Applying myself

This is my last weekend in Kaolack! I plan to do the final village stretch for a full ten days, to say good bye to everyone in the surrounding towns that I have worked with, and to visit with everyone in the village before I go. I bought gifts for the family - school bags for the kids, fabric for the women, a nice briefcase and address book for my counterpart - and a bunch of kola nuts for the village elders. How strange, to be leaving soon....I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

Close of Service - so soon!

I spent the past couple of days reviewing my service, via the writing of reports I have to turn into Dakar. It is strange to list, one by one, the various things I have done over these past few years. So many of my projects didn't last, but I tried a lot of different activities. And some of them - the latrines, of course, and the school paintings, and the vetiver grass, and the Bookmobile - will actually continue to improve peoples' lives for awhile at least, in whatever small ways they can. In three more weeks, I'll head to the capital for my final medical review and administrative paperwork. And then it's done.

Ramadan finished last Sunday, with a huge lunch of village "sauce". This is kind of like a beef stroganoff: chunks of meat, lots of diced onion, fried potatoes, and macaroni, all cooked together in an oily dish that we scoop up with bits of mud-oven bread. It was greasy and delicious! After lunch I walked around the village to each compound, to say "bahaalma ak" - to ask forgiveness for whatever I might have done in-between Korite's. This is a nice tradition. We did it after Tabaski, too, and I love the feelings of peace and goodwill I get from wandering around, greeting people in this way.

The rains are still not done, though they have tapered off a little. Still, not reliably enough for me to trust the Bookmobile on these washed-out dirt roads. I think the next time it goes out will be with my project replacements. Two year-in Volunteers are taking over the Bookmobile, and I think they're going to do a great job. Everyone wish them luck!

Some peanuts are ripe, and people are getting ready for the big harvest which is just around the corner. The beans I extended are producing like crazy, as they always do for farmers who properly weed their fields. One guy has four rice-sacs full of dried beans! From only a kilo that I gave him! Sometimes, little successes like that make my whole week.

Mud

The rains are ridiculous this year! Here the millet, corn, and peanuts are nearly ripe, and it's pouring almost daily! All the dirt roads are now mud pits. In Kaolack, entire roads flooded up to the knees in places. Truly it's something. People are worrying now that too much rain will hurt the harvest, cause moldy grain etc. I'm worried because I want to do one more Bookmobile run before I leave, but until these roads dry up it's just not possible. So everyone pray for a speedy end to these crazy rains!
In more exciting news: I am going home in a month!!! Just bought my tickets. One to Paris for a week, then home to Seattle. It's something of a countdown here now, but I am keeping more or less busy, fantasizing about crepes and Mexican food all the while...

Rain and Ramadan

The month of September is notorious for erratic weather, and so far it is living up to expectations. It is the middle of Ramadan, so no one in the vilage is eating or drinking anything from sunup to sundown. They wake up at 5:30am to eat a few spoonfuls of "funde" - millet porridge - and then wait until around 7:30pm to drink a cup of coffee, a glass of bissap, and maybe a loaf of heavy village bread. The days pass extra slowly for me, since there is a low energy level all around. I spend a lot of time reading. Crops are slowly ripening, but not quite ready to harvest yet. Meanwhile, the rains have made cell phone service uncertain, and Internet nonexistant in Nioro.
A few days ago something happened to add some spice to this Ramadan schedule. In the evening, rain and speeding winds started to arrive. Before long there was lighting, heavy downpour, booming thunder right overhead, and the wind roared against my thin aluminum door. I lay in bed listening to the storm.
The next morning, when I tried to open my back door, I found all my millet-stalk fences lying on the ground. When I opened by front door, I encoutered an entire tree right on my steps! The storm had torn it down. Several of my backyard trees were snapped in two, and the family's fencing was all plastered to the earth, the fenceposts pulled from their holes. But our compound was lucky. Some peoples' roofs blew away; some older huts collapsed under the pelting rain. Almost all the village trees had some damage. Plenty of people are now missing walls.
It took a full day to put up all the fences, clear out the fallen timber, and salvage bits from where they had been scattered. Still, Keur Ali Gueye was fortunate in my mind. Despite all the destruction, most houses are still more or less intact, and miraulouly, no one was hurt that I know of.

