L'esprit de Becca

Starting 2012 off running

2012-01-12T05:52:00.000Z

I was running on a scenic desert trail, below the Tucson Mountains yesterday when I was so struck by the beauty of my surroundings that I decided that I needed to write about it.

Ok, I guess photos probably capture the scene better than I could ever describe it. I started out slowly to warm up the muscles and joints but also to avoid the situation that kept playing over and over in my head: typically clumsy, I roll an ankle, or my toe catches one of many rocks poking up through the trail and I tumble forward, face and palms meeting one of the huge Saguaro, or other, cacti that line the trail.

Thankfully I did not end up fulfilling my vision and meeting only 2 other runners in the 10 kilometers, I felt closer to nature than I have in a while. I was so energized by the environment that when I did get some wide flat trails, I was able to finish the run pretty strong.

I hope to make tomorrow's run a trail run too.

So why am I running so much? I have, in a moment of temporary insanity, signed up for the Paris Marathon, scheduled for April 14th. The training is actually going pretty well, minimal injuries and I'm up to 10 miles on my long weekly training run, over 11 this weekend. I've been really lucky to have the opportunity to run in some great places since I started training too. My long runs sites have included along Town Lake in Austin, TX, and around the mall and white house in Washington, DC.

This training schedule has given me more structure than I've had in a while. Working remotely has its benefits but it also means that I don't have that office time/home time dichotomy. Work often blends into personal time and personal time into work time but I can use running as a bookend.

I know that the hardest part of training for me will be training while traveling in West Africa. In some cases the weather is REALLY not conducive to running; high heat and humidity, and in others safety could be an issue.

In any case, the beautiful city of Paris will be the motivation I need to power through. Bring it on, 2012!

2011-07-11T11:44:00.000Z

I heard this quote on one of my favorite podcasts and something about it spoke to me.

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

– Richard Dawkins

Free Hugs!!

2011-06-25T16:09:00.000Z

I just got home after 4 hours of hugging people and I am quite tired but I feel invigorated at the same time. The Pay it Forward Foundation of Uganda put on a Free Hugs day at one of the shopping malls in Kampala today and it went fabulously.

At first members weren't so sure about the idea but I think they were convinced after a couple hugs and a couple reactions of strangers to being offered hugs. Even if people weren't really in the mood for a hug from a stranger, they rarely walked away without a big smile on their face. Most people did take us up on our offer of a free hug and nearly all did walk away smiling, I would say that the mission has been accomplished

Travel Tips

2011-05-23T13:33:00.001Z

1. Never strive to be one of the first to go anywhere, never even strive to be in the place in a queue that might seem to be in line with the natural flow of things. You will inevitably be shoved or ignored, sidled and stepped in front of or on, and if you’re like me, you’ll end up thinking not-so-nice things about the people around you and possibly letting these things slip out verbally. The key is to be the last one, anywhere, then no one will be stepping in front of you in the queue, or shoving past you while you’re attempting to place your one small bag in the over-head compartment. Once I surrendered myself to this idea, air travel has been a much more pleasant experience for me and my fellow passengers.

2. Always be polite to airport and airline employees while traveling*. They have the power to either make your life a living hell or make your trip as painless as possible. Use phrases like “Hello, how are you today?” (even better if you can manage to do it in local language) “Please” “Thank you” “Would it be possible to…?” and they’ll get you a long way.

3. Assume that your fellow travelers are the world’s most impolite, socially retarded, self-serving group of people in the world, until proven otherwise. Act accordingly. Of course this isn’t always true and when proven wrong about this, one can meet some very interesting people but making these assumptions at the start can save disappointment in human kind later in your travel.

4. The Addis airport has fresh squeezed orange juice and (of course) coffee that might very well make it worthwhile to pay extra or even come out of one’s way to fly Ethiopian Airways

5. Bring a book. Everywhere.

6. The baristas at Dormann’s in the Nairobi airport will let you jump behind the counter and make a latte for a friend (if you have some experience, they aren’t too busy and they accept your challenge of a cappuccino-off)

7. When using the buses that take passengers from the terminal to the airplane in many airports (sometimes all of 20 feet in the case of the airport in Lome), recall tip number 3 when shoving past the 30 people who are the first to get on the bus, yet insist on standing right next to the door.

8. Strike up a conversation with someone who doesn’t seem to be one of those people mentioned in tip number 3. Good conversation can make a long trip short.

* I am sure to indicate that this rule is for during travel as if you have received unsatisfactory service from an airline, Kenya Airways for example, maybe they rerouted your colleague to the other side of the continent without permission, compensation and barely a notification. With something like this, feel free to release a wrath the likes of which have never even been felt, even at the KQ customer service counter in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

Repeated arguments used against rights of homosexuals and why they just don’t hold water

2011-03-14T21:25:00.000Z

Even though the Bahati Bill has seemed to have gone dormant, the debate is still going about homosexuality in Uganda. Here is something I recently wrote for an online forum. Somewhat surprisingly, the forum has some strong, Ugandan voices in favor of gay rights, very encouraging. These are the main arguments that people in Uganda make against homosexuality:

1. It’s “unnatural”
a. Physiologically
As humans, we do many things that one could argue to be unnatural, yet we seem to be so hung up on this one. What about circumcision, birth by caesarian section, tattoos, piercings? What about flying? That’s pretty unnatural for humans.

So many people are so uneducated about the whole subject that they assume that homosexual sex is anal sex. It is a fact that there are many heterosexuals who enjoy anal sex and also that there are many homosexuals who don’t actually participate in anal sex.

As a human race there are far too many things that we do that would be deemed “unnatural” if we cared to think about it that this point

b. Doesn’t lead to procreation
Estimates are that between 5 and 10% of the global population is gay. Fear that because these people aren’t procreating in the standard way, we will die out as a species is just plain silly. Not only are there billions of heterosexuals procreating in the standard way to more than make up the difference but there are options like surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, sperm/egg donations and adoption so that people who could otherwise not procreate in the standard way can actually have children.

The idea that these people are should not have rights because they are not able to reproduce the standard way is also illogical, by this argument, people who don’t/can’t procreate should lose their rights. This includes nuns, priests, people who choose not to have children people who are biologically unable to have children, some people with spinal injuries, some people who have had cancer, the list goes on. We’re not talking about taking their rights away.

Another idea, how many people actually have the aim of procreation every time they have sex? I’m not sure about this but my guess is very few. Sex is not just a means to an end.

2. It’s un-African, imported by foreigners, not meant to be here
There are words in local languages all over the world for “homosexual” and sometimes there are words for the act of homosexual sex. Taking a look at linguistics, things that were brought by outsiders, often carry the foreign name or at least a name that is influenced by the foreign word, i.e. motoka = car in Luganda, abion = airplane in Wolof (avion is airplane in French). Stories about homosexuality go back to pre-colonial times. It was not imported.

3. Many of the world’s religions condemn it, it’s evil, it’s a sin
To me this argument is moot on the basis that your religion, no matter how popular or how many people adhere to it, cannot and should not govern my life. People in this country have freedom of religion. That freedom is severely diminished when laws are made based on one religion over another. If the laws were to be based on Islam or Judaism, pork would be outlawed for everyone. If laws were based on Christianity, no establishments would be allowed to be open on Sundays. And remember, freedom of religion also means that I have the freedom to chose no religion at all if that suits me.

4. It is taboo in many of the world’s cultures
There are far too many things to mention that were once considered taboo in many of the world’s cultures. How about mixed race marriage? That was once considered taboo in many, many places, still is in many. Many of the world’s cultures also considered people with darker skin to be somehow lesser than those with lighter skin – how do we feel about that one now? As the world progresses, values and ideas change. We evolve.

5. They are “recruiting” children to be gay
If this is true, which I doubt it is, these people are pedophiles no matter if they are gay or straight. Pedophilia is a problem because it involves a person who is not old enough to give their consent. Homosexuality is NOT equivalent to pedophilia. Homosexuality is a relationship between consenting adults and pedophilia is an adult taking advantage of a child, something that should be condemned no matter the genders of the adult and child.

6. It is in the same group with incest, bestiality and pedophilia.
As described above, homosexuality implies consenting adults, this is not the case with pedophilia or bestiality. Incest is usually not consensual for both parties but if it is, it can lead to severe genetic problems in offspring and is therefore illegal on the basis that it causes pretty major health issues for the population and future generations.

7. People choose to be this way
If homosexuality was a choice, why on earth would anyone in Uganda choose to be gay? This would mean opting into a life where you would be very likely to be shunned by family and loved ones and put yourself in danger any time you told someone about your true feelings. Why would anyone opt into this life it all they had to do was choose to be something else? Did you choose to be heterosexual? Is anyone able to choose their emotions or feelings? Is anyone able to choose who they fall in love with? I’m guessing the answer to all of these is “no.”

Thanks for reading!

Mzungu, the movie (the final muse)

2010-12-06T19:38:00.004Z

After a month to cool off and getting away from politics thankfully... I am offended by a new documentary called "Mzungu." I recently watched the trailer and offensive, even if it is far too repeated in recent posts, is the best word for it. It's meant to be about 4 young American kids who come to "Africa" to volunteer and "change the world." The trailer goes on, "On a continent plagued by disease, poverty, survival..." (plagued by survival???) Now, in all honesty, I have not seen this film in full, but if the trailer and all the other little snippets of awesomeness on the website are any indicator, I think my guess about this movie is pretty close.

I'll let you in on something: hundreds of "mzungus" come to Uganda every year thinking they are going to help, thinking they are going to effect change. If they are lucky they'll have a great experience, and like the trailer says, it's very likely that Africa will change them more than they have changed anyone or anything in Africa. We then go back, share our great experience with friends and family, maybe get a little embarrassed that we were so egotistical in thinking that we could just show up for a month or two and have any real effect on the people who have been living here forever. Here's what we don't do - make a documentary about it! Usually we all end up learning that Africa is not the place that Western media and education lead us to believe. That it is NOT a place totally and utterly ravaged by war, famine, disease, genocide and poverty and though those things do exist on the continent, the vast majority of Africans are going about living their lives and if they got the chance to see this trailer, as some of my Ugandan friends have, they would be quite offended too. They are offended by the implication that Africa needs these bored, young, American twentysomethings to come "change" them and save them from the war, famine, disease, genocide and poverty. They are offended by the implication that they strive for "survival." They are offended by the notion of being lumped all together as one: these bored, young, American twentysomethings spent some time in Uganda and Rwanda yet the trailer keeps saying "AFRICA" perpetuating the SarahPalinesque idea that Africa is one country and not the diverse continent of 52 countries that it is.

I have a morbid curiosity drawing me to see the film though I know if I did my eyes would be in a perpetual state of roll. If you have the opportunity to see this film, go for it, just know what you're getting into.

My Muse, Parts 2 and 4

2010-11-04T10:42:00.002Z

This muse is a tricky one indeed. I was on such a roll last night that I broke my own rule, the one that says "Do not bring your laptop to bed with you." Before I knew it I was surfing around, looking at some of the stuff that had been earmarked to read later, re-reading my own old posts and then it was some obscene hour and I was telling myself that morning Becca was really going to be upset with us when the alarm goes off at 6:45am.

So here are parts 2 and 4 in the series, and yes I mean 2 and 4 number 3 is a long one so I thought I'd save it for last.

Part 2

Going hand in hand with the first point on my list, I am offended by the wealth of misinformation out there, the people who create and propagate it and the smear tactics used by all politicians around election time. I watched actual US television for about 2 hours in the past 10 months and I saw enough of this to throw my hands up in disgust several times. Americans, please read about topics, and from several different sources. Do not blindly accept as fact that which your political commentator (on either side) is telling you.

Part 4

Finally, I am deeply and personally offended by thievery. I guess I have been fortunate to have only been the victim of a major theft once (that's if you don't count when the city of Philadelphia and their towing company thugs stole my car right out of its parking space), when my laptop and wallet were stolen out of my Kisumu hotel room (Never, ever stay at the Sunset Hotel!). I remember having this offended feeling then and I had it again on Monday night when, while sitting in traffic with my window down, talking to a friend on the phone, a hand reaches in my window and tries to take said phone away. I was lucky this time and managed to hold onto the phone and yell at the guy until he ran away across the street. The idea that someone can just come and help themselves to my stuff makes me feel so violated - in a way that I could never fully understand until someone stole from me.

My Muse, Part 1

2010-11-03T21:48:00.000Z

I really wish I knew what it was that gave me this itch. The itch to write, that is. I have some friends who write, seemingly effortlessly, several times per month. I have others who are motivated to write by sadness, ok, I guess I'm glad that I don't need to be in a deep funk to write but knowing how to put myself in one of these creative moods would vastly help with the frequency of my blogging.

I'm starting to think that it might be those times when I feel deeply and personally offended. Usually this feeling is not directed at any one person but it still makes me feel not so warm and fuzzy that it's a negative feeling, the need to bitch, that could quite possibly be my best muse. So, what am I so offended about?

- Starting with the most timely, I am utterly offended that Wisconsinites voted out Russ Feingold yesterday in favor of some DB endorsed by the horrible Tea Party. Feingold was instrumental in Campaign Finance Reform, he was the ONLY senator to vote against the Patriot Act, he voted against invading Iraq and he's been quite active in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. He has spoken out against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill here in Uganda and has also been watching closely the run-up to the presidential election here, concerned that it wouldn't be free and fair. HE is who I want representing me in Washington, HE was a superior senator who actually did some good work in Washington, I am sad to see him go.

I was going to go on, and I will but realizing that this four-part bitch session went on for several paragraphs, I decided to spread it out a bit. Oh dear, I may have to follow this series with a four-part love session, with actual warm fuzzies. I'll start taking entries now...

Things left behind

2010-11-03T11:01:00.000Z

Alphabet Manor, my humble abode, where I live with two roommates and two cats, has become a repository of sorts. As we host couchsurfers and as friends leave Kampala for new adventures, we become the, sometimes temporary, proprietors of all kinds of stuff. Some of this is stuff that was used and well-loved while its previous owners were here, but for reasons of practicality were left behind. For this reason we have an entire library of books, wine glasses, Cranium and a camping back-pack full of things deemed unnecessary for a trip to Southern Africa (the owner is coming back for that last one). For the same reason, a young family on the other side of town has a new dog.

The other category of stuff is that which the previous owner thought would be necessary to bring to Uganda but then found no use for it/could buy it here/was unable to use up the copious amounts that they brought. This is why we give free gifts of mosquito repellent, sunscreen and condoms to couchsurfers who pass through and why I have a bag full of at-home pregnancy tests in my closet.

I'm considering an analogy likening these quirky little gifts to the effect that these people have had on our lives, leaving us with lessons, memories and love, but it is just too schmaltzy for the moment, so I'll leave it up to your imagination.

Life, more or less ordinary

2010-06-05T13:01:00.000Z

If you've been following my blog you've read a bit about life in other countries, life as an expatriate, specifically my life. A friend's blog about her family's move from Atlanta to Zurich, Switzerland has inspired me to post again after several instances of several months of radio silence. Her experience is so familiar yet so foreign to my own and I wish I could some day have the chance to sit down with her and compare notes.

I think that one reason that I've been so bad about posting is that I've stopped seeing my life here as something so noteworthy. It's normal to me and I'm less able to point out the abnormal, interesting parts for others. I did get a brief glimpse in February when I was preparing for my sister, Leah and cousin, Maura to come visit. One of the things I do automatically when preparing for a visitor from overseas is think about how they'll see and react to the various situations they'll inevitably be thrown into during their trip. How will they handle public transport? How will they react to the blatant poverty that's all around? or the disparity between the classes? or the taste of the food?...

I guess overall, I've gotten used to haggling over $0.25, the frighteningly terrible driving, the quirky greetings (Me: "Hello." ESL: "Fine, how are you?" Me: "uuh, also fine..."), the beautiful surroundings and perfect weather, the delicious and cheap produce... I've also gotten used to the very low cost of living (relatively speaking) that allows me to have things that really only the quite wealthy can afford in the US, and I've gotten used to the guilt associated with the aforementioned luxuries.

One thing that is very difficult to get used to, though, is the transient nature of the lives of expats. I've now been here for two years and in that time I've seen many of my expat friends come and go. One very good friend just left, I've gotten word that two more will be leaving in August and I will likely be following relatively shortly after. I remember talking with a friend who has been working in various embassies over the past several years, she was saying how lonely and isolating it can be, always saying goodbye and avoiding meeting new people depending on how long they plan to stay around.

On the up side, things never really get boring or predictable and I have people to visit in more or less any region of the world I could choose to go, but on the down side there's a never ending calendar of going-away parties to attend and people who used to be close enough to meet for a coffee are now on the other side of the world, but I guess it's all really part and parcel of the life that we've chosen.

The wind is in from Africa

2010-03-14T13:09:00.000Z

I am the sales manager for a solar light distributor and it's part of my job to answer questions about our products. However, I'm fairly certain that the most common question I am asked these days is something to the effect of "How much longer do you think you'll stay in Africa/Uganda?" I get this question from family, friends, fellow RPCVs even people who themselves have been living here for a long time. My mom is certain that she will never reclaim her daughter from Africa, though every time I'm home she does her best to get me to commit to moving back.

The truth is that I'm not sure when and where I'll go next, but I am happy where I am, loving my job and comfortable in my skin. I miss my family and friends back in the US but I believe that each person has their own path to take and that this is mine.

I remember my urge to travel the world starting at some point during my college days at Iowa. I can remember walking along the Iowa River under an overcast sky, listening, through my headphones, to Joni Mitchell singing about far-off places and all the interesting people there are to meet out there, all the wonderful adventures there are to be had.

At that time I was limited by school and my swimming career, otherwise I might have participated in a study-abroad program. I had to settle for vacations being more or less centered on competitions or training but Joni's poetry never left me.

There is a bit of irony in the fact that my mom is the one who introduced me to Joni Mitchell's music, one of the things that inspired me to travel and live abroad. Her songs mentioning stamps of many countries and passport smiles, Paris, Rome and Grecian Isles and that "Urge for Going."

With this as well as a fascination I found in talking to people I met previously who had lived in other countries, spoke more languages than English pushed me on my way to where I am now. Now I have lived in three countries, speak three languages (ok, not fluently but I get by) and have visited 15% of the world's countries and when I think about returning to the states another of Joni's lines comes to mind: "Will you take me as I am?... Strung out on another man?" from her song "California." To me the line questions whether a readjustment to the US is ever fully possible.

Maybe I'll find out one day.

Final Goodbyes

2010-03-14T12:26:00.000Z

Any time you say goodbye to someone, there’s really no telling if it’s that last time you will see them. Living so far away from family, I am a bit more cognizant of that fact and this is definitely one of the drawbacks to living abroad. If I simply lived in Philadelphia, a last-minute trip to the mid-west would be much more feasible for many reasons.

Ever since I started Peace Corps, goodbyes, especially with my grandparents began to hold a lot more meaning than they used to. The price of a ticket home along with the time it takes (12-15hr for Senegal, 24-30hr for Uganda) would likely prove prohibitive for me.

In the past few months, I have gone through this last goodbye twice with my grandpa. With the help of family, I was able make the last minute trip home to attend my grandma’s funeral in September and at the end of that trip, not knowing when I’d next be home, I anticipated the likelihood that I would not see my grandpa again and I know that he was thinking the same thing.
It was an emotionally stressful time with my grandma’s passing; all the family together, making decisions, etc (Side note: I’m pretty sure the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” was coined at a function where many Jews were in attendance. My Jewish family, with plenty of big personalities is no exception – everyone has their opinion and it’s their way or the highway).

I was able to make the trip home because of some generous relatives and I felt like I needed to be there for my grandpa more than anyone else. Being home for the funeral also turned out to be nice in that I got to see family and friends that I hadn’t seen in years, I would say that one of the high points about living abroad is that when you come home, people are more happy and excited to see me but sometimes I’m also starting to think that it’s wearing off. Since my grandma was 85 years old with 3 sons, 6 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren, she had lived a very full life and her funeral was much more a celebration of her life than mourning for a life left unlived.

Coincidentally, during my short stay, I celebrated my 30th birthday. Another drawback to living so far away is that I am rarely with family on birthdays or holidays. This was my first birthday home since 2005.

At the end of my visit, I said a tearful goodbye to my grandpa. I should say that the last few times we’ve gone through this, he has also cried – something I can’t ever remember seeing before and something that gets me choked up every time I think about it.

After this experience I decided to make a trip home for the holidays because contrary to what my lifestyle might say about me, family is very important to me and I miss passing the holidays with my family. Again, hadn’t done this since 2004. The trip was great and relaxing and just what I needed but at the end I found myself saying a potentially last goodbye to my grandpa.

The difference is that this time, I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Flash Back

2010-02-02T23:51:00.000Z

I've been living here for going on 2 years now and although I have an admittedly horrible memory, I cannot remember it being this hot in Kampala since I've arrived. Everyone seems to be complaining about the heat. I'm currently laying in bed, not doing anything, sweating. Today was a two-shower day, reminding me of my days in Kaolack, though there are a good couple months per year with three-shower days in Kaolack.

Oh, another thing, I'm actually writing another blog these days. Not that I'm proud of it but just wanted to let you know that I have actually been writing regularly, it's just drivel. I've found myself as the Hash Scribe for the Kampala Hash House Harriers. Be warned that it won't be funny or even interesting for those of you who don't know the hash and it may not be funny or interesting for some of you who are even members of the hash but here it is: http://www.kampalahashhouseharriers.blogspot.com/

Smiles

Acting a fool

2010-02-02T23:39:00.000Z

It's an obscene hour for a week night and I'm awake. I have several posts in the works that are much heavier and therefore a bit intimidating to sit down and finish but I will eventually do it. I've been reading friends' blogs and have been reminded of how neglected mine has been. Work and extracurriculars have been keeping me busy in 2010 and I'm looking forward to a great year; a visit from my sister (the last member of my family to make the trip to Africa) and a cousin and a trip to Zanzibar (inch'allah) are slated for the first part of the year.

Looking at the date has left me baffled several times already. 2010 means that it has been 5 years since I graduated from graduate school, 9 since undergrad and since my retirement from competitive swimming, 13 (ugh!) since I graduated high school and 18 since I was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah. Time definitely moves differently as I get older but I have this sneaking suspicion that it somehow moves faster in Uganda, well, for me at least. Weeks seemingly gone in the blink of an eye.

Before this becomes another year of neglecting the blog I wanted to share a humiliating but funny story. Last weekend I went to see Avatar with my friend Dan. After seeing it here and loving it I'm really kicking myself for not seeing it in 3-D in the US. But I digress. After the movie Dan and I were discussing what we had just seen while walking down the ramp that takes you from floor to floor in the Garden City shopping mall. As we got to the end of one part of the ramp I look up and notice a man with his camera phone pointed at me. I stare at him for a moment before saying in an obviously irritated way "WHAT are you doing?" The man responds by shifting the aim of camera phone to a location behind be. Dan and I both turn to look and find a group of kids smiling, posing for a photo. Foot inserted in mouth, (let's be honest, this isn't an uncommon position for me) I apologize and scurry down the rest of the ramp.

All the best in 2010.

Accidents (cont.)

