Peace Corps moments

The last month was full of “peace corps moments”. Peace Corps moments are little successes, moments of pure joy and fulfillment in the realization that your efforts are making way. The first one was when my little host sister came to me for soap. This sounds silly and insignificant, but she likes to show me what she's learned about hygiene in the process. Since she rough houses all the time and always manages to get cuts and scrapes from playing in the dirt, she’s been coming to me asking for moringa (local medicinal plant) and for my soap so she can wash her scrapes. There's all kinds of funky ways villagers treat wounds, and most all of them are incredibly unsanitary and illogical. Glad to be making progress in that department.

The next moment came when I went around to gather manure and sand for my tree nursery. The children in my village were curious about what I was doing and began taking over the project. I taught them all how to make a nursery and they knocked out 60 sacks in about 20 minutes. I’ve never seen them so excited about something.

Every day they ask me how the trees are doing and offer to water the nursery. I’ll be planting some at the school for the girl’s camp in January and along the main road for shade.

The other Peace Corps moments have been with the local middle age school girls. I painted a chalkboard in my room and almost everyday the girls in and around my compound ask me for a little English tutor session.

Some of the girls sitting on my bedroom floor studying English

Also, the 100 permission slip/invitation forms for the girl’s camp were snatched up really quickly which indicates to me that they seem pretty excited about it. I'm expecting a good turnout. The after school girls club is coming along as well. One of the female teachers, Madame Mallu, is going to help me run the club and hopefully continue running it after I leave. The first meeting is next week! I'll let you know how it goes :)

Happy Holidays!

My gosh, two big holidays have passed and I haven’t even found the time to say Happy Halloween and Happy Thanksgiving! How was it? Did everyone dress up in hilarious costumes and a month later did everyone eat delicious food? I know I did. The Tambacounda region hosts Halloween every year at their regional house. Volunteers from all over Senegal came down for the festivities! Like always, it was fantastic to see everyone, although some were especially unrecognizable in their getups. One of my favorite costumes was my friend CJ who personally sewed her own tutu for her interpretation of Natalie Portman in Black Swain. I dressed up like a life-size carrot for the love of vegetables and vegetarians worldwide.

A week after Halloween came Tabaski, a Muslim holiday where every father must kill a sheep in celebration of the sacrifice of Abraham. All my villagers were dressed in their finest attire and relatives from out of town came in to socialize and feast all day. We ate special onion and potato sauce over rice with chunks of our dear sheep friend.

This is Omar the sheep along side my host sibilings the night before Tabaski.
Omar is unfortunately no longer with us.

My host sister Mawnde and baby Koumba dressed up for the holiday.

The day after Tabaski, I caught a bus into Kolda to help the new agriculture volunteers shop around for fun items for their new huts. In the days that followed, they installed into their permanent villages. I can’t explain how strange it was to now be the person helping the newbies move in. Wasn’t that just me a couple months ago?

When I arrived back to Mampatim, my host brother Malik greeted me with an especially excited look on his face. He took my hand and led me over to the little shed behind my host mother’s room. To my surprise, a tiny little puppy came crawling out and sauntered over to me. Malik looked at me and said  “Ko an wodi rawandu ndu.”This was my new pup!! They must have found him somewhere in the village because he looked pretty mangy and malnourished, but how could I say no? He was so cute!!! I named him Mijo, Mijo Moyyo Balde.

 This was taken a couple days after cleaning him up. He's grown so much since this!

Mijo Moyyo means good thought or good idea. Seemed like a pretty good idea to keep him :) He’s been my pride and joy, trotting alongside me everywhere I go and sleeping next to me on his little blanket at night. I can safely say I’ll be very much attached to him after two years and he’s definitely destined to have a great life if I’m his owner forever JWhat a wonderful early Christmas present!

I came back to the regional house for Thanksgiving. We turned on Christmas music and cooked amazing food, a beautiful collaborative effort which went surprisingly smooth considering we had about 35 people in the house. We managed to make almost every traditional dish, just about as good as being back in America for the real thing. The best part? Nine different pies! Who would have thought? Before feasting, all 35 of us sat in a circle and wrote on notecards all the reasons we're thankful and read eachother's aloud. It was a sweet little moment and a warm reminder that its possible to create family anywhere you go.
I'm returning back to village now with the little mini Christmas tree my parents sent me. I'll be sure to decorate my hut for the holidays this week. This month is a little tough when it comes to missing home for the holidays, but I hope so much you all are enjoying the crisp cold weather, the comfort of holiday cheer and the deliciousness of pumpkin spice lattes. Happy December!

back to work

 I've been working on a baseline survey to get a better idea of what the specific problems are in my village and what people would like to see improve. The survey has helped me to learn a lot more about my village and all the people in it. I've gathered that water accessability is a major problem, along with malaria.

