The end of last week I was in Kaolack (the regional capital) for a Peace Corps regionwide meeting. While I was there i got a text from my host aunt saturday night that said, "Salut Moussa, je vais me marier dimanche inchallah. Ou es-tu?" For the non-french speakers out there this says "Hi Moussa (my senegalese name), I'm getting married on sunday if Allah wills it. Where are you?"
Completely surprised, i called her right away asking her if she was really getting married the next day. She said yes, they had set the date that morning. After confirming that she was actually getting married, i asked the next most important question - to who she was planning on marrying. While the majority of Senegalese marriages are arranged, my host aunt is a more liberally minded Senegalese and believes in marrying out of love not neccessity or practicality (novel thought). She told me that she and one of my work partners (the director of the program financing the women's groups) had been in a secret relationship for the past 6 months and were ready to get married.
The next morning i headed back to Nioro early so as not to miss any of the wedding. The wedding started with all the men going to the Mosque to pray for my counterpart and my aunt as well as asking Allah to bless their marriage. Afterwards, we all returned back to my aunt's house where everyone wished my aunt and my counterpart good luck and gave them gifts or, more commonly, a small sum of money. We then all ate a large meal of ceebuyapp (rice and meat), which is a common holiday and fete dish.
The typical Senegalese wedding is three days long with specific events for each day but because they are a more modern couple and i think also wanted to save some money the wedding was only for one day, which was fine for me because for the majority of the time at events like this i am just sitting around answering the same questions over and over - where i'm from, what i'm doing here and if i have a wife and why i don't have a senegalese wife. These questions are ussually broken up by the asker stopping to tell his neighbor that the toubab (white person) speaks wolof.
I hope you are all doing well and just imagine organizing an american wedding a day in advance.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Food
While i've eaten some few crazy things here ranging from cow intestine stuffed with stomach to sheep hooves - i'm glad to say these aren't regular appearances in the family dinner bowl. Ironically these are the special treats that we will get for holidays and birthdays and not a part of the regular meal regiment. Since i'm too lazy to cook my own breakfast every morning (unfortunately cheerios don't exist here) i usually go to one of the many informal breakfast stands in town. Every morning, women set up rickety tables with one or two benches surrounding it and sell different breakfast options. These options range from harboiled eggs with mayo, omelettes cooked with a selection of spaghetti, potatoes, onions, and yapp (the wolof word for meat, which could mean anything from beef to monitor lizard), tuna fish sandwiches and, my favorite, bean sandwiches. A bean sandwich - a sliced piece of french bread topped with beans cooked in a tomato sauce heavily loaded with garlic, onions and maggi (an msg additive that Senegalese add to every meal - ranging from salad to tuna fish.) The sandwich is usually topped with homemade mayo (so much better than hellmann's) or a peppery onion sauce. These women also sell a piping-hot, spicy coffee laced with three or four heaping spoons of sugar. Most Senegalese work for an hour or two before eating breakfast, so the big breakfast rush isn't until 9:30 or 10:00.
I have several constants in my life: being called toubab (wolof for foreigner or white person), having a woman offer me her baby to adopt and eating rice for lunch. Meals are eaten from a communal bowl so the whole family crowds around one large bowl. Since we eat from one bowl there are several important etiquette rules. The first is that you never, absolutely never, put your left hand in the bowl or use your left hand to hold your spoon (the primary role of the left hand is in the bathroom). Also, you only eat what is directly in front of you - its very impolite to reach in front of someone else and take from their "bowl area." If you want something that is in their area, you need to ask and they will pass it to you. Everyday the bowl is filled with rice, topped with some sort of sauce, several pieces of vegetables and one or two pieces of fish. The most popular lunch dish is ceebu jenn (rice and fish) which is rice cooked in a heavy oil and tomato sauce. Other sauces include onion, onion and tomato, palm oil all of which have the same mix of veggies and fish. I like the food a lot although at times i get a little tired of the monotony of rice with sauces that are all very similar.