2009-11-14T09:27:00.005Z

As I was in the middle of writing the previous post on the accident, just about a week later, I was on the porch of our office/house, meeting with a colleague when I heard a terrible screeching followed by a crash from the road. We ran over to get a clear vantage point and we saw a car in the middle of the T intersection and a crowd starting to gather. We went out to investigate and found a screaming woman (driver of the car), a young man bleeding profusely (driver of the motorcycle), a young boy laying on the ground (motorcycle passenger #1) and a young girl standing near the boy, crying (motorcycle passenger #2). The woman had been driving too fast while talking on her cell phone. She went to make a right turn (crossing the lane of traffic since we drive on the left here), didn't see the motorcycle coming from straight ahead and pulled right in front of the motorcycle with it's two young passengers. The motorcycle was also going too fast, especially considering the kids on the back and that no one was wearing helmets. The motorcycle driver hit the side of the car then smashed into the windshield, earning him a deep gash in his forehead causing him to bleed all over. The boy must have been thrown by the accident because he was laying several meters from the car and his sister was standing over him.

As soon as I came out of our gate I saw members of the crowd trying to move the boy. I screamed to the group to stop but it was no use, they continued to pick up the boy and move him to the side of the road. Soon after that, it became evident that the motorcycle driver was intending to take the boy and the girl on another motorcycle to the hospital, that means 3 passengers plus the driver on one small motorcycle. I stood in front of that motorcycle and ordered him not to move. Upon checking out the boy and girl, the boy had a large goose egg on his head and was bleeding a little from scratches on his face but didn't have any other visible injuries. The girl, while frightened, didn't seem to be hurt. The man was the scariest for me with my fear of blood, he was bleeding all over; bright, red blood. He also must have been in shock because he was walking around, talking on his phone (presumably to the kids' parents), checking on the kids and bleeding all over everything. While my colleague was on the phone, trying to get an ambulance, we got the driver a clean cloth to put pressure on his head and managed to get him to sit down.

Eventually the kids and driver were loaded into the car of a good Samaritan and we assume that they met up with the ambulance before they reached the end of our road but the scene had still been so chaotic, as I guess any accident scene is. The driver of the car was still screaming - praying to Jesus that she would be taken instead of the children. Dozens of people were milling around just to watch. The police showed up surprisingly quickly but didn't do anything aside from arresting the driver of the car. After the car had left, a man I could only assume to be the father of the two children arrived. He was, understandably, a wreck and after he got an explanation, he boarded a motorcycle taxi to go find his kids.

It was a frustrating and emotionally-charged week but I learned a couple days later that all three of the accident victims had been released from the hospital. I also learned that the boda driver is back to driving bodas. I've been told that he "sometimes" wears a helmet.

There is something just wrong about this

2009-10-22T09:42:00.003Z

I'd like you to take a look at this photo. What is your first reaction?

Mine is to kind of shudder and grimace, as one does when one sees something creepy. It conjures images from the movies "Deliverance" or "The Village." Those poor, hillbilly children, the little one is so ill, probably the result of generations of inbreeding, that she doesn't have the strength to go on a walk with her big sis/mother, with the ultra-creepy long, long hair and weird hat combo.

So I first saw this image in Kisumu, Kenya. It was a horrible trip for me but I saw the image on a billboard before things went bad - maybe it was an omen.

Making this billboard even more strange is the geographical location of the company; this insurance company is in operation in East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania), in fact they say they're the "#1 Insurer in East Africa." If you're in East Africa, why on earth are you using weird and so-pale-they're-nearly-translucent hillbillies in your ads? Maybe you should take all that money you're making as the #1 insurer and hire a better designer next time. Ick!

Accidents

2009-10-10T17:56:00.007Z

In my time in Senegal and Uganda, I have now witnessed the aftermath of two accidents, one in each country. Thankfully the most recent one in Uganda was not as bad as the one in Senegal that resulted in the death of a young boy, but it did bring up some similar feelings of frustration and disbelief.

To set the scene; I was jogging in Kololo (an affluent part of town that is home to embassies and diplomats) with my friend Dan. As we came up one of the many hills that make Kampala such a joy to jog in, it was clear that there had just been an accident. A crowd of about 20 people had already gathered including one other American who had witnessed the accident. A man was laying in the middle of the road, unconscious, wearing the uniform of a security guard. It was quickly recounted that the guard had been riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi (boda-boda) when a car nearly hit them and the boda-boda swerved to avoid the car, knocking the passenger off.

Cars had stopped, thankfully stopping traffic. This is rare in other parts of town because once any car stops they are often blamed for the accident, fined and sometimes subject to an angry mob. The man woke up and started to move. Dan and I were both yelling to him to stop moving but he didn't listen, he sat up and spat out some blood. At this point we had no idea how bad his injuries were but he insisted on trying to stand up at which point it became evident that he had, at least, an obviously broken leg.

Several guards from other companies were among the group that had gathered, when I asked them to radio for help, they refused. Eventually a man from the victim's company came by but he was totally worthless. After some shouting (on our part) we finally figured out that if anything was going to happen, we were going to be the ones to instigate and pay. We needed to get him to the hospital, his guard company wasn't going to do anything for him. Neither Dan nor I had a phone or money with us so we couldn't call for a car, though nearly every other person in the group had a phone in their pocket. One man was finally convinced by my yelling and got the phone out of his pocket just in time for us to decide to send a motorcycle to bring a car.

Since the victim didn't have any money, Dan and I rode to the hospital with him, waited for quite a while for them to bring out a stretcher, as the man was moaning in agony. We told the doctors what we knew while they were interrogating him about whether he was drunk. We had the taxi drop us where our things were, where he ended up charging us double what he should have.

The truly frustrating part is what always seems like a lack of value for human life to the outsider, though I know that's not the case. The crowd of 20 standing around staring at the accident victim, not doing anything to help; the bus full of people that just ran over a boy and won't tell me what number to call when I'm screaming at them in their own language and offering to make the call. A Ugandan friend told me, when I recounted the story, that it's not uncommon for these crowds to rob accident victims if they are unconscious or dead. It is so difficult for me to fathom this behavior but I also come from a culture that learns first aid and "steps in case of emergency" from a very young age, I also, incidentally, come from a family of lifeguards and EMTs. The communal "it takes a village" mentality rules over much of Ugandan and Senegalese society but is oddly absent at other times. I'm still trying to figure out which is which.

As we left the man in the hands of the doctors at Mulago Hospital, I wrote down my phone number for him, trying to be a good samaritan. In two days I was called and told to come to a specific market to pay for the crutches he was having made and a few weeks after that I was sent messages and called to deposit money in a bank account because he was "in crisis." I didn't buy him crutches nor did I deposit money in the strange bank account.

Expatriate Life

2009-10-03T16:22:00.006Z

Expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat): a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. The word comes from the Latin ex (out of) and patria (country, fatherland).

When I was in the Peace Corps we had mixed emotions about expats. We envied them because they often live in very nice houses with AC, have salaries that far more than cover living expenses in a developing country and have access to all the luxuries that the capital city and the diplomatic pouch have to offer. We also often thought them out of touch with the real needs of host-country communities and sometimes, when they were in touch with those needs, big bureaucratic NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and other aid organizations often have big, expensive projects that don't help in a sustainable way. This gets into the whole debate on aid which I'll avoid this time around. Anyway, I find myself now living as an expat.

While my salary is modest and in my opinion AC isn't necessary here, I rarely leave Kampala. I've only visited a couple villages and I find myself partaking of the Kampala luxuries (restaurants, bars, salons) quite often. Each time I encounter a Peace Corps Volunteer here I wonder if I have become one of those out-of-touch expats.

I believe in the company I am working for and I think that it already has and will continue to create sustainable development but I still do wonder if there's something out there, a cultural glitch in the plan, just waiting to pop up and make things impossible. I am often the one in our office who brings up the place of culture and cross-cultural communication in what we're doing but I am no expert in Ugandan culture of styles of communication. I usually turn to one of our Ugandan colleagues and ask them, hoping I know the right questions to ask, but when I think about it, my Ugandan colleagues really belong to almost a separate culture from that of our target market; as in any society, an urban, middle-class citizen doesn't have a lot in common with the poor, rural citizen. Do any of us know the right questions to ask while developing a project to make that project as successful as possible?

Another part of expat life in a developing country is living in great comfort and relative luxury while many of those around me are impoverished live in squalor. Kampala is not as segregated as some other cities in the region, many neighborhoods, including mine, have large colonial era houses in close proximity to slums. This poverty is why I am here but I feel so ambivalent about it. I see people living below the poverty line so often that most of the time it doesn't even phase me, but then, occasionally it'll push its way through my desensitization and hits me in the gut.

Some of the things that get to me: The small children, as young as toddlers, who beg amongst the traffic-laden streets at the insistence of their mothers; The children who live down the hill from me who fetch water all day, instead of going to school, from a small stream that happens to be right across the street from a nice private school; The hawkers around town who carry loads of merchandise around, trying to sell it and razor-thin margins, maybe end up making about $2 per day; The man who is wearing his Sunday best suit that is 5 sizes too big.

Interwebs in Africa

2009-04-02T10:02:00.002Z

A friend recently wrote to me asking about internet access here in Uganda, specifically in more rural areas. I thought that it might be something that others are interested in so here is my response to him:

Our business is running on the fact that the national electricity provider only has 300,000 customers in a country of 30+ million people. At least 90% of the population is living off the grid so this pretty much makes internet impossible for now since something has to power the computers. So far there isn't a great option for running them on solar but we're working on it.

In the towns that are connected to the grid there are usually internet cafes that I imagine use dial-up so slow you wouldn't even recognize it as the internet ;) Also some of my friends in Kampala have little modems for their laptops, put out by cell phone service providers, about the size of business cards, that are supposed to connect them to the internet where ever there is cell coverage for that particular company. There is a satellite company here but I'm not sure exactly how it works. In any case, internet is quite expensive, that little modem is about $150 for the modem itself then about $65/month.

The big news for geeks here is that the "cable" is going to "hit the continent" any day now. Meaning that fiber-optic cables are being extended from somewhere in the middle-east to the Kenyan coast. This is supposed to speed things up a lot and decrease the price maybe but no one seems to know exactly what will happen when it lands - the feeling is akin to that leading up to Y2K, except that it can really only get better.

My friend Jon has a very popular blog about technology in Africa that you might be interested in, he's recently been recognized for his efforts by some pretty big players like Google. http://appfrica.net/blog/

Keeping Time

2009-04-02T09:51:00.002Z

I just had a meeting canceled on me because I was running 10-15 minutes late, this is actually early for African meeting standards, at least from my experience, but the meeting was with an American who apparently hasn't adjusted to life here. With meeting times, if we muzungus don't adapt to the idea that meetings will always start between 15 min and 1.5 hrs late, we won't last very long here without some sort of break down.

For those of you who may be visiting for work, or are new to this idea, here are some tips:

1. Bring something to work on - this way you won't get too enraged/worried about the work that you're not doing back at the office.

2. Bring something to read - I caught on to this one in the Peace Corps when I didn't have a laptop to haul around with me, incidentally it was the two most literary years of my entire life.

3. Show up late - I haven't really adjusted to this one, as it seems to perpetuate the whole problem. But then again, as per the story above, I guess I have kind of adjusted... I've heard stories about government officials purposely showing up an hour late to big meetings because they know it won't start until then. Then again, the Prime Minister here just shows up on time and berates the diplomats and government officials who show up even 5 minutes late.

4. Schedule the meeting for an hour earlier than you need it to start - This one works well if the meeting is at your place of work or where you'll be anyway

You are lost...

2009-03-16T09:31:00.007Z

This is what Ugandans say when they haven't seen you in a while. This may be what some people think of someone who hasn't updated their blog in nearly 5 months...

So I've been lost, I freely admit that. In the time between posts a lot has happened; the world has fallen into some pretty major economic troubles, the United States has elected and inaugurated a new president (hurray!) and 2009 is well underway.

My sister Sara came to visit over the New Year and we had a great time catching up, rafting the Nile (picture), visiting the Abayudaya and relaxing a bit. I'm looking forward to visiting her in Zambia sometime in the next year.

Here in Kampala, Uganda, things are moving forward. We've received shipments of product, are setting up some exciting partnerships and moving forward in the formation of BASE Technologies. This is mostly what has been keeping me busy for the past 5 months. Though I'm still hashing and playing frisbee - I ran my second half marathon in November, and recently I participated in the 7 Hills Run that took us up and down 7 of the hills that Kampala is famous for.
(Soo, Teeny and myself at the Red Dress Hash)

I've been asked and have accepted to stay with BASE on for an additional year. I figure with all the stuff going on in the US, keeping a stable job with a company that I love is the best option for me at the moment (sorry mom and dad!). The good news is that this gives you all an additional 12 months to plan your visits to Uganda!

Also, I'm going to do my best to be more inspired to write and keep this updated... late new year's resolution, but feel free to send badgering emails to remind me too.

Bananas!

2009-03-16T09:21:00.002Z

Uganda has, as far as I can tell, about 18 different kinds of bananas. Ok, I’m exaggerating but they really do have at least 4 or 5. One is matoke, which I really haven’t figured out exactly what it is… unripe banana, plantain? Either way, not really that delicious to me. What is delicious though is the mini-banana, as I’ve started calling them. These bananas are sweet and about a third of the size of the giant, tasteless bananas we have in the states. Some friends and I are considering a venture to import them into the US. We think they will be a real hit but we can’t decide whether to market them as “snack-size bananas – perfect for that small craving!” or “diet bananas – 1/3 the calories of regular bananas!” What do you think?

Debate Parties

2008-10-20T12:45:00.004Z

My friend Sarah recently moved to Kampala with her boyfriend Jon and soon after that she became the organizer of Overseas Voters for Obama – Uganda chapter. When the debates started she started organizing gatherings at their house to watch and she took steps to help us figure out the complicated venture of voting overseas – no matter where our allegiances lie. It turns out that there are two options for us; absentee ballot and federal write-in ballot. We were told that we could do both and they “would not count more than one.” Really, we just assume that this means that our votes won’t be counted at all since the overseas votes are only counted if the quantity would make a difference in the outcome after all the regular votes are counted.

Since the debates were live at about 4am Kampala time, we have a friend, Simon, who has the fastest internet in town apparently, and was able to download clips for viewing at the next available weekend. To no one’s surprise the crowd is nearly 100% liberal, democrat, NGO-working, ex-pat, Obama-supporters. And if this isn’t so, no one has been brave enough to be the voice of opposition. An effort was made for the VP debate to invite some Marines and attempt to diversify the crowd, but none of them could make it.

There is so much preaching to the choir that has gone on at these parties that I feel that I may be getting lulled into the false sense of confidence that I experienced for the past two presidential elections. Next time we’ll try harder to get some McCain supporters but the truth is that they’re relatively hard to find. Conventional wisdom says that most McCain supporters in Uganda and in Africa in general will either be military or missionaries, both of which are pretty big groups here, but not really in Kampala per se.

Ugandans on the other hand, as you can imagine, LOVE Barak Obama. The debate parties have even had several non-Americans turn up who obviously can’t even vote but were sporting Obama t-shirts and wanted to do everything they could to support him. Kenya is a neighboring country and many Africans feel that because of his roots, he will do more to help African than his predecessors. I’m not so sure about this but after some of the current administration’s policies toward Africa and HIV/AIDS specifically, anything would be an improvement*.

We’re planning to have one more debate gathering to watch the most recent debate as well as a post-election day breakfast to watch the results, 8am here is 10pm on the West coast so maps of red states and blue states over scrambled eggs is the plan.

*If you’re curious about this, and you should be, check out PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – and the controversy surrounding it. I’ll be posting something more about this soon.

Rosh Hashanah with the Abayudaya

2008-10-20T12:33:00.006Z

Before I came to Uganda, I heard about a group of Ugandan Jews, the Abayudaya, Luganda for “people of Judah,” the Abayudaya came into being in 1919, when military leader Semei Kakunglulu took the information he received from British missionaries and found that the old testament appealed to him far more than the rest. When he was told that those traditions were of Jews he announced that he, then, would be a Jew. The population has fluctuated over the years and also took a hit during the Idi Amin years when they had to go into hiding or convert (some never converted back), but they are now free to live as Jews in Uganda and have a thriving population of about 1,000 people.

There are a surprising number of Jewish ex-pats in Kampala and Uganda in general. Before I had been here a month, I had already met several, who had all been to visit the Abayudaya. Most of them seemed quite skeptical about the community, but also encouraged me to visit and make my own decisions. Most of the skepticism comes from the fact that the Jewish villages, while they are still poor African villages, compared to the neighboring Muslim and Christian villages, are quite wealthy owing to the aid focused on them by Jewish charities and the attention they receive from Jewish tourists. Even with this, I hear that it wasn’t uncommon to hear the interim Rabbi talk about how poor they were and how much help they needed during a sermon or to see kids run up to the tourists begging for money or small tokens. Then, not long ago I met another Jewish ex-pat, Sarah, who had been here two years and visited the Abayudaya a number of times and really enjoyed herself, not left with a bad taste in her mouth like the others.

Determined to make up my own mind and have my own experience, I traveled with Sarah to Mbale – a 3 hour drive from Kampala – in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Elgon, for a Rosh Hashanah unlike any I had experienced before.

Sarah gave me a little history and who’s who in the community on the way up; the Rabbi – Rabbi Gershom had been away in the US and Israel going to rabbinical school for the past four years. He had gotten back not long ago and this was going to be his first major holiday back in his home community. As we arrived in the village and walked up to the one-room synagogue, there were kids playing in the yard. They ran up to us with stickers of Hebrew letters on their faces and yelled, “Shabat Shalom!” We walked through the open doors at the back of the overflowing sanctuary, and found women on one side, dressed in their best traditional clothes, some with their hair covered, and the men on the other side, all wearing tallit, the Jewish prayer shawl and hand-made, bright-colored kippot, Jewish skull caps. The sight, like the rest of the experience, was familiar yet so different all at once. We were handed prayer books, found two seats on the women’s side of the room and sat down, we brought the total Muzungu attendance of the service to 11. In this particular synagogue, the men and women are separated but there is no mechitzah(divider) between them and there is as much interaction and participation by the women as there is by the men; seemed to be a conservative congregation more than anything else.

Everything from the Torahs to the prayer books to the tallit was second hand, donated from other congregations in the Diaspora. Most of the prayer shawls worn by the men of the congregation had holes but the Torahs (three of them) seemed to be in decent shape.

As the service progressed and I heard my first song, tears welled up in my eyes. The familiar words were put to rich, beautiful African harmonies that filled the small room and overflowed out across the hillside. Time and again, the congregation would amaze me with the songs.

Then came time for the Torah service, the Aliyahs were performed by a mix of Ugandans, Israelis and Americans, men and women. For one particular American, a friend of mine now, being raised Orthodox, it was her first time to be called to the torah in front of a congregation. She shared with us later that it had been a very meaningful experience for her.

The Haftorah portion was read by a young woman who, I was told, had gone to University in Kampala and had returned to the village to be a teacher at the village school. She had translated the reading from Hebrew to Luganda, so most of the congregation would be able to understand. Following the Torah and Haftorah portions of the service, Rabbi Gershom gave a sermon, but unlike other sermons I’ve witnessed, it was interactive. The Rabbi spoke for a bit and then asked a question, I anticipated it to be rhetorical but then he called on someone to answer, and then someone else, as a man stood near the rabbi translating between Luganda and English. People sharing their views on what they thought the Torah and Haftorah portions meant seemed so natural, I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before.

Following the service, everyone greeted their neighbors with, “Shana Tova!” and we were all invited to sit under the large tree in the yard and eat lunch. The apples and honey were replaced with bread and honey – apples are extremely expensive since they need to be imported.

Blowing the shofar (a type of instrument made from the horn of a ram) is something I always thought I would be able to do since I played the trumpet for 7 years and the way of playing is similar. Sarah encouraged me to ask the Rabbi if I could blow the shofar the following day at services. I approached him after the service and he enthusiastically agreed.

Following lunch, some of the muzungus decided to go for a walk in the beautiful hills that surrounded the villages. Once we returned to the synagogue, I found some men practicing blowing the shofar so I joined them. It turns out that they actually came to this village for Rosh Hashanah from quite far; the village that is the furthest from the original. At sometime during my time there, a story was shared with me about these men and the lengths they had to go to for Judaism. As they were going through the steps of becoming Jewish, it became clear that they would need to be circumcised. They approached the main Rabbi and he refused, told them to find a Muslim to do it, something they weren’t comfortable with. After some back and forth, the story goes, they eventually settled on using a man from a particular Ugandan ethnic group to do the job, that regularly perform circumcision on older boys and men.

So here I was, in an absolutely stunning setting, practicing shofar with three African villagers; quite surreal for someone whose identity has always been molded by her Judaism and is increasingly shaped by her time and experiences in Africa. The first day, the shofar had been greeted by all of the children running inside to witness it and cheers that erupted into high-pitched noises from the ladies side – in case I had forgotten I was still in Africa, that sound reminded me. I was definitely looking forward to performing at the second service.

The next day the crowd had thinned a bit, some of the Ugandans who had come from their distant villages the day before had decided to stay home and muzungu crowd was also diminished, but the service and songs were just as beautiful as the day before. Eventually I was called up to do my part in the service along with 4 or 5 other Ugandan men. “Takiyah, Shevarim, Teruah,” called Rabbi Gershom, denoting the type of notes to be played. Then the big one, that everyone loves; “Takiyah Galodah.” Using parts of my competitive nature and lung capacity that I don’t often use anymore, my Takiyah Gadolah outlasted everyone else’s and the synagogue cheered and laughed as I returned to my seat.

Following the service we hiked down to the community mikvah, a small cement pool used for ritual cleansing, to symbolically toss our sins, wrongdoings and broken promises(represented by stones and bread crumbs) away to start the new year fresh. When we got back to the synagogue, we had another lunch under the big tree with Rabbi Gershom and his family. It was very interesting to ask him about his time in the US and in Israel, his youngest daughter was actually born in Jerusalem. I asked them how it was to return to the village after living in Bel Aire(!). Both the rabbi and his wife responded that they missed the conveniences and steak(their favorite food).

I left the village vowing to myself to come back especially if any of my family come to visit. My mom would especially love seeing the Jewish school and children playing and singing the songs that she has been teaching kids in Madison for so many years. I feel so lucky that I was able to visit the Abayudaya and have such a special experience and I know that my next trips there for Shabbat or Pesach will be just as good.

For another perspective, here is a link to an article my friend Glenna wrote for the Jerusalem Post last year: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1192380651705&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Rwanda

2008-10-20T12:12:00.005Z

A few weeks ago there was a hash run in a small town in Rwanda on Lake Kivu (the 6^th largest lake in Africa). Having not left Uganda since I arrived and wanting to visit Rwanda, I took advantage and joined my fellow Kampala hashers for the trip. Well, actually I took the non-hash bus as to avoid the drinking, rowdiness and the frequent pit-stops that become necessity because of the drinking. I took the regional bus line and it took us through varied terrain, from hills to plains to mountains, all before we reached the border, usually at high speeds. We left Kampala at 9am and reached the border around 3 or 4 pm. Once we were in Rwanda the traffic changed back to driving on the right, something I was slightly uncomfortable with so I guess that means I’ve become used to driving on the left, or maybe it was because even though the driver was driving on the right side of the road, his steering wheel was located on the right side of the bus.

