The Last Huraah

Today is my last day in Senegal. For the last two years I have imagined, dreamed, planned or otherwise thought about this day. None of it was remotely near the reality. I recall picturing sheer joy, excitement, feelings of relief and perhaps fireworks celebrating the end of my service.

Well, okay, maybe not the fireworks.

The last week I've been in Dakar has been low key, nearly anticlimactic. There is a small group of us here at the Regional House that went through meetings and going from office to office getting our paperwork signed and property turned in. A mini final family reunion as we try to get through the last hurdles and while away the days before our final trip to the airport. It's been nice having the opportunity to spend time with those I didn't get to see much outside of training and summits. But then we have to say goodbye.

Which brings me back to the difference between what I pictured this day would be like and the reality.

It's hard.

The emotions from leaving village crop back up. Not at the same level, but it still isn't easy to say goodbye to this family that was chosen for us. Will we see each other again? When is the next time we will all sit around a table, a cold, cheep beer in our hands, telling tales of how we acted like bumbling fools in our village, or the latest awkward/creepy marriage proposal?

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to go home. I'm looking forward to escaping the cloud of mosquitoes that lives here at the regional house, and the obnoxious taxi drivers who insist on charging three times the normal rate because my skin is white. I can't wait to see my family, to sleep in my own bed and have a bowl of raisin bran crunch for breakfast Tuesday morning.

But I have to say goodbye to another family in the mean time. There is too much goodbye in too short a time.

Today also marks two weeks since I left my village. I haven't been able to get a hold of my host dad - or anyone in my village for that matter - because the reception is so bad. I want to talk to them. To let them know I am leaving and that I miss them so much I can't even look at pictures of them without choking up a little. I pray to God that I'll be able to get through at least once - if not today - then once I'm home. 

I have two things to add which I forgot to post earlier: news on the Sing Thiang Poullo well to start.

They reached water in the new well! All that was left - at the time I visited them in the beginning of March - was to put the cement wall around the mouth of the well, which they have since finished and even wrote my name into it. Moussa came by on my last day for a political meeting and told me the first well was now completed and in use. "We wrote your name and Corps de la Paix in the cement so everyone will always know what you did for us." I tried to tell him that they did it for themselves - carried much of the burden in fact - but he just shook his head and said without the financing they never would have managed to get the two wells. The second of which the diggers had started work on. I'm assuming it isn't completed yet, but believe it will be soon.

So that's good news and I want to take this moment to thank each and every one of you who donated to this project. None of this would have been possible without your contributions. Thank you so, so much.

Second thing I want to add is just another story from village. Something to check off my bucket list. Or anti-bucket list as I should say.

I got stung by a scorpion.

The small, white little bastard was hiding between the metal sheet that is my back door and the wood frame. Stung my hand as I opened it to put my water buckets in my back yard for my shower. Took me a while to figure out what happened. I actually thought I'd burned myself on the aluminum of my door since the afternoon sun was blazing down on it and it does actually get hot enough to cook an egg (I've actually tested that theory). But when the feeling didn't abate and started moving down my hand I had to re-evaluate. Was it a spider or that horrible centipede like thing? No puncture marks. The pain increased, crawled further down my arm so I went back into my hut to see if there was anything to point me towards the culprit. Low and behold, there it was on the floor, just chillin' in the shade.

I admit that actually seeing the thing upped my freak out factor by about a hundred. Of all the possibilities that I'd come up with, a scorpion was nowhere on the list. I had no clue what to do. I didn't even know the word for scorpion in Pulaar since I'd never had the reason to say it and they aren't that prevalent in my village. I know it now - Yarrii - and I certainly won't be forgetting it any time soon. So I did what any other child would do: I killed it, then speared it on my knife to present to my family outside.

My host mom, Aisatou, stared at me, then it and then the way I was cradling my arm. The pain had reached my forearm and I could no longer move my pinky finger. "Did--did that sting you?" she asked. I just nodded, trying really hard to hold back my tears. This was a kind of pain I had never experienced before - and DO NOT EVER WANT TO AGAIN - and I was trying really hard not to let the pain mix with my fear and turn me into a blubbering mess. This was a bloody scorpion after all.

My family's actions totally helped on that point. There was no dismissal of the incident. Most of the time when someone gets stung or injured (in a minor way - blood or broken bones is a different story) the Senegalese just suck it up, get through it and then move on. No need to worry or take quick action. "You'll live." I distinctly remember being teased about fainting.

