Villages--R--Us

Sorry to leave you guys hanging for a few days, but I’ve been busy village shopping, something I thought I would never hear myself saying. It has been a very long and drawn out week down here in Kédougou looking for a five star village, but it happened! In a strange series of events I found myself eating dinner with the village chief of a village about eight kilometers away from the city of Kédougou. The village is large and located alongside one of the main roads in the region. The thatch roof huts are incredibly tall compared to the first village I was supposed to install into, and there is even a random payphone within the village. Just to give you a little perspective, I think that was the first payphone I’ve seen here in Senegal. All that aside, there isn’t running water or electricity, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? The thought of not having to take a two-hour bush taxi into town was enough to persuade me. I visited the village a couple more times with my supervisor to work out living logistics and to set up counterparts for me to work alongside. I’m excited to say that I will now be installing later this week, and at that point, my village life begins!

You know that feeling you get right before you throw up? You’re anxious and dreading what’s about to happen, but you know that once you do it you’ll feel so much better. That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling this past week. The thought of moving into a village in the middle of Senegal is terrifying me and I know the first few nights are going to be the hardest part. But after those first few nights are over everything is going to start falling into place. It’s that first night I’m dreading, and I’m anxious to get that initial shock out of the way. So I say, “Bring it on Senegal, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be!. …And please don’t let there be any mice in my hut!!”

Mama-Oh No You Didn't!!

So much has happened since my last blog post, so I will try to fit in as much as I can in this post without boring you. Last Friday I swore in as an official Peace Corps volunteer at the U.S. Ambassador’s house. My stage and I all dressed in traditional Senegalese outfits, ate lots of yummy food, and we finally got our bankcards for our new Senegalese bank account$! It was a great way to mark the end of nine weeks of Pre-Service Training and actually start the beginning of this insane journey we signed up for.

That evening, a few friends and I spent the night in the capital city of Dakar. Compared to the rest of Senegal, Dakar is this magical city situated on a beautiful peninsula overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It has everything a city boy like me could ask for; a shopping mall, bars, grocery store, ice cream shops, and…wait for it…even Chinese restaurants! My Chinese restaurant experience was one of the most conflicting experiences I’ve had thus far in Senegal. We walked into this family compound located on what felt like a random street in Dakar. The outside of the compound was adorned with a pagoda type awning and once we walked inside a Chinese couple greeted us in what I guess you can call French with a Chinese accent. The feeling of the restaurant was sort of like a hole in the wall type place, and it reminded me a lot of Hing Loon in Seattle’s Chinatown (speaking of I could really go for some congee with Chinese donuts right about now). The menu was in Chinese and French, and the servers were two Senegalese girls who loved the Chinese soap opera playing at the front of the restaurant. In the end, the food was amazing and also a nice break from the usual fish and rice meals we’ve been getting used to. At one point I totally forgot that I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Africa because the lo mein was so delicious! 

Looking fine in Senegalese complets with my language group!!

 

Two days ago we took a lovely 11 hour “sept place” ride down to the region of Kédougou with all of our baggage we have for the next two years. The drive was long, and sitting in a car without air conditioning in 100+ degree weather for over 10 hours is not the ideal situation. I dozed in and out of consciousness while listening to my iPod, and just to give you an idea of how hot it was, with my window down it felt like a blow dryer was being aimed towards my face on full blast. I found that having the window half way down was the most tolerable. The day after we arrived, a few of the current volunteers serving in the region went to market with us to buy everything we might need at site. It was overwhelming to think about what we might possibly need, but the volunteers with us were a huge help. My most exciting purchase was either the gas tank I’ll be using to cook with, or the buckets I’ll be using to take bucket baths with. 

