Planting 2010

The season got off to a slower start this year, but by now it has established itself enough that people are well into rainy season work. Peanuts are sprouting again, along with delicate fields of tiny corn and millet like blades of grass. The farmers I gave seed to are slowly sowing it; the other day one man seeded his corn, and another his beans. No sorghum has been planted yet, and there are many more kilos of beans waiting, but there is time. This year I'm working with farmers in three villages, so I'll be doing more coming and going, which will be nice. Plus there's the Bookmobile to wrap up before I go! Hopefully we'll do another run in a week or two, now that a little funding has come in.
Now that it's rainy season, the horses are especially skinny, since they are working extra-hard and are out of good peanut fodder. The mares especially, since they are often nursing a foal as well as pulling a plow. Soon the grass will grow, though, and they'll have fresh greens to eat. But the birds are coming back! I remember how beautiful and various were all the birds of rainy season last year, and this time around it is the same. There are so many colors and species of birds! From tiny, bright finches; to iridescent starling-like birds; to shocking blue; to white and black striped birds with curved red beaks; to large brown-and-black ones, boldly colored. There are also butterflies. They like my flower bush the best, and congregate there in all their fluttering beauty. In the evening, crickets and toads compete to dominate the night noise. In the puddles in the road are minute wiggling tadpoles waiting to join the song in a few weeks.

Dad & Becca's Visit, plus rain

Dad and Becca waiting for a charette in Nioro, before heading to the village.


It's a much slower rainy season this year. Hopefully it will pick up soon, because the little baby corn and peanuts are thirsty! But Yallah is in charge of all that. I have been rushing around Senegal with Dad and Becca. We had a lot of fun, though it was a whirlwind! A couple good days in the village, where I extended all my seed. Focus this year on beans, with some corn and rice as well, and I am working with my village, as well as a nearby one where we hope to place a Volunteer soon, and a very progressive farmer in Nioro. Afterwards, we spent a good day at Keur Bamboung enjoying the beauty of the mangroves. As a nice surprise, the hotel invited a fantastic drumming-and-dance troupe there on our last night. They were amazing! Then a nice dinner in Dakar, drinks and some live music. A quick visit to Senegal, but a fun one. Now I am trying to do some more Bookmobile preparation and then head back to the village! I do miss them, not to mention that the agriculture work season is finally picking up. Now, too, many people from my stage are heading home in mere weeks. I'll be finished in three months...it's strange to think about. But there is plenty to be done before then.

chez Dakar

The Close of Service Conference in Dakar concluded this afternoon, and it went really well. We discussed all the things I had been wondering about, like the work environment at home, how to use Peace Corps in our resumes, what needs to be done administratively to finish our service, and how to communicate about Senegal to everyone in the USA. Our conference leader was really great. She kept us involved and interested in the sessions, and I for one learned a lot of important things in a short space of time. Meanwhile, it really IS good to be back in Senegal! My visit home went so smoothly, with no real culture shock at all, and the re-entry here went just as easily. Right off the plane, into a taxi I go (after bargaining in Wolof, as usual, to a reasonable price) and into the market downtown. And it felt GOOD to be here again. Truly! I admit that was a bit of a surprise, but it does, and I am so lucky that I am honestly delighted to be here still for a few more months. Now I know that home is still there, and Senegal and I still have things to teach each other before I go.
My wonderful counterpart - who I appreciate immensely because he is such a motivated worker and generally awesome guy - has called me twice glowing because such good things are happening in the village in my absence. They're working on constructing a health hut near the school, which will get stocked with basic medications and staffed by a trained "matrone". What little cement was leftover from the latrine project is going to that, and the work is happening! A nearby doctor promised to train the matrone (like a nurse-midwife) for free if the village did their own construction work, so hopefully he'll keep his word and Keur Ali Gueye will have a little health post of their own right in town. Also, the USAID project to spray rooms with pesticide has happened again, along with distribution of free mosquito nets for kids. Your tax dollars at work! He was really excited to tell me about how smoothly that went as well.

Who says you can't go home?