As we made our way down the winding roads through the beautiful African mountain villages I couldn’t keep my mind from the genocide that occurred in Rwanda so recently – the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's minority Tutsis and the moderates of its Hutu majority. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from April 6 through to mid July, at least 500,000 people were killed. Most estimates are of a death toll between 800,000 and 1,000,000. A concise review of the happenings can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Rwandan_genocide but there have been many books written and films made on the subject; Books – "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families” and “Shake Hands with the Devil” Films – “Shake Hands with the Devil,” ”Sometimes in April,” and “Shooting Dogs”

Please read the wikipedia article before continuing if you are unfamiliar with the events of the time, of particular interest might be the role of the West, the UN and the US – you may remember US officials quibbling about the “definition” of genocide while hundreds of thousands of people were being brutally murdered based on their ethnic group or support of that ethnic group.

During the ride into Rwanda, I would see an older man walking along the road, wonder where he was during that time, what atrocities he must have seen, what might have happened to him, what he may have done to others. And then I saw many children who have been born since the genocide, how are their lives different from other African children? Do their parents and older siblings talk about the genocide much? Rwanda is one of the most densely populated places on the planet so there was never really a lack of people to see out the bus window and wonder about.

Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is even hillier than Kampala – well, I guess the difference would be large hills in Kampala versus mountains in Kigali. Rwanda was initially a German colony, then a Belgian colony and the French were also very active there and thus, French was the official language of government. But since the genocide, and the role of Europeans in the genocide, Rwanda has become less and less friendly toward the French and the Belgians. In fact, a report was recently published by Rwandan authorities implicating the French as somehow enabling the genocide (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7542418.stm) Because of the touchy Franco-Rwandan relations, many Rwandans prefer to speak English instead of French so in the capital you find older signs in French but newer signs in both French and English and most educated people actually speak both languages well.

We spent one night in Kigali and left, with a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, for the lake the next morning. The drive took three hours and included some more beautiful views. We drove through many small towns that contained large signs referring to the genocide. There were also many statues of gorillas, not only because this part of Rwanda (Parc National des Volcans) is where some of the few remaining groups of mountain gorillas are located, but also because the presence of gorillas indicates peace. During the genocide, the gorillas fled the areas of fighting for places where gunshots weren’t audible. So it was a big deal when they returned to their former homes, they are the messengers of a time of healing for the country.

The town that played host to the hash, Gisenyi, is right on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC – if you have read “America, the Textbook” you’ll remember the DRC from the section that showed the number of inherent lies the name of the country as the names changed – the country was formerly known as Zaire), a beautiful, mountain town perched over the lake. (Since the hash, it has been in African news because the President of the DRC is accusing Rwandan troops of crossing the border.) From the beach you can see some sort of platform on the horizon. When I inquired, I was told that there are major methane deposits under the lake, and that occasionally that methane bubbles up from the bottom of the lake. With somewhat less certainty, I was told that if someone was caught in the water by one of these lava-heated methane bubbles, they would almost certainly die.

The hash was, not surprisingly, a very hilly one, and started with a nice, steep climb up to a level with a great view over the lake. Taking in the view and running are not two things I can multitask, especially when the running path is as narrow as this one was so I slowed down to a walk and still tripped, nearly hurling myself over the edge of a mountain. Luckily I’m still here to type the tail. We ran through villages and large groves of banana trees. Children ran along with us, something that happens at most hashes, because of the novelty of a large group of people running through their community – probably something they’ll talk about for weeks.

Later on in the weekend I was talking with another hasher, an American woman who had been working there for a couple months. As we gathered at the beach, a mother dog and her puppy were playing near by. In Uganda this would not be an uncommon sight as stray dogs of all kinds are everywhere – in fact, as I’m typing this I can hear two or three barking in my neighborhood at 8:45 on a Sunday evening. The woman commented that she had previously only seen one other dog in Rwanda during he entire stay. When I reacted with surprise she explained that during and after the genocide, dogs (and cats) were found eating the corpses – the bodies of people who were killed, so ever since, dogs and cats were rarely allowed to live.

Because the Kigali hash group is so small, I really only got to meet a few Rwandan hashers (most of them are ex-pats), but those that I did meet were extremely friendly and welcoming as I’ve come to expect anywhere on the continent. I am still curious about which ethnic groups the people I met fall in to, I didn’t feel it appropriate to ask. My stay in Rwanda showed me that they are recovering but having only spent a very short time there, it is still very difficult to understand exactly what is going on. Unlike the genocide in Europe during WWII, very many Rwandans are still living amongst their neighbors who may have turned on them in 1994; just one more unimaginable point in this horrific history.

These are some Crested (crowned) Cranes that I saw in Rwanda - they are the national symbol of Uganda - even on the Ugandan flag, but to this day I haven't seen them here.

Dancing

2008-09-08T10:50:00.002Z

A new Cuban Restaurant and Bar recently opened in Kampala and already I’ve been there several times, but the opening night was by far the most interesting night. The Ugandan DJs took a while to get warmed up and actually playing Latin music but once they did, many of us converged on the dance floor. Along with my friends whom I had come with there were many people hailing from Spanish-speaking countries, and a host of characters including a sleazy older British man who owns a popular bar in town, a Ugandan break dancer/break dance instructor and a marine.

I had previously met the break dance instructor and he had invited me to his class but we hadn’t actually talked shop – not that I make a living from dancing but we had some things to share. He saw some of my swalsa moves (ok, I just made up that word for the combination of swing and salsa that a person like myself does when she’s actually trying to do salsa but her muscle memory requires swivels) on the dance floor and asked about them. We exchanged some moves and learned that the basic step – top dropping, I think - for break dance actually looks a lot like Charleston. We talked a little more and he asked if I could teach a class here. I thought about it and told him that if he’d teach with me I’d be fine with it. Plans are in the works.

Next, onto the sleaze. He walked up to me and started talking to me, I obliged in the typical conversation of “where do you come from?” “how long have you been here?” and “what do you do?” until in mid-sentence he walked away from me to light the cigarette of a pretty, young girl who happened to be part of the group I arrived with. More in awe of the sheer comedy of the situation than insulted, I shrugged it off.

Next, I met the marine. We started chatting and I have to admit, I went into the conversation kind of closed-minded and thinking I really wouldn’t have much in common with this guy and sure enough as the conversation turned to the war in Iraq and politics and we walked away shortly after, agreeing to disagree may have been too friendly a statement. It wasn’t a surprise; I was Peace Corps, he is Marine Corps, and that seemed to be only the beginning of the differences.

Later on in the evening, he asked me to dance. He’s pretty good at salsa and I love to dance so of course I accepted. All of our differences and the heated discussion we had earlier floated away on the dance floor and we had a great time. Still a klutz even after a few years of dance classes, I managed to stumble over my own feet when the music got a little fast. I was in a free-fall toward the floor in the middle of a crowded bar when my strong and able dance partner saved me from certain embarrassment and injury and caught me. I make sure to save him at least a couple dances now.

Ambassador Becca

2008-09-08T10:20:00.008Z

A couple weeks ago I noticed a little yellow flag on the couchsurfing.com profile of my friend Allison, meaning that she had been chosen as a couchsurfing ambassador. I also recently met another couchsurfing ambassador who has moved to Kampala so I figured maybe I’d apply. After all, if you’ve talked to me in the past 9 months you’ve probably heard me raving about couchsurfing.com and how it’s really great (and maybe I’ve convinced you to join or partake somehow) so by my estimates, I’ve been acting as a couchsurfing ambassador for a while anyway, without the title.

So now I have the title – I’m an official Couchsurfing.com Nomadic Ambassador! Woohoo! I actually remember how excited I felt to meet the CS ambassador for Tunisia when we were there (there are three kinds of Ambassador – country, city and nomadic). Now it seems a little silly but I was new to couchsurfing and I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and actually I still do. It has such a great philosophy – open your home to someone, show them your town or city, show them your culture, show them hospitality and friendship – not the inherent distrust that so many people *cough*Americans*cough* have for their fellow man – and little by little, the world will become a friendlier, nicer place to be and travel. That plus the idea of paying it forward – you host and show someone a good time and then you go travel and are hosted and have a great time. Really, it’s quite simple.

Who knows, maybe this is just the first step in my career as a diplomat… or in my career as a mooching bum ;) … maybe both. If you haven’t already, you should check out the website – www.couchsurfing.com – my profile can be found under the name Mounass. Just be aware, once you travel using couchsurfing you may never want to stay in a hotel again.

Here are some photos from a get-together we had this weekend:

Trainings

2008-09-08T09:50:00.008Z

The first two days of training were a couple weeks ago. One was in Masaka and the other was in Kampala and they were pretty different but both went well. There were actually no major problems with either training, just a case of not having electricity at the training venue in Masaka, we needed to do some printing so we improvised and did it at the restaurant we went to for lunch. In Kampala we had to call in backups for lunch as the arrangements fell through, but, like I said, nothing major.

The trainees, 14 in total, were a promising bunch of 11 men and 3 women from various backgrounds from working in community development to having their own businesses. They all converged on Kampala for a continuation of their training last week. This is where things started happening like I had expected them to before. I ended up being short-staffed and had to call in some favors from friends (who I am extremely grateful to), then the night before the training was to start – before we had printed most of the handouts and materials necessary for the training, the printer, that has actually been giving us problems since its purchase, stopped functioning again. This magnified the issue of being short staffed and meant someone was going to have to spend some quality time in a printing/copy shop – the Ugandan Kinko’s.

Aside from the preparations, the training again went pretty well. Many of the trainees surprised me with the number of orders they were able to get – many more than we were able fill immediately. Also the group was able to raise a total of 2,240,000 USh - nearly $1400, pretty impressive since group members' monthly income averages less $125 (even though that is much higher than the average Ugandan’s income).

There were several highlights to the training. On the first day of training in Kampala, the trainees went out onto the street to practice their promotional speeches to people walking by. I expected them to come back somewhat discouraged, like the folks in Masaka did, because the first reaction to the product for many is that it is too expensive (this is usually before they realize all the benefits of the Firefly). However when the whole group returned and we started talking about how it went, I soon found that they had actually pitched it so well that three people were prepared to come back and buy the next day. That exercise convinced any doubting trainees that this would indeed lead to increased income generation for them.

Then there was the bookkeeping section of the training. I didn’t expect it to be easy to teach but after I had explained the simple system we had to offer them and gone through several examples, I was still getting blank stares from more than half of the class. That’s when a couple of the trainees who did understand (they both happened to be business owners) and took turns explaining in Luganda (the Ugandan language used in Kampala and Masaka) to the rest of the group. After about 10 minutes most of the group was caught up and understanding the importance and the method for what they would need to do.

Finally, as is common here, the power at our training venue went out a couple times. It happened to be during a rain storm so it got quite dark in the training room. When the lights went out, without hesitation, each of the trainees reached for their sample Firefly lamp and turned it on so we could continue with the training. It seemed to be a very proud moment for Harry who had joined us for the final day of training.

So Barefoot/BASE Technologies now has our first batch of mobile entrepreneurs circulating communities and selling our principal product – the Firefly Solar Lamp.

Ready or not...

2008-08-14T11:45:00.000Z

Pretty much ever since I got to Uganda about 2.5 months ago, I have been working on a training to teach people business skills they’ll need to start a micro-franchise selling the solar lamps we’re here to distribute. Well, we’re finally about to start training our first batch of entrepreneurs! This was planned to coincide with the first large-scale shipment of product that we’re expecting to be able to put into our newly built… ok, newly refurbished, warehouse – a shed behind Harry’s house – any day now. After lots of hard work we will soon see our plans in action. Will the training have the desired effect? Will people be as interested in and as capable of buying the product as they’ve shown us? What kinds of unforeseen issues will pop up? Because you know there will be unforeseen issues that pop up, TIA – This is Africa.

We go to the site of our first training, Masaka, in a couple days, then we’ll repeat it in Kampala, then after a week break, we’ll bring the two groups together for 3 more days of training. The purpose of the week off is to allow the trainees to have time to raise some funds that they will be able to invest in their “business in a bag” that’ll contain all the material they need to get started with their franchise. They’ll also use this time to market and raise awareness so they can hit the ground running when they return from the second part of training.

Posts to come on how the trainings go.

Vocabulary

2008-08-14T11:42:00.000Z

I have a few American friends here but I spend most of my time with Ugandans and British and Australian ex-pats so I am finding that my vocabulary is shifting, if only for clarity’s sake. I’ve found myself saying “chips” instead of “fries” and “crisps” instead of “chips.” Beyond junk food there’s also “car park” = “parking lot,” “flat” = “apartment,” “coffee plunger” or “cafetierre” instead of “French press,” “you fancy…?” instead of “would you like…?” Yeah, it’s getting pretty bad.

I have been conscious of my tendency to adopt the language of the people around me since the New Year of the millennium that I spent in Vancouver. Spending a couple hours every day in the pool with a bunch of Canadian swimmers left me speaking like a Canadian. Lame, I know, but I couldn’t help it. I was ending each sentence with a question-like ascent in tone and my vowels were flattened, thankfully I didn’t pick up the famous Canadian “ey,” and my speech pretty much went back to normal after a few days back in the states.

In Senegal, one of my favorite parts of the language were the exclamations (you can read about that in an earlier blog entry) I picked up and if a French person ever heard my French, complete with West African rolled r’s and j’s converted to s’s, they would likely be confused about my origins or at least the origins of my French. Uganda being a former British colony, they speak English and I’ve been picking up on the way they speak English. My flat mate who grew up in Africa has the African English down to a T and it’s actually quite funny to hear her speak like that. She mostly uses it so people can understand her, like moto drivers. She’s been told numerous times, by these guys, how well she speaks English, so much better than the other muzungus. So I too find myself speaking slower, enunciated some sounds more some sounds less, changing the pronunciation of my vowels.

At one point, after having lived in Wisconsin and Iowa, finding myself in Philly and saying things like “wudder,” I became paranoid that my accent was becoming the worst possible mix of mid-western twang and mid-Atlantic speak. Now I add in what I’ve picked up in Africa, who knows if anyone will understand what I’m saying. J

Up Country

2008-08-14T10:27:00.006Z

While I am still living in the Northern hemisphere, like I have my entire life, in Kampala I live very close to the equator. To be specific, it’s less than an hour’s drive to the equator. Before arriving here I had only crossed the equator twice and both times (one round trip) were in an airplane. I recently took a trip for work to a city called Masaka, about 2 hours from Kampala and in the Southern hemisphere. At the equator, there is a line painted across the road, some cafes and gift shops and various other markers of zero latitude. If you shell out some cash you can see a demonstration of the water-going-down-the-drain phenomenon; there are three basins set up, one in the north, one in the south and one on the equator itself. The price was too high for me but the water is intended to drain clockwise in the north, counter-clockwise in the south and just go straight down on the equator.

While in Masaka I was able to meet with a couple groups of “Popular Opinion Leaders” who go around to communities, raising awareness, mostly about health products like water treatment, birth control and condoms. Our contacts with a couple Ugandan NGOs here had put us in touch with the groups and being keen to not develop brand new networks for our entrepreneurs, when current networks already exist, we are seeking to identify our entrepreneurs from within these current networks. I identified two future entrepreneurs who were both quite excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity they now have.

This trip also allowed me to spend a little more time outside of Kampala, I’ve really only left the city three times since I arrived in Uganda. The Masaka district is quite hilly and green and dotted with small fields of banana trees. I got to visit a village on top of a hill, about a 30 minute drive from Masaka town (the district capital). In every direction there were beautiful views, and the morning sunlight made for great photographs.

Kids these days

2008-07-09T10:51:00.003Z

I had seen many adult street preachers before, yelling at the top of their lungs on a crowded Kampala streets during the day. I had been told it was kind of a recent trend, but I had never seen a child doing it. The other night, I was at a bar with a friend when two kids, making an awful lot of noise started walking toward the sidewalk terrace we were on. I asked permission to take video before I started and talked to the kid after while showing him the video. He looked to be about 8 or 9, out after dark on a school night, toting an English bible and yelling until he was hoarse about "Jesus!" and "the Lord!" and "Hallelujah!" - though, of course, like any kid his age, he was having a hard time pronouncing that last one. He was wearing his school uniform so I knew at least he was in school during the day. I asked him if he knew how to read English yet, he said no. I asked him if he knew many stories from the bible, he mentioned one that I couldn't quite understand. In trying to find out if an adult had put him up to it, he seemed adamant that it was his choice to be out, in down town Kampala with his friend at 9:00 at night. I gave him some change to get home with public transportation instead of walking. They stuck around a little while, doing their thing, and then made their way up the street, preaching to other sinners.

On! On!

2008-07-09T10:40:00.000Z

A friend that I made here through Ultimate Frisbee happens to be, from what I have witnessed, the mascot for the local Hash House Harriers group, he’s been doing it since he was a young kid. That, and the fact that my dad was pretty active in the local Hash group when I was growing up made it only a matter of time before I started hashing. For those of you unfamiliar with the group; the lore tells us that it was started in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by a group of British ex-pats in 1938 as a way to run off their weekend hangovers. For each weekly run, a different path is marked through different neighborhoods by intermittent symbols and splotches in chalk or powder. Some of the intersections contain false directions so when the front-runners (front-running bastards) discover the path is false, they double back and warn everyone that it’s the wrong way. There are also hooks that require the FRBs to double back until they reach the last runner and then start back on the forward path. There are check points where everyone meets up for a few minutes, maybe sings a vulgar song or two, rests a little and then continues on together. I’m actually still getting the hang of the rules but by the time I get baptized with my “hash handle,” the alias that each person gets after they’ve run several hashes, it should be all good. I should also be in great shape; if I haven’t mentioned it already, Kampala is situated on seven rather large hills, this means that no hash is truly complete without a monster climb or two. Following each run newcomers are introduced and made to chug a beer, whoever invited them is made to chug a beer, “sinners” are made to chug a beer, and many people are sprayed with beer or water for one reason or another. This “drinking club with a running problem” has been active in Kampala for quite a while, the runs that I have done so far are numbers 1258-1260 so by my calculations of weekly Monday hashes with once-a-month Saturday hash, that makes about 21 years of hashing here in Kampala. I’m sure I’ll enjoy my 1.

The NGO Meeting

2008-07-09T10:30:00.002Z

The other day Harry and I went to the monthly meeting of the directors of many different NGOs with offices in Kampala. We had been invited to the meeting by the director of Care Uganda and at the meeting there were representatives of about 15 other NGOs including Oxfam, Christian Children’s Fund and others. We were given a few minutes for Harry to make a presentation on what we are doing here between their discussions of IDP (Internally Displaced Persons - much like refugees but who haven't left their home country) camps, AIDS orphans and how to deal with unwarranted bad publicity from host-country politicians. Harry gave his short presentation and before he was even finished, people were offering to buy the lamps and panels that we had with us. They were very interested in offering the lamps as part of packages for the communities they are serving, especially the IDPs who are receiving assistance to move back home. The directors purchased the lamps so they could test them with their communities but left saying that if they worked out they would be buying hundreds or even thousands of lamps in the coming months, great news for BASE Technologies!

Making Like Moses

2008-07-09T10:28:00.000Z

The other weekend, on the advice of another ex-pat, my colleague, Harry, and I went rafting on the Nile for the day. We had been told that there were only a couple months left to experience the Victoria Nile in its current state because of a dam they are currently working on that will flood the area, displacing some communities and effectively covering two of the class-5 rapids on the river including Bujagali Falls. The dam is being built to provide hydro-electricity for Uganda and the surrounding countries, though it’ll likely not be nearly enough to stop the power-shedding or rolling blackouts that are common here.

The source of the Victoria Nile (which eventually joins with the White Nile and the Blue Nile to form the Nile in Egypt that we all learned about) is in a city called Jinja, about a 2-hour drive East from Kampala. We got up early, grabbed the sunscreen and shorts that they told us to bring and made our way to town to meet the bus that would take us to Jinja. After a couple delays thanks to a semi that had tipped over in our path we made it to the rafting company campsite. Before we got our boats, there were a couple people who wanted to take the opportunity to bungee jump (another offering of the rafting company’s). Each jumper gets the choice whether or not to be dipped into the Nile and whether or not to be clothed. A friend has confirmed that if your first jump is naked, your second is free of charge.

We got in the rafts and learned the commands that our boat leader would be shouting throughout the day, practiced flipping the raft and then we were off. One passenger in our boat happened to be a relatively experienced rafter – having rafted on a couple different continents, he informed us that he had heard that the rapids we were to be rafting were the roughest commercial rapids in the world. Our guide, a Brazilian, has been traveling the world, finding work as a rafting guide where he can, South America, North America, Europe and now Africa. His reason for being in Uganda at this point was also to enjoy the Nile before it is forever changed by this dam.

During the day we had four class-5 rapids with some paddling, political talk and a lunch break on and island in between. We paddled past boys swimming and playing, women and girls washing clothes in the river, river otters and some truly stunning views. Earlier in the day one of the kids in our raft had been tossed out by a rapid but besides that we had all remained in the raft until the final set of rapids of the day – Itanda – “The Bad Place”. We set out with the goal of no flipping for the entire day, a feat that’s not too easy. We paddled up to it, our guide told us to “get down!” I started to take shelter in the interior of the raft, between the inflatable benches and before I knew it the opposite side of the raft was coming down on me and I was under water, tumbling as if I was inside a washing machine, doing my best not to let go of my oar so it wouldn’t get lost. Eventually my life-jacket popped me up and I scanned the water for the rest of my raft mates. Everyone was fine, some were a little shaken by the flipping experience but I was simply in awe of the river’s power and glad I had the chance to really experience the Nile.

Fresh

2008-06-17T13:19:00.000Z

In two words, the produce here is ample and delicious. There are several kinds of banana, sweet potato, mangoes, papayas, watermelon, pumpkin, tomato, ginger and best of all, avocado. The other day we were “up-country” – which I have learned means anywhere outside Kampala, and we stopped at a roadside stand for produce. We bought two large papayas, a watermelon, four mangoes, four big sweet potatoes, a gigantic bunch of huge bananas (about 20 of them), a bagful of tomatoes and three beautiful avocados which all together cost us 7500 Ugandan Shillings or the equivalent of $4.61.

I have had a couple chances to try Ugandan food since I’ve been here. The staples are rice, corn, sweet potato and matoke – like mashed plantains. The matoke is not currently a favorite of mine, it is quite pasty and doesn’t taste like much so you have to drown it in sauce. They have a peanut sauce that is very common here too, and I finally got to try some today at lunch. My verdict is that it’s not quite as nice as Awa Sy’s in Senegal, but it’s still pretty good.

The other nice surprise for me has been the weather. The climate has been more or less perfect since I arrived. I’m not certain about temperatures but it hasn’t been higher than 85 (27C). Who knew living on the equator would be so comfortable?

Month 1 in Uganda

2008-06-17T11:17:00.007Z

It’s been almost a month and I’ve gotten started at work, moved into an apartment and I’m really settling into life in Kampala. Work is coming along, I’m much more familiar with the project and my role here now which is officially called “Recruitment and Training Manager.” To give you the gist of it, Barefoot Power is here to establish a Ugandan joint venture, which we’ve decided to call Base Technologies. Base will be setting up an training a network of local entrepreneurs who will go around to rural communities to make the Firefly lamps and solar panels available to the people in order to replace the kerosene they are currently using for lighting. After 2-3 months, the lamp will pay for itself in saved kerosene expenditure and it’s obviously cleaner, safer and brighter then the lanterns. Beyond the lamps, Base is aiming to make appropriate technologies to the population at the “bottom of the pyramid” (the poor who make up the vast majority of the population in most countries and world wide). We’ve been meeting with various NGOs and other organizations who may be interested in working with us and through them we have plans to take on a few entrepreneurs to start out and take a test run with the training, the entrepreneurs and the product actually in the field. The feedback we’ve been getting on the product has been overwhelmingly positive, so it’s looking promising and hopefully, from our experience here, we will be able to develop model to use in other countries in the future. I’m now working on developing the training materials and resources, along with other odds and ends.