For dinner, the most common carb/base is millet which is ground and steamed. It has a striking resemblance to wet sand and at first i thought it tasted like that too, but in the past six months it has really grown on me and i now look forward to it. It is typically topped with a tomato-meat sauce or a leaf sauce (flavored with a bit of dried fish and peanut butter). Chicken for dinner is a huge treat and something that we only have for holidays or other big occasions. Senegalese people can't get over the fact that Americans eat chicken everyday and fish is a more expensive meal and something that many people can't afford to eat everyday.
Hopefully this gives you all an idea of what i've been eating for the past seven months. I hope you are all doing well and i'll write again soon.
Chris
I have several constants in my life: being called toubab (wolof for foreigner or white person), having a woman offer me her baby to adopt and eating rice for lunch. Meals are eaten from a communal bowl so the whole family crowds around one large bowl. Since we eat from one bowl there are several important etiquette rules. The first is that you never, absolutely never, put your left hand in the bowl or use your left hand to hold your spoon (the primary role of the left hand is in the bathroom). Also, you only eat what is directly in front of you - its very impolite to reach in front of someone else and take from their "bowl area." If you want something that is in their area, you need to ask and they will pass it to you. Everyday the bowl is filled with rice, topped with some sort of sauce, several pieces of vegetables and one or two pieces of fish. The most popular lunch dish is ceebu jenn (rice and fish) which is rice cooked in a heavy oil and tomato sauce. Other sauces include onion, onion and tomato, palm oil all of which have the same mix of veggies and fish. I like the food a lot although at times i get a little tired of the monotony of rice with sauces that are all very similar.
For dinner, the most common carb/base is millet which is ground and steamed. It has a striking resemblance to wet sand and at first i thought it tasted like that too, but in the past six months it has really grown on me and i now look forward to it. It is typically topped with a tomato-meat sauce or a leaf sauce (flavored with a bit of dried fish and peanut butter). Chicken for dinner is a huge treat and something that we only have for holidays or other big occasions. Senegalese people can't get over the fact that Americans eat chicken everyday and fish is a more expensive meal and something that many people can't afford to eat everyday.
Hopefully this gives you all an idea of what i've been eating for the past seven months. I hope you are all doing well and i'll write again soon.
Chris
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Hello everyone,
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the start of spring or the never-ending winter depending on where you are. The seasons have changed here too - from comfortably hot(the low 90s) to unbearably hot (pushing 110 degrees). During the obligatory mid-day siesta (the wolof word is noppalu (pronounced nope-a-loo) which i think is a good case of onomatopoeia), i'm either seated inches away from my fan (which feels like a blow dryer because the air is so hot) or hiding under the shade of one of the mango trees in my family's compound. It has also been very windy as we get the tail-end of the wind and dust storms that blow across the Sahara. These storms form occasional dust clouds that fill the sky. Fortunately, the temperature still cools down at night so it isn't difficult to sleep although i hear that will stop sometime soon.
I realize that I haven't given you a very detailed description of my town and living conditions so here it goes. The population is about 20,000 people, although it feels significantly smaller than this. I can walk from one end to the other in about 20 minutes and the main commercial area is limited to two streets. It is a departmental capital (the equivalent of a US county) which means that a lot of the government agencies have offices here and there is also a large high school and well-equipped hospital. The government is by far the largest and most stable employer and most of the town's middle and upper class citizens work for the government in some capacity.
The rest of the economy is largely comprised of agriculture and agriculture-related products. All of the surrounding land is arable and produces peanuts, millet, sorghum and corn. There is no large-scale industry/manufacturing in the town, there is only a handful of small metal and wood working shops that produce furniture and other household products. There is also the ubiquitous boutique on every street corner selling a little bit of everything ranging from perfume to potatoes to propane gas tanks.