I'm home for ten days, for my brother's university graduation. And it is AMAZING! How even to describe it? There wasn't the culture shock I was expecting. Some things have changed, but not enough to make me feel disoriented. Seattle seems even more beautiful than ever, a veritable paved paradise, liberally splashed with thick groves of evergreens. There are flowers blooming and robins nesting. It is so lovely! When I see the familiar curve of the Space Needle, or the emerald patches of growing things dotted throughout the city, it feels so natural, as though I never left. That's how I feel I can describe it. Not surreal, not even startling in contrast to life in Senegal. Because when I am here, my I am ONLY here. When in Seattle, eating the food I love and being with my friends and family in this comfortable environment, it is the only kind of life I can concretely imagine. All other ways and places of living are like a fantasy, only half-real. And the same goes for Senegal. When I'm there, pulling water at the well, eating millet from a communal bowl, speaking Wolof, THAT is the only kind of existence that I can viscerally imagine. Both times, in my head I know that this isn't so. When in Senegal I know that in the USA there are people commuting to work on smooth roads, buying $100 sundresses and eating burritos, but these are like imaginary things, too unfathomable to be true. Likewise, while here in Seattle, I know that not so very far away there are people bathing in murky well water, who are excited about finally having a latrine for their family, who are eating (really pretty unappetizing) rice with peanut sauce... but it seems so impossible that such things could be real, when my experience is so completely unlike it. So that's how it is. Like two different worlds sharing the same small Earth. But in any case, it is wonderful to be home.

A taste of success

A girl hoping to check out a book from the Bookmobile.

The kitchen smells amazing at this moment, because my friend Kyle and I are making dinner. There are green beans with ham simmering, garlic mashed potatoes, and two kinds of guinea fowl: fried (by Kyle) in cornflake breading, and roasted (by me) with carrots and potatoes in a marinade of tamarind and Worcester sauce. I wanted to try guinea fowl, which are so funny looking with their bald heads and droopy-looking bodies. But they can dart away as quick as a flash, and are much less common than chickens. Anyway, I have never eaten one, nor have I ever killed an animal by myself. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone...well, one bird with one knife, actually. Which I did. Killed it, bled it, de-feathered it, cleaned out the insides, cut it up, and now I'm roasting it. If the smells are any clue, it's bound to be tasty! And though I didn't ENJOY killing the bird (or doing the messy work of preparing it, either), I feel a kind of satisfaction having done it, the way I'd planned to.

The big news today though is that the BOOKMOBILE went on it's first test run! To my village and my friend's village. All things considered, the event went pretty well. The kids loved that big red truck, all full of books. In each village, we were able to check out about 150 books, but had to stop there so as not to overwhelm the Peace Corps Volunteer who has to keep track of them all. The titles and name of who checked it out are written in a notebook, which we left in the village where the book is in order to know who has each book at any given time. We read aloud some children's stories, and taught some interactive songs, which were a big hit. There is still some work left to do on the truck (the shelving had been badly installed, so we'll have to have it fixed) but we are slowly checking those things off the list. What fun! The Bookmobile is finally on its way, and it looks like the program will be wonderful for these village kids.

But now the water is out in Kaolack again, which is a bummer. Our bean seeds finally came in, though, so when I get back to the village tomorrow I can start telling farmers how many kilos of seed they'll get, and hopefully even see some fields now before the rains come.

Thanks to Florence, Colorado!

Michelle Sylvester Scholarship is finished for the year, Alhamdullilah! All the paperwork is in and now all we have to do is wait for the committee to pick the winners. Finally, some seeds have arrived - no rice seed yet, but beans, corn, and sorghum, so I can start telling farmers what they will have from me for this rainy season. Last week the annual Gamou was held in Keur Ali Gueye; apparently it happens every year around late May, but last year I missed it. They set up a huge tent next to the half-finished big mosque, and hung it will all sorts of portraits and posters of Baye Niasse. The young girls all bought white pants suits, which they asked me to paint with Baye Niasse's classic three-quarter pose. I see this depiction of the marabout everywhere, on car stickers, on tee-shirts, on keychains, painted on the walls of telecentres and boutiques. He is a very famous religious leader; my whole village is Niassene - followers of Baye Niasse. So I did my best to sketch his face on an ever-increasing pile of snowy boubous. In the end I got pretty good, and could do it in under a minute. Then I made the girls (they asked me, but I refused, so they could take some credit for the work!) paint over the lines in black oil paint, so the image stood out. In the end they looked awesome! The Gamou itself was quite an event. People from several surrounding villages came to listen to the recitations and speeches, and the entire town put on their best clothes. The older folks sat under the tent with their prayer beads. The leader of the village's Koranic school was the host; he killed tree cows for the two meals that day! So we ate delicious greasy rice and rich meat-flavored cere. There was melodic chanting all through the night, though I ended up going to sleep after dinner. It was a nice village experience.

And coming into Kaolack has been great this time around! We're putting the Bookmobile together for the test run this weekend. Hopefully it will go well, unlike the Dakar fiasco. So far everything seems to be good. This time Kaolack had wonderful surprises waiting for me. FOUR packages: two gifts from home (full of delicious food! Now I can pig out!) and two HUGE packages of children's books from my friend in Florence, CO. How wonderful! We put them in the Bookmobile today and they really enrich the collection. I chose three of those for reading aloud to kids this weekend, and I think they'll enjoy the stories. So THANK YOU Florence Public Libraries (and Robin, you especially)! You've definitely made a great contribution to the Bookmobile! Wish us luck on this test drive.
Next, we need to get our hands on an old card-catalog. Anybody got one lying around? :)

Time, fast and slow all at once

Thank goodness I've made peace with my bike seat since last year. I've had to bike somewhere almost every day this past week, bumping along the sandy bush paths, past the occasional nomadic Pulaar camp (they are so cool! With vast herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, they set up tents in the empty fields so their animals can graze on last year's crop residue. The women sometimes walk through the villages, selling curdled milk. And I love the way they drive their donkey charettes - no reins at all, three donkeys hitched abreast, and they steer by wacing a stick on one side or the other to indicate which way the donkeys should go. It's impressive!), and swatches of black ash, occasionally still smoking, from where farmers gathered stalks and weeds to burn. I've been biking so much because of the Michelle Sylvester Sholarship, which is done every year throughout Senegal. (You can go to the SENEGAD website to learn about it: http://senegad.org/ ) For me it means going to two neighboring towns and working with the middle schools there. Six girls are chosen from each school, and they all need to write an essay, have a teacher recommendation, and a personal interview. That gives me a chance to see what their home is like, too, because the scholarship is supposed to go to girls with excellent grades AND a striking financial need. Of course, this year I am reminded that good grades are often the result of a comfortable family situation. I visited quite a few beautiful compounds for the interviews this year. But in each town, there are always a couple girls who stand out, with their excellence in school in the face of financial difficulties. This year the process was easier, because I knew what I was doing, but also more difficult, since now I have been working in these towns and so gotten to know some of the families, and had to remind them that in this case I must be entirely impartial when choosing finalists for the scholarship. Luckily there is a committee in Dakar who will choose the eventual winners - a 30,000cfa scholarship, plus a certificate of achievement - to spare us Volunteers drama from the families of those who didn't win. Anyway, there are only a few more things to do for the scholarship on my end, which means another two or three bike trips to and from the towns. I can do it!
One might think that with actual activities going on, it would be a busy week, but time has a way of dragging here even when there is lots going on. I also finished two books, including "The Omnivores Dilemma", which was very good, thoug not quite applicable to my lifestyle here. It shows that Americans, assuling we "are what we eat", are primarily corn; whereas I feel mostly comprised of rice and millet nowadays. I am currently working on a novel called "Iceland's Bell", which is also extremely well-written and interesting. Thank God for the Kaolack library. I've read books I never might have heard of otherwise.
In less fortunate news, a cat killed my gray chicken, so now there are only two: Lucy and Studly Dudley the rooster. No chicks yet. But I can report that chickens are not at all traumatized by the death of a compatriot. On the contrary, they had no problem pecking at the bits of feather and gristle that the cat eshewed. Chickens, I believe, have absolutely no sense of their own mortality. Which is a good reason to eat them.
More cyber lessons this week! I asked the kids if I could distribute their e-mail addresses to perspective pen-pals, and they said yes. No guarantees of when or if you'll get a reponse, but they would love to hear from the "waa Amerique". Here are the e-mails I have:

Omar - diopomar14@yahoo.fr
Penda - avenir.gueye@gmail.com
Pape Souleymane - papesouleymanediop@yahoo.fr
El Hadji -elhadjisamba18@hotmail.fr
Masse - fansgambie99@live.fr
Malick - batman22@live.fr
Aissatou - fanselhadjidiop@gmail.com

There they are! More kids come to the lessons sometimes, but these are the ones whose e-mails I have at hand. Tomorrow we'll practice attaching a webpage link in an e-mail. Wish us bonne chance!