown in an unfamiliar city. Not just selling them but helping people choose the right model and learn how to use them with an extensive library of tutorial and how to videos. If you're like me and you manage to get lost even in your own backyard you might want to consider investing in one, and if you do I encourage you to get it from Take a Hike. Support a guy who is following his dreams.

Tangana

2010-11-02T04:15:00.001-04:00

There are very few things that could get me to step out of the brightly lit miniature America known as the Peace Corps regional house onto the dark sketchy streets of Kaolack at night, but freshly fried eggs and potatoes is one of them. Let me paint for you a picture of how I went about acquiring my dinner last night.

Stepping out of the front door of the regional house feels a bit like stepping onto another planet. Headlights wink through a haze of dust hanging in the air, sillouhetted figures loom suddenly out of the darkness, illuminated by a moto bike whizzing by in a blaze of sound and light, and strange languages echo from shadowed doorways. You clutch your little plastic bowl a bit tighter and click on the small flashlight on the end of your nokia cell phone even as you question your decision to bring it along. Careful to illuminate your every step, you slowly pick your way through the animal poop and trash strewn about the dirt road, moving through the landscape like a pale ghost. Besides a few half-hearted calls of "toubab" from some sleepy talibe children you might as well not even exist.

Out on the road the dust is even thicker and the bright lights of cars impair rather than enhance your vision as they trundle along. As you shuffle through the sand you keep your eyes fixed on the other side of the road, straining to pick out the glow of neon lights behind the nondescript red curtain that to anyone else screams "brothel," but to you indicates a hot tasty meal. You pass a familiar broken down old truck and your heart sinks when you realize that comforting red square of light is absent from the derelict old building across the street. It looks as if no one is home.

But wait! What was that? There are small lights moving behind the curtain in the doorway and you can just barely catch a whiff of grease over the smell of trash and raw sewage. Perhaps someone is there after all? Only one way to find out. You time the rhythm of the passing taxis...one...two...three...then make a dash for safety. Keeping your eyes fixed on those moving lights you wind your way past sleeping dogs and discarded flip flops until you reach "the bridge." Nothing more than a 3 meter concrete slab, it is old and crumbly and the only thing between you and the small swift river of water and human feces that flows from the broken pipe up the street. You cross your fingers, hustle across and stand before that tattered old curtain, the gateway to masticational delight and intestinal distress. You take a deep breath, pull back the curtain and step through the doorway. "Asalaam Malekum"

Tangana is the wolof word for "hot," and its an appropriate name for these type of eating establishments. Three propane burners on full blast ensure that this little three meter square room maintains an average temperature of 100 degrees and the food is guaranteed to scorch your mouth. The man behind the table smiles as you step inside, and the beads of sweat pouring down his face spring up on your forehead as well. As you sit down on the rickety 2x4 supported by cinder blocks that passes for a bench you take in the scene. The space is small, literally no more than a hole in the wall. There are two large curtains blocking off the back left corner of the room, possibly concealing the prostitute the red light outside seems to offer. All of the space that is left is taken up by three propane gas tanks and a low table piled high with flats of eggs and sliver bowls of potatoes, onions, spaghetti, bread and mystery meat. Three 20-something young men sit hunched around the table over plates of fried eggs and meat piled on top of a bed of spaghetti. The normally bright blue florescent light is dark and instead a single tallow candle is burning on a jerry can and everyone is illuminating their meal with their cell phone flashlights. "No electricity" the men say with a shrug.

The menu is a la carte, so in your most basic Wolof you ask for eggs and potatoes and gingerly push your little plastic bowl towards the chef. The pan crackles to life as he pours nearly a quarter of a liter of oil and then cracks in two eggs. The man dips his hands into a bowl of water, and after months in Senegal it is a comforting sign of some attempt at sanitation, before grabbing a couple of potatoes from the bowl and slicing them up in his palm. The whole mixture takes less than two minutes to cook and before you know it your dinner is steaming in front of you. You toss a couple of coins across the table and receive a scrap of newspaper to wrap up your bowl in an attempt to keep out the ever-present dust.