For perishable foods, there is a small daily market as well as a large weekly market where you can find fish, meat, vegetables and whatever fruit is in season.
I live in the northern part of town, about a ten minute walk to most of the government offices and the town center. My family's compound consists of 4 different buildings - my family's house (3 bedrooms and a living room) the kitchen, the bathroom/shower and my house - a single room about 150 square feet with an attached bathroom. All the buildings are made out of cement bricks and have metal roofs - i've begun to realize that they are simply giant ovens. My house is fairly visible on GoogleEarth or GoogleMaps. Go to GoogleEarth and enter these coordinates: 13.749609,-15.77736. If you don't have GoogleEarth (or don't know what it is) go to googlemaps (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl) and enter those coordinates in the "search map" box. After entering it click on "search maps." Next, click on the satellite tab on the top lefthand corner of the map. The green arrow should be pointing to my house. If this doesn't work for you, let me know and I can send you the link via email.
I hope you are all well.
Miss you
Christopher
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the start of spring or the never-ending winter depending on where you are. The seasons have changed here too - from comfortably hot(the low 90s) to unbearably hot (pushing 110 degrees). During the obligatory mid-day siesta (the wolof word is noppalu (pronounced nope-a-loo) which i think is a good case of onomatopoeia), i'm either seated inches away from my fan (which feels like a blow dryer because the air is so hot) or hiding under the shade of one of the mango trees in my family's compound. It has also been very windy as we get the tail-end of the wind and dust storms that blow across the Sahara. These storms form occasional dust clouds that fill the sky. Fortunately, the temperature still cools down at night so it isn't difficult to sleep although i hear that will stop sometime soon.
I realize that I haven't given you a very detailed description of my town and living conditions so here it goes. The population is about 20,000 people, although it feels significantly smaller than this. I can walk from one end to the other in about 20 minutes and the main commercial area is limited to two streets. It is a departmental capital (the equivalent of a US county) which means that a lot of the government agencies have offices here and there is also a large high school and well-equipped hospital. The government is by far the largest and most stable employer and most of the town's middle and upper class citizens work for the government in some capacity.
The rest of the economy is largely comprised of agriculture and agriculture-related products. All of the surrounding land is arable and produces peanuts, millet, sorghum and corn. There is no large-scale industry/manufacturing in the town, there is only a handful of small metal and wood working shops that produce furniture and other household products. There is also the ubiquitous boutique on every street corner selling a little bit of everything ranging from perfume to potatoes to propane gas tanks.
For perishable foods, there is a small daily market as well as a large weekly market where you can find fish, meat, vegetables and whatever fruit is in season.
I live in the northern part of town, about a ten minute walk to most of the government offices and the town center. My family's compound consists of 4 different buildings - my family's house (3 bedrooms and a living room) the kitchen, the bathroom/shower and my house - a single room about 150 square feet with an attached bathroom. All the buildings are made out of cement bricks and have metal roofs - i've begun to realize that they are simply giant ovens. My house is fairly visible on GoogleEarth or GoogleMaps. Go to GoogleEarth and enter these coordinates: 13.749609,-15.77736. If you don't have GoogleEarth (or don't know what it is) go to googlemaps (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl) and enter those coordinates in the "search map" box. After entering it click on "search maps." Next, click on the satellite tab on the top lefthand corner of the map. The green arrow should be pointing to my house. If this doesn't work for you, let me know and I can send you the link via email.
I hope you are all well.
Miss you
Christopher
Friday, January 25, 2008
my january
Hello everyone,
Sorry it has taken me so long to write, but I just finished a stretch of 24 straight nights and consequently had extremely limited access to internet. High speed internet just arrived in my town about 6 weeks ago, but nobody has opened a cyber café yet so I still need to travel to Kaolack (about an hour and half car ride north of me) to find reliable internet. I can occasionally use the internet at the phone company’s boutique in Nioro, but it rarely works and when it does it is still painfully slow because the employees are constantly downloading music videos.