There was no laughter this time. My host mom brought me this salve to put on the sting, my host grandmother tied my bandana tight around my wrist and my sister, Mati, stayed with me in the health post as several other members of my family looked for a health worker to give me a shot. Quick, quiet efficiency. If they weren't terribly worried, then I shouldn't be either. After all, this sort of thing happens to them way more often than it does for us in Washington State. 

My sister left my side only after my host grandmother returned with the doctor and my host dad. My dad was nothing but sympathetic and my host grandmother stayed with me while I was getting the shot (holding me still at first because the first couple of injection hurt like bloody hell and I reflexively jerked). She just kept saying 'Sorry, sorry' over and over again. When it was done, my dad came in and tried to lighten the mood by telling me it was a good thing I hadn't already taken my shower because I had completely sweated through my tank top.

"You've never been stung by a scorpion before?" he asked me as we were leaving. "Welcome to Africa," he said with a smile after I shook my head.

I got nothing but sympathy for the next couple days as word got around the village. It's considered bad form for adults to cry here. Children cry, not adults. Except, it seems, in the case of scorpion stings. "Did you cry?" pretty much everyone asked me. "It's okay. That hurts sooo bad. You can cry. There's no shame in that." Good to know we all get a pass on the scorpion sting.

Whatever it was that was in the injection worked. Numb at first, after twenty minutes or so the pain did return, but far more tolerable and confined to my hand  - as opposed to clear down to my elbow. It was completely gone by the next afternoon.

So a scary few hours and a whole lot of street cred with my village all from a stupid scorpion two inches long. 

There it is. My last village story. Not a bad way to close out a blog.

I'll only add a very big Thank You to all those who have followed my Peace Corps service and helped me through the last two years. I am forever in your debt.

Cheers!

Christine

Saying Goodbye

Me and my best friend, Hawa, on my last day

"Whenever I think of my family, I will think of you. Whenever I think of Badion, I will think of you. You are my daughter and I pray that you have peace, success and happiness in your life. For you to have these things, is for me to have these things because we will always be family."

My host dad said that to me on Sunday morning after the two hour drive to Kolda from my village. After crying for an hour the night before, having said goodbye to my friends and siblings, then crying on the ride out of village very early in the morning, I thought perhaps I had got beyond it. Then he said these things and the only thing I could do to keep from becoming yet another puddle of tears was to hug him as hard and as long as I could.

Hugging isn't really done here. There are playful hugs, the 'side hug', but emotionally driven hugs? No. Especially between men and women. That just isn't done. It's even awkward with kids. It's such an American thing to do. But he didn't hesitate, he hugged me back just as tightly.

The last two weeks of being village were incredibly strange. Emotionally, that is. The days were the same. The routine, the food, the topics of conversation, all of that was the same. But under all the sameness was a kind of sadness. Especially with my closest friends and the teachers. The feeling of 'we don't have much more time together' pervaded every encounter and conversation.

On the flip side was that people didn't either believe I was really leaving or didn't understand that when I said I only had a month, or two weeks left, that was actually how much time I had left. At one week my host dad told my namesake host mom that we needed to figure out what we would do for my last day 'goodbye-thing' and she just stared at me like it was the first she'd heard of it. Time is extraordinarily flexible here. No one wears a watch and since most people cannot read French they don't know how to set the time and date on their cell phones. So while a meeting may start at 9am on paper, people will show up at 1030 or 11 (if at all) or show up the next day thinking that was they day of the meeting. Weeks and months are obscure. Time of the year is referenced by seasons (Mango, hot, rainy, cold) or big religious holidays (e.g. Korite, Tabaski). So things just kind of happen as they do,when they do and you just have to get used to it.

Or go crazy.

After two years, I'm way more laid back about timing and just seeing what the day brings. If I can do what I want to do when I want to, awesome. If not, *shrug*. Tomorrow is another day. But then things like COS dates come in and we are ripped back to the iron clad time schedules of the West. So when my host mom looked at me as though I'd grown a second head, I was both sympathetic and a bit irritated. She'd known this was coming. Calender or no calender, a month is still a month and a week is still a week. How is this a surprise?

She wanted to do a massive party with music and a goat to eat. I had absolutely no desire to do such a thing. Thankfully neither did my host dad, who immediately came to my rescue and put the kabosh on the whole idea. All I wanted was to have a lunch or dinner, my family and work partners, talk, drink tea and then say my goodbye before going to bed. I was leaving after all, and it wasn't going to be easy to say goodbye to the people I cared the most about in private, let alone in front of a giant audience. So it was agreed that we'd have a better than average lunch and dinner (cow meat for lunch, and chicken for dinner), invite people to come spend some time at the compound, talk, eat and drink sugary milk and tea before I went to bed. Then the next morning - early before anyone got up - someone would take me to Kolda.