Stepping out of the door the relative coolness of the night is like a breath of fresh air, but as the smell of sewage assaults your nose you decide to save your deep breath for later. The heat and weight of the bowl is comforting as you retrace your steps with a renewed sense of urgency. The thought of the meal to come has your mouth watering and your small intestines cowering in fear. A quick stop for a fanta and you're home free. Stepping back into the light of the house you re-enter the closest thing to America you will see for the next two years. You've survived your journey into the seedy Kaolack night. The next question is will your body survive the new assault of amoebas and microbes you're about to introduce into it?

More Murals!

2010-10-31T18:24:00.000-04:00

Friday my neighbor Peter at I biked down to Keur Madialbel to help Jessica paint some murals at the Case de Tout Petits (House of All Smalls) preschool. It was a long day and the director was your typical loud, opinionated Senegalese man, but I think they came out pretty nice in the end.

Two girls walking to school...supposed to promote girls education

How to wash your hands (use soap!)

Nutrition Pyramid, Senegalese style

Mural Madness

2010-10-24T19:03:00.001-04:00

Probably the most enjoyable projects to engage in here in Senegal is mural painting. Its cheap (around $10), only takes a day or two, and provides you with an immediate tangible result. The best part is it requires absolutely no local language and no interaction with Senegalese people...you can pop in your headphones pick up your brushes and paint all day without ever having to speak a word to anyone.

When I first put up the world map in my room and realized that not a single child could find Senegal on the map or even identify the continent of Africa I decided to do a mural series at the school focusing on geography. I started out with a regional map of Senegal in three of the classrooms and Jen, my new neighbor Peter and I just completed a map of Africa this past Saturday. My plan is to do a map of Africa in every classroom and then do larger murals that are unique to each class. I'm hoping to do a gigantic world map on the back wall of one class, world flags on the back wall of another and the crest of Senegal on the back of another.

My obsession with muraling has recently spread beyond the walls of the school, and I've been painting just about anything that stands still long enough. I've painted two new chalkboards in my hut for writing out my to do lists and important dates, and I even put the Peace Corps logo on the outside of my hut (just in case people forget why I'm here). Jen and I have also looked into painting health related murals at the new health post being built in our road town and the staff seemed really enthusiastic about it. Our goal is to do at least one mural in each village every month for as long as we have things to paint. If you have any ideas for murals I'd love to hear them, but keep it simple...I'm no Picasso!

Universal Nut Sheller

2010-10-24T13:00:00.000-04:00

Harvesting peanuts is a lot of work, but even after the fields are empty and the men have gone back to their tea-drinking the women's job is far from done. From November until June they can be found almost every day sitting amidst mountains of peanuts and shelling them, one by one, by hand. I became an expert peanut sheller during my first three months in the village and once i built up the required calluses I found it be be quite therapeutic...sitting in the shade, chatting with my neighbors and smashing each peanut in just the right spot on a rock or piece of wood. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Everyone enjoys a little social nut shelling every now and then, but the women in my village admitted that it is an extremely tedious job. One that takes up every free minute between cooking meals, doing laundry and taking care of children (and husbands). When I asked them what they would do with their time if they didn't have to shell peanuts one woman replied, "Nothing! I would sit around and drink tea like the men, or visit my sister, or take a nap."

There are several different types of mechanized nut shellers available in Senegal, but some require electricity while others have a tendency to break the peanuts (reducing their value) and all of them are extremely expensive, bulky and hard to maintain. However the Universal Nut Sheller, designed by a group called The Full Belly Project, is a promising and affordable alternative to the commercial models. It was first brought to Senegal a few years ago by a Peace Corps volunteer in the Kedougou region, and since it can be manufactured locally and is extremely simple to use volunteers in other villages have had a lot of success with it.

The Kaolack region is also known as the "peanut basin" of Senegal, so at a regional meeting in August we discussed the merits of trying to bring the Universal Nut Sheller technology home to our villages. After seeing a video of the machine on my camera and hearing it described by Bassirou who attended a demonstration with me, the women's group in my village decided to pool their resources and purchase a machine for Sambande. I brought the money to Kaolack where several volunteers had trained a local metal worker to produce the machines, and a month later it arrived in our village on the back of a Peace Corps car.