I’ve moved into an apartment that is shared with two brits, Malcolm and Samantha. Malcolm is a freelance journalist mostly working for Al Jazeera and Samantha has been working on some television programming and films here. The apartment is out of town a little ways, toward Lake Victoria – I can actually see a small sliver of it from my balcony. The neighborhood is quiet and very green. That balcony actually overlooks a swamp of sorts, though from what I can see, it may as well be a nice green field.

Kampala has proven to be an astonishingly livable city in my first weeks here. There are many more western amenities than in Dakar. There is are a couple shopping malls, a movie theater where I was able to see “Sex and the City” a couple weeks ago, alhumdulilah! Several great restaurants; Indian, Japanese, French, Ghanaian and an Irish pub where there is actually pub quiz every other Thursday – yes! We showed up to the quiz after a long day of driving to the southwest corner of Uganda and back, the pub was crowded with ex-pats and Ugandans, but we joined a team and won. We got the prizes of t-shirts, a case of beer and the honor of writing the next quiz – oh and free drinks all night long for the night we host that quiz. Can you guess where I’ll be every other Thursday from now on?

Finally, I have a P.O. Box and phone number now so if you’d like them, or if you have any questions about what I’ve written, just shoot me an email. Becca[dot]Schwartz[at]gmail.com

Here are a few of the many monkeys that hang out at a hotel we visited in Entebbe(and a couple of my co-workers).

Petrol

2008-06-17T11:14:00.000Z

Before I left the U.S. one of the major things on everyone’s minds was the price of gas. With truckers striking, price hikes every other day and the issue mentioned on the news just about every day; it was evident that people think it is a big problem. It took a voyage of thousands of miles and talking to a few people here to see that gas prices in the U.S. are still just half the price of those here in Uganda (prices are about 2600 shillings per liter which ends up being about $6.40/gallon). U.S. prices are also still cheaper than European prices. It really demonstrated to me how easy it was to get wrapped up in the informational fortress of the U.S. where almost nothing else can get in. It seems to have become a part of the national psyche to be so self-involved and self-focused that nothing outside the U.S. and Iraq even registers anymore unless it’s a natural disaster or other act killing thousands of people. Do Americans really know what’s going on in the world? Or how other people live?

Wedding fundraising

2008-05-28T05:51:00.002Z

I got to witness an interesting Ugandan phenomenon last night. I was waiting with my hosts for the daily, evening, horrendously-bad traffic jam to dissipate a little so we could actually drive home and we happened to be at the National Theater in Kampala. They mentioned that there was a nice crafts market inside so we wandered around "window" shopping a little. eventually we made our way around the building and there was a group of people having a meeting in one of the rooms. It turns out that Harrison and Audrey knew some of them so we went in. I soon found out that what was going on was a meeting for a couples future wedding. Weddings in Uganda - like those in the U.S. are expensive and almost no one can pay out of pocket for all the expenses, so they hold fund raising meetings with friends and family in order to have enough money to pay - and yes, these same people who give at these meetings are expected to bring a gift on the day of the wedding too.

This meeting was in the form of an auction, the likes of which I have never seen before, but along with the sandwich maker on auction, people were bidding to try to make others in the room do silly things. Sing the national anthem, dance while the other was singing, sit on someone else's lap, get the mazunga(white person) to sit next to the other mazunga(there happened to be a Japanese guy sitting at the back). So none of these things actually happened because others would bid to cancel previous motions. Another motion involving myself involved the "chairman" buying a bag of fried grasshoppers from a vendor passing by, for the mazunga - Becca, and for Becca to eat said grasshoppers, or at least one. I pulled the vegetarian card because I didn't want my first time knowingly eating a prepared insect to be in front of a crowd - hooting and hollering. Later I told my hosts that I'd try it some other time, when the audience was smaller.

First days in Uganda

2008-05-24T12:07:00.003Z

Arriving at Entebbe Airport I was stiff from 17+ hours of air travel, sleep-deprived and nursing a throat and sinus issue that had conveniently started the night before I left Wisconsin. Even with all this and the fact that it was pitch black out when I landed, I could tell that I was going to like Uganda.

My luggage thankfully made it through despite two plane transfers in two different countries and my hosts, Harrison and Audrey, graciously picked me up and the airport. They welcomed me like old friends and as I stepped out of the airport the warm, humid air seemed familiar, even though I have never been here before.

On the ride home there was some swerving in and out of traffic – something I got used to in Senegal. I was probably slightly more nervous because I was sitting in the seat that I normally think of as the driver’s; fortunately the steering wheel was on Harrison’s side. The driveway leading to Harrison and Audrey’s apartment is possibly the steepest I have ever seen, it was even difficult for me to negotiate on foot, both up and down the following day. That night I gulped down some fresh passion fruit juice thanks to Audrey and got to bed to try to sleep off whatever I had.

In the morning I woke up to a gorgeous view from the balcony. Lush, green hills dotted with red tile roofs and red exposed earth where houses are being built. I could see a couple small banana trees in a neighbor’s yard and down in the valley there were cars on their way to Kampala. Somewhere lower on the hillside there was someone, a shop maybe, that has loud talk radio that can be heard throughout the day.

I took it easy for most of the day, still trying to get better but I did end up walking to the other side of the hill to hit up a bank and go to the supermarket to buy ingredients for a Senegalese meal for my new Ugandan friends. I can already tell that I’m making too many comparisons between Senegal and Uganda, I don’t want to be the kid that moves to a new school but can’t stop talking about her old school. I’ll keep the comparisons to a minimum until I get to know Uganda better, mostly because I’ve learned that first perceptions in a new culture are often wrong.

The first photo is of my host, Harrison on his balcony outside Kampala and the second is of the taxi stop in down town Kampala, on the hill you can see the newly opened mosque, started by Idi Amin, finished by Colonel Kadafi.

Information

2008-05-24T11:54:00.000Z

During the flight from Amsterdam, we flew over Sudan from North to South, I think we even got relatively close to the troubled Darfur region. When I looked out of the plane window, all I could see was desert with one or two rocky hills, there was no evidence, at that height, of the problems that are still going on there. Sudan is one of the few African countries that is occasionally mentioned in the U.S. news, recently South Africa and Zimbabwe have also made the news thanks to the terrible things happening there. It reminded me of an interview I heard recently with a Nigerian actor/director. He was saying that the west has the perception of Africa as a place of war, famine, disease and poverty. He has a point; Africa is very rarely in the U.S. news unless some disaster (natural or otherwise) has occurred. But then again, Africa is really not the only region with this status, I can’t ever remember hearing the name Myanmar (or Burma for that matter) on the news before the cyclone a few weeks ago. Really, if it’s not happening in the U.S., Iraq, Afghanistan or China (mainly because we’re so afraid they will replace us at the top of the pecking order) it is passed over by the evening news in favor of the latest celebrity or political gossip.

As I’m typing this, I am watching Aljazeera. In the hour that I’ve been watching, they have reported news from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Seeing coverage like this makes it clear how internally focused we are in the U.S. and how much power the media has in our culture.

Home Sweet (and cold) Home

2008-03-05T03:37:00.002Z

You know it's been too long when you're thankful that the password you flat out guessed actually worked to sign you into your blog. It's been 6 months, 18 (or so)countries many degrees no matter if you use Fahrenheit or Celsius, many, many great new friends, and several inches of snow, and I'm back in the neighborly mid-west of the U.S. of A. I am now an RPCV - since I have Returned from the Peace Corps. Today I helped cook Mafe, a West African dish, for the umpteenth time since leaving Senegal, though since it wasn't eated from a big bowl with hands or serving spoons, it was served over brown rice and no one said "Bismilah" before we started it only bared a small respmblance to the Mafe I knew in Sara Ndiougary, Kaolack, Senegal. I also got sucked into the television today, something that tends to happen when I'm unemployed and without purpose and in the US. Why is it so easy to sit and watch people that I don't even like or movies I've seen several times for 4, 5, 6 hours at a time?

Chim!!

2007-08-04T14:44:00.000Z

"Chim!" is just one of the many Wolof exclamations I have picked up and now use probably much more frequently than I should. In fact I was using this other one, pronounced kind of like you're clearing your throat of phlegm (khay!), so much that my host-family had a mini-intervention, telling me I was using it too much. The loose translation is "What the hell?!" To which the response - if those around you think you are overreacting is "Jamm" - peace. If you have been in my presence lately, chances are you heard some of these things. Anyway, I digress; the reason for the title of this blog is that it has been well over a month since I posted anything. - Chim!

It has started raining, a lot, in Kaolack. The other day I was in town, at a friends shop as the downpour started. The street soon turned into a rushing river of sorts and everyone did their best to find shelter. The folks in the shops near my friend's soon saw and took their opportunity to get rid of the trash that had accumulated in their establishments; sending it right on down the street-river and eventually into the actual river that runs through my town. Needless to say I was appalled and didn't bother trying to hold my tongue but this didn't matter in the least.

Among the quirky things I've noticed when it rains; many people here are really afraid of getting their heads wet - they could be walking through a torrent, no umbrella - nothing to protect their clothes or faces from the rain, but they'll have a plastic bag tied neatly around the top of the head to keep it dry. Most people seem to think that if the rain gets your head wet - you will get sick, not exactly true but probably doesn't hurt for them to think this.

Also, goats hate rain. As soon as it even starts to sprinkle you will see goats in a full sprint, searching for the cover of a tree or un-inhabited building. I know its mean but I find a sort of joy in chasing them out of their shelter and back into the rain, it usually doesn't work for long though - their clever devils.

What's not so quirky or funny, at least not to me at the time was the aftermath of the storm in the market. If you haven't read about it before - Kaolack is a filthy, poo-covered hole with trash piled high that volunteers lovingly call "the cesspool on the Saloum." So when it rains all this filth takes on liquid form and floods large portions of the city. The market is a particularly filthy and particularly flood-prone place and that's exactly where I found myself. At first I was trying my best not to step into water deeper than the soles of my shoes, when that proved too difficult I had no choice but to bite the bullet and step on in, hoping the parasites didn't think my feet looked like a great place to party. No signs of Creeping Eruption yet and I will be getting tested for Schistosomiasis before I leave here, but I'll keep you updated on my parasite prognosis.

Change in Routine Part II

2007-06-26T13:16:00.000Z

I have been back in Senegal now for about a week and a half from my little vacation to Madison. Before I left I felt a little apprehensive about what to expect but sure enough, the USA I left is very much the same one that greeted me when I arrived back. There was no reverse culture shock, there was just annoyance at the old American habits of consuming more than necessary and wasting much more than necessary that stuck out more than they used to. In Senegal, even though its very difficult to find a street that doesn’t have a major litter problem by American standards, the waste is very little relatively. Everything is consumed by people or animals and reusable parts are reused until they will absolutely not function anymore and then they become great toys for kids.

Anyway, my trip was great. I got to see parents, grandparents, both my sisters, an aunt, an uncle, some cousins, and a few friends. To the shock and awe of many volunteers I also managed to seek out the Senegalese community in Madison and went to a baby-naming ceremony too. Despite the travel difficulties I had getting back to Senegal (involving a 24 hour delay added onto a trip that was already supposed to take more than 24 hours, all in airports or airplanes) I am glad that I made the trip and I am now ready to dig in and finish up the remaining months of my service. With 20 months under my belt, the remaining 4 or so will seem like no time at all.

Change in Routine Part I

2007-06-26T13:14:00.000Z

Routine is something that many PCVs come to depend on, living in a strange country with unfamiliar people and culture, being able to count on something is a small thing that really means a lot to many of us. The birds that live near my house also apparently value routine. Their routine involved coming to the windows on either side of my bed at about 6:30 in the morning and proceeding to flutter and peck loudly on the window pretty consistently until about 4 in the afternoon. This not only left my sill covered in poo but it also left me feeling quite angry that my routine of sleeping until my alarm goes off was broken. I’m not sure why the birds do this instead of say, searching for food to eat at some point during the day, maybe fighting with one’s reflection in glass is more important than eating to these birds. I tried to get them to stop by using a piece of duct tape to suggest that the window a shiny surface and not their mortal enemy but they just used that as a new perch from which to launch their attacks. I also tried draping the decorative iron bars in cassette tape – a remedy told to me by another PCV. Farmers put it in the fields sometimes to deter birds from eating the seeds or crops. And though I was careful to pick out the absolute worst tapes from the regional house I guess it is the sound the tape makes in the wind that birds don’t like, and not as my host mother suggested, the music on the tapes. The tape did not even phase the birds though I got some strange looks from my neighbours when decorating in this strange new style.

I was at wit’s end and my mind had been drifting toward murder whether by spraying the culprits with insecticide or lacing some seed with rat poison, I was fed up and really tired. Finally a friend suggested what I should’ve thought about long ago, thorny branches do a good job keeping animals away from other things, why not my window? Well, it appears to be working pretty well. Not to be easily discouraged, the birds continue to come and peck at the window but now they also stab themselves on the thorns so the pecking isn’t nearly as frequent. I have also seen them trying with all their might to pull the branches off the sill which tells me that their routine really means a lot to them and they won’t go down without a fight. With an equal stubbornness about my sleep and an endless supply of kids to run and get me thorny branches, I feel confident that I will win this battle.

Homecoming

2007-05-05T16:40:00.000Z

I went on a jog this morning and about half way I took a short break at a place on the edge of town where a few watering holes had been. During the rainy season these holes filled up with water and animals used it to drink and people used it to wash their animals. Since the end of rainy season, around mid-October, it has not rained one drop on the Department of Kaolack where I live. So these watering holes that used to have at least a couple feet of water and flowering water plants, are now bone dry complete with cracked mud and a dog carcass at the bottom. Yeah, so I’ve been here a long time.

To be exact, I’ve been in Africa for 1 year, 7 months and 6 days. But I am coming home in less than three weeks. I’ll be home for about 2.5 weeks and I am really looking forward to seeing family and friends, eating delicious food, enjoying some relatively cool weather and seeing what I’ve missed. Home is something that every PCV thinks and wonders about daily from the day we step off the plane, and I am no different but lately this pondering has become a mild anxiety. Don’t get me wrong, I am still extremely excited about it and when I imagine what it’ll be like, everything is fine but I just don’t know if my memory of home is enough to prepare me for actually being home. Hearing stories from volunteers who have already made the trip about reverse culture shock, I wonder if it’ll be similar for me. After all, I am in a city, I have running water and electricity, my cute little room is quite comfortable (even for my parents), I even see other Americans at least weekly. Will I be stunned by the pace? by people speaking English all around me? by all the options? by the materialism? I guess I’ll find out soon enough. What I am pretty certain of though is that my formerly thick Wisconsin blood has now thinned beyond all recognition and I’ll be wearing a sweater when it’s 75 degrees, and that my GI system will go through reverse culture shock with all the cheesy goodness I’ll be eating, hey, maybe it’ll even be enough to get rid of the amoebas.

The African Sky

2007-05-05T16:38:00.000Z

I had seen movies and Paul Simon sang that great song but I have to say I wasn’t entirely prepared for the African skies. Especially in my part of the country, where it’s as flat as it gets and the tallest building in the regional capital is 4 stories high, the expanse of the almost-always cloudless, blue sky is remarkable. The cloudlessness makes for the days to be oppressively hot, with the only escape from direct sunlight being the shade of a tree or building, but it makes the nights absolutely breathtaking. When I visit friends in the village, and the moon doesn’t get in the way, the expanse of the Milky Way stretches out above us. Sometimes, if there’s a power-outage, I’m lucky enough to get a taste of it where I live too. My host family doesn’t quite understand my curiosity with the night’s sky, but they usually humor me.

The other night, my calendar said there was supposed to my meteor showers so my sister, Maguette and I pulled a mat out into the road in front of the house to lay there and watch for shooting stars. Well, we didn’t see any, but we had a great conversation, one of those that I hope to remember many years from now. First she told me that for her birthday (which is coming up), what she wants more than anything is a cell phone. But then she started asking me about the Earth, the moon, the stars. We lay there for a couple hours, me trying to explain space and astronomy with my usual mix of Wolof and French and her talking about heaven and God as she knew them. Like I said, there is just something special about the African sky.

Gamou: Americans in Kaolack

2007-04-03T16:08:00.000Z

This week there is a pilgrimage to one of the neighborhoods in Kaolack to celebrate the Gamou. Last year I stayed as far away from that quartier as possible but this year I decided to check it out with my friend Ndeye – she’s a mechanic. The quartier – Medina Baay, is home to a huge, Moroccan style mosque that was built by one of the Sufi Islam Brotherhoods that are centered in Senegal. This brotherhood is called the Baay Niass brotherhood, named after its founder but the unique thing about this brotherhood is that they have lots of American talibe (followers). I was told that there are several that have even moved here permanently to be close to their spiritual leader, but mostly the Americans visit Medina Baay for a couple weeks every year to partake in the pilgrimage.

So I started with dinner at Ndeye’s house (Ndeye’s family aren’t followers of Baay Niass but there is a lot of mutual respect between the brotherhoods so she wanted to take me to the festivities), after dinner, at about 10pm we took a mini-car to Medina. The roads were packed with people dressed to the nines, vendors selling just about anything you can think of including clothing and jewelry with Baay Niass’ likeness painted on it. We got out of the car and started walking and shoving our way toward the mosque which was also dressed up to the nines for the occasion – including strings of lights and a large fake palm tree perched on top of the mosque itself. We walked through the mosque, taking shoes off before we entered, where people were sitting, praying and sleeping on the carpeted floor. The walls were beautifully tiled with dozens of columns throughout the room. We stood in line to pay our respects to Baay Niass’ final resting spot and then we left to go find a host relative of mine who lives in the area, Pathe Thiam.

Well I never found Pathe but as soon as I entered the home of Imam Assane Cisse I heard “How ya doin’” – In that New York accent I haven’t heard in a year and a half. I turn around and see three Americans, dressed in their boubous, speaking Wolof to other people. We chatted and the told me that they come hear to replenish their souls every year. I was very interested in hearing their thoughts on things and unfortunately their views on polygamy and women’s rights fell right in line with those of the conservative Senegalese men I have met – Polygamy being natural and necessary because there are so many more women than men; 4:1. That and the “divine order,” – First there is God, then men and then women. Even though we didn’t see eye to eye on many things it was very interesting to meet them and I’m very glad that I made the pilgrimage this year… even if it was only to the other side of town.

Ants and Karma

2007-04-03T16:06:00.000Z

The other day I was eating breakfast in my compound, sitting next to my mother. There was a slight commotion, she said something to my brother, Baba, and pointed behind where she was sitting where, I’m not sure how I didn’t notice but there were thousands of ants swarming between my steps and the entrance to the kitchen. I was about to jump up and get the insecticide I keep in my room when she explained to me that the ants were asking for a sarax, the term used for the food or money you give to people who beg. She asked Baba to give them some millet and as he scattered it on the ground I thought “Oh no, now there will be even more ants swarming.” She turned to me and said “Just watch, they’ll all be gone in 5 minutes.” And sure enough, the ants took the millet back to their nest, wherever it is, and all but a few were gone in 5 minutes and as far as I know haven’t come back.

After the ants were given their sarax my mom told me a story that she prefaced as being “a true story,” in mixed French and Wolof. According to the story there was a young pregnant woman who once encountered the same problem with swarming ants. Instead for giving them the sarax she threw boiling water on them and killed them. Later, when her baby was born, it was born deformed and would never walk. When she went to the spiritual leader to ask why that had happened to her he told her that her baby was born like that because she had been cruel to the ants.

…a very Buddhist idea for a Muslim country.

Pan-Atlantic Telephonaphobia

2007-04-01T17:19:00.000Z

First of all I want to preface this blog by saying that I’m really not as bitter as this may make me seem, I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad or give any kind of guilt trip and I truly do appreciate the emails that I get from people. I’m simply remarking on a behavior pattern that many PCVs have found that their friends and loved-ones have in common. Plus I have the chutzpah to post it on my blog and so the others who may not be so forward, but miss talking to their friends, will just link their blogs up to mine.

Besides fellow volunteers who had returned home or were on vacation, I have received phone calls – wait, no, one phone call from someone who was not immediate family in the past 18 months. Most volunteers, in fact, don’t get phone calls from anyone but family and possibly significant others. So, in the style of “Sex and the City,” I couldn’t help but wonder; why is it that American extended family and friends are so hesitant to call over-seas and particularly hesitant to call Africa?

Every volunteer I know has a cell phone and most actually have decent reception or a tree in their village under which reception is better. People may be freaked out by the cost, that is a valid concern, but how much does a 15-20 minute phone call to a cell phone in Senegal cost? About $4 - $5. To be fair, since we do have phones, we could be calling the states more too, the same phone call from our cell phones to the U.S. costs 4,500-5,000 CFA which is about $9-$10. Money that many volunteers don’t really have as disposable income. Now, I do realize that getting the rate mentioned above often involves buying a phone card; either a schlep to the store or buying one online (which involves a whole different phobia), but hey, aren’t there occasions when you are already going to the store, or already shopping online, heck there was probably an annoying pop-up ad trying to sell you a calling card while you were reading this entry.

Timing may be another concern. We are always one Greenwich Mean Time, always. That means 4 hrs difference from the East coast in the summer and 5 hrs in the winter, and 7 and 8 hours respectively from the West coast. So even with the maximum time difference we are probably sharing 8 of our waking hours. With the timing, you may be concerned that you would be interrupting something. You aren’t. If you haven’t caught this yet, please refer to past entries on my blog or any of the linked blogs to the right. In short PCVs have a lot of free time, not to mention that if they were doing something, they’d just answer their phone in the middle of it like every Senegalese person – we’re culturally integrated! If it makes you feel better, set up a time to call over email.

Anyway, there is a lot more that we’ve discussed in our ever-so-slight bitterness, but I’ll spare you the details. However if you take anything away from this blog it should be this: We know that you are busy but we miss you and love you and it would literally make our month if we heard from you.

Update

2007-04-01T17:13:00.000Z

I haven’t written in a little while probably mostly because the past 2 months have been about the busiest I’ve yet had here in Senegal. To update everyone, the predisential election passed without any trouble or any surprises – the incumbant, Abdoulaye Wade, won pretty easily. My parents also visited for 10 short, fun-filled days. I’ve asked them to write up their experiences here because I thought it would be interesting for people to read some different perspectives, so if you happen to see or talk to my folks, encourage them to type something up so I can post it soon. It was great to be able to show my parents my Senegalese life and the people they met are still talking about their visit and probably will be for the next year. They got to meet most of the people that are a part of my life here in Senegal, and though they didn’t really speak the language, communication was managed. They got to see Dakar and Kaolack (where I live) as well as some of the naturally beautiful places like the mangroves of the Siné-Saloum Delta and the largest colony of Great White Pelicans in the world at Djoudj National Bird Park.

Since they left I’ve spent a few days at the pool, forming relationships with the swimmers and the people that work there that will hopefully lead to a stroke clinic for the national team... eventually. I’ve also been starting the process for the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship that is awarded by SeneGAD to girls of middle school age who do well in school but may be at risk of dropping out of school to help their families or even be sold into early marriage because their families can’t support them to attend school.