That last week passed in a blaze of intense heat. The real Hot Season is just kicking into 2nd gear and I'm eternally grateful I won't have to face the real deal for a third time. February is like an oven on pre-heat, March on bake, April on broil and May all pretense is thrown out the door and we are all just submerged directly in a pile of coals.

Along with the heat was the awkward moments spent with my friends and family. People starting to come to terms with my departure and an endless barrage of people asking me for my stuff. Even towards the end, I felt that perhaps leaving wouldn't be too hard. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't get overly emotional. My siblings would be the hardest to leave, but the rest? I could handle it.

In true Senegalese style, nothing on Saturday worked out the way we'd planned/hoped it would. Three huge political meetings were happening on that day to prepare for the upcoming local elections. Two in my village and one in the Department capitol some 60km away. My host mother, Oumou, and her son, Jarta, went to the one in the capitol. I honestly thought I wouldn't see them again that day. Part of me was happy about that - Jarta is my absolute favorite sibling. He's mine. He calls me 'mom'. Having to say goodbye to that little bundle of wonderful was going to rip out my heart. I managed to put myself in a limbo like stage: maybe he'll be back in time, maybe not. I'll wait to emote about it later.

In the mean time, all the meetings kept people who said they would come for lunch from coming and it was a quiet, normal lunch time in the Mballo compound. The afternoon went on in its continuing heat. I took down my collage of photos, distributed my benoirs and buckets among my host moms and neighbors. Evening came and I helped cut up onions and pound pepper and garlic for the dinner. I bought one chicken, my host dad another. We almost never eat chicken - I've maybe had it 3, possibly 4 times, in the last two years - so this was a meal I looked forward to eating.

Chicken for Aisatou! Woo! Bring on the onions!

I packed more stuff, gave more things away, and spent time with my friend Hawa as my host mom's cooked the meal.

The meetings finally got over around 6pm, so all the women had to go to their own compounds to cook their families' dinner. Which meant that no one came for the dinner at our compound. My dad was very upset by this. While I was a bit disappointed, I also felt a bit relieved. Less pressure when I made my 'goodbye speech' and fewer people to potentially see me cry.

Oumou and Jarta did return early that day. Around 8pm they showed up and Jarta threw his little arms around my neck before starting to play with my braided hair. I couldn't let him go. I just wanted to hold him for the rest of the night, but since he had no idea that this night was different than any other, he eventually squirmed out of my grasp and played around the compound.

In the end my counterpart and a handful of women showed up for milk and tea and I read out my little pulaar speech that I had written (for which I had a TON of help from another 3rd year volunteer who was in my village the day before). Thank God it was dark because I choked up at the end and my eyes were burning by the time I was done. It wasn't particularly personal, as that isn't really culturally acceptable when in larger groups. These kinds of things are more about asking for forgiveness for wrongs done and forgiving others. Making sure the people of the village know that I was happy and that I am leaving without anger or bitterness and then giving a few traditional blessings (peace, prosperity, health, etc).

Near midnight I finally went to bed, but not before Jarta called out for me. "Neene!" (mom!) At one and a half, he's at that age where he likes to hand random things to people. In this case it was an empty can of condensed milk that we'd just finished drinking. All I could do was grab him up in a big hug, tell him I loved him and then quickly hide in my hut before I burst into tears.

Throughout the last two years, there have been many, many days where I wished that that day was my last one. I'd begged for the end of service to arrive faster. But when it did finally arrive, I didn't want it to be the last one. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew saying goodbye to people like Penda, Jarta, Oumou and my dad would be hard. I just didn't realize how deeply it would hurt.

I don't even know what time I finally fell asleep, but my alarm went off at 5 the next morning and I had to go through the last bits of packing before meeting my host dad outside to make the trip to Kolda. My cat, Tennan, who has single-handedly kept me sane for nearly two years, kept circling my legs and rubbing up against me. Could she sense that I wouldn't be coming back?

Let's just say she didn't help make leaving any easier.