My past month has been filled with meetings with various local officials and future work partners as well as attending all types of group meetings ranging from women’s groups to Red Cross meetings to planning committees for a summer camp. And of course continuing to learn/struggle with the local language, which has become a constant process of two steps forward and one step back. The majority of Senegalese in my community have never learned a new language at an older age so they are not very understanding of my struggles or why I haven’t become proficient in the past ten weeks. This coupled with the openly and naturally critical Wolof society has lead to more than one person telling me I’m not very smart or that I don’t know much. At first, this criticism was hard to take, but I’ve come to learn that this is how Senegalese motivate each other (positive reinforcement is somewhat nonexistent) and parents will use the same logic with their children. But despite these struggles, my Wolof skills are definitely coming along and I am feeling more comfortable everyday.
I am leaving this weekend to head back to Thies (the site of the training center) for another three weeks of more technical based training where we will have the opportunity to present the specific projects we will be doing and tailor our training curriculum to cover these topics. I’m looking forward to this because this past month I began to develop a basic plan for my work for this coming spring and summer. My biggest project will be working with 15 different groups/individuals that recently received loans from the United Nations Development Project to start small businesses. The supervisor for this program will leave a month after the loans were administered and I will take over his role and work with the different groups on developing sound business practices and making sure that they are going in the right direction. This will mainly consist of visiting the different establishments and offering various trainings for the entrepreneurs to attend. Additionally, I will start teaching business classes at a girl’s vocational school. These classes will cover simple business concepts as well as include field trips and seminars with successful, local entrepreneurs.
These two projects will take up the majority of my time, but I will also be working with a group of high school student volunteers from the local chapter of the Red Cross. They hold weekly health classes for the area youth and I will help them plan the trainings as well as skits and activities for the kids. The first class was held two Sundays ago and when I got there I was shocked to find close to 300 loud, clamoring children filling an auditorium. There was a slight miscommunication with the high school leaders and just before it began they told me that it would end in four hours and wished me luck in leading the session. Shocked (and quite scared) I told them there wasn’t a chance I could lead a ten minute class speaking Wolof, much less a four-hour class. I then explained that I wanted to help them develop their materials, but it would be them who conducted the trainings. We’ll see how this ends up working out.
The country has become consumed by the Africa Cup soccer tournament which started the beginning of this week in Ghana. Games are on every afternoon and evening and my host dad has stopped going to work in the afternoons to watch the games – he told me it was ok because he works extra-hard in the morning. I hope you are all doing well and I will write again soon.
Miss you all,
Chris
Sorry it has taken me so long to write, but I just finished a stretch of 24 straight nights and consequently had extremely limited access to internet. High speed internet just arrived in my town about 6 weeks ago, but nobody has opened a cyber café yet so I still need to travel to Kaolack (about an hour and half car ride north of me) to find reliable internet. I can occasionally use the internet at the phone company’s boutique in Nioro, but it rarely works and when it does it is still painfully slow because the employees are constantly downloading music videos.
My past month has been filled with meetings with various local officials and future work partners as well as attending all types of group meetings ranging from women’s groups to Red Cross meetings to planning committees for a summer camp. And of course continuing to learn/struggle with the local language, which has become a constant process of two steps forward and one step back. The majority of Senegalese in my community have never learned a new language at an older age so they are not very understanding of my struggles or why I haven’t become proficient in the past ten weeks. This coupled with the openly and naturally critical Wolof society has lead to more than one person telling me I’m not very smart or that I don’t know much. At first, this criticism was hard to take, but I’ve come to learn that this is how Senegalese motivate each other (positive reinforcement is somewhat nonexistent) and parents will use the same logic with their children. But despite these struggles, my Wolof skills are definitely coming along and I am feeling more comfortable everyday.