The machine and the volunteers and staff that delivered it were welcomed with enthusiasm and a lot of drumming and dancing. It took a good 15 minutes to get the women to settle down enough to actually teach them how to use the machine, but within 20 minutes they were practicing shelling hand fulls of peanuts by just turning a crank. After the technical training Awa Traore, a local Peace Corps employee, taked to the women about the money-making possibilities of the machine, what it might look like for them to charge people from other villages a nominal fee to shell their peanuts. The women seemed excited to start up their own small-scale enterprise in addition to having loads more free time. I have a feeling the women in my village will be taking a lot more naps this year.

The video that started it all. I took it lengthwise on my camera

but I can't rotate it on my computer so you're going to have to turn your head!

The Harvest Begins...

2010-10-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

Last week the boys brought in the first of the peanuts from the fields, indicating the start of the harvest season, which for me and the women in my family means hours of sitting on our butts on little stools surrounded by mountains of peanut plants, separating the nuts from the roots. Its a monumental task, so each household takes turns harvesting their fields on different days and everyone in the village gathers under the big party tree to help collect them. Its kind of like a big block party, with men popping in and out, women gossiping and kids running around and jumping in the big piles of discarded peanut plants just like American kids jump in piles of leaves.

After the plant is discarded and the buckets are all full the peanuts get sorted one last time to remove the empty shells and any debris before the majority are stuffed into big 4foot tall "bodybags" and shipped off to Kaolack to be sold to a peanut oil company. The leftovers are dried out in the sun and will become the staple of our diets for the next 6-8 months. The peanut butter here is really good, but everyone thinks I'm crazy for eating it raw. Senegalese people only use it to make Maafe, a kind of peanut sauce that could be really good except that they put dried fish into it so it tastes like the Jersey Shore smells and you never know when you'll choke on a hidden bone. The biggest peanuts are soaked in salt water and roasted in hot sand to be sold as a snack and the runts of the litter get pounded up to make Bahal, a very dry dish of rice, peanut crumbs and crumbled up MSG bullion cubes.

The "rough sort" where any empty shells are removed from the pile

The "fine sort" where any remaining debris is picked out before packing them up

My little sister Oumi who is less than enthusiastic about the days work

The bottom of a peanut plant, with a plethora of peanuts pleading to be picked

First Funded Projects!

2010-10-14T05:19:00.001-04:00

Now that the rainy season is winding down and the school year is about to begin, I'm finally able to get started on some real concrete work. First up is a latrine at the school in conjunction with two new well covers, both of which will help reduce disease in the village. Both of these projects are being funded by Appropriate Projects, an organization that works only with Peace Corps volunteers to fund small scale shovel-ready water and sanitation projects around the world. They rely on donations for each individual project, but they pre-fund everything which means I don't have to sit around waiting for money to come in before I can do my work. I applied last week and the money is being wired to me on the 19th! If you want to know more about the latrine project it's listed on their website HERE. And the link to the well cover project can be found HERE.

Gambian Adventure

2010-09-28T15:55:00.000-04:00

You know you're a Peace Corps Volunteer when... you spend the entire night expelling amoebas from your digestive tract in all conceivable ways and instead of cancelling your 60 kilometer bike trip you stick a trowel and a pack of tissues in your saddle bag and hope for the best.

Luckily my gamble paid off. Despite its inauspicious beginning with a sleepless night of intestinal rebellion my trip to The Gambia was really fun. I met my closest neighbor, Jen, in our road town at 6:30am on Saturday to start the first leg of our trip...a 60k bike ride to Elizabeth's site in Nioro. Due to bad roads and a few stops to buy more water the ride took us about 5 hours and we rolled into town just in time for lunch. We stashed our bikes and ate at a restaurant owned by a group of women from a local trade school, topped it off with ice cream then waited out the hottest part of the day at the local Catholic compound. Jen and Elizabeth indulged in a local brew and I sipped on some oral rehydration solution to try and recover from the previous night and our long ride.