Yesterday was the day I was supposed to install. I had been preparing myself all morning for my big move; my bags were strapped onto the land cruiser and my “goodbyes” were all said and done. We took a two hour car ride to my village and pulled up to a deserted compound and unfinished hut. To be honest, I wasn’t that surprised; disappointed—yes, surprised—no. Long story short, the supervisor who was installing me did not feel comfortable with me living in that village, and after he expressed that to me, neither did I. Now I’m sitting back at my regional house waiting to look for a new village (actually I’m sitting at a hotel on the Gambian River sipping on an iced coffee). At first I was really upset. I had been mentally preparing myself to move to village and now I don’t even know what village I’ll be living in. After sleeping on it and talking to current volunteers though, I feel a lot better about my situation. Now I get to have some input on where they will place me next and I will hopefully be able to work with counterparts that are actually motivated. I also feel like I kind of have the upper hand in this situation because Peace Corps pretty much let me down and I can totally use that against them to get the best village ever (insert evil laugh)! We already have a couple villages in mind and I am hoping to check one of them out later today. I will definitely be keeping everyone updated and maybe my next blog post will be about a new and exciting village. Inch’allah!

sipping coffee on the Gambian River

NOTE: My initial village was called Mamakhono hence the title of my blog.

Goodbye Beach--Hello Hut Life

This past weekend my training group, or stage as we like to call it in this Francophone country, took a beach trip to Popenguine. As we were nearing the end of our eighth week of training, this beach weekend was much needed. We rented out two beach houses and spent the next 24 hours soaking in the sun and enjoying our time off.  To save the integrity of my stage I will sum up the trip as being a great bonding experience while at the same time noting that we all made it back in one piece. Now with less than one week left of Pre-Service Training (PST) my mind is beginning to race with an infinite amount of emotions. I’m definitely sad to be leaving my home stay family in M’Bour. The concrete house that once looked uninviting and foreign to me is now one of the places I am most comfortable at. My host sisters who at first laughed at me for not knowing how to speak Jaxanke are now the ones I have dance parties with in the backyard. As sad as it will be saying goodbye to them tomorrow, I know that the door will always be open for me. I could have done without the mice running around my room and waking me up at night, but at the end of the day it was still worth it.

I’m also extremely nervous about moving to site. The lack of electricity, accessibility to water, and remoteness of my village are making my imagination run wild. But I think the thought of being so far from my friends is something that will be the hardest for me. I have spent the past 8 weeks alongside forty something other trainees and have become close with many of them. Next week we are being ripped apart from each other and sprinkled all around the country of Senegal with only our water filters and mosquito nets (and integrity that wasn’t lost in Popenguine). Okay, maybe I’m being a little over dramatic, but that’s how it’s being played out in my head. Luckily though, we all have cell phones with free calling plans to each other. And luckily there is a cell phone tower in my village that will allow me to take full advantage of that free calling plan.

With the nervousness about moving to site, also comes the stress of actually having to move. If you read my last blog entry, you might remember that I have the honor of opening up a new site. That means I will be moving into a brand new hut, a nice brand new empty hut. This translates into me having to buy everything I might possibly need to start out my new life in village, a bed, gas tank, food, cooking supplies, a refrigerator…oh wait, I won’t have electricity…buckets, storage bins, shelves, candles, more buckets. The list is endless, but I’m sure I am being a bit over dramatic as usual. Apparently pessimism is my forte.

So here’s me trying out optimism (see last blog post about the positive thinker text). I’m excited to be finishing Pre-Service Training and to begin my actual projects at site. I appreciated the approach Peace Corps had in easing us into our new environment and hope that I am at least somewhat prepared at being able to integrate. I am also looking forward to getting away from this summer camp feeling, following a schedule, and at times wanting more freedom. Many of my friends at home have asked me what I will actually be doing at site. The first three months will be mostly dedicated to me getting to know the community and work on becoming more fluent in my local language. This means I will be walking around my village and spending an hour or two at all the family compounds. After those first three months are over we will have what’s called In-Service Training. It’ll be another couple weeks of sessions at the training center where we will go into more depth about how to approach certain projects we want to start, write grants, begin a baseline survey, etc. For now though I am only focusing on getting through this last week of PST.

Feeding off my last paragraph and this idea of optimism, I will leave you with pictures from our beach weekend in Popenguine:

BEACH WEEKEND!!

One of the beach houses in Popenguine.

My host sisters and brother: Amina, Adja, Cher, and Fista (from left to right).

