More beans and millet

Beans are everywhere still, which delights me. Some farmers have started paying back the beans seed I gave them, which mostly performed well, so I bought an old oil jog which I cleaned and dried thoroughly. Now I'll stash the beans in there until next year so the bugs can't get in. Meanwhile, our millet is also ripe. People are heading out to their fields, which have gotten so tall the stalks have begun to fall over. Millet is a very satisfying crop to grow. From tiny seeds that become bright green, tender shoots of grass which you'd never believe will ever grow big enough to feed a sheep, much less a person, come these towering plants with many tillers, heavy with grain, soaring over peoples' heads as they walk along the muddy path through the fields. Now, it's all falling down, being ripped up by the roots and laid in orderly rows by the men and older boys, while everybody else comes along with a half-moon knife to slice off the candles and arrange them into stacks. So, the inevitable sounds of women and girls pounding millet are returning to the village. Tomorrow is Korite, celebrating the end of Ramadan, so soon we'll be working hard again and well-fed, so everyone will be happier. There will be some things to miss about the fasting month, however. Waking up before dawn to down a couple spoonfuls of funde is NOT one of them. But, sitting in the cooling evening, waiting for the call to prayer which announces the hour of breaking fast, then enjoying a hot mug of coffee, a cup of bissap, maybe a handful of bread, is very nice.
Just yesterday I went with everybody to a peanut field, one of the earliest to be harvested. It's quite an all-day affair! Almost all the women and children were there with buckets, pots, and bowls, which they filled with peanuts from enormous piles of uprooted plants. We pulled them up before settling down to "hontet", or snap off the peanuts from their stems. For a tomato pot full of these fresh peanuts, the field owners will pay 25cfa. So, it's a good way to earn a little extra money, and get some peanuts to take home too. My host sister pulled enough peanuts to buy herself a new pair of sandals for Korite; my little brother slacked off and only made enough for a lollipop. I didn't bring my own bucket, so I just helped whoever I was sitting with, so I'm not sure how many pots I had. Next time I plan to keep count and see how much my work is worth!

I love beans

Here is a funny picture of some Agriculture Volunteers, with a sign exemplifying our raison d'etre ici.

I've spent some very nice afternoons in the village, picking and shelling beans. There's beans all over the place! Black ones, red ones, speckled ones, white ones (which are the kind I distribute) and they all need to be shelled. It's easier to shell them if they're a little dry, but not TOO crunchy, and the beans inside are still moist but starting to harden. But, you get everything from shriveled, bone-dry pods to plump wet ones, and I love shelling them all. Finally, again, there is work to do with my hands! It's a fantastic feeling, to have a pile of beans before you, and work at it gradually until the job is done. The feeling of absolute finality is the reward, and it is wonderful. The beans themselves are tasty and now appearing more often in our meals, which I am delighted about. Perhaps the tastiest meal I've had with my village family was rice, lightly oiled, cooked with dried fish, beans, and a few vegetables. So yummy! And much healthier than plain rice.

Progress

At last, the bookmobile truck is nearly ready! After three months of stagnation (me going to see the mechanic; me seeing that no progress had been made on the truck whatsoever; me yelling at the mechanic; mechanic swearing he will start right away - this cycle repeated many times, to the point that everyone at the mechanic's garage knows my name) the truck has been mostly repaired. It's an old delivery vehicle that we are transforming into a moving library. So, sliding windows were installed up top to provide ventilation and light. Just recently they painted the truck bright red, with cheerful white lettering on the side: Book Mobile, it says, "Books for the Community", along with the 10,000 Girls website address and logo. On the reverse side we plan to put a quote: "Educate a girl - pathway to Paradise" in four different languages: Arabic, English, French, and Wolof. Hopefully that turns out well too. Then, just a few more mundane repairs to do, and the installment of shelves to store the books, and we are ready to hit the road!
This afternoon I am in Kaolack, with a script written in French and Wolof of the story "The Frog Prince". The Kaolack Volunteer has a weekly radio show, and this week I agreed to help him out. There have been a variety of topics: health/nutrition, American culture, local-language shoutouts (for those Pulaar and Serere minorities!) and, now, story hour. The story, in French, is followed by a summary in Wolof (I did my best, though I don't know how to translate concepts like "princess" oe "bad fairy" in that language...hopefully people don't get too confused), and encouraging people to seek out books on their own. Unfortunately, books are not readily availible. There are little "librairies" selling whatever random texts they may have come across. Also, deep in the Kaolack market there are vendors with tables of books for sale, everything from old school textbooks to American novels left behind by God-knows-who ages ago. However, these are often expensive, the selection sporadic, and not easy to come by. Some schools might have small libraries, and there is a collection as well at the Alliance Francaise. But, for most people, books are a rarity. Just this weekend, we spent two days doing an intensive cleaning of the house. We ended up culling all the magazines older than 2007, which made a huge stack outside our front door. Just last night, walking home after buying sandwiches, we passed by a group of maybe twenty young men engrossed in our old magazines. Every page was gone by morning. Reading is good!