Coumba ting-ting

My favorite rainy season bird has come again! In Wolof they call it "coumba ting-ting"; I think it may be named the Senegalese fire finch, but I'm not sure. In any case, I love to see them perched on the dark green millet stalks. Every time I see a coumba ting-ting I can't help but smile. They are so shocking to the eye! Their head and breast are perfectly black, but their neck and sides are a vivid, almost electric red. They just pop out of their surroundings like neon. and when they fly; it is only short distances, with a funny jerky motion accompanied by trilling chirps. Whenever I go out to the fields nowadays, I keep my eyes open and watching for that flash of vibrant crimson in the millet.
Village life is going on as usual, ndank ndank. All my prep work is done, since at this point the seeds I gave out have either been planted or they haven't; the nebedaye trees put into the ground or else they have already been made into leaf sauce. So I stroll around, taking notes on the state of the fields that I'm monitoring, weeding a row or two when I feel like it. The kids stay out working all morning, and sometimes the afternoon as well. Soon, though, that will stop, because Ramadan is coming again. It could be any day now. They are just waiting on the moon to decide when to begin the month-long fast. Last year during Ramadan I painted the maps and murals in the school. This year I think I will just enjoy the village, and maybe try to get some end-of-service paperwork out of the way.

Gerte tella nor

At last, full rainy season again! The bean seed I gave out is all seeded and sprouted, and so is the rice, corn, and soprghum. I didn't hand out any millet seed or peanut, but those are growing too, and looking beautiful. The millet is dark green and lush, while some of the early-ripening peanut varieties ("gerte tella nor") are already showing their charming yellow flowers. In my backyard I have intercropped two rows of corn and beans, and out behind my fence I tried to create a thick-mulched no-till garden of beans and bissap, with an intensive nebedaye plot. But after spending an entire morning weeding, thinning, and successfully making the garden look wonderful, I went out that afternoon and returned to find....no leaves on my bissap. They had been eaten by goats. I was so angry! But futily so, because there is nothing to be done. Little goats can get through even the barbed wire fence that is around my field, and the bissap was just too tempting for them. My only hope is that it will recover fast enough that the next time they come around, it will be big enough to get not entirely defoliated. Bah! Meanwhile I am enjoying the return to field labor. It's not hard for me, since I can take a break whenever I want, but people work all morning, and oftentimes all afternoon again, bent over at the waist, weeding up and down rows of peanut. I like to weed a row or two nd then walk for a bit to stretch out my back. It is physically demanding work. People who grow up and work in a village like mine get very strong, very young. Not like me! But I love the shock of a cold rain every other day or so, and the touch of warm soil beneath my bare soles as I do my little share of fieldwork.

Dr. Seuss in Wolof

Reading aloud to a remarkably respectful group in a village near Foundiougne.



It has been a long time since my last blog post! I haven't been busy, exactly, but somehow the time got away from me anyway. Things in the village are going, ndank ndank. People are farming, and most have seeded what I have them. I am more hands-off this season because there are so many other things to do, and besides the village is occupied with other activities, such as constructing their new mosque, which got financed from somewhere. There's a big green sign in Arabic no doubt explaining it, but of course I have no idea what that says. Many of the young men spend all day there, building, and of course there are also fields to be tilled. It's a busy season!

I just finished a long but satisfying week with the Bookmobile. Finally a little money came through so we were able to do another run, and it went extremely well! Actually, not all of it went smoothly. Because of the rains, the soil is soft, so almost once a day the heavy truck got stuck in the mud. It went in DEEP, and we had to solicit help from whoever happened to be nearby to dig out the tires and get the Bookmobile back on the squishy path. Our poor chauffeur exhausted himself every day just driving on these questionable bush roads, dodging potholes and maneuvering around bumpy deviations. On one memorable occasion, he exclaimed: "This road doesn't have potholes - it has wells!" Which is practically did. So our truck is feeling pretty battered. I'll recommend that from now on the Bookmobile only run in the dry season, when it can't damage anyone's field (that was a loud and intense situation) and the ground is packed, so it cannot get sucked into the dirt. I am just grateful that we got around to all the villages, and back to Kaolack again, safely and in mostly one piece.

Despite automobile difficulties, though, the program went smoothly. We left 150 books in each of four villages, checking them out to anyone who could write their name. Everyone loved it! We got such amazing welcomes everywhere we went. The villages cooked us tasty meals, and provided overnight accommodation (organized by their Volunteer, usually) as their contribution to the project. Meanwhile, we spent a day in each, distributing books and reading stories. One of the biggest hits was Dr. Seuss' "The Foot Book", which was fun and easy to translate into Wolof. Also, "Tikki tikki tango", that story about the little Chinese boy with the too-long name that I remember from my own childhood. They loved that one! Things were calm and people really seemed thrilled to have the Bookmobile in their villages. Seeing kids clustered around a book in the shade, looking through the pictures or sounding out French words, was reward in itself.

Still, I am exhausted from the terrible roads and constant break-downs. So, a weekend in Kaolack, then village time again, then another Ag conference, then back to the village again. Alhamdullilah!