I have chosen 5 schools since Kaolack is so large and 6 girls will be chosen to apply from each school. The process involves a short application, an essay about how they see the next 10 years of their lives panning out, an interview and before I choose who I will send on to the final selection committee, I will do some home visits. For the interviez, I ask some questions like “What do you do for fun when you don’t have work to do?” Probably about half of the girls I have posed this question to have a hard time understanding it. After some explanation (sometimes a lot of explanation) the girl usually says she hangs out with her family or with her friends, reads, watches TV or does extra studying. One reason they could be having a hard time with this question though, is that girls between the ages of 8 and whatever age at which they get married, do not have liesure time. My host family is weathly enough to have a maid so Maguette (younger sister) is lucky to not have to do all the work around the house but for families with no maid, the daughters fill that roll. They sweep and make sure breakfast is ready in the morning, during the day they cook lunch and may do the men’s laundry, then in the evening they prepare dinner. A couple of the girls in my girls club have mothers who are disabled and unable to do any of this work, the girls end up doing all this work whenever they’re not at school and I know that because of this strain, their grades have fallen since last year. Another question that these Senegalese students answer much differently than their American counterparts is the one that asks if they could travel to any city in the world, where would they go and why. About 90% of them say they would go to Paris or New York, and about 90% of them say they would go there to work – these are 14, 15, 16 year-old girls.

I’ve actually been having a really difficult time thinking about who I might choose to send on to the selection committee because of the guilt having to tell some of them that they won’t be getting the scholarship. Principals tell me that everyone in their schools could use the scholarship, everyone is in dire need. In the end I’ll just choose the students that fit the criteria best and the rest will get a pat on the back, “Keep up the good work and try again next year.” And I’ll keep my fingers crossed that their families will continue to scrounge up the money to help their daughters go to school.

Election!

2007-02-24T16:52:00.000Z

So unless you live here, know someone who lives here or are unusually attuned to the politics of West Africa, you probably didn't know that there is a presidential election here in Senegal tomorrow. It's not your fault, really, I blame the media. Anyway, while this is probably news to you, the election has been somewhat hard to escape here. So hard to escape that it kept me awake into the wee hours of the night last night, with its loud musical accompaniment. Including the incumbent - Abdoulaye Wade, there are 15 candidates vying to lead this country so it should be interesting. Campaigning here has little in common with what I was used to in the states. There, the endless smearing tactics and ads were tiresome but at least there was rarely a threat of violence. There have already been a couple fights between supporters of the two main candidates - Wade and Idy Seck, the rumor mill says there has been at least one death and one destroyed restaurant - both in Dakar, the capital. From talking to people, it seems like the ex-pat community is nervous that isolated fighting may break out but every Senegalese person I've talked to is certain that there won't be any major problems.

From my exposure to the campaigning here, it really reminds me a lot of the Tri-County Conference Championship Swim Meet. There are a bunch of people caravanning around in long lines of cars and trucks - sometimes carrying huge speakers blasting music, hanging out the windows, cheering for their candidate. After the news every night there would be an update of sorts which really amounted to televising the rallies that each candidate held in the far corners of the country to drum up support. From these reports, the race seems to be a 4 or 5 way tie, but then again, it seems that many people will jump around screaming and cheering for anything and anyone, as long as there is a camera around.

During these rallies, when I can actually make out what the main guy (yes, they're all men, surprise surprise) is saying, I have to wonder what any one person can really do for this country. It seems that anything big that happens or is built here is basically donated by wealthier countries; these days, usually China or some rich, middle-eastern country. Is the job of president just for someone who schmoozes the big guys to try to make Senegal a little more 'developed?' The major problems that this country is seeing now include a major brain-drain of anyone with talent or education going to the US or Europe to get a job and make money; people with the same dream but less talent/education who are risking (and sometimes losing) their lives in small boats in the ocean trying to get Europe; and a fast-growing population that probably won't have enough food to eat in the near future because the farmers aren't able to produce enough. Will a schmoozer be able to fix those problems? What is a more likely outcome is that Senegal will get some of its roads fixed, some grand new buildings built, cell phone towers will go up in remote parts of the country, maybe some improvements will be made to the basic infrastructure, but will this keep people from fleeing or starving? I guess we'll see.

My Soundtrack

2007-01-18T12:41:00.000Z

If there is one thing that I am thankful, everyday, that I brought to Senegal, it is my MP3 player. In the summer before coming here I was pretty certain that I wanted to buy one to sustain me for the 2 years in relative musical estrangement, so I did and I uploaded all of my CDs along with many from friends and family. I truly believe that this small device has, along with giving me joy and endless opportunities to sing in English while dancing around my room or while riding my bike around town, helped me keep my sanity. At times, it’s as if I’ve got my own private soundtrack. I’ve got my play list set to random so sometimes this soundtrack fits perfectly, like yesterday when I was riding through the busy market and the Orchestra Baobab was on, the African beats blended right in with what was going on in front of me. At other times though, the soundtrack doesn’t really fit, but this just makes me laugh. My surroundings don’t really change that much as you can imagine, but when I’m walking through town and a great, twangy bluegrass song comes on, I enter the bizarro bluegrass Kaolack, kind of like the twilight zone. But then at other times, songs that you wouldn’t think fit, end up fitting really well; Blind Boys of Alabama singing about getting to the church on time (in this predominantly Muslim country), or Wilson Pickett rocking out or a blues song that puts that blues grimace on your face when you hear it, you know that face. This has all made for extra entertainment, above and beyond the normal musical entertainment, and for that I am extra thankful for my MP3 player.

The Big Match

2007-01-18T12:23:00.000Z

About a week after Tabaski is when the annual, big traditional wrestling match takes place. This match is heavily advertised, and is aired live from Dakar on RTS, the one television station available to most Senegalese. The past 2 years it has involved the most popular wrestler – Tyson, yes he took his name from Mike Tyson, who I’ve been sure to tell everyone is a big wacko with a tattoo on his face who likes to rip people’s ears off with his teeth. Tyson happens to be from Kaolack so he seems to have a pretty big following ‘round these parts. Last year Tyson lost to the other wrestler but somehow he ended up in this year’s match too, against a guy who calls himself Bombardier.

Leading up to the match, my host mother was more excited than I had ever seen her and everyone was gathering around a tv or radio, where ever they could find one. The match itself was rather short, less than 2 minutes for sure and as far as I could see, the outcome wasn’t determinable from the footage we saw. However, that didn’t stop the entire neighborhood from erupting in joyous cheering and anyone able to run, taking to the streets, cheering, and running who knows where. After the initial outburst they realized that they didn’t know who actually won so there was discussion. This is also very similar to what seemed to be happening at the arena. Both wrestlers thought they had won and when it looked like the ref wasn’t going to award Tyson the victory, he ran through his entourage to his waiting SUV and took off. The ref was actually saying that there was to be an immediate rematch but since Tyson was a big baby and took off, the victory was awarded to Bombardier.

The days following, photographs of the final moments of the bout were circulating the market in Kaolack. Tyson was suspended by the governing body of traditional Senegalese wrestling, to which Tyson responded with the announcement of his retirement, all fueling heated discussion amongst seemingly every single resident of Kaolack for at least a week.

Goats vs. Sheep

2007-01-18T12:22:00.000Z

It’s the time of year where I post photos of (mostly dead and dieing) sheep online and people have already been calling them goats (I’m not sure if this is insulting for them… probably actually more insulting to the goats as I’ll describe). Plus I was watching an episode of the West Wing the other day on which a sheep was featured and they even called it a goat, so I wanted to clear up this sheep/goat mystery. In Senegal there are lots of both animals and truth be told, when I stepped off the plane I couldn’t tell the difference between Senegal’s short-haired sheep and the goats. When a goat is standing next to a sheep you will notice that the goat is quite a bit smaller, and it’s ears and tail are sticking up rather than down like the sheep’s. Sheep’s tails actually really gross me out. When not shortened, they are a little over a foot long but the sheep can only move the top quarter or so, so the rest of it ends up flopping around like a limb that has fallen asleep. The goat’s coat seems coarser and they come in many different colors where the sheep, even though you’ll see the occasional brown or black one, are nearly all white. Sheep have very spindly legs and goats look a little more sturdy, especially the little ones; kids love to frolic and climb and jump where as lambs stumble along looking like they might fall over at any moment (though both are cute). By sound, both can irritate the shit out of you, but goats sound eerily like people screaming. Sheep are loud and annoying but at least you know it’s an animal and not the neighbor kid getting beat up. Intelligence-wise, sheep are the dumbest animals in the barnyard, and even though I’ve had the urge to pick off goats like a sharpshooter because they are soooo irritating, they are relatively clever. So there you go, now you can have fun trying to “name that animal” when looking through my photos.

Here is a little family of goats, happy as can be, eating trash.

And here is a female sheep with her lamb, standing around being stupid.

My trip with the guys

2007-01-18T12:13:00.000Z

On December 12th, 2006 I got on a plane and left Senegal for the first time in over 14 months. My companions on this adventure were fellow PCVs from the Kaolack region; Arun, Paul and Shane and we were headed to sub-tropical West Africa; Togo and Ghana. The country we were leaving had not seen rain in 2.5 months and at least for the part North of the Gambia, was turning into a big sandy wasteland. In addition, on the 11th I had a major meltdown in the post office in Kaolack (something about them refusing to open any of the 15 huge bags of packages, one of which, I was sure, contained the watch I had been waiting on for months), it was time for Becca to take a short break from Senegal.

In true Senegalese style, our Air Senegal plane was running 2 hours late, but once we got on the plane we found a veritable feast of airline food unlike any domestic-travel American has seen in a decade. About 4 hours later we were landing in Lome, Togo with lush, green vegetation and a beautiful shoreline. We didn’t take our time in the airport, paid our 15,000 CFA (about $30) for our visas and got a cab to the garage to get public transport to Kpalime a small town in the mountains. The communication was fine because two of us speak French more than well enough to get around but I had a sense of impotence at having to use the colonial language, knowing how French-speakers are viewed here in Senegal, but alas, I speak no Ewe or Twi.

The couple days we spent in Togo at the beginning of our trip were filled with gawking at the greenness, the changing topography and the beautiful fruits and vegetables that they were able to grow in this sub-tropical climate – all very different from Senegal. We also did a little hiking, learned about some of the local plants, saw a local ‘moonshine’ operation where men were taking the palm wine they harvested from trees, putting it through some process that involved barrels, rubber hoses and fire, and somehow a sort of palm liquor comes out the other end. This is also where we tasted our first fufu, the national dish of Togo, Ghana and possibly other countries in that region. Fufu is made by pounding cassava root or yam until it is paste-like, and then boiling it (I believe). It comes out as this tasteless, spongy blob of white material that really has a consistency unlike anything else I know, maybe kind of like cream of wheat that has been left out a while and is more solid?? Anyway, they put a stew over the fufu and it is eaten with the hand, even in restaurants. After tasting fufu a couple times, I’m somewhat glad that I didn’t have to endure it in a Togolese village for 2 years, though the environment sure would’ve been nice.

We crossed into Ghana on day 3 of our trip. At the last border stop in Togo, they told us that they couldn’t extend our one-week visa and that we would probably have to pay again to get back into Togo to catch our return flight. We weren’t thrilled at this news, but we were really excited to get to Ghana so we brushed it off. We waited at the border for a little while since the dude there told us that a bus was coming through soon. I’m pretty sure we were all imagining this bus being like the oversized, crowded vans that we had taken in Togo and take all around Senegal, especially by the looks of the scrappy little border village. To our surprise after about 45 minutes a brand new-looking full-sized city bus comes rolling down the dirt road. We took a slight detour but that afternoon ended up in Ho. Ho was a lovely little town and a great introduction to Ghana. Relatively clean and the city’s layout and architecture had an organization to it that reminded me of a more developed country. After the initial big differences, it was funny to note the small differences and similarities in the comparison I couldn’t help making between Ghana and Senegal. The gutters were extremely deep, so deep I was kind of afraid for my whole stay that I was going to fall in. The shops, like in Senegal, were obviously named with heavy religious overtones. Unlike Senegal however, these store signs were Christian and in English; God’s Eye Photography, The Lord is My Shepherd General Store, Jesus is King Salon, etc. Because of the relative lack of Muslim influence, drinking of alcohol is MUCH more visible, a freedom that I’d say surely has its ups and downs for the community. It was at the restaurant in Ho that we saw they had cat on the menu. Shane attempted to order it but they said they were out, funny because there were plenty of cats running around under the tables while we were eating.

The following day we headed to Wli Falls, supposedly the highest waterfall in West Africa. After some finagling and writing and signing a disclaimer, we worked our way into camping right at the falls, something that seemed like a great idea at the time. The falls were definitely beautiful and we had fun with our little picnic dinner but we started regretting the decision to set up camp so close to the falls later than night; cold, damp and on the hard ground isn’t exactly the most comfortable way to sleep. The next day we hiked up to the upper falls that we couldn’t even see from where we had camped. Our guide, Alfred, was in his mid-40’s, had a bad knee and was wearing flip-flops, yet he was able to prance right up the near vertical climb that nearly leveled Paul and myself. We had to take several breaks and Paul was certain he was going to throw up (though he never did), but as we got to the top and Alfred adjusted the ace bandage around his knee and lit up a smoke, we saw the upper falls up close and it was well worth the minor discomfort of getting there. The upper falls were very similar to the lower falls with the added thrill of being able to look down the 30-meter plunge of the lower falls from above. We caught our breath, took some pictures and headed back down to the sound of traditional, Ghanaian drumming coming from a celebration going on down at the lower falls.

For those of you that know me it’ll come as no surprise to find out that I took a digger that day. Thankfully I didn’t fall on the way up or down that very steep and very long hike, though I’m sure I stumbled more than once, no it was on relatively flat ground after packing up our things. I had my big pack on so not only did I fall but the weight of the bag kept going until my face was right in the dirt, I managed to roll over, turtle on it’s back style, and of course had to get unharnessed before I could actually stand up. Quite embarrassing and the guys didn’t let me forget it, but it makes for good stories, and a good tear in the knee of my pants.

Our next leg of the trip took us to Lake Volta, a huge lake that was formed when they dammed the Volta River in the 60’s. After waiting overnight since we were too late for the ferry that day we headed to the lake bright and early the next morning. We show up and there are folks washing their cars, people doing laundry and a couple pirogues (think large, wooden canoe), but no ferries. We soon found out that the ferry was busted and we’d have to take a pirogue, which ends up being faster than the ferry, great! 4 hours later we’re still waiting for a pirogue to fill up so we can leave. As soon as we threaten to get out and take a car to Accra, they stop us and say they’re ready to leave. The pirogue ride was pretty nice but when we got to the opposite shore there was one van for all the boats clientele and their luggage. We were crammed in like sardines, tighter than anything I’d experienced in Senegal, we were about to leave and that is when four, not skinny, not exactly pleasant or polite women shove themselves and their luggage into the van. At this point breathing is not the easiest both for lack of space and because deodorant isn’t all too common in this part of the world. This van took us to a small town where we caught a ride in a dude’s car to the ferry landing to cross another part of the lake. Holding on for dear life as the guy drove well above 100 km per hour, we got to the ferry right on time for a sunset ferry cruise. On the far shore we looked for a trotro(the van/bus thing that makes up most the public transport here), got in the middle of a fight between the two trotros that wanted to take us and finally got on our way to the final destination of the day, Kumasi. The road to Kumasi was quite exciting, especially at night with a combination of narrow, dirt roads paved highway. The road leading down from the mountains into the city itself was a steep, switchback road that was quite frightening but also quite beautiful from the top where we could see the lights of Ghana’s second biggest city splayed out before us.

Kumasi is the seat of the Asante Kingdom, a kingdom that spread over much of the region and that was one of the few to have really fought and challenged the colonial powers in the early days of settlement. Kumasi was also unlike anything I had seen on the continent so far. With its beautiful, modern architecture and clean streets it almost looked more European than African. The royal family still lives in Kumasi, in a palace overlooking the city, with peacocks roaming the grounds. I took a tour and learned a lot about Asante history and culture including the sacred stool that is a sign of power throughout the region and the beautiful, woven kente cloth that is traditionally worn, 10 meters at a time, draped, toga style around the wearer.

That afternoon we met up with Peter Pipin, a friend and co-worker of our fellow PCV, Paula, from back in their days at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. He treated us to lunch and wonderful conversation and then we were off. We spent the night at a hotel overlooking a large crater lake and surrounded by tree-covered cliffs, then swung back through Kumasi on our way to Cape Coast. Outside Cape Coast we stayed at a place called Hans Boatel that was surrounded by a pond that is home to several alligators. Kitschy, the restaurant and bar was actually made up of little island-like gazebos on stilts. The guys had a little too much fun that night, involving lots of beer, a swimming pool and some Danish girls, so no one was really aching to do the canopy walk that had been planned for the day. Instead we stopped by one of the many slave castles that dot the Ghanaian coast. Very similar to what I had seen at Isle de Gorée in Senegal, there was a nice museum portion that actually included a display on prominent African-Americans.

Later that day we found ourselves at Big Milly’s, a backpacker’s haven that was by far the best place we stayed. Comfortable with delicious food and the beach right there at very decent prices, we ended up staying two nights to take full advantage of the beach and the hospitality.

The last three stops of the trip were all going to be large, West-African capitals; Accra (Ghana), Lome (Togo) and Dakar (Senegal). Accra is so big that the one night we spent didn’t really allow us to see much of it, but from what we did see it seemed nice. Like Dakar, there were lots of opportunities to eat our money with an upscale restaurant on every corner. Something we hadn’t seen elsewhere though was the entertainment we had. Attached to a Chinese restaurant is an operation where people can rent recent release DVDs, and small but comfortable air-conditioned rooms (with a leather couch and big screen tv) for a couple hours to watch the movie. It was Arun’s b-day so we let him pick out the movie. He decided on ‘Munich’ the new (to us) Spielberg movie. The movie, while not being something I’d pick out on my b-day, was really good and we topped off the night at a nice Indian restaurant for dinner.

On Xmas Eve, after paying another 15.000 CFA for another visa for Togo, we were a little pissed off and back in Lome. We found a quaint hotel with attached restaurant a couple blocks from the beach and dropped our bags in their last non-Senegalese location for a while. We scoped out the beach – ferocious waves, the market – crowded, filthy and more like we were used to back ‘home.’ The market also contained more, delicious-looking produce than I’d ever seen. There was an entire section of the market that was filled with boxes and boxes; some stacked four high, filled with plump, beautiful tomatoes. None of us could imagine how most of them weren’t going to go to waste, there were so many. On my third trip to the beach to challenge myself to some body surfing it was Xmas day and we were able to witness the Togolese Xmas beach picnic. It was really cute to see families gathered together on blankets, eating and having fun, something that is difficult to imagine happening in Senegal. In our last days we treated ourselves to some great food including middle-eastern, French and Shane even ordered antelope (gamey but not too gamey). And on December 26, Boxing Day, we were back to Senegal, but not before buying some gag gifts for the boys and being asked if I was pregnant by some airline employee – thanks!

Senegal welcomed us back with an airport workers strike, helping the process to take twice as long as it should. I picked up the last of my gifts (the best gifts ever according to my host mother) at the airport duty free and it was back to life as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Trash

2006-12-08T09:49:00.000Z

I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact that Senegal is not the most pristine, trash-free places in the world, and that Kaolack is one of the dirtier cities here. Well, I’ve come to terms with all that. The trash in the streets doesn’t even faze me anymore, though I still try not to contribute to it myself. What does faze me is when the trash that I do create gets up and walks around, on display for the whole neighborhood. My host family has a trash bin out front and a trash service that comes often to empty it. About once per month I empty my trash into the bin outside and wait. Within minutes the kids – mostly boys, have picked through it and found the coolest discarded razor or candy wrapper ever! I guess I have to admit that my trash, a lot of it originating in America, is a novelty for them but I almost feel like a patriot act victim having to censor my trash for fear of where it’ll end up. Village volunteers have it even worse because villagers are exposed to less and everything WILL end up in a kid’s mouth; wrappers, batteries, you name it. Because of this most village-based volunteers burn their trash because it’s just easier not to have to worry about it. But maybe I’m making too much of this, maybe trash is the next coolest toy and American kids will even catch on.

Some other volunteers are actually working on a solid waste disposal project at their site, it’s one of the biggest peace corps projects in Senegal right now. Doing research for the project one of them took a trip to Senegal’s largest landfill and came back with some interesting information. Even though there is no official recycling program in Senegal, probably about 98% non-organic solid waste gets recycled. This is possible because people seldom throw away something that can be reused but for the stuff that does get thrown out, there are people that scavenge through the trash at every step to find stuff they could clean up and sell. This includes plastic bottles, old shoes, anything glass… really everything except the organic stuff like food scraps (that also gets picked through by animals) and used batteries. The part that might be hard for westerners to get over is how this is done. People actually live in the landfill and to earn their living, pick through the trash and sell it to be reused. I can’t help but think that this unofficial recycling program works much better than the official ones in place in the US.

Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the Acacia

2006-12-08T08:55:00.000Z

Last week there was a pretty major homecoming in my neighborhood; Taffa, the husband of the young woman who lives next door, Astou Diop, came back from Sudan. Taffa is in the Senegalese military and was serving in Darfur as part of the African Union peace-keeping efforts, he was there for 9 months. Astou and Taffa have two young sons, Ndieye Seck; who was born only a month before Taffa left and Momar who is 3. I haven’t actually taken part in military homecomings in the US but from what I’ve seen on tv they are quite emotional; embracing, tears, sometimes screaming, as I would expect after a long absence of someone you love. Taffa was in one of the more war-torn, presumably dangerous places in the world, he was gone for nine months and the reaction he got from the family when he showed up was nearly indistinguishable from the greeting I get when I get back from a 4 day trip to Dakar. There was no embracing, no tears only smiles and little chanting from the kids, ‘Taffa Sene came back! Taffa Sene came back!’ And that excitement really could’ve been mostly in anticipation of the gifts he had brought back.

It is Senegalese custom to bring a gift for the family when you come back from any trip. This gift could be as little as a piece of fruit or candy for each member of the family. Taffa apparently had lots of fun using the large sum of money the Senegalese government handed him as he got off the plane. As soon as he set foot out of the car he was showering his family (the poorest one in the neighborhood) with gifts. A bike for Momar, baby toys for Ndieye Seck, loads of brand new clothes for the boys, gold jewelry and expensive woven fabric for Astou Diop, a big, thick blanket for his mother-in-law, Umi Dia, and a bunch of new toys for himself. I’ve been helping Taffa’s nephew, Sylla, for the past few months to save his money, CFA by CFA, to teach him how to save up for things he wants and needs to buy. Sylla is doing a great job and has managed to buy some shorts that he had wanted. I sincerely hope that Sylla doesn’t get any ideas from Taffa, at the rate he’s going Taffa will be out of money relatively soon and the family will be struggling to get by once again. There really isn’t much I could do or say to Taffa to help either, being younger than him and female, advice wouldn’t do much coming from me.

Things I haven't done in over a year

2006-11-14T14:03:00.000Z

- Seen friends and family
- Hugged anyone I've known for most my life
- Snuggled with a cat
- Seen snow
- Seen mountains
- Swing danced with a partner :'(
- Left Senegal
- Saved handshakes for formal occasions
- Gone a day only speaking English
- Attended a game brunch :'(
- Driven a car
- Driven a scooter
- Used a dish washer
- Used a washing machine
- Used a vacuum cleaner
- Gotten a professional hair cut
- Spoken with some friends and family
- Ridden in an airplane
- gone a week without eating rice

Eating and drinking section
- good beer
- brats
- Chinese food
- Thai food
- Wisconsin cheese
- deli food
- diner food
- edible corn on the cob
- cheese steak
- mom's banana chocolate chip pancakes
- tofu
- spinach borsht
- fresh berries
- artichokes
- salmon

Dazed and Confused...

