My Running Group

In the past couple years I’ve gotten into jogging, well, at least I don’t hate it anymore. I even ran a half marathon in 2004. This tolerance was partly developed because I realized that its much nicer to run with other people. In Philly I ran with my friends Andrea and Ted, last summer I ran with my sister Leah-had to get her whipped into shape for college swimming. These days I’m still jogging about every other day (when I haven’t stubbed the hell out of my toe), but my running partners are a little different. Thanks to the vacation from school, the neighborhood kids are available to run with me. Yesterday I felt particularly like Forrest Gump in his running days. I started out with a much bigger group that usual – 6 boys ranging in age from 5 to 12 or so. Some of them wore shorts and t-shirts, but some wore everyday pants and long sleeves. Their footwear ranged from decent tennis shoes to crappy flip-flops. As we were running, 4 talibes (the boys who beg for food during the morning in order to learn from the Marabout – religious leader, in the afternoons) joined in, bare-feet, rag-like clothes with their rice bowls tucked under their arms. It didn’t surprise me that they started running, they had done that before, but it did surprise me that they kept running, the entire 40 minutes! When we got back I gave everyone water to drink and gave some rice and sugar to the talibes.

The thing that is starting to get to me is that there are no girls in my little running group. Granted there are many more boys than girls in my neighborhood, but when I went to ask for Bintu, a very athletic 7 or 8 year old girl, this morning, I was told that she was washing clothes and couldn’t come, meanwhile her brother Youssou joined in no problem. In the homes here, daughters are expected to wash clothes, sweep, cook, and many other things around the house to help their mothers. While boys aren’t expected to do any of that stuff and while they do work by running errands and stuff, much of their day is spent playing football in the street. After talking to my host dad about it I realize that its not an idea that is going to be changed in his generation, I’ll have to work on the young people and maybe the mothers who make their daughters do this. Some girls want to do this, after all, being able to keep a house is what is going to win them a husband who can then go out and get up to 3 more wives.

I want to make my mark on this place, showing them that girls and women really can do sports, work as engineers, be president (like in nearby Liberia), that its really not fair that the house work isn’t shared among boys and girls. I just don’t know exactly where to start.

Successful Training!…well sort of.

This past week something utterly amazing happened, I held 3 trainings that were attended by all 5 people in my formation group plus one unexpected new person. I have been trying to have these trainings for months. The attendees are all Senegalese adults, men and women, with jobs with regional headquarters of national women’s groups and regional government ministries. I started out (foolishly) thinking I could sit down and plan the trainings with the group. Everyone could get out their planners and look at their schedules and say when they were available, on the dates and times that everyone had free we would have the trainings. This sort of organization thing happens billions of times per minute in the US, middle-schoolers do it without a second thought, for sure there would be no problem with my plan, right? Wrong, people showed up to that first meeting from 40 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes late, some didn’t show up at all. At this point I tried emphasizing the importance of coming to meetings on time with a little ‘Time is money’ (a phrase that every Senegalese person knows and attributes to Americans) analogy. If time is money, but I don’t get paid since I’m a volunteer, what is wasted if my time is wasted? -my answer was ‘business development help for the Senegalese people.’ Now I thought that might have been profound and creative enough that it just might work. Oh how naïve I was. Even less people showed up to the following trainings. At this point one of the attendees told me that if I wanted people to show up I had to get the head of the office I’m working with, my supervisor’s supervisor, to make a formal plea to the heads of the attendees’ various organizations. This is where I start pulling my hair out. Why isn’t it enough for me just to ask people when they are available and expect that they show up??? I eventually give in and have my guy call their people. This gets 3 of 5 to show up, between 20 min and an hour late. Through talking to my supervisor I get another suggestion, I need to write a formal convocation with all the info on it and stamped with a cute little seal and drop it off at everyone’s office. Now for some reason, that little piece of paper has made it possible for me to have now 3 trainings where everyone was there no more that 15 minutes late. It has been sort of a strange moment of epiphany for me, on one hand I’ve figured out how to get people to my meetings, on the other, why didn’t the people I was working with and who knew how frustrated I was, let me in on this little insight earlier?

Wait though, the story’s not over yet. All the lessons were also going very well, at least I think they’re getting it. At the end of Thursday’s lesson in how to calculate the costs of an enterprise, my group expressed some concerns. This started with a little complaining that there was nothing for them to drink or snack on during the 2 hour training. The offer was made to get a vender to come through and sell snacks to anyone who wanted to buy. No good, they weren’t interested unless I was buying. Then the problem of paying for the instruction manuals reared its head again, they have asked before if I could use my funds to buy them manuals (13,000 CFA or about $26 for each person) to which I said I’d ask my boss, but I didn’t think it was possible. When I came back to them and told them they would have to buy the books if they wanted them, each of them said they’d save up to buy them. This amount is substantial for them but I believe that it is possible for each of them to save the money and make the investment. Back to the end of my third ‘successful’ lesson, they started saying again that I should pay for their manuals. To this I told them that if they charge people for taking the trainings the books will allow them to give in the future, even a minimal amount, they will make that 13,000 CFA back in one or two trainings, and after that it’ll be extra profit. The fact that this comment didn’t get anyone to stop asking me to pay for the manuals is maybe a sign that the lessons aren’t being learned like I thought they were.