Fasting

Every morning one of the women knocks on my door before six, to wake me up for an early meal before dawn. We all stagger over to the bowl, half-asleep, and eat spoonfuls of watery millet porridge - "funde" - in the dark. The morning prayer usually comes around this time, too, which I usually don't get to hear because I'm asleep. I can't eat very much so early, so after a few bites I'm ready to go back to bed for an hour or so until the sun starts to rise over the top of my millet-stalk fence and people begin going about their day. Long gone are the days I used to recline in bed until ten on the weekends; now I'm up around seven, and if I'm feeling lazy I may stretch it ti seven thirty, but my "sleeping in" is not impressive. I feel like I should at least be up and about while little girls are already starting their morning by pounding millet into flour, women are pulling water, and people are busying themselves with chores. Anyway, after that pre-dawn breakfast there's nothing to eat until 7:30pm, when the prayer calls us again to break the fast. During the day no one eats or drinks anything. They even spit out their saliva so as not to swallow it. I do not do this. Instead I sustain myself with water when I feel thirsty, or a small candy to tide me over the hungry times, though of course I don't do that in front of anyone. Fasting isn't very hard at all when you drink, but I can't imagine how difficult it must be to have no water at all in your system. And I don't care to find out. Somehow, despite the fast, life goes on in the village. The women pull just as much water from the well, morning and afternoon (though how they're even moving beyond noon is beyond me), and people do light field work in the morning if there is any. But, things do move somewhat slower than usual. The daily market doesn't start now until 5pm, when it used to be going by 11, but no one starts cooking until late during Ramadan. On my last trip to Kaolack I bought a game they call "Lido", a four-color game with rules that I still find baffling. The version I got has pictures of Senegalese music stars, but there are also ones with soccer players or marabouts; there's a lot of variety. It is, incidentally, the only board game I've ever seen in Senegal. "Lido" gets a lof of action these days, as people finally have time to relax. Most of the farming is done; we're just waiting for harvestime. Beans are already ripe, and I've been collecting them from the various fields to weigh and calculate how productive that plot was. For the most part the beans produced high yields, and people are glad to have them now, when money is tight and they can add a nice protein boost to a rice-based meal. Plus they're delicious. Corn, too, is ripe. At the louma the streets are lined with corn, and kids strip the husks into threads to practice braiding. In the evening after breaking fast we've been roasting cobs on a charcoal brazier, until the kernels are black. The corn is not sweet or juicy like I'm used to at home, but it has a heavy, earthy flavor and a pleasing texture. I really enjoy nibbling on blackened corn before dinner. Our fast is broken with a cup of hot coffee or kinkiliba tea. My basil is a favorite with the neighborhood, because people like to mix it with the kinkiliba leaves when boiling the tea. It adds a nice aroma and you can really taste the basil. I give out a lot of basil leaves, and those who planted their own from my mother plant's cuttings are using it too. Along with our hot drink is bread, if the family can afford it, which is not usually. If there is, though, that's the first solid thing I've eaten since liquidy funde hours and hours before. Also, we get a cup of cool bissap juice. Then a little while after dinner is served, which is a rice dish, not millet cere as usual. So far the food has been very tasty, which is good news as it's the only meal of the day!
Ramadan could be an excruciatingly slow time of year for us Peace Corps Volunteers, but I managed to stay busy this week by finishing up the paintings at the school. Now each of the four classrooms has some colorful scenes, painted by myself and whatever kids I could round up. Besides the room with the maps, there is now a room painted with domestic animals, and two with scenes of village life and learning. Only a few touch-ups to go - I plan to paint a Senegal flag in each room, too - and we're done! The school looks great, and everyone who has peeked their heads in has been delighted. Hopefully the teachers like it too, when they come back for the start of school next month.

Ramadan, take two

A closeup of the sesame blossoms. Aren't they pretty?

I'm at the Nioro louma today with a sack of millet, which my host mom asked me to sell for her. Millet has not yet ripened, so it's last year's grain, which we're lucky to have plenty of. Prices should be pretty high anyway. With whatever money I get, she asked me to buy half a kilo of "gejj" - dessicated fish, usually on the bigger side, which have been split open and dried into thick slabs - and "ketchax", which are smaller fish, also dried and salted, but to a kind of flaky, oily consistancy. If I have any money leftover she wants some cloves to put in the coffee. Ramadan has come again, which means breaking fast in the evening. Nothing special happens to kick off the month. Last night the prayer went longer than usual, and people cooked a special dish after dinner, but that was it. This morning no breakfast, except for the kids. And no lunch. The big question on everyone's mind is whether or not I am fasting. And the answer is: kind of. I don't plan on eating anything all day, so I can break fast with the family at sundown. But, if I'm thirsty I'll drink. People kind of chuckle when I tell them this; it's not real fasting, they say, but they understand that Americans are pansies and don't really expect me to fast anyway. The fact that I am doing it at all is surprising and, I think, they appreciate it. But it will make for long days. No food or drink between sunup and sundown! Only no doubt I will cheat and have an occasional (okay, a frequent) piece of candy and a drink of lemonade in my hut. The crops are ripening, though, and some will be ready for harvest during the month. That will be exhausting.