At four we took a charette to the garage to catch an alham to Danielle's site in Kaymore to spend the night. I didn't see much of the road on the way there because my amoebas were acting up and I was concentrating on not throwing up on the other passengers, but I felt every bump and bounce on the 45 minute trek out into the bush on dirt paths. We went to bed pretty early since we would have to be up at 5:30 the next morning in order to catch a car headed to Poste, the town bordering The Gambia.

We had expected to take another alham to the border, but we ended up scoring a ride with six other people in the back of a truck for 600cfa (a little over $1). We congratulated ourselves on our good luck since that meant we wouldn't have to wait around for a bigger car to fill up, but it turns out we spoke too soon. About 10 minutes down the road we got a punctured tire that flatted almost immediately, so everyone piled out of the truck to help lift it up and change the tire. Unfortunately the spare they put on wasn't in much better shape, so we had to stop again at the next village to find a pump to fill it up. After our driver spent 20 minutes filling the tire as much as he could with a bicycle pump we were once again on our way. Things were going splendidly until we got to the river. Thanks to the recent rains the road was completely flooded up to a foot deep in some places. The driver went halfway across the road before chickening out and reversing all the way back to dry land.

There were groups of men hiring themselves out to push/guide cars across the road and a lot of other vehicles made it across just fine, but our driver refused to budge. Instead he paid a passing alham to let us squeeze into their already full vehicle and we slowly trundled across an invisible road riddled with 1-2 foot deep potholes. Once across the river it was only another 15 minutes to Poste where we met up with Ari, another volunteer, and headed towards the border crossing. Typically Peace Corps volunteers are supposed to be allowed to cross the border with just their Peace Corps IDs, but we all had our passports just in case. Turns out if you show your passport you are also required to have a visa, so we had a rather long and complicated argument that involved all of our shared languages: Wolof, French, Pulaar, English and Seereer. Once we had the confusion sorted (if you don't show your passport you don't need a visa) we took a charette into Farafenny.

Sunday is luma (market) day we took a quick look at the giant vegetables and bought some fried dough before heading into the town proper. Everyone says the Gambia is the place to buy fabric so we all bought a couple meters before we went to the local dispensary to sample the Gambian brew.

We met up with a Gambian Peace Corps volunteer and some VSO volunteers (England's version of the Peace Corps) and it was nice to see whether the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. The Gambia was settled by England so the national language is English, although people there speak English about as well as people in Senegal speak French. That is to say not very well. Still it was an interesting change of pace. After happy hour we went for some critically acclaimed chicken that was served with mustard, mayo, spaghetti, onion and cucumber. Our meal was accompanied by some ridiculous Nigerian music videos that included women in booty shorts dancing with people wearing masks of former US presidents. I wonder if Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford are aware that they are the stars of a bad Nigerian rap video?

After our late lunch it was time to head back so we jumped on a charette for the bumpy 10 minute ride back across the border. At the garage we squeezed into another alham for the long journey back across the flooded river to Danielle's site. On the way our vehicle was stopped and everyone was ordered out so the police could search the car for contraband...sugar. I'm not sure why, but it is currently illegal to bring Gambian sugar into Senegal, and I think the penalty is pretty steep for anyone caught with it.

A lot of it makes it through though since the only sugar available in Senegal that isn't from The Gambia is expensive French imported sugar cubes. Every time I put granular sugar into my oatmeal I'm breaking the law! We got back to Danielle's village just as the sun was setting and the mosque was calling out the evening prayer and went to bed right after our dinner of millet and beans.

The next morning we slept in until 7 and then went out to help Danielle trench some mango seedlings to protect them during the dry season and plant some live fencing and wind break trees at the local community space. We did a good 6 hours worth of weeding, digging and transplanting which was more than enough to justify our trip as work related travel. We also went out to look at her Master Farmer's field and check out all of the crop demonstrations. Overall it was a really productive day and its always nice to do work with other volunteers...things get done so much faster when everyone speaks the same language and you don't have to have circular discussions about the best way to do something.