The view from the top of my host family's house in M'Bour.

Reality Check

After six, what seemed to be long, weeks of training, I’ve finally been assigned the village I will be living in for the next two years! It’s located in the southeast region of Senegal called, Kedougou, and is claimed to be the most beautiful region because of its lush vegetation and waterfalls. Now before I go on about my village, I think it’s appropriate to give you a little background on the situation at hand. Six weeks ago, all of us trainees were interviewed and asked certain questions about our site preferences. I told Peace Corps that I wanted to be placed in a town, with electricity, near many volunteers, and I also did not want to open a new site but would rather start at a site where a previous volunteer had already worked. Was I being overly picky? Possibly, but these sites do exist, and I was told by previous volunteers that it’s important to tell Peace Corps exactly what you want.  So those were my preferences, and I guess the key word in this case is “preferences.” I probably should have known better because when applying to the Peace Corps I said that I “preferred” to go to Asia and was instead sent to Africa. What made me think it might be different this time around? I do not know.

Now I bet you’re wondering which one of my preferences were actually met? Well…first of all I am in a large village. Not exactly a town, but a larger village of about 2,000 people so I guess you can say it’s sort of a town. Do I have electricity? If you consider the solar charger I brought with me, then yes I guess you can say that I also kind of have electricity…so far two for two. Am I near many volunteers? Define near and many. My closest neighbor is 12 kilometers and then the next closest is 25 kilometers away from me, besides them It would take a good hour and a half by bush taxi to get to another volunteer and another half an hour to get to the regional capitol. Talking to other volunteers though, it seems like 10 kilometers is fairly close. I should just be lucky that a river won’t block the road to my village during rainy season, which is the case for a couple volunteers. And lastly am I replacing a current volunteer? This one is a definite no. I’m opening a new site.

As I am finishing up this last paragraph I get a text message from my training manager saying, “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” Ironic?

You can imagine the panic and fear that ran through me when I found all of this out. We were given a packet that had all of this information written on it, but luckily the next day we left for volunteer visits so I could actually see my future village for myself. I stayed with the volunteer who is my closest neighbor, and we biked about 12 kilometers to see my village. Fortunately for me, I hadn’t ridden a bike since the Fourth of July in 2006, so biking through the mountainous region of Senegal, although beautiful, wasn’t exactly enjoyable. Upon arrival to my village, a man who spoke a bit of little English greeted me and I was brought to the family compound in which I would be living. I saw the beginnings of the hut being built for me, complete with my own private latrine and thatch roof.  Throughout the day I met with some of the more important figures in the village like the headmaster at the elementary school, the village chief, and also my namesake.  Speaking of which, I forgot to mention I will be given a new name when I move into village, Musa Cisokho.

The entire volunteer visit was overwhelming and it took me a few days to process all the emotions I was feeling. For one, I know my experience was a bit jaded by the bike ride to and from village, lucky for me I know that with a lot of biking comes nice legs. It is also a surreal feeling to be sitting in a thatch roof hut, in a remote village, knowing that this place will be your home for the next two years. Going into this whole process, I knew the possibility of no electricity and distance from other volunteers was likely, but actually seeing it is different. It has been nice to slowly get acquainted to the Senegalese culture and ways of life. Living both at the training center and at my home stay in M’Bour for the last month has proven to be very beneficial. If you stuck me in my village my first week here, you can bet that I would have already come home. For now, I am taking it day by day. I have about three weeks left of training and I will definitely be taking advantage of what city life has to offer…that being internet, beer, and chicken.

My Walk Home

Last night I had one of the most inspiring walks back home, but first a little background info before I go into more detail.  I am still living with my host family in M’Bour.  My day normally starts off with an egg sandwich and a cup of Sengal’s best….instant Nescafe, sans sucre. I’ll then walk across the street to my language facilitator’s house where we peacefully have class under a mango tree.  For anyone who is wondering, the mangoes aren’t ripe yet, but they are looking better and better each day.  We’ll normally run class for about three to four hours depending on how restless I get, and surprisingly I’ve been very attentive these past couple days.   After class I’ll go home and eat lunch around the food bowl.  My sisters must have read my last blog post because we finally had a delicious chicken for lunch!  The combination of a full stomach and the heat puts me into a pretty deep food coma, so I’ll nap for about an hour before heading to an elementary school that’s about five minutes away. 