I am leaving this weekend to head back to Thies (the site of the training center) for another three weeks of more technical based training where we will have the opportunity to present the specific projects we will be doing and tailor our training curriculum to cover these topics. I’m looking forward to this because this past month I began to develop a basic plan for my work for this coming spring and summer. My biggest project will be working with 15 different groups/individuals that recently received loans from the United Nations Development Project to start small businesses. The supervisor for this program will leave a month after the loans were administered and I will take over his role and work with the different groups on developing sound business practices and making sure that they are going in the right direction. This will mainly consist of visiting the different establishments and offering various trainings for the entrepreneurs to attend. Additionally, I will start teaching business classes at a girl’s vocational school. These classes will cover simple business concepts as well as include field trips and seminars with successful, local entrepreneurs.
These two projects will take up the majority of my time, but I will also be working with a group of high school student volunteers from the local chapter of the Red Cross. They hold weekly health classes for the area youth and I will help them plan the trainings as well as skits and activities for the kids. The first class was held two Sundays ago and when I got there I was shocked to find close to 300 loud, clamoring children filling an auditorium. There was a slight miscommunication with the high school leaders and just before it began they told me that it would end in four hours and wished me luck in leading the session. Shocked (and quite scared) I told them there wasn’t a chance I could lead a ten minute class speaking Wolof, much less a four-hour class. I then explained that I wanted to help them develop their materials, but it would be them who conducted the trainings. We’ll see how this ends up working out.
The country has become consumed by the Africa Cup soccer tournament which started the beginning of this week in Ghana. Games are on every afternoon and evening and my host dad has stopped going to work in the afternoons to watch the games – he told me it was ok because he works extra-hard in the morning. I hope you are all doing well and I will write again soon.
Miss you all,
Chris
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Christmas and Tabaski
Merry Christmas!!
I’m just getting home from spending Christmas at the beach with a group of other volunteers from my region. It was definitely a little atypical to say the least, and it didn’t really feel like Christmas. But it was nice to spend the holiday with other volunteers and have a few days to relax in our rented beach house with Christmas music blaring from the stereo nonstop. For Christmas dinner, we rented out a restaurant that is right on the beach and had a great Senegalese chicken dish with chocolate cake for dessert.
Right before Christmas was the Muslim holiday Eid-al Kebir, known in Senegal as Tabaski. This holiday celebrates the day that the prophet Abraham sacrificed his son for Allah and was quickly rewarded with a ram for his faithfulness. This is one of the big two Muslim holidays (the other is Eid-al Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan) and every Muslim household kills a sheep the morning of the holiday in remembrance of Abraham. For the rest of the day, it’s a feast of epic proportions. After going to the Mosque in the morning, the men come home, kill the sheep in the yard, then skin it and clean it. This was a little shocking to watch as blood and entrails ended up everywhere. Everyone kept trying to get me to kill one of our sheep (we had three) especially after they found out I had never killed or even seen an animal get slaughtered in the United States. This led to an explanation of how Americans purchase meat which blew some of my family’s minds. I was able to get out of killing it by promising to help more next year so we’ll see what happens then.
After butchering the sheep, the women start grilling the meat for lunch and we ate a huge lunch of sheep covered in a mustard and onion sauce with French fries. After eating lunch at my family’s compound, I went next door to my extended family’s compound where I ate the same lunch again. During the afternoon, everyone lazes around in a food coma - drinking tea and visiting with family. For dinner, we ate another giant meal of sheep in a heavy sauce with bread. After dinner, everyone goes out and visits friends and family into the early morning.
We followed the same schedule the following day: eating massive amounts of sheep (which at this point expanded to include the stomach, intestines, and feet), visiting friends and family and relaxing around the compound. For the entire holiday, everyone wears traditional clothing – men wear long, brightly colored gowns and women wear very elaborate dresses or skirts with matching shirts. Women also put henna on their hands and feet and braid extensions into their hair.
I hope all of you are well and had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year. I miss you all.