2006-11-14T13:42:00.000Z

Before lunch today I spent a good couple hours looking at myspace. I'm in Dakar for the week so the lure of free internet at the office proves to be too much to bare at times. I was glancing at my sisters' pages and then I noticed that my high school had a group there so I did a little searching for classmates. Finding a few it was pretty cool to see how people were doing, especially since I'll likely be missing my 10-year reunion next year. Yes people have real jobs, yes people have gotten married and yes people have kids (yikes!!). Anyway, this whole thing reminded me of this phenomenon that my friends and I experience after the slightest exposure to the world we used to live in. After the myspace surfing, remembering the good ole days at MHS, I stumbled out into the crowded, hot, filthy streets of Dakar for some lunch of rice and meat, and experienced a minor culture shock attack. This happens just about any time I use the internet, watch satellite tv or just about anything else that is able to transport my mind back to the simpler time in my life. The physical change of going from a room that is usually a little dark, quiet and cooler thanks to fans (or if you're lucky AC) to the bright, loud, blazing hot Senegalese street - paired with the mental adaptation that has to occur can sometimes throw off even the best acclimated ex-pats.

Absentee Voting

2006-11-13T13:59:00.000Z

Last week, just like millions of other Americans, I voted. Now voting, no matter how exciting or maddening the elections or results may be, is kind of a mundane process. Mine differed some from the typical so I thought I'd share it.

Back in August I contacted the Town of Middleton (referred to as ToM from here on out) by email to request an application for an absentee ballot, being sure to leave plenty of time before elections. I downloaded and filled out the application, following the instructions very carefully, because I know one little slip could very well negated the entire application. I mailed the request in and began to wait. Next thing I know Mid-October is rolling around and I haven't heard a thing from ToM. I am allowed to mail the ballot itself in as long as it is postmarked on or before the date of the election, because the State of Wisconsin lumps Peace Corps together with Military (exactly what no one in Peace Corps wants) so I wasn't quite freaking out yet. I decided to send another email to inquire. I get an email back saying that I did something wrong on my request and that a letter of explanation and another absentee ballot request form had been mailed to me over a month ago. Now, why someone would go to the trouble to mail something to me that could've much more easily been emailed and downloaded, I am not sure, especially when it was mailed to a developing country with a postal system that is iffy at best. So I start racing to download another request and reading through the directions again to figure out what I did wrong. According to the instructions, I did nothing wrong. I write this back to ToM and they say that they have, against their better judgment, put a ballot in the mail for me, with two weeks to go till the election. The next day I went to the post and found the envelope in my boite postale from ToM. It had taken over a month to get to me, which is not uncommon here, usually stuff gets to Dakar in a timely manner but then takes quite a while to get from Dakar to the smaller cities and towns. However, after examining a little closer I found out exactly why it had taken so long, ToM had put a 39 cent stamp on a letter to go over seas. It really shouldn't have gotten here at all and was probably put on a barge to get here.

So I sat and waited for my ballot to show up, thinking it may very well take over a month like the first thing, especially if they put another 39 cent stamp on it. In true Senegal fashion, thought, the ballot showed up in my box on Tuesday. So I wormed my way into using the internet at the Post to check out the candidates. After I finished voting I filled out the envelope, which has my name and address where the recipient's info typically goes on an envelope and took it to the window to get it stamped. Every time I have to wait in line, almost anywhere, this is what happens; I get in line, where the apparent end is, as soon as the person at the front is done, at least two people race to see who can get their letter to the dude first, often someone will walk into the room and right up to the front of the line, cutting in front of everyone. This is something that, even though I still don't understand the process, I have learned to be patient about. After a very loud tantrum I threw in the bank I realized that it's better to just be patient.

Anyway, once I get to the front of the line, after a young guy and and older lady cut right in front of me, the dude tells me that the layout of the envelope is going to confuse the mail carriers in Senegal and it won't get where it needs to go. So I go buy another envelope, take the inner one to get stamped with the date just in case and get back in line, only to be cut in front of twice more while waiting for the stamp guy. Finally the process is finished as I seal the outer envelope and drop it into the box. Whole process that day took about 3 hours.

All that work and Wisconsin still managed to make sure that outright discrimination is a part of our State constitution. Really kind of maddening, but as they say here, 'patientez' - be patient, they'll come around.

Alhamdoulilah!!!

2006-11-01T13:29:00.000Z

I have witnessed a miracle. My camera was clinically dead for a couple weeks, the light would go on when I attempted to charge it but it wouldn't turn on at anytime. I returned home last Sunday to make a last ditch attempt to revive it, thanks to some info from my mom. I picked it up, hit the power button, and.... tah dah! We had power!! I think it knew I was threatening it with burrial in the disgusting trash pits on the outskirts of town and it decided to shape up, but who knows, it could've been Yallah.

RIP Sony Handishot

2006-10-27T11:39:00.000Z

Well, I've got some bad news. You know those photos that I've been posting on my photo site? The ones that give you some more insite into life here? 1 Picture's worth 1000 words, yada yada. Well, unless there is some miracle of technology about to occur right here in Kaolack, there will be no more. That's right, Senegal has dealt a final blow to my digital camera and murdered it. It was a long fight with the sandy winds and the extremely humid rainy season, my poor little camera was no match for the harsh conditions of the Sahel region of Africa. The funeral will be this Sunday at the trash heap in Kaloack. Now you may be asking which trash heap, there are so many in Kaolack...it'll be the trash heap off the road to Diorbel. Please bring your kind words and fond memories of an electronic life that was cut tragically short.

Thank you.

It's begining to feel a lot like...

2006-10-27T11:30:00.000Z

The last time I spoke with my parents they told me that it had snowed in Wisconsin already. Last year I almost burst into tears when I heard about or saw photos of snow, this year is better. But the most exciting news is that I actually had to use my thin fleece blanket along with a sheet to sleep last night. Granted, both my windows were open but it was the best sleeping weather we've had in months and its a sign that 'the cool season' is on its way. By cool season I mean that it probably gets down 70° at the coolest at night and still gets up in the mid 90s during the day, but believe me, it is a refreshing break.

Enjoy your snow and I'll enjoy my thin-blood 'cool' weather.

Ramadan #2

2006-10-22T17:29:00.000Z

Today is the last day of my second Ramadan in Senegal. Last year I only fasted during Yom Kippur but this time around I got about 6 days in besides Yom Kippur. The idea behind Ramadan if I’m not mistaken is to atone for sins, be extra giving to those who are in need and to experience life as it is for those people who are truly in need. This is done through fasting during daylight hours for 30 days. Since Ramadan is a month in the Muslim calendar (a lunar calendar), it rotates throughout the year. This means that Ramadan is about 10 days earlier each year. This year it has fallen during both the harvest and the most miserable (hot and humid) month of the year. Villagers are fasting while they do the hardest work of the year at the hottest time of the year and I can’t help but think that these are the people most other Muslims think of when they give up food and water for the month to live closer to poverty. I can almost here the explanation that a Muslim-American mother might give her son for the sacrifices they make – “Just think about the Muslims in Africa who don’t have enough food to eat.” Yet, those Africans who don’t have enough money to eat much besides a bit of plain rice normally, are themselves sacrificing. Who do they think about when they try to make their lives closer to poverty for the month? And if they don’t really see themselves normally as impoverished, who really are the poor? From the villages I have been to I would say that the people are aware of their lack of material possessions and money, but they tend to have enough to get by and more importantly, everyone has family and that is what is really important. I haven’t asked anyone, but I would guess that the villagers imagine someone with no family, an orphan, when they think about the truly poor.

AFN

2006-10-22T17:21:00.000Z

I should probably think twice before publishing this on the internet but it was one of those eye-opening experiences that I just have to share. I was recently somewhere where I saw for the first time AFN, Armed Forces Network. I guess this is the satellite tv that all overseas employees of the US government get. We were just watching some good ole American football, but what came during the commercial breaks made me shiver. Each ‘commercial’ was full of propaganda and paranoia and was obviously meant more for military than anyone else. The one that stuck in my mind was the friendly reminder of Article 88, that states that it is illegal for members of the military to speak ill of the president, vice-president or any member of the senate or congress. In my position, I’m not allowed to stage any sort of governmental rally but my everyday freedom of speech is left intact. For military though, where does the freedom of speech leave off and Article 88 take over?

Article 88
“Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

High Holy Days in a Muslim Country

2006-10-11T15:27:00.000Z

Hey everyone,
The holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Ramadan have either recently happened or are still going on. For Rosh Hashanah I set up a little ceremony with my host family and friends complete with challah, apples and honey. For Yom Kippur I went to Tambacounda to celebrate with other Jewih PCVs, I wrote an article about it for the Peace Corps Senegal newsletter, it's pasted below. For Ramadan I was under the weather when it started but I am in my second day of fasting out of solidarity, the thirst is definitely the hardest part. I'll post more on Ramadan here soon. Cheers, Becca

New Jewish Traditions in a Muslim Country
By Becca Schwartz

The Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were recently celebrated in homes and synagogues across the diaspora. Though its not quite as easy, as there aren’t any synagogues in the country and chances are the only torah in Senegal belongs to the folks at the Israeli Embassy, with a little creativity and initiative, Jewish PCVs are able to observe holidays here in Senegal. A short time ago, with the help of a couple prayer books, a few trips to the cyber café and the coming together of several families’ traditions, Jewish PCVs gathered for Yom Kippur in Tambacounda.

Yom Kippur is the holiday where Jews attone for sins they have comitted in the past year, it is a time of repentance, forgiveness and fasting, similar to the Muslim hoilday of Ramadan. By chance, the Holy months of Ramadan and Tishrei (the Jewish month in which Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur fall) intersected this year. This overlap happens three years in a row, every 30 years so Jewish PCVs currently serving in Muslim countries have an opportunity for a special cultural exchange and interesting discussion.

Yom Kippur in the Tamba house turned out to be an interesting mix of joyful and solemn. Solemn because of the gravity of the holiday, thinking about what we had done wrong in the past year, promises we had broken and people we had hurt. It was a joyful time because of the community within the greater PCV community that was being formed. We were coming together to celebrate our common faith, culture and heritage. When we weren’t fasting we found joy in eating delicious, traditional Jewish foods. There is also a joyful optimism found in planning to be a better person in the coming year.

In Judaism, discussion about how the ancient prayers, traditions and laws pertain to our modern lives is important. We talked about the act of apologizing to someone we had wronged, forgiveness, the recent Israel-Lebanon war as well as the volatile relationship Muslims and Jews have had. As the sun dropped slowly toward the horizon, we took time to remember those lives that had been lost in the past year.

As the 26 hours of fasting came to an end, we decided to take our celebration onto the roof so we could see the first three stars in the evening’s sky that mark the end of our fast. One last opportunity was taken to atone for the sins we had committed against our communities, the earth, ourselves and God, before the fast was broken. During the meal of matzoh ball soup, latkes(potato pancakes), stir-fried okra and challah(braided bread) that followed, there was a real sense of closeness, of community and that wonderful feeling that maybe we had started a new tradition for future PCVs in Senegal.

My week of swimming in Dakar

2006-09-26T15:26:00.000Z

Last week I was in Dakar, as you may have noticed from the photos. I was there for my secondary project - working with the Piscine Olympique and the Senegalese National Swim Team. For the first time ever, the African Swimming Championships took place in a West African country and Dakar played host to some of the best swimmers on the continent. The annual Dakar-Gorée, 5km swim was included at the end of the Championships as the final event, in which I was a participant.

I started the week with the informational meeting for all delegations. The meeting was bilingual - French and English and when the translator wasn’t getting confused - translating English to English and French to French, it went pretty smoothly. The most interesting part was when the head of the Ivorian delegation launched into a 10 minute speech he had apparently prepared for the occasion - he seemed like an eccentric type. For those of you who are counting, there were 17 countries from all over the continent represented - Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Madagascar, Seychelles and Mauritius.

The next day, Monday, September 11th, the meet started. It was amazing to be around competitive swimming again! Warm-ups, heats, touch pads, it’s all wonderful. I was unsure what I would be doing to help until it was determined that the Senegalese woman who was to be the English announcer had not yet arrived and the meet was about to start. I jumped in and was doing ok, with the couple swim meets I’ve been to in my lifetime and taking directions from the meet director. The meet director was a man from Kenya, it probably helped me out that he was from an English-speaking country and didn’t speak any French, I ended up doing a lot of translation throughout the week as well. The announcing was going fairly well until I got to the name of a girl from Madagascar - the Malagasy are apparently notorious for long names. Tojohani Andrianmanjatoarimanana is her name, and no I’m not kidding. The first time her name came up, I have to admit that I panicked and only read her first name, but after a couple times, I figured that saying half of her last name is acceptable and became more comfortable with it.

During this first session, the meet director learned first hand how things are done here in Senegal, which is apparently different from how things run in Kenya. If you haven’t gotten the idea from my previous emails, things here run inefficiently, chronically late and that’s if they’re running at all. The microphones worked about half the time, the music for between heats was not played at the right time and was always the same, kinda bizarre song, and the all too common, too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen syndrome that seems to take over at many events here. The meet director was not impressed. On more than one occasion I heard him say "What is wrong with these people!?"

After announcing the first session I was told by a number of people that I needed to slow down so I made a mental note and tried to work on that later on. Then the head of the Angolan delegation came up to me and in addition to asking me to slow down, asked if there was anything I could do about my accent. Hmmm. I do a great imitation of my little sister, I may be able to pull off that thick upper mid-west accent, or even a couple words in the Philly accent but I doubt any of those would be MORE understandable to someone who speaks Portuguese. I told her I would slow down and that I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do with my accent.
For the evening session, the Senegalese announcer was sure to show up on time so my new job was to hunt down the top finishers in each event, make sure they’re dressed in their team warm-ups and ready for awards. Well I guess the new announcer’s skills were not up to par because the meet director told me about half way through the session that I would be announcing the rest of the meet. The (Senegalese) French announcer was also replaced by a member of the Moroccan delegation, so we were sort of a team…a team that communicates in broken French and broken English that is.

Over the course of the week I got better, more enthusiastic, with my announcing, and every evening the Senegalese crowd did a great job supporting their swimmers. The most success by the Senegalese team was had by the star of their team - Malick Fall, who took Silver in the 100 Breaststroke and Bronze in the 50 Breaststroke. By the last day, the stands were more full than they had been all week and there was an authentic Senegalese drumming group in the stands. They played during warm-ups and even during the races, it really felt like the *African* Swimming Championships. South Africa ended up taking home the most medals, with Algeria and Tunisia rounding out the top three, Senegal finished 9th.

All week I also got to see the inner workings of swimming in Africa and a different side of Senegal swimming. CANA - Confédération Africain de Natation, is the governing body of African Swimming and the group that put on the meet. I met and got to know people who are a part of CANA and people in many delegations, including the President of FINA (Fédération International de Natation - the governing body of World Swimming) who happens to be Algerian. I was even invited to come announce at the next African Championships that will be held in 2 years in Cairo.

Thanks to the short sessions, I was able to get into the pool every day to do a little training for the event that would finish up the week, the Dakar-Gorée 5km ocean swim. My chances of placing well were diminished by the fact that many of the swimmers who participated in the Championships swam the open water race as well, as it was officially part of the meet (promoted heavily because Open Water is now an Olympic event that FINA would like to become ‘the Marathon of swimming’). The race started on a beach near a nice hotel east of downtown Dakar. When I got there, about an hour ahead of start time, I was greeted by 8 wonderful, supportive volunteers who helped me prepare for the race. The start was chaotic as with any open water start but I did worm my way into starting with the Championships swimmers and not with the rest of the riffraff (the hundreds of other people who signed up, including Peace Corps’ Doctor for the West Africa Region and the American Ambassador to Senegal). This seemed like a nice advantage until 15 seconds into the swim, we looked back and saw the riffraff coming right at us - they were supposed to wait 5 minutes or so. The swim itself went pretty smoothly, I hung with some swimmers from Zimbabwe for a while but was able to pull away about half way through. The most difficult thing was keeping track of where I was going because the buoys were not always visible with waves and whatnot. I had a little excitement when I swam into a plastic bag stew about 1km off shore and then again near the finish when I swam into a dead puffer fish and cut my finger - I actually screamed under water (out of surprise) when that happened. That’s when I sped up a little as I couldn’t remember if those things were poisonous so I thought I’d better hurry if my heart was going to stop in a matter of minutes - thankfully it didn’t. The finish was exciting, there were a whole bunch of cheering people (13 for me!), an inflatable archway, people handing out warm water and ice-cold Red Bull (one of the sponsors) to drink and some sort of sandwich I gave to the first kid that asked me for it. I finished 27th (around 10th for women) with a time of 1 hour and 25 minutes, ok for not really knowing where I was going most of the time. I hung out with friends and relaxed on the Island for the rest of the afternoon as a reward.

Aside from swimming, the week included staying and eating meals with the Peace Corps Country Director and his family. This isn’t really normal for volunteers but they live in the same neighborhood as the pool, and boy am I glad they do! A large, beautiful home complete with air-conditioning, a nice, fast computer, a western-style kitchen, I’m telling you, it was better than a hotel! Even though I have found that I now get stuffed up when I’m near air-conditioning, it was almost worth it to walk into a cool room after a hot day on the pool deck.
The food was delicious and on my birthday they treated me to steak quesadillas, refried beans and chocolate birthday cake.

All in all an unforgettable week.

Senegalese Birthday Bash

2006-09-26T15:08:00.000Z

About a month ago I decided that I would throw myself an American-style birthday party at my host family’s compound. Since tacos are becoming more American by the minute and since tacos are doable when your kitchen is a gas tank, I chose them for the menu. Thanks to my parents and the postal services of the US and Senegal, I was also able to serve some Duncan Heinz cake, complete with frosting and candles.

My friend Connor helped me with the preparations and decided that he would refry some beans to make the meal even more authentic. I even bought cheese, many of the people who attended had never eaten cheese before, and my host mother was shocked at how much I paid for it. We got my host fam to help out with cutting up the veggies but with minutes to go in the food prep, the rain started. We moved indoors and it turned from the fiesta I had planned into some sort of strange half-breed when Senegalese fete forces took over. I wanted everyone to serve themselves – mostly because I knew not many would want all the veggies on their taco, but the women went into serve mode and started making tacos for everyone. They were enjoyed for the most part, I heard lots of “Neex na’s” – it’s delicious, but what everyone really liked was the cake.

After cake, several totally unexpected presents appeared. I really should’ve said no presents but I guess I didn’t think I had to. After the photographer showed up, each person took turns handing me their present and posing for photos – I now have each photo in an album to prove it. On a side-note the photography here tends to have sort of a strange tint to it so that dark skin looks less dark. Because of this, my skin, which is quite tan for me, looks like I just finished a nice Wisconsin winter. I’m sure if I really wasn’t tan I’d look sheet white in the photos. I didn’t open the presents right away, as I learned from Maguette’s birthday party. Since the rain had now stopped, that was a good time for the American music that I had planned for the kids to dance to. I played my totally random mix that included Dixie Chicks, U2, Thievery Corporation, etc. The kids started out enthusiastic enough but were soon asking for Senegalese music. This is when I put to use my new-found talent of Senegalese-style refusing, or ‘ma buñ!’ Senegalese toddlers get a lot of use out of this one and along with saying ‘ma buñ!’ there is this sort of half chicken wing flap(just the down motion) that one does with one’s arm or arms. Along with that I said, “this is my birthday, I refuse to play Senegalese music!” Though in the end I gave in and played a little.

My presents ended up including fabric – a great gift since clothes are so fun to have made here, pop corn (they call it puff corn here), two second-hand t-shirts – one that used to be my host-bro’s and another XL with a big picture of a deer on it from some place in Tennessee, and three second-hand stuffed animals. So I’m actually still trying to understand the stuffed animals. I turned 27. Here I guess birthday parties are something that only kids do, and also my host dad told me he was trying to find a cat since he won’t allow me to have an actual cat, he gave me a small stuffed tiger.

Even with the rain, this ended up being one of the best and I’m sure it’ll remain one of my most memorable birthdays.

The Joy of going to the Tailor

2006-09-06T14:25:00.001Z

Before coming to Senegal, I had never know the joy of having clothes made, compared to this buying off the rack is so boring I don't know why I ever did it. Usually how it goes down here is that you go to the market and pick out some awesomely gaudy and colorful fabric called wax. Wax comes in designs that include lil baby chicks with hens, the Yankees symbol, the Pope, pretty much anything. After you have your fabric you go to the tailor, you can choose from hundreds at the market or sometimes a friend of yours is an aspiring tailor - don't go to the friend unless you want to hand over cash for something that doesn't fit, looks terrible and everyone will laugh at you for wearing. After finding a tailor you give them the fabric, tell them what you want and come back the next day to collect your boubou/have any adjustments made.

If you find a real gem of a tailor he will be able to make western style clothes as well, usually by copying or looking at a photo is best. A voluteer recently had the great idea to bring catalogues back from the states so I was able to have some J Crew stuff made here for about one 50th the price. Pants and a dress set me back about $15 total. The days between dropping off the fabric and the catalogue, I was positively giddy, waiting impatiently for what I was sure was going to be the perfect dress and pants. I went back the next day, and as I should've expected, the pants fit ok, and the dress needed to be altered. In the end nothing fit as perfectly as I'd hoped but it was still fun.

New photos

2006-08-22T17:32:00.000Z

New photos have been posted at my photo site:

www.lespritdebecca.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Current Events

2006-08-17T13:52:00.000Z

The main news on my shortwave radio for the past month has been the Israel-Lebanon situation. The news on the Wolof and French radio stations in Kaolack is much the same so the folks here, at least the ones with radios, are well aware of what is going on there. In fact I got into two discussions on the topic today. One man at the post office started off by saying that Israel is evil and that George W. Bush and his co-workers are terrorists. I couldn’t let that go without saying something so we had a nice long conversation. The second two men that I got caught up in conversation with were more sympathetic to both Israel and the U.S. from the beginning. Both conversations were very interesting and from them I can say that there are 3 major factors influencing the Senegalese view on the situation in the Middle East. First and foremost is their love of peace, second is the loyalty and brotherhood many here feel toward Arabs and other Muslims and the third I would have to say is probably the French news service where much of the news here is likely coming from.

Mourning

2006-08-17T13:50:00.000Z

The words for niece, nephew, aunt, uncle and cousin aren’t used as often in Wolof as they are in English. This is because nieces and nephews are often referred to as one’s own children, aunts and uncles are referred to as parents and the word for cousins in Wolof really is the same word as for siblings.

On Monday, my host mother’s niece, or daughter, died, probably of Malaria, at the age of 24. My mom had spent the days before that at the hospital starting very early in the morning to support her niece and her family. After she passed away it was obvious that my host-family was very sad, though I didn’t see anyone cry except my grandma.