Luckily,  people are really good about going to the health post and getting it treated. However, in the 50 compounds I've interviewed, every other person said they had 1-2 children die in the last year. Its a tough thing when you move to your village and everyone you see on the road is friendly and happy as ever, then you really start to talk to them on a personal level and realize the statistics you read are about people you now know. All you can hope is that they'll take what you've taught them and use it.

I met with my women's group president and taught her and my counterparts how to make neem lotion, the all natural mosquito repellent. Bed nets are a great concept, but malaria mosquitos are said to bite only at dusk and dawn, which is when people are either cooking dinner or in the fields. I'm planning on doing neem lotion demonstrations for all of the women's groups. Eventually they'll teach or sell it to ten compounds each and if that makes a difference in the number of sick people, then hopefully word of mouth will spread and people will start using it every evening. There used to be a nearby river which dried up and the water tower has been broken down for years so in dealing with their water shortage, I'm looking into writing a grant to build more wells so that 50 people aren't all using the same one each day.

We have a new principal at the middle school and he seems really motivated and excited for the upcoming projects I'll be doing with them. School just resumed and now they'll be able to see their brand new garden.

The girls empowerment club and the environmental club should be starting up next month once I figure out logistics and get students on board. They'll be helping me paint murals, clean up trash, tend to the garden, and learning nutritious ways to cook during their lunch breaks. To top it off, I planted some beautiful red and pink flowers that will grow wild on the vines up and around the walls in a few months.

The other day Cibyl, Moustapha and I biked out to Kelly's village, Thiewal Lao, for a formation with her master farmer.

Moustapha is an incredible farmer with a magnificant magical garden all around his house. I figured it would be beneficial for him to come and learn about  better farming techniques for more efficient and faster crop growth. He was really inspired by it, and hopefully now he'll take what he learned back to Mampatim and share it with his other farming friends.

 

Spending time with the kids in my compounds has been my greatest happiness. During the hot daytime hours, they've been coming in my hut and listening to my guitar. I'm horrible at it, but they don't realize that. They love it! Here's my host sister, Fatoumata, trying to play it herself.

A couple days ago was the day of the Konkouran. The Konkouran is a crazy scary looking guy dressed in rags and grass who carries a machete around the village in a pretend attempt to circumcise the little boys. Its a tradition every year, kind of like the boogie man, except if the boogie man carried a machete and pretended to cut off your junk. He doesn't actually ever hurt anybody, just a fun game of forewarning that in the following days, it will actually happen... poor fellas. 

The other night the kids broke out into an awesome dance party to the music on the radio.

 For some reason, it reminded me of a specific childhood memory. One time my extended family was over for a party and Jimmy Buffett's Volcano came on. All of us cousins got out in the middle of my living room and were assigned a different instrument to mime. The adults gathered around and we performed the whole song, miming the instruments when they would sound. Ah, childhood.

The last time I had a hammock was in the backyard of the old house I grew up in. Almost every night we would have a bon fire and lay on that thing. I spent many of hours starring up at the night sky, lying on our hammock and contemplating life in deep conversations with my friends. Come to think of it, we were very much wise beyond our years. Now it all comes back around. I have inherited a hammock of my own and strung it up in my backyard under my mango tree. This is to be the downfall of productivity but the upswing of happiness.

Return from America

Hello beautiful people! Its been about a month since I've been back and my return from America went smoothly, much more than I anticipated. I remember first arriving in Senegal in March, stepping off the plane into a foreign land in the middle of the night. I'm not going to pretend I wasn't terrified. This second time around, it felt oddly like I was returning to my second home.

My sister's wedding was incredible. Truly the most gorgeous breathtaking ceremony I've ever seen. I was overwhelmed with happiness for her and brandon. The whole trip went by in a flash, but nonetheless was full of autumn nights snuggled up around bon fires with the greatest people in the world, laughing and sharing stories and eating food that has never tasted so good. I felt grateful as ever to be able to come home. Nothing like your own heavenly bed to sleep in again and trader joe's right down the road. But talking with people about my life in Senegal made me feel excited and motivated to get back to work.

I made my way down to Kedougou the next day after arriving in Dakar again. The first night was spent dancing uncontrollably for hours in the Kedougou kitchen while making cookies and five different types of smoothies.

All that time they spend around breathtaking moutains and waterfalls must be the explaination for such excessive amounts of hyperactivity.

The next day we ventured to Saraya to meet up with our buddies doing bed net distributions for malaria prevention. The best part was sitting in on their radio show! I threw in a little Pulaar blurb about malaria but that's about all I could muster. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay long enough for the actual distribution, but to be able to observe the meetings and efforts beforehand were beneficial for future projects.