Chris
I’m just getting home from spending Christmas at the beach with a group of other volunteers from my region. It was definitely a little atypical to say the least, and it didn’t really feel like Christmas. But it was nice to spend the holiday with other volunteers and have a few days to relax in our rented beach house with Christmas music blaring from the stereo nonstop. For Christmas dinner, we rented out a restaurant that is right on the beach and had a great Senegalese chicken dish with chocolate cake for dessert.
Right before Christmas was the Muslim holiday Eid-al Kebir, known in Senegal as Tabaski. This holiday celebrates the day that the prophet Abraham sacrificed his son for Allah and was quickly rewarded with a ram for his faithfulness. This is one of the big two Muslim holidays (the other is Eid-al Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan) and every Muslim household kills a sheep the morning of the holiday in remembrance of Abraham. For the rest of the day, it’s a feast of epic proportions. After going to the Mosque in the morning, the men come home, kill the sheep in the yard, then skin it and clean it. This was a little shocking to watch as blood and entrails ended up everywhere. Everyone kept trying to get me to kill one of our sheep (we had three) especially after they found out I had never killed or even seen an animal get slaughtered in the United States. This led to an explanation of how Americans purchase meat which blew some of my family’s minds. I was able to get out of killing it by promising to help more next year so we’ll see what happens then.
After butchering the sheep, the women start grilling the meat for lunch and we ate a huge lunch of sheep covered in a mustard and onion sauce with French fries. After eating lunch at my family’s compound, I went next door to my extended family’s compound where I ate the same lunch again. During the afternoon, everyone lazes around in a food coma - drinking tea and visiting with family. For dinner, we ate another giant meal of sheep in a heavy sauce with bread. After dinner, everyone goes out and visits friends and family into the early morning.
We followed the same schedule the following day: eating massive amounts of sheep (which at this point expanded to include the stomach, intestines, and feet), visiting friends and family and relaxing around the compound. For the entire holiday, everyone wears traditional clothing – men wear long, brightly colored gowns and women wear very elaborate dresses or skirts with matching shirts. Women also put henna on their hands and feet and braid extensions into their hair.
I hope all of you are well and had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year. I miss you all.
Chris
Friday, December 7, 2007
These past few weeks I have continued to meet more and more people and visit different organizations that I can potentially work with. I’m flooded with new information about people, my town, Senegal, and everything else imaginable ranging from traditional medicine to the proper way to make Senegalese tea.
I have also started Wolof tutoring with a teacher at the vocational school for girls. Neither of us really know how to go about teaching a language that is largely a spoken language, it was only put into writing 20 years ago or so (nobody here writes in it). But, we plug away at it and I think I am beginning to make some progress, slowly but surely.
My tutor shares a house with several other teachers – teachers are placed in schools by the state and consequently don’t necessarily work in their hometowns. So they live in faculty housing which is a lot like a college apartment. I’m becoming friends with the teachers in her house and am spending more and more time there, which has been great. They are all very engaging, easy to talk to, and are patient with any language barriers we encounter.
Also, feeling the need to start doing something more tangible, I’ve started helping my tutor with one of her English classes at the school. Yesterday was my second day of class and all of the girls choose English names for the class. They were all very excited to have English names and kept on saying “my name is ____” and then giggle uncontrollably. The style of class is so different than American classes. It is solely based on repetition so I’m not sure how much the girls are retaining or comprehending, but it’s too soon to judge.
Finally, this past weekend I went to a village about 30 km south of me to meet with an NGO and several women’s groups that want to start selling vegetables at a local market. To get down there, I was told there was a mini-bus that left from Nioro every afternoon. After waiting at the garage for several hours and seeing no sign of the bus, I began to ask around and finally another car headed in that direction showed up. I don’t know what kind of car it was but probably about the size of a Ford Escape and designed to hold 6 people. When all was said and through, we were tumbling down the road with 15 people in the car and a live goat tied to the roof.