For the past couple weeks we’ve been starting a garden, complete with three garden beds, a tree nursery, and a compost pile.  The concept behind the project is to prepare us for our actual volunteer sites where we can start women’s gardens or plant specific tree nurseries to improve the nutritional health in our communities.  Our garden here in M’Bour is slowly coming along, and in my opinion is doing very well considering we started this garden in what seemed to be a giant sandbox. 

So anyway, back to my inspiring walk back home. I am walking home from the elementary school last night when this young man in a soccer uniform approaches me.  Side note: while we work on our garden in the afternoon there is always a big group of guys playing soccer at the school. I also don’t know how to start this story off without it sounding super creepy, but the setting is me walking down a street that’s hosting a baptism so there are a lot of people around.  So this guy comes up to me and starts speaking French; I’m trying my best to keep up with what he’s saying but all I manage to understand is that he wants to show me something at his store.  At this point I have my guard up and I tell him I need to get home before the sun goes down.  He totally disregards what I just said and insists that I go with him, he seems genuine and there are other people around me, so I go. We only walk about ten feet when he unlocks this gate and we walk into the most majestic garden.  Now you have to imagine the type of neighborhood I live in, it’s Africa and there is sand everywhere. Only the main roads are paved, so I’m mostly trudging through sand everywhere I go. This garden was impressive; there was lettuce, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, and a bunch of other vegetables he was naming that I couldn’t translate.  He explains to me that this is what his dad and him do for a living.  At that second, a neighbor walks over and buys two heads of lettuce from him.  It was neat to see that type of community support, especially knowing that my permanent site will be in the southeast where many of their vegetables are imported from other parts of the country. I say bye to “Chris,” as he had introduced himself as, and continue my walk home.

Five minutes probably pass by when I see this couple cross the street in front of me.  The girl turns around and starts speaking to me in English.  I explain to her why I am living in Senegal and that I am starting to learn Jaxanke, then she starts speaking to me in Jaxanke! It was crazy because I introduced myself and tried to use as much of the language I had learned in the past couple weeks.  She encourages me to continue studying the language and she also reminds me that I’m doing a positive thing for her country.  Her and her brother walk the rest of the way home with me.  I walk into my house to the smell of fish cakes being cooked….mmmmm!!!

I am going to leave you with a few images of what’s been going on the past few weeks. My computer finally decided it wanted to upload pictures from my camera! 

The sandbox we started with.

Our compost pile!!!

Building a fence around the garden.

Me and all the helpers!

My room.

One of my sisters preparing a lunch bowl...fish.

Our mural at the school.

My patient language partner Chrissie under the mango tree.

Bubacar, Fish, and Beyonce

I just got back to the training center from my home stay so please excuse me if this blog post sounds scatter brained, but there is so much running through my mind!!!

For the past five days I’ve been living in M’Bour, a larger beach town, with the Signaté family. I have a dad, mom, five sisters and a younger brother, and we all live in a four-bedroom house with electricity, but no running water. I’m sure you are all wondering what the bathroom is like and if I have to share a room with other people. Luckily I have my own bedroom and also a western style toilet! It doesn’t flush, but at least I don’t have to squat. I’ve already heard horror stories of money falling out of people’s pockets when using their squatty potty.  Within the first hour of meeting my family I was given the name Bubacar, pernounced boob-uh-car, which is my host mother’s father’s name.  It took a couple days for me to get used to my name and recognize when my name was being called, but I’m getting more and more comfortable with it each day.  My host family has been very welcoming to me and makes sure I am comfortable at all times of the day. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been pretty spoiled. My mom warms my bucket bath for me at night and my sisters do my laundry for me! I also sit at a table for my meals with the adults, while the kids sit on the floor to eat.  Speaking of eating, all I’ve been eating is FISH! Smoked fish, fish balls, grilled fish, fish rice, fish salad….GIVE ME SOME CHICKEN! Don’t get me wrong, the food isn’t bad, but I would appreciate some variety in my protein selection. Meals are normally served on a large communal platter, where the majority of the plate is rice, or some other sort of starch, and the fish and veggies are in the center for everyone to share. My first night we ate salad and it was the first time I had to eat with my hand! Luckily it wasn’t rice. 