Tuesday was the funeral so in the afternoon I went along with my host sister, neighbors and friends to pay our respects. Everyone was dressed in colorful outfits like most gatherings, except this time all the women brought an extra shawl to cover their heads, shoulders and their faces if they found the tears to difficult to fight off. When we arrived, people were eating lunch and sitting around the compound talking in hushed tones. I was brought into a room where I found several women including my aunt and my dad’s second wife. When everyone finished eating they washed up and took turns praying. When the prayers were finished we sat quietly, silently for well over an hour. During this time I was fighting back the urge to stand up at yell about how preventable this terribly early death was. So many people here (including my host family and neighbors) have mosquito nets but don’t always use them because they find it hard to sleep with them. During the rainy season - now - especially, the mosquitoes are so thick in the air at night, people are certainly getting bit by those malaria-carrying mosquitoes that are mainly active between 10pm and 2am.

In the middle of this silence a man came into the courtyard, maybe an Imam, Marabout (Islamic religious leaders) or a griot (the traditional public speaker), I’m not sure because I couldn’t see him. The man started yelling and chanting and with this the weeping and wailing started. It was like a wave coming over everyone, starting outside, women started crying and screaming, some were weeping so uncontrollably they were carried into the room adjoining the one I was in, to calm down. The women in the room with me started to cry, covering their faces with their shawls so no one could see. After several minutes, the man stopped talking and we were left in relative silence again for another long while, soft weeping and sniffles the only sounds in the entire compound - filled with well over 100 people.

At some point, I’m not sure what cued it, people started to chatter quietly again. At this point many of us left but my mom and her family stayed and has spent their days there for the past several days, probably cooking for and caring for their sister who has lost her daughter.
In the past couple days I have been noticing many of the people around me coughing and having general cold symptoms. Today my neighbor, Umi, was feeling too sick to prepare lunch for her grandchildren, or roast peanuts to sell like she normally does. The season for Malaria has now started and I can only hope that people might listen to me when I talk about mosquito nets and it won’t take anyone else close to me and my family.

My Week in Dakar

2006-08-17T13:48:00.000Z

Last week I was working on projects in Dakar, working at an English language summer camp in the mornings and spending my afternoons at the Olympic Pool. Normally, after running around like that for a week I would need some major recuperation time and I’d probably be nursing a cold but this time I felt great afterwards because both projects turned out to be so rewarding.

The summer camp is put on through the US Embassy and takes about 100 of the top high school (or lycée) students in Dakar who are learning English in school. Our week of summer camp was actually a small part of 2 summers worth of English summer school for these kids that culminated in a visit to Suffolk University (the Dakar branch of the University in Boston) and a closing ceremony. During the week we got to do all sorts of activities with the kids including Ultimate Frisbee, learning about American music and analysis of rap songs, a spelling bee (had I been competing, they would’ve kicked my ass), comedy sportz games, and lots of discussions. One of the discussion topics included immigration and how Senegal and the US are on opposite ends of the immigration struggle with many Senegalese risking everything, including their lives to get to Europe to find work. It was so refreshing being around these students who were really curious about life in the US and really wanted to learn and practice their English skills. I am certain that some of them will end up in University in the US in the future and also as leaders here in Senegal.

As for the second part of my days in Dakar, I recently made contact with coaching staff at the Piscine Olympique in Dakar and let them know I was interested in working with them. The man I met with said they’d like to work with me but he really showed enthusiasm when he saw me swim. He actually asked me to join his club team that he coaches - even though I live 3 hours away. When I showed up on Saturday there was a swim meet going on so I decided to join in and see what I could do on little to no training. Turns out that got me a 2nd place in my former best event 200 freestyle, got beat on the last 50 too. During the week I got to start to learn the ins and outs of how national team trains, got to meet one of 2 swimmers that swam for Senegal in the Athens Olympics, and got an idea of how I might be able to help - technique and training strategy. Since I really never could turn down swimming in an outdoor 50m pool I did get in about 10km during the week and it felt great. I can’t even describe how great it is to be around swimming again, it makes me feel much more at home and in my element.

My next trip to Dakar will be entirely for swimming, the African Swimming Championships are being held at the piscine olympique Sept 11 - 17 where I will be helping out where I can, that might be translating for the South Africans, Nigerians and other English-speaking countries, or it might be helping with meet logistics or with the Senegalese team. The week will end in the annual Dakar-Goree 5km ocean swim which I am planning on doing if I can get over that gross taste of salt water.

See my other photos at www.lespritdebecca.shutterfly.com

Airplanes

2006-08-12T09:32:00.000Z

So I've been staying in Dakar for the week, working with a great bunch of kids at an English summer camp and also splitting my time with the Olympic Pool and the Senegalese National Team. During this time I've spent quite a bit of time under the flight path of planes coming to and leaving Dakar. So thanks to my proximity to the airport I've been thinking about flight a little bit. Not that I'm going to leave, or even want to, but after nearly a year here, seeing people coming and going gives me a strange feeling. On one hand, seeing those planes reminds me that I CAN go home if the need arises, on the other hand it reminds me that I'm not going home, and won't be any time soon.

reatexample

2006-08-03T12:00:00.000Z

Sinceit'llannoypeopletoreadI'llmakeitfast.Nowisawonderfulexampleofa
computerSNAFUtypicalinSen.Noitisn'tanewwaytotypeincode,keyboard
justsucks.AsyoucantellIcan'ttypespacesonkeyboard.Letterstatcome
betweenF&Iinalpabetalsodon'tworksoI'vetriedtoavoiduse.
Prettycoolquoi?

trust
all
is
well,
Becca

Real Life Talk Show Episode

2006-07-21T18:57:00.000Z

I remember seeing an episode of the Maury Povich show a couple years ago, I think the title of the show was something like "I am deathly affraid of balloons and its ruining my life!" On the show Maury brought out these people who were affraid of balloons, snakes, spiders, clowns, hair and kittens, talked to them about their phobia, brought out whatever it was that they were affraid of and then chased after them with the camera and a microphone as they ran all over the studio to get away from what ever it was. I remember thinking, "ok, spiders, snakes, even clowns I can see, but they must have hired these people that say they're affraid of balloons, hair and kittens." Well, as for the kittens, I stand corrected. The other day I saw the smallest, cutest little kitten walking in the road crying, no mother cat in sight. I didn't want the cute little guy to become street pizza plus I have a couple friends who had mentioned they wanted a cat to keep mice, lizards and scorpions (a whole other story) out of their huts, so I picked her up and brought her home. This kitten is adorable, small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, but on her way back to my house we were able to make grown men and women run for their lives. All I had to do was hold her and bring her within 5 meters of one man and he started yelling, turned and fled. The little kids aren't any better, they start screaming and crying, one little girl nearly fell on her head trying to escape the beast. They are affraid that the cat will bite and scratch them, or at least thats what they say. I have to confess that she does bite me quite regularly when she mistakes my finger for something she can nurse, but it doesn't hurt. Now I'm starting to wonder if more stuff isn't the real thing on 'Springer' as well.

Respecting elders part 2

2006-07-16T20:18:00.000Z

There is a second part to this respecting elders tradition that is definitely much different from the family I grew up in. The hierarchy of the nuclear family and the behavior that results is something that might be found unusual to most outsiders.

I have two younger sisters, and here in Senegal, that would give me quite a bit of influence over them in that if I told them to do something, answer the phone, get me a drink of water, run to the store to get me something, they would have to do it, ideally without complaint. What actually happens with my sisters? If they are feeling kind, they’ll do it upon request, if they’re feeling somewhat kind they’ll begrudgingly do it, complaining a little, and if its an average day, they’ll tell me to get it myself.

My youngest host-sister, Maguette, is always fetching things for people, she has 4 older siblings, 2 parents and 1 grandparent that are always requesting stuff. She’s getting into her teenage years so her fetching is not always unaccompanied by bickering. So the higher up on the food chain you are, the less you have to do for yourself. Its still a little confusing with the gender differences because the oldest in the family is my host-sister Fatim and she does quite a bit of house work when she’s visiting from University in Dakar.

If anything is certain, it is that my host-dad is king of his castle, though he technically has to obey his mother. When he is home, he doesn’t lift a finger. My host-brothers open the gate for his car, set out his chair and the tv for him to watch the news and the thing that surprises me every time is that he will walk right past the phone when its ringing so that someone lower on the food chain will answer it. My host-mom serves him his dinner first out of everyone and if there is anything lacking in his service he will proceed to berate whoever is at fault. This berating, people tell me, is the Senegalese way of encouraging but that doesn’t stop me from feeling uncomfortable when he asks be if there is a medication to cure stupidity in the U.S.

Also, I managed to find a picture of my host grandma so you can see her, it's a little fuzzy but you get the idea. This is Mariemme Welle, and this is actually what she does for much of the day. More recently she's been taking walks, very slowly to go visit her friends.

Respect for Elders

2006-07-11T11:18:00.000Z

I wouldn’t say that I don’t have respect for elders. I will acknowledge right now that my grandparents have lived a lot longer than I have, have seen a lot more things, have lots more rich experiences and know a lot of things I don’t. I also love joking around with my grandparents, they love it when my sisters and I push the limits with our humor at the dinner table, but if they are wrong about something I’m going to let them know it.

Here, it just doesn’t happen like that. Elders are respected, you are not to talk back, debate or tell someone older than you that they are anything but perfect and right. I knew this but I got a little sloppy the other day and it came back to me. I have gotten in the habit of telling people they are rude. This is almost always in response to being called Tubab, Xonq a nop (red ears – a derogatory term for white person), or to someone who has told me that I don’t understand Wolof or French or any language for that matter (the Senegalese way of encouraging you).

At lunch the other day, my friend Sarah was over, Sarah studied in Dakar for a semester during college and therefore was way ahead the rest of our group when it came to Wolof. At lunch my host-grandma, who had been acting uncharacteristically obnoxious for a few days(I think because she had a guest), was speaking to Sarah and lapsed into Pulaar, her first language. When Sarah showed she didn’t understand host grandma says ‘Deggul Wolof, deggul Pulaar, deggul dara.’ Translated, ‘She doesn’t understand Wolof, she doesn’t understand Pulaar, she doesn’t understand anything.’ To which I respond, ‘Dem na université ci Dakar, degg na Wolof, yow, danga reew.’ Translated ‘She went to university in Dakar, she understands Wolof, and you, you’re rude.’ Nothing was said at the time but I heard later from my brother Guelaye that it’s not acceptable to talk to her like that.

This got me thinking. Could this cultural norm be standing in the way of development here? Of course it isn’t a huge factor, but if an elder tells you to do something a certain way, or not to do something, you must obey orders. How many elders are going to be telling young girls that they should join the football team or study instead of washing the clothes and preparing meals, how many elders are going to tell young boys to go study or read instead of helping in the fields. Since it seems to be pretty universal that older folks are more conservative than youth, I don’t think we are going to be seeing many grandparents encouraging kids to go above and beyond for education or encouraging girls to do things that aren’t within their traditional gender roles. I see more of an ‘I did it this way when I was your age, it’s good enough for you,’ mentality than anything else.

When I think about any sort of social advance or social revolution made in developed countries in the past couple hundred years, there was always some sort of disobedience involved, people saying ‘NO!’ to their elders and to the way their elders did things. I’m not saying it can’t happen here, but development will just be more difficult and slower with people adhering so strictly to the ‘Respect your elders’ norm.

Then and Now Part 2

2006-07-09T12:24:00.000Z

Because the first installment was such a hit here are some more changes I've noticed in myself since I moved to Senegal;

Then: Contacts pretty much every day
Now: Glasses pretty much every day because of dryness, sand, etc.

Then: Jewish community was large part of my life, working at Maccabi USA, Camp Shalom and active with the Hillel.
Now: I pretty much AM the Jewish community here. There are a few Jewish volunteers in country but we don’t do much together.

Then: Would relish listening to or watching BBC news whenever I got the chance.
Now: BBC is my main source of news, listening to it every morning and sometimes more often. The only English programming I’ve found on the old short-wave radio are BBC, Voice of America (no thanks!), and a crap-load of Christian programs that are homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and overall, not very pleasant to listen to.

Then: My life and surroundings were quite secular. I felt this way even though it seems like the separation of church and state is often in danger in today’s US.
Now: My life continues to be secular though my surroundings are anything but. Here, though it’s not an Islamic Republic like Mauritania, our neighbor to the north, 95% of the people I know here Muslim. People grow up praying 5 times per day, and just accepting Islam as their default, without question, so that is the way they live their lives.

Then: Washed and dried my clothes by machine
Now: My clothes are washed, by hand, by my family’s maid and I wash my unmentionables myself by hand, everything is dried on a line. I usually buy Marie (the maid) a little gift when she does my laundry. In the beginning washing clothes would leave my hands with sores from the rubbing but my hands are getting tougher now. This washing involves two basins of water and a bar of soap. One basin is used for washing and one for rinsing.

(Related)
Then: My socks got relatively clean, i.e. the white ones stayed more or less white.
Now: I can’t, for the life of me, get the stains from the dirt, some of it a pretty red color, out of my socks.

Then: Had a boyfriend, for quite a while actually
Now: Single, though I get marriage proposals daily

Then: Didn’t really get mistaken for anything, anyone I wasn’t
Now: Get mistaken for French, Arab, Chinese, sometimes they guess my nationality right.

Then: American pop, heavy metal, much of rap and country music I really preferred not to listen to.
Now: Get excited every time I hear American music, really anything that’s not Senegalese music. OK, most rap still sucks, I mean why don’t they send a more important message than money, sex and how bad-ass they are?

Then: Thought that Philadelphia was dirty
Now: Would eat off the streets of Philly, now Kaolack on the other hand, THAT’S dirty!

Then: Never really yelled at or hit other peoples’ kids. It’s practically a crime punishable by death in the US
Now: Yell at and sometimes hit the neighbor kids. It usually has to do with my bike; the bike that I’ve taken all the way to Dakar, twice, to be fixed. The kids start futzing around with the gears, I say – leave it alone, they don’t listen, I raise my voice and repeat, they still don’t listen, I yell – leave it alone! they still don’t listen, I smack a hand or the back of a head (hard enough to get them to stop it), they finally listen and laugh because I smacked them. No one has cried yet (like they do just about every time they are smacked by a relative) and the relatives and parents couldn’t care less – they probably think I should’ve done it a long time ago.

Then: Didn’t really have an opinion about most farm animals.
Now: Thinks pigs are disgusting, sheep are the stupidest animals on earth and that male goats should be castrated, actually I’d really like to be the one to castrate at least some of them.

Then: Didn’t think about grass very much
Now: ‘Ooh’ and ‘aah’ when I see it, like fireworks

Then: Drank actual milk, that comes from a cow
Now: Drink only powdered milk

Then: Thought the drivers in Philly were terrible
Now: Have a whole new scale to rate bad drivers

Then: Whenever I wanted anything, could pop into town, to the store and get it
Now: Have to wait 2 weeks or more for my parents (the only ones who send me anything L) to send it in a package - ok, sorry for the guilt trip.

For those of you wondering what this changed person looks like, here's a pick of me a few weeks ago, with my friend Sarah.

Please leave me comments to let me know what you think!

-B

My Running Group

2006-06-30T15:58:00.000Z

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.

2006-06-25T17:23:00.000Z

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

2006-06-19T18:28:00.000Z

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

2006-06-18T17:28:00.000Z

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

2006-06-08T14:24:00.000Z

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

Maguette's Birthday Party

2006-05-28T16:45:00.000Z

Wednesday was my host-sister, Maguette's birthday. In honor of the occasion and the occasion of mother's day I took my host mother and host sister out to dinner at a local restaurant. Neither of them had ever been to eat at a restaurant even though there are several in Kaolack, so it was a special occasion. They both got dressed up and Awa put on the perfume I had gotten her for her birthday in April. Maguette has never had pizza so I was sure she'd order it but she played it safe and got the chicken dinner instead, Awa got the steak dinner. It was a little scandalous when they saw some young Senegalese men at another table drinking beer, alcohol is forbidden by Islam, and they seemed a little awkward with eating from plates with a fork and knife on a table but they did much better than I did my first experience at the lunch bowl.

Yesterday was Maguette's birthday party that she's been planning for about a month. On Wednesday she had gotten the ingredients for a birthday cake and frosting, something very unusual here since almost no one has an oven. I got the recipes from my cookbook(also very uncommon here since people just have the senegalese dishes memorized) it was very tricky converting cups to kilos of everything but it worked out, Maguette and her friend helped me make a chocolate cake with butter-creme frosting and while it was baking we watched 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' in French, I think they really enjoyed it.

I arrived home yesterday afternoon to blaring Senegalese pop music and a bunch of people; neighbors, relatives and teenaged girls, all dressed up, sitting in a circle around our courtyard, staring at eachother, not appearing to be having a great time. After about 30 minutes a song came on that the girls liked so some of them got up and danced, and after a few songs most of the kids were dancing and it seemed like they were having fun. Eventually I heard an American pop song and got really excited and got up and danced but I soon realized that the song had just been played to clear the floor so the birthday girl could be presented with her presents.

The presentation of gifts was quite strange, each gift giver or group went up to the head table and gave Maguette her gift, Maguette kissed each of them on each cheek a couple time, French style, I then took a photo of them, not smiling of course (they almost never smile for photos), and the next people would come up. A similar little ceremony type thing was done for the birthday candles/singing happy birthday.

After this ther was more dancing (much of it very risque by American standards) and some boys even showed up. Snacks of chips, popcorn with sugar on it and beignets were served and we continued to dance. I was mostly dancing with the little kids from the neighborhood. At 8:45 the music was cut, quite abruptly and everyone cleared out of the courtyard, it was sort of a 'that's it?' moment. The family and close friends that stuck around were offered cake that was a big hit. Saturday night most people with a tv like to watch 'Passions' the really stupid American soap opera, so that's what we did while Maguette opened her gifts. She got 11 pairs of underware - some pretty racy, soap, perfume, candy, cookies and some money, the equivalent of 4 dollars was the most anyone gave, and that was kinda stunning.

After that I wondering what they'll want to do for my birthday, whatever happens, there won't be quite as much Senegalese pop music.

Some of my favorite things...

2006-05-06T17:43:00.000Z

As a racial minority here, the volunteers often get a lot of unwanted attention when walking through the market or just walking through town. A lot of people want to come up and talk to you and usually ask you for your watch, money or anything else you might be wearing. I have developed some ways of coping with this and usually getting a good laugh out of the situation.

Some of my favorite things to do to avoid annoying Senegalese people:

-They say: 'Hello my sista! How you, fine?' in the wonderful Gambian English that way too many people here know.
I say (in regular American English): 'I don't speak English'
*This also works and is just as funny if I say the Wolof version or French version.

Or I say: 'Oh my God! You speak English!?!? We can be best friends and I'll come over and speak English with you every day.' Which they never understand and are usually dumbstruck and just end up smiling and nodding.

-They say: 'Are you married?'
I say: 'Yes, I've got two husbands, one to do the cooking and one to do the cleaning.' This is against their gender roles so they usually laugh uncomfortably.

-They say: 'Tubab, give me _______' (choose one; money, your watch, your friend)
I say: ' No, you give me money.' or 'You are rude, go learn how to greet.' or 'Go buy your own.' or 'Go get a job.'

This one really has endless responses but I did get a 'Give me your hat.' from a village woman, to which I said 'Give me your skirt.' taking a note from another volunteer, afterall, whos going to take off their skirt in public? well, that woman did and the other volunteer I was with got flashed. Oh well, it happens.

Sometimes you just have to laugh

2006-05-06T17:33:00.000Z

So the other day I took my bike down town to run some errands at the epicerie, the tiny grocery store. One of the things I needed was toilet paper, which I'm buying relatively often between the number of guests I have, etc, so when I saw the ten role pack(situated in a 2x5 configuration) I knew that was what I wanted. How was I going to fit it on my bike, well I'd figure that out later. When the time came to figure it out I had the bright idea to shove it between the seat and the center of the handle bars. Needless to say this was tricky, the paper kept slipping out and I had to hold onto it with one hand most of the way. While I was riding I had moto drivers and pedestrians laughing at me meanwhile I'm thinking - screw you! you probably don't even know what this stuff is! - most Senegalese washrooms are stocked with a bucket of water and a cup (dubbed ass-cup by volunteers), not toilet paper. But at the point when I was getting the most frustrated, yelling at moto drivers, juggling the tp and trying to ride my bike, I just had to laugh at myself, it was pretty rediculous.

French What?

2006-04-30T17:59:00.000Z

Senegal was a French colony. Now, I don’t know about you but a big part of what I think of when I think of French culture is the wonderful food, pastries, coffee, etc. I have only been to Paris once but I remember those pain au chocolates like it was yesterday, and the coffee was heavenly. A reasonable conclusion would be that some of this would have rubbed off here during the years of occupation, ummmm that’s a negative, the only thing to be found here in Kaolack, and in towns and cities all over Senegal is this stuff that looks a lot like French bread but turns out to be what can only be described as some form of Styrofoam with a hard, crusty outside. And as for the coffee, in addition to the French influence, there are some major coffee-producing countries in this part of the world but that’s another no, unless you go to a nicer restaurant it will be Nescafe instant coffee that you are drinking. A coffee-lover’s nightmare. Leave it to a former French colony to turn me into a true, British-style, tea drinker.

My First (Senegalese) Seder

2006-04-28T18:19:00.000Z

This is a little after the fact I know but I planned and hosted my first Passover Seder recently. There were 11 volunteers and guests in attendance, several first time seder-goers, and the Seder took place at the Kaolack regional house. In the days leading up to the event I was scouring the internet for Haggadah material to use since the package my parents had sent more than a month earlier, that included Haggadahs and stuff for Matzah ball soup, hadn’t shown up yet (this is not surprising, especially since we just received 5 packages for volunteers who are no longer here, they were sent a year and a half ago). This serendipity led me to the perfect Haggadah, something that was gender-neutral, in English, was inclusive of non-Jews (since I was the only one raised Jewish at my Seder) and as it happens, this Haggadah highlighted themes very pertinent to our lives as volunteers, like always asking questions, the importance of community, liberation of the mind through education and exploration and of course, striving for a time when the world is in peace (a more secular view of the Messianic era).

The day of had some very stressful moments including searching for everything I needed in the Kaolack market (see previous blog) and figuring out exactly what we were going to eat and how I was going to prepare it in the kitchen here. We had to make our own Matzah which I guess wouldn’t really be considered kosher since we just used the flour we could find. We got some help from people that had traveled to Dakar, the site of the only supermarkets in the country, as far as walnuts for the charoset. These folks also looked for horseradish, something entirely necessary in any Seder as far as I’m concerned but no luck, no horseradish in Senegal. Senegal does, however, have something that is the most bitter thing I’ve ever tasted – Kola Nut. Senegalese people eat these things to increase their energy, they are so bitter that ANYTHING you eat after a Kola Nut will taste sweet. So for a local twist we used shredded Kola Nut as our bitter herb, and it ended up tasting pretty good in the Hillel Sandwich. A shank bone was no problem with so many sheep here, and in true Passover miracle form, the package showed up just in time so we had our Matzah ball soup, which everyone was raving about if I do say so myself. Our menu included the soup, delicious potato and niçoise salads and a goulash that were contributed by other volunteers, we had a fruit salad for dessert with mangoes, oranges, bananas and apples, and of course lots of wine, boxed wine(a favorite of volunteers). This didn’t seem like it was an insane amount of food, especially compared to the Seders I remember having at my Aunt Rosalee and Uncle Herbie’s house in Milwaukee, but I, for one, was pretty full after the soup. We gave the leftovers to the guards who were much less weirded-out by the shredded Kola Nut than I thought they’d be.