Once I got to the village, a volunteer there told me about a huge, weekly party that happened to be that night. It didn’t begin until a little after midnight, but there were people from all of the surrounding villages. People were dancing to a group of drummers and there were two commentators with microphones announcing who was arriving (in the same way that announcers work the red carpet before a large film premiere). The announcers immediately took a keen interest in the two Americans at the party and conducted a 20 minute interview with us, which ended by them saying “You have everything you want here: dancing, food, Americans.” The party is actually more of a giant wrestling competition in which each of the villages selects a representative for the event. The wrestlers then compete in a round-robin tournament through the night. The wrestling was occasionally interrupted by kids sprinting through the ring with flaming torches and other events. I can’t really say that I understood everything that happened there, but it was definitely amusing.
All in all, things are going well here and I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the town, my family and my activities. I hope you are all well.
love
Chris
I have also started Wolof tutoring with a teacher at the vocational school for girls. Neither of us really know how to go about teaching a language that is largely a spoken language, it was only put into writing 20 years ago or so (nobody here writes in it). But, we plug away at it and I think I am beginning to make some progress, slowly but surely.
My tutor shares a house with several other teachers – teachers are placed in schools by the state and consequently don’t necessarily work in their hometowns. So they live in faculty housing which is a lot like a college apartment. I’m becoming friends with the teachers in her house and am spending more and more time there, which has been great. They are all very engaging, easy to talk to, and are patient with any language barriers we encounter.
Also, feeling the need to start doing something more tangible, I’ve started helping my tutor with one of her English classes at the school. Yesterday was my second day of class and all of the girls choose English names for the class. They were all very excited to have English names and kept on saying “my name is ____” and then giggle uncontrollably. The style of class is so different than American classes. It is solely based on repetition so I’m not sure how much the girls are retaining or comprehending, but it’s too soon to judge.
Finally, this past weekend I went to a village about 30 km south of me to meet with an NGO and several women’s groups that want to start selling vegetables at a local market. To get down there, I was told there was a mini-bus that left from Nioro every afternoon. After waiting at the garage for several hours and seeing no sign of the bus, I began to ask around and finally another car headed in that direction showed up. I don’t know what kind of car it was but probably about the size of a Ford Escape and designed to hold 6 people. When all was said and through, we were tumbling down the road with 15 people in the car and a live goat tied to the roof.
Once I got to the village, a volunteer there told me about a huge, weekly party that happened to be that night. It didn’t begin until a little after midnight, but there were people from all of the surrounding villages. People were dancing to a group of drummers and there were two commentators with microphones announcing who was arriving (in the same way that announcers work the red carpet before a large film premiere). The announcers immediately took a keen interest in the two Americans at the party and conducted a 20 minute interview with us, which ended by them saying “You have everything you want here: dancing, food, Americans.” The party is actually more of a giant wrestling competition in which each of the villages selects a representative for the event. The wrestlers then compete in a round-robin tournament through the night. The wrestling was occasionally interrupted by kids sprinting through the ring with flaming torches and other events. I can’t really say that I understood everything that happened there, but it was definitely amusing.
All in all, things are going well here and I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the town, my family and my activities. I hope you are all well.
love
Chris
Thursday, November 22, 2007
finally at site
I don’t even know where to begin – so much has happened in the past week. I finally got to my site last Thursday afternoon. After I finished unloading all of my stuff from the Peace Corps car, the staff returned to Kaolack, leaving me at my new home. My father and 12 year old host brother are the only two people in my family who speak French and neither of them were there for my installation. Consequently, communication with my host mother and my 10 and 2 year old sisters was limited to pointing and gesturing.