This morning Jen and I got up at 6 to catch a car back to Nioro. The original plan was to pick up our bikes and ride the 60k back to our villages, but by the time we got to Nioro it was already 8am and blazingly hot, so we opted for the back up plan and put our bikes on top of a station wagon going to Kaolack. Since we had to pay the full fare whether we got out at our crossroads or went all the way into the city we opted to come in for the day to check our mail and charge up the electronics. I was originally planning on heading back to site after my last post, but a massive thunderstorm rolled in (cross your fingers that my hut stays standing!) so I'm stuck in Kaolack for the night. I'm really anxious to get back to my site and assess the condition of my hut and just get back into my own routine, but you know what they say...when it rains make lemonade and the world smiles with you...or something like that. Anyway I figured I'd use the extra time for another blog post.

The Downside of the Rainy Season

2010-09-28T09:59:00.000-04:00

So far the rainy season has been pretty good to me...I've only had to pull half the daily amount of water from the well, my garden gets watered for free, The temperature retreats into the 80s...but last week mother nature took it a bit too far. In one night we got enough rain to completely fill up my 16 liter bucket and completely demolish 7 huts in my compound. As a result of bone rattling thunder and large amounts of sand being washed away from beneath it, my hut now has a large crack running from the bottom to the top of the left hand wall and extending horizontally all the way around the back wall to the other door. I also have a big fissure splitting my cement bed in half from floor to wall. Several of our huts collapsed with little or no visible signs of damage, but when I asked my dad if my hut was going to fall down he told me it would be fine. He also told me to sleep on my cot on the other side of the hut just in case.

Until the rains stop in late October/ early November we can't start construction on new huts or work to repair the crack in mine. Since the largest of our collapsed huts is threatening to fall on the two huts closest to it, those are currently out of commission as well. We've got approximately 40 people in my compound crammed into 6 small huts, which is my motivation for staying in my room despite it's current architectural flaws. The village mason assured me that when a hut collapses the walls always fall outward, so as long as I sleep on the side farthest from the damage I should be safe.

Considering my hut is less than 5 months old it should have withstood the rains better than it did. All of the other huts that fell were over 3 years old. Turns out there were a lot of corners cut during my hut construction, using mostly mud bricks and only a paper thin layer of cement on the walls...which explains why my walls kept crumbling away with every little bump. I have a feeling a lot of the money Peace Corps gave my village to build my hut went into someone else's pocket. So now I have to front the money to get my hut repaired out of my own pocket, when a single bag of cement is going to cost me an entire day's salary. Corruption is such a way of life here though that skimming a little bit off the top of any project/community donation is practically expected, and no one even tries that hard to hide it. Take home lesson: I'm going to have to keep a very close eye on the finances for all of my projects.

Collateral Damage

The widest portion of the crack...
large enough to see through to the outside

The horizontal branch of the crack on the left wall

The rest of the crack extending along the back wall
(the duct tape is a previous attempt to thwart the
termites that keep busting through my wall)

Mangrove Reforestation

2010-09-19T19:14:00.001-04:00

This weekend I took a bit of a "working vacation" and went to Toubacouta with 21 other volunteers from the Kaolack region to work with local residents on a mangrove reforestation project. We got to Toubacouta late Saturday afternoon and headed directly for a water front campement for some cold beers and some diving off of the dock. Sunday morning was down to business, up to our knees in muck and mud sticking these oddly shaped seeds "butt down" into the tidal basin.

Mangroves are a type of amphibious tree that is found throughout the Saloum delta in Senegal and helps prevent soil erosion and provide habitat for fish, oysters, herons and (supposedly) otters, flamingos and manatees. A combination of human destruction and climate change have caused a significant decline in Senegal's mangrove forests over the last 50 years, but people here are slowly starting to realize their importance and do something about it. We spent about 3 hours at low tide (and consequently high noon) combating deforestation with over 60 local residents, here are a few of the best pictures:

Sunset over the water and a view of the diving dock

Ladies sorting out mangrove seeds

Mangrove seeds and muddy feet

Butt down in the ground

Mangrove Seedling

PCVs at work

Mangroves

Par for the course for Senegalese transport

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

2010-09-16T11:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I can't believe this stuff is real.