I had a lot of people tell me that they really enjoyed the evening and I really enjoyed starting a new tradition here so if next year is not “in Jerusalem” it’ll be in Kaolack, Bismilah! (Welcome!)

Edited May 6th, 2006 to add:
After I typed this whole thing up I realized that I didn't note how supportive my host family, mainly my host mother, was during Passover. A few weeks ahead of time I told her that there was a Jewish holiday coming up, during which I couldn't eat bread for 8 days. She looked at me crosseyed for a second, not eating bread is not exactly normal here, but after that she didn't miss a beat, the main meal that it affected was breakfast when I usually have a bean sandwich. She said 'No problem, I'll just cook you two eggs and salad for breakfast every morning.' She was even asking if I could eat rice, a staple here, for lunch. She was willing to make me salad for lunch too, but I decided to go the Sephardic route and allow myself to eat rice but just stay away from bread. I was very touched, as I am daily, by how inviting they are.

The Wonders of RTS

2006-04-26T20:01:00.000Z

I was told that I need to blog more so here goes. I watch some TV here most nights, as long as I’m at home and there is power. There is one main TV channel here - RTS1, there is also TV5, a French channel but I think you may need a special antenna to get it and it is very fuzzy at my house so I don’t watch it. The wealthy people get satellite dishes that give them access to a bunch more, mostly French channels. RTS1 has the news in French, Wolof, Pulaar, Sereer and maybe a couple other local languages during the day. The highlight for many volunteers is Muneca Brava, an Argentinean soap opera that has been dubbed in French and edited to take out the kissing scenes but not the incredibly skimpy outfits that some women wear. Like any soap opera it is completely ridiculous but it is sometimes entertaining and it’s really entertaining to witness my Senegalese family’s reactions to the on-screen antics. During the day there is a nature documentary, followed by a rerun of last night’s Muneca Brava. There are Wolof game shows with sets that look like public access hand-me-downs and there is also a Muslim game show where they have to answer questions about the Koran. For some reason this reminds me of the SNL sketch of the Japanese game show where people get fingers cut off for an incorrect response - I don’t really know why, I’ve never seen any loss of digits. On weekends there are cartoons in the mornings - Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes dubbed in French - all of which are called "Mickey" here. Weekend evenings used to be "Married With Children" most of us didn’t really appreciate that this was the image of Americans that was being shown over seas, now it’s a show with Damon Wayans, I’m not sure if the African American element is appreciated here or not. After the news is "Passions" the horrible American soap opera - it seems to be my brother Guelaye’s (the pious one) favorite, and "24" the American show which I still haven’t gotten into but I have heard is good, here its "24(vingt quatre) Heures Chrono." "The Young and the Restless" is also somewhere in the lineup but I’m not exactly sure where, it also has a different name.
It may not seem like in from my description above but news really does seem to dominate RTS. And the thing with the news here is that it is partly owned and run by the government, this makes for wonderful 10 minute long stories that show various ministers, all in their grand booboos, walking into the presidential palace. Also when Abdoulaye Wade(the president, always referred to on the news as "Son excellence, maitre Abdoulaye Wade) is out promoting himself at least half the news is devoted to him sticking out the top of his SUV shaking hands with the rowdy crowd that is only there to try to be on TV. I have a theory that this means that the bad stuff Wade does, like putting a canal through a national park to reduce floodwaters, which has now eroded away much of the park and several villages, isn’t reported. I have also heard that if you want to get something that’s not government related on the news, you must pay for it. I had to hear on the BBC that there was a conflict in the Casamance region of Senegal between rebels and troops from Guinea Bissau. In my opinion, RTS does a very poor job of informing the Senegalese people about things they should know. There is one thing that it does an ok job of and that is international news. For example, there was recently a bombing in a resort town in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, they didn’t show gratuitous blood and guts but they didn’t edit out the visual evidence that people had been injured and died there.
This is where I start comparing to news in the US. The US news is careful not to show us blood on the street after a suicide bomber attack, so people may have a glossed over idea about what the situation is really like in Iraq for example. THANK GOD the US news is not run by the government but they lead with stories of kidnapped spring breakers and missing, young, pregnant wives that some how keep the attention of the entire nations for months. They also do their best to create a fear that will keep us glued to the screen, "Something you have in your kitchen could kill you and your family and your pets, find out details at eleven." Does this sound familiar? Hmm, what is it this time, the butcher knives, the detergent, the bleach, something in the food is going to give me cancer????
I still haven’t figured out which news is worse, not sure I ever will, but I do know one thing, I am very glad that my short wave radio picks up BBC News and that I can also listen to NPR occasionally on the world space radio at the regional house.
How was that for a blog AJ?

Polygamy, up close

2006-03-14T18:17:00.000Z

The other night I had a very interesting conversation with my host mom about polygamy. My host mom, Awa, married my host dad, Tidiane in 1978, and in early 1979 my host sister - Fatim was born. Awa and Tidiane have 5 children, Fatim is the oldest at 27 and Magette is the youngest at nearly 14, and between them are three boys - Malik, Guelaye and Baba. About 5 years ago, Tidiane decided he was going to take another wife. In Senegal it is legal for a man to have up to four wives though the gov’t is working to discourage polygamy now. Polygamy is also legal in the eyes of Islam, which also allows up to 4 but with the disclaimer that they all must be treated exactly equally - something next to impossible to do even with two wives, thus some theorize that Islam doesn’t REALLY condone polygamy. So back to my host family - as is common practice here, Tidiane didn’t inform Awa of his intentions until the day of his wedding with Soda - his second wife (Often, men here don’t even have the courage to face their 1st wives and tell them so they sometimes send a messenger in the form of a family member, or even don’t tell until after the ceremony). This was, as is typical, a huge blow to Awa. Even though it is commonplace here, rarely do women see it coming and even more rarely are they ok with it. All Awa could say to me about the situation was "Polygamy, it’s bad, it’s really bad." As it turns out, Soda is several years older than Awa and was past childbearing age when Tidiane married her so she doesn’t have children of her own. Awa’s kids tolerate Soda for the most part, as does Awa, though Awa told me that Soda had been known to boss her kids around and that at least Guelaye really doesn’t like her. Soda lives in the next neighborhood over and we see her about once per week and on holidays. Tidiane has split up his time between the two sleeping at our compound (though he and Awa have separate bedrooms) weeknights and at Soda’s place weekends (not exactly equal treatment). In the village, Polygamy takes on a much different feel because most of the time, all the wives live in the same compound and share the cooking, cleaning and other chores.

As I spoke to Awa about her situation I thought about what I would’ve done in her situation, the gut reaction was divorce. To me it seemed like the ultimate expression of disrespect, but I soon realized that for Awa divorce was not an option. She got married when she was still in lycée (high school) and soon became pregnant and had to drop out before finishing. She’s been a housewife her entire adult life and as the woman in the relationship - education of the children is her responsibility. Both her parents have passed away and so without support of her husband she really would have no support for herself and possibly her 5 kids. This leaves typical Senegalese women that don’t work outside the house with no options, just deal with it as best you can, suffer in silence.

My host grandma; Mariemme (Tidiane’s mother) had possibly an even worse situation. She was the first wife as well and eventually her husband took another wife. After a couple months he divorced the 2nd wife, but he soon married again. This marrying and divorcing process happened 6 times, all the while Mariemme cooked, cleaned and raised this man’s children like a good Senegalese wife.

There may be some hope for the future though. More women are getting higher educations and can support themselves if need be - Fatim is working on a degree at the university in Dakar. With registered marriages, couples are required to determine at registration of the first marriage whether the marriage is going to be polygamous and if so how many wives the man will have. Men are allowed to have less than first contracted but if they say 2, that’s the maximum they are legally allowed from then on. You can imagine there is some pressure on the wedding day to make it a non-polygamous marriage. I asked Awa if she thought any of her 3 sons would take more than one wife, she thought about it and said she didn’t think so - that they had a hard time with Soda becoming part of the family and that hopefully they’d remember how it effects the entire family. I hope that she’s right but then again, Tidiane went through his father taking other wives when he was growing up, the cycle was unbroken.

Home Sweet Home…sorta

2006-03-10T17:13:00.000Z

Well I’m back in Kaolack after nearly a month away for training. I returned to Kaolack to the Sine-Saloum heat and a nearly finished apartment. My new place is great, my host dad calls it “The White House in the Sky” – I think he had it painted white on purpose. At first glance it may very well be nicer than any of the apartments I lived in as a student, but then after living in it a little while you come to realize that it’s still the same shoddy work as most of the buildings around here. The folks who laid the tile ended up getting cement all over that refuses to come off, the shower doesn’t drain properly and the screens and windows have space between them for any malaria-ridden mosquito to fly right in (don’t worry, I’ve taken care of that one with duct tape!). Oh well, it only has to last a couple more years right? I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining though, I really am quite lucky that I have all the amenities I do. Some of my visitors have even said “Wow, it’s like I’m not even in Senegal anymore.” It’s like my own little oasis. We’ll see how it goes with the rainy season.
Speaking of seasons, I am frightened. My group got here at the very end of the rainy season and I remember it seeming pretty hot but I was chalking that up to the adjustment from mid-west autumn. The “cool” season (Nov – March) in Kaolack means that at night it cools off slightly and you don’t need to sleep with a fan blowing in your face – I was actually using a thin blanket for a little while there. During the day it’s still hot as H E double hockey sticks. Thus my fear – I’ve been told that there are three levels of hot here; “Wow its hot!” “Oh my God its really hot!” and “Holy sh*t, it’s so f*cking hot if I move I may die!” I’ll keep you posted on that.
What have I done in the last month?? Well, I went to the beach, sunbathed and swam in the Atlantic Ocean, I hung out with my pals from my stage, drank some wine and beer, ate some burgers, Went to Dakar where I played some softball, ate a couple hotdogs(imported from the US), ran into someone in a bar who knows my sister, got kicked in the arm by some jerk in the French military who can’t hold his liquor, was voted one of the new fund-raising coordinators for SeneGAD (Peace Corps Senegal’s Gender and Development group – works mostly with girls clubs), got into a couple heated discussions about the infamous Danish political cartoon, hosted my first visitor from the US, learned some good techniques for business development and training, came up with a plan my the next 6 months here, cleaned and setup my new room and celebrated International Day of the Woman(March 8th) in style. So now after that huge run-on sentence I’m ready to start working. I’ve got several projects in mind so hopefully I’m not spreading myself too thin, only time will tell.
I’ll be posting photos soon so be sure to check www.lespritdebecca.shutterfly.com

Tad Bit Nippy

2006-02-14T19:40:00.000Z

So I'm in Africa, Senegal to be specific. I'm wearing long pants, a t-shirt and sweatshirt and I'm comfortable, NOT sweating. This is a new sensation for me. I have left Kaolack aka 'the oven' to return to Thies for 3 more weeks of training and I really wasn't mentally prepared for the weather I found. Only a 3 hours drive and its about a 20 degree difference. Also a bit strange is that when I left Thies and my family here, I spoke and understood relatively little Wolof and I guess now I understand more, because now I can actually understand my family at the dinner bowl. It's really great to see the volunteers that I haven't seen in the 2.5 months we were at site and its also great to hear about the varied experiences we've had. This weekend there is a wild crazy time called WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament) where ex-pats, volunteers, etc from all the countries in west Africa descend on Dakar for a weekend of softball and general debaucherie. We are all looking forward to it because not only will it be a nice time to relax and have fun, but we will be able to network and get to know ex-pats and the other volunteers. Let you know how it goes.

Tabaski

2006-01-23T10:47:00.000Z

So, Back on Jan 11 there was another holiday here; Tabaski. Tabaski celebrates Abraham nearly sacrificing his son - Ishmael (Judeo-Christian beliefis that it was his other son Isaac). The story goes that at the last second, God stopped Abraham from slaughtering his son and provided aram instead. Yeah, so the tradition here is for each family to slaughter a sheep so there has been an influx of adult, male sheep here in town the past couple weeks. For me, seeing these guys is like 'dead sheep walking,' its a weird feeling, *knowing* that these animals that I'm looking at right now will all be dead and lunch in a few days. So I decided to write a poem, enjoy.

"Something Strange is Happening"
(Written from the point of view of a male sheep, before Tabaski)
Something strange is happening,I don't know if I should be alarmed.
My boss has sent me and all the other males my age to the city.
There are many others like us here, thousands.
We're being herded to crowded marketplaces.
I see some being strapped to the roofs of cars.
I see some being lead, struggling, by a rope around the neck.
I see some being being taken in twos and threes.
I don't see any females or young ones.
I don't see any goats,
I don't see any cows.
Just myself and others like me,
and the people, herding, buying, taking home.
In the market people are preparing for something.
They buy new clothes, they buy lots of food, they buy others like me,and the they buy me.
Now, I am lead by a rope around my neck.
Now, I am put in a rice sack and tied to the top of a car.
I am taken off the car and tied up in a strange yard.
There are lots of smiling faces here.
There are lots of happy sounds in this yard.
It seems no one here needs to sacrifice.
I too am given all the food I can eat, and I eat.
They speak of tomorrow with great anticipation and send strange looks my way.
Something strange is happening, I don't know if I should be alarmed.

**End of Poem**

So as with the other holidays here, everyone gets fancy new clotheswhether they can afford it or not, the women all get new hair (I'm still getting used to the idea of everyone and their mother having giant hair extensions), and an animal is killed and eaten. Even I was sucked in this time, I had henna put on my hands and fingertips and I had my hair braided (it looked pretty silly, you can see photos at www.lespritdebecca.shutterfly.com). Tabaski is also the Muslim new year I guess, so Happy NewYear...again!

The Market

2006-01-16T17:01:00.000Z

Kaolack is home to the second largest covered market in Africa, the largest is somewhere in Morocco. The market takes up 4-5 full blocks and is full of people selling just about anything – though not much of real quality. There dozens of boutiques that sell mostly small food stuffs like the bouillon cubes that are used in every Senegalese dish, pasta, rice, butter, powdered milk, instant coffee, sugar, etc – all of which can be bought it absolutely any quantity. For example, at a boutique one can buy a carton of cigarettes, or they can buy one cigarette – either way, much cheaper than in the US by the way, one can buy a tub of margarine or they can buy 20 CFA (4 cents) worth of margarine smeared on a piece of paper. Boutiques are also found in residential areas, in towns and in some villages.

In the market fresh food can also be bought. There is a fish market that stinks to high heaven and has scales all over the floor. There are several places were fresh veggies can be bought and there is also a butchery type area that I try to avoid. No matter what the food, there are usually dozens of flies buzzing around each table and crawling over all the food, this doesn’t bother me, I can’t remember if it ever did. There is also a bigger, open room that appears to be devoted to spices. There are several tables set up with rice sacks overflowing with spices that I couldn’t begin to tell you what they are, but all mixed together they certainly smell funky.

The Fukki Jaay section is a bunch of stands selling second hand clothes, mostly from the U.S. and Europe. It is usually quite entertaining to see the Senegalese walking around in these t-shirts that are so out of place, and its also entertaining to look through the piles, I always get a kick out of seeing a shirt that connects back to my life in the states, and the other day I saw a Family Land, Wisconsin Dells shirt and a WIAA Okonomowoc Girls State Basketball tshirt. I keep wondering if some of the clothes my family has donated has ended up here, I did see a pair of Umbro shorts the other day that looked very familiar.

In the clothes department there are also slightly nicer looking shops that sell knockoffs of Puma, Adidas, Nike, Dolce and Gabana, Converse, you name it. They also sell the newer looking of the second hand t-shirts – I had a guy try to sell me the t-shirt off his back the other day, it said “Democrats are sexier. Who ever heard of a fine piece of elephant?” In the end I offered a price lower than they would except because I knew that its just funnier on a young Senegalese man who doesn’t know what it says.

There are also rows and rows of fabric shops and tailors. I have heard that the fabric here is cheaper because it comes in, illegally no doubt, from the Gambia. There are some plain, colored fabrics in just about any color you could want but there are also some great patterns that often incorporate something like cell phones, chickens, the New York Yankees symbol or (like one of my fabrics) umbrellas and parasols. Many of these fabrics have color combinations that I’m sure would be found atrocious by most westerners, but, as I found when I went shopping with my aunt and neighbour for fabric for my Tabaski outfit, Senegalese think is beautiful. I ended up getting a fabric that has orange and a deep burgundy along with turquoise, and I think it has a mosque or something on it. To get a woman’s outfit made, 3 to 4 meters of fabric are needed and together with what the tailor charges the total cost is usually about $20 – 10,000 CFA.

The market has a very narrow aisle of beauty supply stores that sell hair, hair products and shoes, some clothes. The hair is sold in plastic packages, I’m not sure if one package is enough to complete extensions on an entire head and I’m not sure how much they cost, but I do know that it took sessions of several hours per day for 3 days for my aunt to finish this woman’s hair for Tabaski. The hair was black at the top and reddish pink at the bottom, which must have been stylish this year because I saw a lot of it. I may be nuts but I’m thinking of trying out the fake hair. I’m curious, and here everyone does it, I wouldn’t be able to get away with it back home. I’ll be sure to take pictures if I ever do get that crazy.

The rest of the market is made up of random shops that sell jewellery, peanuts, ready made Senegalese clothes, office supplies, cell phones and Senegalese household and kitchen supplies. The paths that lead between the shops are cement slabs, some of which are covering a crude drainage system. Some of this drainage system is uncovered so I find myself looking down much of the time so I don’t step into something unsavoury. This also gives some parts of the market a…distinct odor. There are also public toilettes that I really hope I NEVER have to use.

The market is sort of set in a grid and the walkways are pretty narrow, some of them are very narrow and tend to cause traffic jams on the average day, but leading up to Tabaski it was a while different story. The market was jam packed with people trying to buy stuff for the holiday. I was constantly being shoved and having to shove to get anywhere. It was absolutely nuts in there.

All that being said, I have to say that the market is one of my favorite places in Kaolack, even with the vendors tripling the price for me because I’m white, even with the annoying but necessary haggling, even with the less than pleasant smells, I look forward to learning my way around it and meeting the people that work there. I think it’s because it makes me feel like I am really in Africa when I’m making my way through the maze.

Senegalese Wrestling

2006-01-03T15:50:00.000Z

Over the weekend I attended two Senegalese wrestling matches or Lutes in Sokone and then there was a huge televised match on Sunday. Senegalese wrestling involves a lot of music, singing and dancing. In Sokone there was a group of drummers and a group of singers who where passing a microphone back and forth between two women so they could take turns shrieking into it. One thing I’ve noticed is that there are about 2 volume levels here for any sort of music – as loud as the equipment allows and add more equipment. The wrestlers are wearing a sumo sort of outfit with what looks like a speedo training suit under. They dance around to warm up, sometimes jogging, when they are ready there is a sort of patty-cake looking thing that happens and then someone makes a move to either get their opponent onto his back or get both knees and both hands on the ground. The most entertaining part for me was when someone wins, they, followed by all their fans in the crowd, sprint out of the arena while the loser is left laying in the sand. On tv I even saw the loser of a match crying, I guess it’s a big deal. There seem to be different weight classes and ability levels but these guys are usually pretty big and very fit.

With the fight on Sunday – the Tyson fight, my entire street cleared out as people went inside to watch it on tv. Tyson isn’t his real name, he actually took the name for himself from Mike Tyson and he regularly wears a sort of poncho made out of an American flag. He is from Kaolack and appeared to be the favorite to win. He was walking around before the match all cocky and full of himself so I started rooting against him. It was a pretty good match and Tyson ended up losing, I’m interested to see what it’ll do for his image – he’s in a couple commercials here and everything.

Transportation

2006-01-03T15:49:00.001Z

While in Kaolack, my transportation has consisted of my feet, my bike and taxi’s most of which seem like they might fall apart at any moment. With the taxis, there is a choice of weather you want a regular taxi that will take you exactly where you want to go for 500 CFA (~$1) or route taxis that you share with other people and go to the various garages and markets around town for 100 CFA per person. In the route taxis – normal European car size, they normally have 3 people in back and cram 2 people, in addition to the driver in the front.

To get to Sokone I went to one of the garages (a lot where all the public transport to various parts of the region/country can be found, along with hordes of people venders selling food, clothes and other junk that no one really needs. I soon found myself surrounded by people who wanted to sell me something, kids (talibes) who wanted me to give them money and a couple people trying to help me (I think) find a vehicle going where I wanted to go. After about 15 minutes of complete chaos I found a sept-place, sept as in 7 in French. These are sort of like mini-station wagons and have two rows of seats in addition to the driver and front passenger seats. With three in each of the back rows that’s 7 not including the driver. This can be somewhat uncomfortable but is usually the best option. The trip to Sokone, which took a little under an hour, cost 800 CFA per person.

The road between Kaolack and Sokone appears to be decent, but appearances can be deceiving. Because of the potholes, the driver spent about the same about of time off the road as he did on it. When we were on the road we were usually swerving to avoid a pothole or another vehicle that was attempting to avoid a pothole, or a herd of longhorns crossing the road.

While in Sokone we decided to take a charette to Paul’s village. Think of a wooden flat bed with two wheels pulled by equine animal of choice. This is where we weren’t being very smart. There were 5 of us and we decided to take a donkey charette because there wasn’t a horse drawn one around. The poor animal was going so slow because of the weight and because of the mud and sand path we had to go on, that we really could’ve walked much faster, so we took turns walking next to the charette.

To get back to Kaolack, we took a mini-car, also known as an Alham, short for Alhamdulilah – Arabic for praise God. They are called this because most of them have the word painted somewhere on it. This vehicle is kind of like a small bus and has about 6 or 7 benches in it that can each fit 3 or even 4 people somewhat comfortably, but always have 5 people squeezing onto each bench. Alhams will stop for anyone on the side of the road as long as there is an inch of room inside or on top so they can be somewhat slow.

Final note on transport – it’s not unusual to see live animals strapped to the top of any of the aforementioned vehicles – oftentimes screaming bloody murder. Shocking at first but pretty funny later.

The Village

2006-01-03T15:49:00.000Z

Paul’s village, Bambougar Malik Ndeye, was an interesting sight. About 4km from Sokone, the village is made up of buildings with cement walls and grass or tin roofs. Most families live in a compound (like I do in the city), which is basically a group of several small buildings surrounded by some sort of fence. Each room, bedroom, kitchen is its own building with a courtyard-type thing in the middle where, in some cases there are animals (dogs, goats, sheep, chickens). The strange thing about Bambougar is that it has electricity thanks to an NGO (Non-Government Organization) that came through recently and gave everyone in the village solar panels. Most villages do not have any form of electricity and no running water. For water to drink, bathe in cook with and wash in there are deep wells, also likely installed by an NGO. The women of the villages bring large plastic basins to the well at various times during the day and fill them up by pulling buckets of water up (10m or so) by hand. Latrines in villages are made up of a cement slab with a hole in it, covering a septic tank-like structure. These are usually surrounded by a grass fence and is also where people take their bucket-baths.

I’m planning on visiting a couple more villages in the near future so I can get a feel for the life of a rural volunteer.

Happy New Year and intro

2006-01-03T15:46:00.000Z

Happy New Year! Hope that 2006 is a great, prosperous year and may you all find peace, happiness and love.

I spent New Years in Sokone, a small town nestled in the mangroves of the Sine-Saloum Delta. I visited a town-based volunteer and a village based volunteer, went swimming in the mangroves twice, went to two traditional, Senegalese wrestling matches and had lots of fun with the transportation.

The following entries are my take on various parts of life in Senegal: