Sunday, March 29, 2009

Little Things

The date carved into the lid of a completed latrine in my counterpart's compound.


Solar cooking last week; there was an impromptu dance party inspired by this fish sauce.


My host sister coaxing a kite up into the air.


There are some weeks that pass so quickly, and others that merely drag. It's the slow season here now for me. Not much is happening that I can properly consider "work". So what am I up to? Every week or two, I'll buy ingredients for solar cooking, though I can't do that too often so as not to make people jealous. It's the windy season, so the kites left here by visiting students last year have made a popular appearance. When they get up to the end of their string, the entire village can see the kite way up in the air, high above the thatched roofs and mud-brick walls. It's a swooping, bright spot of rainbow color in an otherwise featureless blue sky. And I can't help humming the song from Mary Poppins, under my breath, when I wind the string and get ready to send it up. Once a week, I do the mini-library thing with the school, lending books to kids from a trunk of Viola Vaughn's Bookmobile books. Twice a week, the computer class with the Nioro students. We're learning to do Google searches now. Next month, hopefully, I can start my pepiniere, and the plan is to organize the women's group (or some other organization in the village) to dissipate that knowledge. Maybe even be a little money-maker for someone. But progress, as usual, is ndank ndank. And, I am annoyed because I want to start work on this year's Michelle Sylvester Scholarship, the one for middle-school girls, but because of this ridiculously long spring break, it will have to wait until mid-April. Baaxul!!!
Probably the biggest news in the village is the latrines, which are being completed super-quickly. Since taking the money out of the bank to buy the materials, I haven't done anything at all, which is precisely the idea of a Peace Corps Partnership. My counterpart has supervised all the cement and iron distribution, keeping careful track of it in a notebook, and people have dug their holes, molded their bricks, paid the masons to line the pits and put the lids on. Really, it's all happened incredibly fast, and people still rave about how pleased they are to finally have enough latrines for a healthy village. All thanks to you wonderful donors! The thirty-seven latrines will be completed by the rainy season, which is awesome, awesome news.
The other day there were two weddings in neighboring compounds, so I (along with everybody else) was running back and forth between them all day, escorting the brides with the parade of women (the brides with their faces and heads completely covered by an opaque white shawl), sitting while the wedding was blessed by the men elders, and enjoying the greasy rice lunch, the boombox music (Akon, of course) brought in from town, and admiring the brides, their faces lavishly made-up, their hairdos towering, with 1,000cfa bills pinned into their thick curls. I briefly considered taking photos, but considering the mayhem that's caused (especially among the children) when I bring out my camera, I chose to try and describe it with words instead.
And my chickens have become more friendly, too. Gertrude and Lucy now run to me when I stand on my back step and cluck, because they know I have handfuls of grain for them. Luckiest chickens in the whole of Senegal, maybe.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Election Week

This week (the last two weeks, actually) have been full of election events, as local politicians advertise their platforms in preperation for tomorrow's election. It's the mayors, I think, and the Presidents of the Communaute Rurale who will be elected, which means it's a big deal for villages. So most people's focus has been on that. I've been shelling peanuts, because 'tis the season. But on Wednesday, and this afternoon again, was the kids' computer class and they're doing fantastically well. Plus they're having fun, which is important too. If they continue to improve their typing today, I might let them get online. It's fun teaching an Internet class! Yesterday was a fun day, too. The family I gave my solar cookre to has been gradually perfecting its use, but it doesn't cook things in time for lunch. So I bought a kilo of fish, some tomato paste, bouillon, pepper, kani (which is piment), a few little onions, and oil, and we put it all together in a pot to make fish sauce for "cere ak jen". The solar cooker had it ready by the afternoon, and it was delicious! I ate almost half the bowl of "cere" (that's the millet dish) that night, it was so tasty. But even better was the fact that the family did the whole thing themselves. They're now the village solar cooking experts! And, in other fantastic news, the mining company donated some wood for the Bookmobile, so shelves are being installed now. Hopefully soon we'll be able to shelve the books in the truck and really get started.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Douches, Porridge, and Computer skills


These are what I call the "Halfway Trees". If you pass these, you're halfway to Keur Ali Gueye from Nioro du Rip! Still got about four kilometers to go, though.


At the louma last week I succumbed to an impulse buy: two chickens, one red, one gray. I named them Lucy and Gertrude, tied them onto long strings, and set them loose in my backyard. To go along with them, I mixed up some grain of millet, sorghum, corn, and peanuts, to supplement the bugs and whatever else are out behind my hut. Like many impulse buys, I find myself wondering now what ever inspired me to buy such a thing, but here in Senegal you don't purchase a new coat or a pair of boots, you buy hens. So now they're mine. The consolation is, I got a good deal - only 1,500cfa each (the kid after me bought his chicken for 2,000! HA! I got a better price!!!), and hopefully in a little while they'll start laying eggs and I can have omelettes in my hut. If not I suppose we can eat them. I would worry about getting attached, because after all, they are my animals, but chickens make very unsympathetic pets. Too much loud squawking and terrified running around to really make you feel warm and fuzzy. But Gertrude and Lucy are now my very own, irregardless.
Otherwise, my week has been occupied with time-filling activities. The latrines are coming along splendidly. Everyone is doing the work at their own pace, but quickly. Pretty soon everything will be finished! It's really fantastic and people are as enthusiastic as ever about having family latrines. It will make the rainy season, especially, more tolerable. I, meanwhile, inspired by the seminar in Dakar, went into two classes to talk to kids a little about basic nutrition, and later on, the women from three different neighborhoods organized themselves to learn how to cook a rich porridge that's good for growing children. I brought the ingrediants, and gave insructions while they prepared the meal. It is so easy and accessible, too! Just a half kilo of millet flour, a kilo of peanut butter, some kind of fruit (I used baobab fruit once, bananas another time, and suggested squash, mango, or papaya as other choices or, if nothing else, at least nebedaye leaves! They're amazingly high in vitamins), as well as 100cfa each of sugar and oil. While the water boils, mash up the fruit, add the peanut butter, oil, and sugar to the fruit mash; when the water is boiling you mix in the flour until smooth, then add in the peanut butter-fruit mash, stir it all together, and voila! A delicious, nutritious, simple breakfast for young kids. The important part, of course, is that it combines all the necessary food groups, so carbohydrates, protein, fat, and vitamins are all together in good proportion. That's a hard concept to teach. But we've had fun making porridge and the children find it delicious, and all the ingredients can be found in the village, so hopefully some women will prepare it on their own.
The last thing is a project I just started, inspired by the fact that this year ten teenagers from Keur Ali Gueye passed the test into middle school, and are now studying in Nioro. Which is fantastic news, especially as four of them are girls - the first time that has ever happened. But in this day and age, education only get you so far if you don't have basic computer skills. So I decided that I would teach them how to type and use the Internet, by biking down to town twice a week and holding little classes at computers rented from the local cybercafe. The first class took place this Saturday. The kids were late, which made me angry, as I was offering to pay out of my own pocket (well, it's Uncle Sam's money, really) to teach them these important skills, and they were lounging at home! But the one girl who made it there first, and the other two students who finally showed up in time for a taste, really enjoyed it. They won't be late next time. My plan is to work on typing and using the keyboard until everyone can write paragraphs with proper capitals, punctuation, and indentation. Then, we'll go online! Inch'allah. But I'm excited because it's fun to teach something that I truly know, and even after a single lesson they're already catching on so fast. I have a feeling it could be a very rewarding little project.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Gamou Kaolack

A neighborhood girl getting her hair braided for the Gamou. Most of that is "meche", which is hair extensions, to thicken and lengthen the hairdo.

The Gamou Kaolack - a huge religious event for Niassene Muslims (the sect to which my entire village belongs) - is today. Last year I stayed at home and enjoyed the serenity of a village with practically no children, and only a few sedate adults relaxing under the trees. But this year I decided to tag along and share in the excitement. So I crammed into an auto with dozens of other villagers this morning and we cruised off to Kaolack. Many of the cars we passed were blaring religious chants from loudspeakers on the roofs, but I'm grateful that ours didn't have such accessories. As with many holidays, my Gamou mostly consisted of sitting around a lot, then eating an enormous lunch of greasy rice. I'd hoped to go to the mosque with my host family, but they were insistent about my getting back to the Peace Corps house before dark, so they bundled me onto a charette and waved me off before going back to do the celebration part of the Gamou. But preparations leading up to the Gamou have been impressive. Almost everyone has new clothes, the girls have been putting in elaborate braids, the women applying black henna to their feet. Kids are as excited as if it were Christmas Eve - a trip to the big city, where there are ice cream sellers (only 50cfa for a small cone) as well as delicious, protein-filled lunches, visiting relatives, and a break from school. And rumor has it the late-night program at the huge, beautiful mosque in Medina Baye is wonderful as well. It only lasts a day, though. So tomorrow I'm headed to the louma in Nioro, then back to the village, to scrounge up ways to stay busy the remainder of this hot, dry season.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Transport Strike

People are stuck in Kaolack. Some have been here since Monday. I just got in yesterday, hitching a ride with my boss after his visit to the village. He was impressed with the progress of the latrines, and our hopes for pepiniere season. But, I had hoped this would be a quick trip to town, to get to the bank and the post office, then home; but I ended up having to stay here today too because transport is very scarce and even less safe than usual. So here we are, eating yogurt and papayas, fiddling with our chores and complaining about the strike that despite being inconvenient, is not nearly as bad for us as it is to the dozens of Senegalese who are waiting on the sides of the road for a ride home. At least we have a place to sleep and cook. Who knows if people have spent the night huddling on the roadside? Strikes are bad. And the timing is difficult, because this weekend is the Gamou Kaolack, a huge religious event for followers of the marabout Baye Niasse. My whole village, being Niassene, are planning to attend. Hopefully things have settled down by then. In any case, these are the realities of life here at the moment. Rice is expensive, work is tough to find, and the hot season is setting in. Everyone gets grumpy when it's hot.