Relax, I'm In Good Hands

2010-09-09T05:34:00.000-04:00

I debated writing this post because I didn't want anyone at home to worry, but this story has a happy ending and I wanted you all to know just how well my family takes care of me here. This also includes unrelated pictures because no one wants a blog post full of words...think of them as commercial breaks.

The word sai sai has two different meanings...joking trickster or murdering rapist. Actually, to be fair its more of a spectrum, and most sai sais fall closer to the former end, but last week I had an encounter with one closer to the latter. The short version is I met a man at a boutique in Kaolack while I was trying to bargain to exchange my new cell phone for an older model (long story). Since Seereer is a minority language here (ie no one in the city speaks it) and my wolof and french are both pretty limited this was a rather long and complicated process. While I was going from boutique to boutique greeting the shopkeepers, introducing myself and attempting to negotiate a fair trade this guy decided to appoint himself my "assistant." These services usually come along with a marriage proposal so I told him I didn't need any help, but he came with me anyway. After two unsuccessful attempts he asked me if I wanted to see his shop where he sells "merchandise." I had a feeling this guy had never done an honest sale in his life so I asked what time it was, pretended to be surprised and told him I had to get to the garage so I could be back in my village before breaking of the fast. He asked if I knew where I was going in the garage and I said Keur Madialbel (which is a town 20k past my village, but I take that car because it passes through my road town). I hustled off to the garage then doubled back on another street and hit a few more boutiques before I managed to exchange my cell phone (without any help thank you very much) and headed back to my village. Out of sight, out of mind right? Wrong.

The baby duck my friend Bass gave me after he saw a picture of Oxford.

The next day I'm sitting in my hut with my eleven year old sister Aissatou and my four year old brother Modu when my mom comes in and tells me to "Greet your guest." And who should step through the door but Mr. Creepy. I didn't even recognize him at first because it was so improbable that he should even be in my village let alone in my hut. Before I can register what is going on my mom leaves and Aiou decides she wants to go finish getting her hair braided, and neither of them picked up on my hints that I wanted them to stay. So its me and a 4 year old and a sai sai sitting awkwardly in my room. This might be a good time to mention the guy doesn't even speak Seereer, so while I'm trying to ask him why he is here and tell him its inappropriate for me to have a man in my room, communication isn't really working out. Finally I ask him if he even bothered to greet my father and he said no, so I took him out to the courtyard and quickly and quietly explained the situation to my dad. My dad made small talk with him in Wolof for a while and then firmly told him to leave and not come back.

After he left I asked my dad what exactly happened, and my dad said that with just my name and the direction I lived, in the guy was able to track me down. That's the downside of being one of the only white people around...everyone knows you. Apparently he went to Keur Madialbel and asked around until someone told him I lived in Sambande. I immediately got on the phone to the Peace Corps Safety and Security guy and told him what had happened, and while I was on the phone the sai sai came back and said he had dropped some money in my room. My dad when to look, told the guy he was lying and told him to get out of town, then sent one of my siblings to spy on him and make sure he really left. It was clear that this guy thought I was a rich white person (I wish), but just how he planned on getting my money by showing up in our compound in broad daylight is a mystery to us all.

The monitor lizard that got into my room and ate the baby duck, which was promptly killed and eaten by my brothers. ((Cue circle of life song from the Lion King))

Here's the happy ending to the story: my dad is protective of me that he has forbidden me to ever go to Kaolack by myself again (fat chance...) and he immediately called my uncle in Keur Socce to look out for the guy and make sure he really left the area. Then he called the gendarmes and the president of the community rurale (a pretty important guy) and told them what happened. Then that night when I went to bed my older brother Malik posted himself as a sentry outside my hut and stayed awake all night to make sure the guy didn't come back (it made me feel a lot safer, but I still slept with my machete). Even my four year old brother said that if the guy came back he would “beat him until he shits,” a common threat kids get from their parents here. So as you can see, I am nothing if not well taken care of here...nothing to worry about!