I was completely overwhelmed while I was unpacking – it seemed like my family and all of the neighbors piled into my room and dug through my bags – picking out things they liked, admiring themselves in my mirror and asking me what different things were. After about an hour, everyone left (the majority of the kids stayed in the doorway to watch me) and I was able to begin to unpack and arrange my stuff. Several times during these first few hours I questioned what exactly I was doing here again – but these thoughts were spelled by my excitement to begin to get settled and adjust to my new life here.
The next morning I forced myself, somewhat reluctantly, to go wander and begin to get a feel for the town and start meeting and introducing myself to people. The first morning was easily the most conspicuous I have felt in my life. Kids came flocking from every compound screaming “Toubab” (Wolof for foreigner/white person) wanting to shake my hand and ask me for gifts, which ranged from my sandals to one little girl asking me for my hair.
With everyone I passed, I used the little bit of Wolof greetings that I learned in Thies. I was able to then switch to French with most people I talked with. In general, people have been extremely interested in why I am here (I am repeatedly asked why I would want to leave America to come to Africa) and what my role is as a Peace Corps volunteer.
I’ve continued this routine each morning – trying to go to a new part of town to meet and see new things. I come back home and eat lunch with my family and then rest for a while. Pretty much the entire country takes a siesta in the early afternoon to try to escape the heat. After my daily nap, which I am adjusting to quite well, I recruit the neighborhood kids to teach me Wolof. It typically involves me pointing to something or mimicking some action to learn new vocabulary. Additionally, I will meet with a teacher from the high school twice to week to learn the grammar and have a little more formal practice.
All in all, things are going pretty well here. I will write more as soon as I can. There isn’t internet in Nioro yet, although its rumored to be on its way (this of course could take anywhere from a week or two to three or four months) so I need to come to Kaolack for it, which is about 30 miles north of me – but takes about an hour and half by car to give you some indication of how bad the road is.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all – all the volunteers in my region rented out a restaurant that is owned by an ex-pat, and she is preparing us a giant Thanksgiving feast with all the fixings. It should be good.
I was completely overwhelmed while I was unpacking – it seemed like my family and all of the neighbors piled into my room and dug through my bags – picking out things they liked, admiring themselves in my mirror and asking me what different things were. After about an hour, everyone left (the majority of the kids stayed in the doorway to watch me) and I was able to begin to unpack and arrange my stuff. Several times during these first few hours I questioned what exactly I was doing here again – but these thoughts were spelled by my excitement to begin to get settled and adjust to my new life here.
The next morning I forced myself, somewhat reluctantly, to go wander and begin to get a feel for the town and start meeting and introducing myself to people. The first morning was easily the most conspicuous I have felt in my life. Kids came flocking from every compound screaming “Toubab” (Wolof for foreigner/white person) wanting to shake my hand and ask me for gifts, which ranged from my sandals to one little girl asking me for my hair.
With everyone I passed, I used the little bit of Wolof greetings that I learned in Thies. I was able to then switch to French with most people I talked with. In general, people have been extremely interested in why I am here (I am repeatedly asked why I would want to leave America to come to Africa) and what my role is as a Peace Corps volunteer.
I’ve continued this routine each morning – trying to go to a new part of town to meet and see new things. I come back home and eat lunch with my family and then rest for a while. Pretty much the entire country takes a siesta in the early afternoon to try to escape the heat. After my daily nap, which I am adjusting to quite well, I recruit the neighborhood kids to teach me Wolof. It typically involves me pointing to something or mimicking some action to learn new vocabulary. Additionally, I will meet with a teacher from the high school twice to week to learn the grammar and have a little more formal practice.
All in all, things are going pretty well here. I will write more as soon as I can. There isn’t internet in Nioro yet, although its rumored to be on its way (this of course could take anywhere from a week or two to three or four months) so I need to come to Kaolack for it, which is about 30 miles north of me – but takes about an hour and half by car to give you some indication of how bad the road is.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all – all the volunteers in my region rented out a restaurant that is owned by an ex-pat, and she is preparing us a giant Thanksgiving feast with all the fixings. It should be good.
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