C’est la vie Sénégalese

Grandma's return

I know, its amazing, two days in a row, but I had to blog about my host grandma's return to the homestead. She had been gone for over a month because her room in our compound was being refurbished, actually overhauled is more like it. They actually litterally raised the roof, maybe the logic is that the hot air will be kept up in the top of the room, the roof is still tin so its still not going to be pleasant in there. So, grandma had been staying in a village where she has some family for the time being, which, I heard she really didn't like. Village life takes some getting used to. Anyway, when I returned from my little trip yesterday she was there and very excited to see me, now excited when one is 100 years old is quite a spectacle to behold. Now if she was excited to see me, when my host sister came in she was moved to tears. It was quite touching even though Maguette was laughing at her. Grandma brought a big bag of mint candies for everyone as a sariche (the gift you bring home after you've traveled) and was passing them out to everyone. Things really didn't seem the same without her down in the courtyard to greet me in the morning so I'm glad the she is back.

Edited 6/24/06 to add: I forgot to mention, because it didn't cross my mind before I saw her back in action, but my host grandma acts also as the gardian of my stairs and keeps the neighborhood kids in line. She often sits at the bottom of the stairs that lead to my room and keeps kids from running up the stairs to my room. This is usually quite a funny site because she is often praying, what else is a 100 year old Senegalese woman going to do all day? And when she's praying, counting the names of Allah, she is forbidden to speak. Some how that has been translated as it's ok to grunt, acknowledge, swipe at kids with a cane, as long as you don't actually pronounce words. So with the paryer beads in one hand she takes a full force swipe
at any kid approaching my steps with the cane in her other hand. Really quite amusing. She also fancies attempting to hit kids with her cane when she's sitting with them outside the house. The kids usually laugh and run away, I guess its all in good fun, for everyone involved.

Since I couldn't find a picture of my host grandma, and since I just figured out how to add pictures to the blogs, here is a picture of some cute kids, hanging out on the palm tree.

Rain

The rainy season is upon us here in Kaolack. It rained a little over a week ago and it rained last night. This is big because before that it really hadn’t rained since September, almost 9 months without precipitation people! Both times the rain approached in dramatic fashion. The first rain was at about 11pm and was preceded by sand being picked up off the ground and flying into my eyes, nose and mouth by powerful winds as I tried to make my way home. Bandana over the face was really the most comfortable way to be if you were outside. As soon as I got home the pitter-patter started on the tin-roofed salon of my host-family. It was slow for about 5 minutes but then quickly turned into a full on monsoon. Yesterday, the storm started at about 6pm so I got to see it approaching. As it came in, it looked like a huge sandstorm, there was a lot of wind and the sky turned dusty brown. The wind picked up and the rain started, it didn’t stop until the middle of the night.

As you might imagine, with the infrastructure being as it is, the drainage is not great after these storms so there are now HUGE puddles in inconvenient places. I know we can expect the fly, mosquito and other annoying insect population to spike now, thankfully I’ve got my industrial strength bug spray to keep me safe.

And to all of you who said ‘well, at least it’s a dry heat.’ It’s not anymore.

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

So we have this hilarious little cartoon posted at the Kaolack regional house, drawn by some unknown volunteer that highlights the changes that one typically goes through during their 2 years as a PCV. Some of these are weight loss(men) or gain(women), lack of shaving or hair cuts, the dirt that somehow gets embedded into your skin here, henna-ed hands, different types of clothes, different jewelry, different luggage. Basically is says we all go from clean cut and fit with fancy western cloths to protect us from the heat, to dirty long-haired(or sometimes short haired for women) hippies that live like the locals.

So, I figured I'd make a list of some of the things that have changed for me since I've been here.

Then: Didn't wear much jewelry Now: Have a dozen bracelets, a necklace and earrings on as I'm typing

Then: Showered once or twice per day, washing hair each time Now: Shower two to three times per day washing my hair very 5 days or so (hey, shampoo is pricey here)

Then: Flossed maybe a couple times a month Now: Floss nightly and after mangos

Then: Had eaten maybe two mangos in my life Now: eat one or two mangos per day

Then: Coffee every morning Now: Tea every morning (Nescafe is gross)

Then: Took multivitamin when I remembered, once per week Now: Multivitamin and extra vitamin C every day

Then: Went mostly unnoticed while walking through town Now: Get screamed Tubab at wherever I go

Then: Spoke one language Now: Will speak three languages on any given day

Then: Had three figures in my bank account Now: Have six figures in my bank account (in CFA that is)

Then: Hated being sweaty and gross Now: Still hate being sweaty and gross but kinda getting used to it