Home life is really interesting too. The five girls do EVERYTHING. They fetch water in the morning, clean the bathroom, make lunch and dinner, and do the laundry.  It’s crazy how much responsibility they have at home, but in Senegalese culture this is normal.  At first I thought that my host mom was just really strict, but after talking with my peers I realized this wasn’t the case.  When the girls aren’t working they usually have friends come over and I can’t tell you how many weaves I’ve seen be put in!! I also don’t think I’ve ever watched so much TV. They watch everything from music videos, to Bollywood films that have been obviously dubbed over in French. I also found out my sisters love Beyonce and Rihanna, so we have a lot in common.  Communicating with my family has also been very interesting. I’ve been speaking a lot of French with them, even though the point of the home stays is to work on our local language skills. My family knows this and told me that I have to start using less and less French each day.

Other than adjusting to a new home life, I started to learn one of the local languages in Senegal called Jaxanke.  It’s spoken mostly in the southeast region of Senegal, so that will most likely be the region of my permanent site. I normally have language class for a few hours at my language coordinator’s home stay, which is conveniently located across the street from me. It’s just me and one other girl, Chrissie, in my language group so we get a lot of one on one time with our teacher.  That’s definitely helped with learning the language faster because if I forget something I am quickly called out. With all of these new changes, it’s definitely been a hard transition. They say that the first night at our home stay is the hardest and so I’m hoping that is true. I am only back at the training site for 48 hours, then I go back to M’Bour for 13 days…aka more fish and Bollywood films. I am hoping to post some pictures soon, but for some reason my camera isn’t transferring pictures to my laptop.  Until then, that is all I got.  I appreciate and I thank you all for the continual support from home.  Even though it’s only been two weeks since I arrived in Senegal, it seems as if I’ve been here for a month.  Your words of encouragement are really helping me get through this pre-service training that seems like it is going to go on forever. Seven more weeks to go!

So I finally made it to Senegal!! What a surreal experience getting off the plane, walking onto the tarmac, and then realizing you're in Africa. We took a red eye out of D.C. Tuesday night (March 6th) and flew directly to Dakar. I kept myself busy watching "My Week With Marilyn" and drinking Tanqueray and tonics, which were complimentary I might add...best gin and tonics ever!

Once we arrived in Dakar we went through customs which surprisingly didn't take as long as I thought, and I was greeted with my first Senegal welcome, a security guard calling me "Jackie Chan!!" and sticking out his hand for a fist pump. The funny thing is--is that we acted out a scenario in orientation about an Asian American guy being called Jackie Chan and how we should appropriately react. I clearly went along with it and gave the guy a fist pump...sorry Peace Corps.

I'm currently in Thies, pronounced chez, where we are staying at the Peace Corps training center. The set up is much like a summer camp complete with a dining hall, and boys and girls cabins. My first real culture shock was during lunch yesterday where we had to sit around a very large aluminum bowl and eat out of it community style with spoons. They served what looked to be small grain rice, beef, and assorted veggies. It was very delicious, but also a very new experience. Cutting beef with a spoon took a lot of team work with the others sitting at your bowl. I would not suggest this type of meal for my germaphobe brother.

Other than that, my last two days have been filled with a lot of orientation material and interviews on what kind of sites we wanted to live at. I also had a language interview in French, which seemed to go well, but we get our results back later. The other volunteers are also really cool and I seem to be getting along with them. It's crazy to think that these are the people I will be spending the next two years with! I will hopefully post pictures soon, but until then hope everyone is doing well back at home!

Also, if you know a cheap/free way to text/call international, my number is:
221 77 883 8432

Just keep in mind, I'm 8 hours ahead of the west coast.