On my way back to my village, I stopped in Tamba for a night to spend time with my dearest Emma. We popped open a bottle of wine and cooked up some delicious America pasta I had packed away. What intended on being a chill night turned into a wild dance party to various Britney Spears songs on full blast. Nobody else was in the house so we figured, why not? Girlfriends are the greatest.  :)

Returning to Mampatim always warms my heart! As always, I was greeted by a flood of hugging, clapping and dancing. Wouldn't it be awesome if thats what happened everytime you went anywhere?



payaya parents... expecting

 After unpacking, I walked out my backdoor to the sight of two papaya trees that had grown taller than my fence while I was away! Even more amazing, four other baby papaya trees are sprouting up too! 6 papaya trees in my small backyard? I'll be outplanting the other ones into the school garden, but for the two that are remaining, I shall be enjoying their fruits by next year!

My tomato plant is in full force and my friend Kelly brought me a banana tree to plant as well.

 So, as it turns out, this may be the only time where I have banana, mango, and papaya trees in my backyard all at once. What is my life nowadays? The mango season ended a while ago and now we're on to corn and cucumber season. Now these aren't just any cucumbers, the ones they grown here are seriously the size of melons. Villagers dice up the cucumbers and drench them in a vinegar mustard onion sauce for a snack. Mmmm!!! it. is. so. good.

mr. banana tree

Tomato plant

host sisters pounding corn

 Besides food, I have come to terms with my other two obsessions, slacklining and painting. My host family probably thinks I'm crazy, but I decided to paint my room again. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do to keep things interesting when you're entire living space is a small square cement room. Our volunteer newspaper, Sabaar, wants me to submit pictures and an article about interior design in next month's Better Huts and Gardens column.

Slacklining. A gigantic thank you goes out to Kaede Holland, the coolest chick ever. Slacklining is something that Kaede is really into, and I trust her opinion on things, so I was more than willing to bring it back with me and try it out. My friend Cibyl and I often ride our bikes out to remote parts of my village and set it up in the woods. It's hilarious to think of Senegalese people crossing our path one day, discovering two foreigners tight rope walking in the middle of nowhere. What would they think of us? We had an Oktoberfest /euro trash theme party for the newcomers back at the regional house, so I set it up on the roof that night to see what would happen. They loved it. I'm glad I've been able to spread the slacklining love here in Senegal.

Ramadan

En jarama! Hono Sumayo?

Ramadan started at the beginning of August, which means my village is now a ghost town due to the lack of energy from their fast. Most of the days are spent lying on bamboo beds underneath various shade structures and mango trees. The first day I arrived back to my village after much too long of time away (IST…Dakar trip…birthday party…) my host family came running at me with hugs of joy and laughter, I’d missed them! It’s somewhat difficult to get any work done or to get people motivated this month, so besides working on the school garden with my counterpart early in the morning, I’ve been enjoying reading books in my favorite tree out by the school yard and taking pictures of random people.

 Here's my host siblings lounging around the compound being awesome.

At night, I usually lay out on the bamboo beds with the others, my old host dad lying in his hammock next to me. The stars are beaming here like a million crystals in a blanket of black. One cool thing about not having electricity, it’s impossible to miss the beauty of the night sky. We wait until it’s time to break the fast with baguettes and coffee, then an elaborate meal follows a couple hours later. 

The first two nights I tagged along with my host sisters to the Mosque in order to get a better idea of their prayer time. They wrapped me in a long skirt, draped a veil over my head and off we went.  I stood alongside my sister and shadowed her as she went through the motions bowing to Allah. It was fantastic! They were silently laughing hysterically at the thought of me praying like them. Secretly I think they appreciated it.

I’ve had some great visitors lately! Cibyl came over twice this week. We completely intended on doing work at my health post, but with the doctor gone, we were unable to access the information we needed. No complaints! We ended up lying on the floor of my hut watching movies on my laptop, snacking on goodies from the boutique and laughing for hours. So glad she’s my neighbor!

My favorite girl in village is Khaditu. She stopped by for a surprise visit hearing I was back in town. We sat in my bed for a while and I could tell she was feeling down.  We talked awhile about her life and the difficulties of it all. She asked me if I had a washing machine in America and I couldn’t help but be honest. I was relieved when she stopped at that. To continue with all the questions of luxuries I have would only make it more clear to her the unfortunate disposition she was born into. She told me about her 17 year old sister who is exceptionally good at English, but is married with two children and is no longer in school. Luckily, Khaditu turned out to be one of the scholarship winners! I told her the great news, that she now has money to stay in school and buy supplies. It lifted her spirits! Hopefully spending the next two years encouraging her and telling her how smart she is will do some good.