Why my blog is boring

I've realized that my blog entries have become less rich, less detailed and interesting lately; compared to how they were during training in Thies; or my first few months at site. The reason for this, I think, is that I"m used to it all. Riding along in a rickety white minivan, hurtling through potholes and getting out to push this questionable vehicle through the mud, is no longer a noteworthy event. I don't feel thrilled or overwhelmed as I navigate the narrow aisles of the weekly market, walking past ladies selling cheap jewelry or cosmetics; guys with tables loaded down with betteries, pens, and other miscellania; louma pharmacists vending dubious pills of unknown composition. I find myself - loaded down with several kilos of vegetables, beans, or perhaps some dried, salted fish - wandering in search of a beignet seller or a girl with a bowl of frozen bissap juice bags on her head. And this is normal. Passing carts pulled by bony horses, their tales rubbed raw from contact with the wooden boards, no longer shocks me as it used to. Stepping over piles of litter and dark puddles of unknown muck, while wearing flip-flops, is not a frightening activity. Herds of sheep or frolicking families of goats, ownerless cats or dogs, all picking their way through the garbage for a snack, is a daily sight. Even the bright colors have become second-nature to me. Shocking orange and pink print fabric, worn perhaps as a figure-hugging complet, blends in with the many other striking colors and scenery that I see, every day, every week. So, inevitably, I notice these thigns less. They cease to be noteworthy for me, and thus do not get mentioned in this blog, and therefore are not passed on to you all. In my head I know that the USA is not like this, and that even mundane aspects of my life here are meaningful for those who don't live them, but it is hard to remeber what is worth recording anymore. I get excited by flowering sesame plants, for God's sake! Tree saplings make me clap my hands and when I get greasy rice for lunch it is a big deal. I am pleased when it rains enough to fill my buckets so I don't have to pull water from the well. That's what the Peace Corps does to you. I have no perspective on the world anymore. Is this blog even interesting? I find ripening millet to be interesting! But as I said, I am so far gone now that I have forgotten what's worth writing down.

Putting Keur Ali Gueye on the Map

My neighbor Wanna painting the names on the countries of the world.Last week Wanna came over to help me paint maps on the school walls. With the inevitable flock of children clustered around the door, studying our every move, we painted in all the colors of the countries of the world on one wall, a map of the African continent on another, and a large map of Senegal on a last wall. It was a fun project! Though not improved by the breathing in of paint fumes and the use of a mysterious mixing chemical, which may or may not have been turpentine. Anyway, the walls of the school look beautiful! We wrote out all the country names and labeled everything and, though there are some tiny inaccuracies (which we fixed as best we could, drawing lines and erasing borders) the whole ensemble is colorful and really exciting for the kids. They took off singing the Senegalese national anthem as we painted the country map, along with the occasional refrains of "We Shall Overcome", which I still hear often from my visitors' and my song teaching adventure. Now one whole room of the school is bright with maps that the children can study during their breaks, or during class, I hope. The plan is to use the remaining paint to put murals on the walls of the other classrooms. At the moment the school is very bland, so unlike what I remember from elementary school, with colorful posters, paintings, quotes, and art projects hanging everywhere. So murals will really improve the atmosphere.
And now, the millet is above my head! It's starting to produce "candles" - the long, thin heads of grain - though now they are in the flowering stage. It is a deep kind of contentment, walking next to a towering field of heavy-topped grass, hearing the wind rustle through the leaves, and know that this is our food. Corn is producing ears, though not ripe ones yet, and the beans are absolutely fantastic. People are already harvesting and eating some of the dried pods! I have on occasion pilfered a green pod, too. Tastes like fresh green beans. Though I am growing fond of the many ways Senegalese find to prepare black-eyed peas too. Also, two small cashew fields have been planted and are doing well, and one farmer (with my help, but only a LITTLE help!) has planted a live fence of thorny tree saplings around his orchard. Yay! That's EXACTLY what we want to see! The women are beginning to weed the bissap field, too, which will no doubt occupy our days for several months once it ripens, as it did when I first arrived in the village last November. And Ramadan is coming soon. When it arrives, I will have been here a year - a lunar year, since it started the day after I set foot into Senegal.