In other news, Ramadan ends either tomorrow or the next day (the Marabout has to officially see the moon to declare it over), and we celebrate with a holiday called Korite. We all dress in our fanciest clothes and every family kills a sheep and we eat and eat until we've gained back all the weight we lost while fasting. It should be a blast! I must say I am going to miss our 7:30 breaking of the fast with bush coffee (boiled leaves with a ton of sugar) and bread, although I will be glad to not have to wait until 9:30 to eat dinner...that's way past my bedtime.

My Brothers Samba and Modu with the heads...

...and Aissatou with the rest of the chicken

Nothing Beats a Senegalese Dance Party

2010-09-08T11:52:00.001-04:00

I finally had enough time at the regional house to upload this video. This is the dance party the ladies held after our women's group meeting. They all tied their head wraps together, and whoever's head wrap was pulled out of the pile had to challenge the other person to a dance off in order to get it back. The formidable woman in the purple is our village wedding singer, or more appropriately wedding screamer. She has a megaphone that she yells into at weddings and baptisms and if she improvises a song with your name in it you have to give money for the bride/new mother. Her improv is actually pretty good...think of her as a Senegalese Adam Sandler.

Garden Pictures

2010-09-03T07:49:00.002-04:00

I have so much okra and I can't eat it or give it away fast enough!

Nothing that comes in care packages goes to waste...not even after its eaten! These are chinese orchid seeds that I got from the botanical garden in Mbour.

A forest of okra and tomato with cucumbers hidden in the back row.

Cucumbers!

Th next round of tomato plants, sprouted and waiting for transplant.

Do Work!

2010-08-28T07:39:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not in between the bucket baths and the big snakes I actually do manage to get some work done in my village. I have a few big projects in the pipeline including a village wide latrine project, a school environmental education club and a new well and a womens co-op garden... but those things need to wait until the end of the rainy season and the start of the next school year. In the mean time I've been doing a lot of smaller-scale projects to help pass the time.

How many Senegalese men does it take to plant a tree?

Two weeks ago I went out to the forest with all the men in my village to plant a bunch of trees as a part of a re-forestation project run by the Eaux et Forets department. We planted about 300 thorny species trees in one fell swoop and got back to the village before mid-day prayer.

I told the Eaux et Forets officials to strike a pose
and this was what they came up with...

All of that work I did in my garden I'm finally starting to reap the benefits...not only do I have fresh okra and cucumbers right out my back door, but people are so excited about the success I've had that they want gardens of their own. Last week Bassirou brought me to the back of his compound and showed me a space he had covered with fertilizer and asked me if it would make a good garden plot. I told him if he would clear away the weeds I would provide the seeds and help prepare the beds, so for the last week I've been going over every morning to double dig and help him plant. Ideally I would love for every household to have at least one 1x4m garden plot to help supplement their diet.

Two women helping me shave the soap to make neem lotion.

Last Sunday I held a meeting with our local women's group to talk about getting together money to get a peanut sheller for our village (more on that in a later post) and I figured I would use that opportunity to do a neem lotion demonstration since its the height of the mosquito season. The meeting was scheduled for 10am, so of course it was 11:15 before everyone had arrived and we were ready to start. The women talked about the pros and cons of buying a nut sheller while I showed them how to make the lotion, then I divided it into little baggies so each woman could take some home to try out. So far I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback that the lotion worked to ward off the mosquitoes, and one woman even stopped me in the road town at the weekly market to tell me she was going to buy a bar of soap and make some herself. The ladies ended the meeting with a dance party. They all put their head scarves in a pile and the leader of the women's group ties them together in twos then pulls one randomly out of the pile. The two people who own the scarves have to come out and dance to get them back. The dancing went on for a good hour before a flash rainstorm sent everyone running for cover.

I'm on my way to the post office to send a whole new batch of letters so keep an eye on your mail boxes over the next few weeks. If you've got a few extra minutes please check out my friend Ruchi's proposal at DonorsChoose.org. She teaches at an inner city school in Philadelphia and is living proof that you don't have to go all the way to Africa to make a difference.