So I must tell you about my friend Wallie. Wallie is a brick maker from the Kolda city who also happens to speak some English and about nine other languages. He has nine children and one wife, something that’s quite uncommon here. We had a great conversation a couple days ago about how he believes one wife is the way it should be and how eating only rice for every meal is incredibly unhealthy. This guy gets it! He’s also one of the nicest people in the world, always saying things to me in broken English as I walk by like, “You very kind.” “The people nice to you yes?” “Okay tank you very well.” “I very happy for you here.” Wallie has been a delight to get to know, I’m sad he had to leave to go back to the city. Maybe someday he’ll be back in Mampatim making bricks again.

The school garden is growing beautifully!! We now have tomatoes, okra, hugeeeeeee cucumber plants (taking over all the other innocent small carrot and turnip plants) and last but not least, melons!!!!

Moustapha is an awesome gardener, with a huge plot of land in his own compound covered in all kinds of greens.

A couple days ago, we took my host dad’s donkey cart and ventured off into the woods one day in search of rich manure. Sounds dumb, but it was a really fun adventure. Guess I can now say I’ve ridden on a donkey cart. I’m really grateful I have him helping me. When I get back to village in a couple weeks, God only knows what kinds of delicious organic fruits and veggies we’ll have growing!

This is my last post before coming home to America. My flight leaves on Wednesday morning. I cannot wait to see you all! Love love lovee!

the beginning of 23

The first weekend of August all the volunteers in my group from the Kolda region came into the regional house for my birthday party! It was a pretty chill night, drinking horrible wine and hanging out on the patio outside.

Costa and Alex spent all night in the kitchen cooking up a delicious feast of potato salad and beer battered vegetables on a bed of rice with sweet and spicy sesame seed sauce.

On top of all that, Kelly brough out a coconut cake with cream cheese frosting at midnight. How sweet!! Then Sarah brought glow stick bracelets from who knows where. Everyone put them on and with Costa’s creative streak he had us stand in a line, take a letter each and motion the letters of my name with our arms.

The two days afterward we cleaned and painted the living room and dining room at the house. Its looks beautiful now!  

T'was a fantastic birthday! Thank you all for sending sweet birthday wishes my way!

Trip to Dakar

Hey loves!

Today is my 5^th and last day in Dakar.  A bunch of us came straight to the capital after our IST for a little break before returning to our villages. I’ve ended up staying a few days extra because of appointments with the dentist and the general doctor but now I’m heading back to Kolda for my 23^rd year of life celebration at the regional house! My dear friend Kelly is making a coconut cake. Mmmm! J

We’ve had the loveliest time here in the city! Dakar is substantially westernized with a grocery store, upscale clothing stores, temperature controllable showers, air conditioning and an ice cream shop! We had a couple birthdays to celebrate which gave us excuses to splurge on delicious fancy food. One of the first nights we all went out to an Italian restaurant for our friends birthdays and shared thin crust pizza with caramelized onions and goat cheese. To all of you who know me really well: I have taken a liking to onions now. True story! Turns out when you have limited food options in village, onions begin to taste incredibly satisfying in comparison to watery leaf sauce. However, I still hate mushrooms.

The next day we took a canoe ride from the coast of Dakar to the gorgeous Isle Ngour.

We were slightly worried about the ominous clouds overhead, but as it turned out they only added to the peaceful coastal Ireland effect as the Atlantic waves crashed up on the steep cliffs. I took a “look deep in thought” photo shoot of Ben and Ian on the rocks.

Afterward we walked through the intricate cobble stone pathways lined with vibrant wild plants and flowers draping over the high walls of the local residents. I can’t even describe the quaint splendor of this place.

After strolling around through the maze of trails, we came upon another ocean view clearing, only this time there were restaurants and umbrellas with lounge mats set up along the sand.

My friend Costa hanging out on the beach

We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon there where we swam in the ocean, ate lunch and got hackled by local vendors selling us their goodies. I gave in for the first time since arriving to Senegal and bought some pretty sweet stuff for people back home.

That night we got all dressed up and went out for Marielle and Larocha birthday celebration round two. We ate at this Thai restaurant called Le Jardin Thailandais and it was AMAZING! Seriously maybe the best Thai food I’ve ever had. All of us practically sat in silence at the overwhelming deliciousness as we inhaled our food.

In the morning we made caramel French toast and cheesy eggs for everyone back at the regional house before our second adventure to Goree Island, the home to many slaves departing towards America in the late 1700’s. Unfortunately now it’s much more of a tourist trap, but nonetheless very full of powerful history.

The next time I’ll be back here in Dakar is when I'll be flying home to see you lovely people in America is only 18 days away!!