There is one last cultural thing that should be noted: the left handed hand shake. Using the left hand is pretty much taboo here. You don't hand things over, or take thing with the left hand. You don't eat with the left hand or shake with the left hand. The left hand is used for...well, there's no toilette paper here so fill in the blank. Only when a person is leaving for a prolonged period of time do you shake with the left hand. It's like purposefully making a cultural mistake. The significance being that you must return to correct the mistake.

Sunday morning I woke up extra early in order to avoid seeing anyone and making my departure that much harder. This too is a cultural practice: leaving when no one is around to spare the final goodbyes and emotional displays. But my host moms, host grandmother and several siblings got up to say goodbye. After two years of not using my left hand to interact with other people, shaking their hands with my left hand felt incredibly strange. And wrong.

I was so grateful that it was dark out. I climbed on the back of my dad's motorcycle, tears already pouring down my face, and tried to focus on keeping myself as warm as possible in the very cold morning air as we zoomed out of the compound, past the health post, the school and down the dark dirt path out of my village.

My host dad and Jarta

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. Saying goodbye to my host dad was especially tough. I already miss him and everyone else.

So now it is a week and a half or so until I get on the plane for America. In the mean time, I have time in Kolda to go through all of my things and then several days in Dakar to finalize all paperwork, grants and signatures so that I can actually leave. I'll try to make one last post before before I leave.

Cheers to all and a big thank you to everyone for all of the support in the last two years.

The End Is Near...

Nap time for Jarta

I apologize for the long delay between posts. It is amazing how quickly the last few months have slipped by. Thanksgiving, going home for Christmas, New Years, returning to Senegal and now it is practically the end of February. How do I fit the last few months into a single blog post? I'll try to cover the highlights and try not to wax ad nauseam about how excited I am to go home, the plans I've made and the list of a million things I'd love to have time to do all at once.

Let's talk about what is going on in my little village.

Bad news first:

As I previously wrote, we've been having trouble getting the well at the middle school started. The hammer came down the end of January. When I returned from [my totally awesome] trip home for Christmas, I got together with the principal and Babacar, the president of the parent-teacher organization. On the phone with the principal was the government official in charge of all the planning for the school. Our simple well - standard, cement lined, rope-pulley system - just wasn't modern enough for their modern school. They asked me to up my contribution to 3 million CFA ($6000) or transfer the money I already had to buy supplies for the school. Both impossible for different reasons, but impossible just the same.

On January 31st, the principal handed back the money. It was one of those rare moments of Pulaar clarity that I have enjoyed twice, possibly three times in my entire service. Returning the funds was not simple or quiet. Two teachers, two chiefs from nearby villages, Babacar, and three community leaders were all present. The entire process - from my first question about a well at the school to the very last conversation I had with Babacar before I left for Christmas - was explained. They also went over all the efforts they made to find well diggers, negotiate prices and the thousand-and-one ways we'd all bent over backwards to accommodate the many, many, changes the school officials made.

We shared the same frustration: we'd all worked towards this for nearly a year and a half; we all wanted this school to have water. What's more, once the school building was announced, we all wanted the well to already be in place so when the masons needed water to mix the cement so they wouldn't be pulling it from the community. Building this school has required - at its height - nearly 500 liters of water per day. The government didn't bring in a water truck. The water came from the wells already in place. Water needed to drink, cook, do laundry, and take baths.

You can imagine the frustration on that point.

They were disappointed. Angry on some points, but mostly disappointed. We were all a team in this effort and it was a hard crash, even if it did seem inevitable in the end.

After everything was explained, they told me the reason why they had so many people from other villages was to make sure that no one - no one - could ever say that the people of Badion 'ate money intended for the school'. They then counted out the money twice, handed it to me and told me to count it as well. I told them I didn't need to, that I saw and heard as they counted before, but they insisted I do. So let me say this: all $500 was returned.

To all those who donated to this project, I am deeply sorry. The only consolation I can give is that the money you gave will make its way to other Peace Corps projects.

Moving on to better news:

Progress on the well in Sing Thiang Poullo. Before I left for this long stint in Thies and Dakar, I visited Sing Thiang Poullo. The diggers were only four meters short of hitting water and they'd already begun dismantling the upper cement section on the second well, prepping it for repair. I am really looking forward to getting back to village and going out to see how far they've gone in the last three and a half weeks.

Going, going, going....25 meters is a long way

As for my trip to Dakar and Thies:

Close of Service conference (COS), All Volunteer conference, the West African Invitational Softball Tournament and final medical appointments took up nearly three full weeks. I can't believe it is finally the last few weeks of service. (7, to be exact, but who's counting? Right?...) I'm torn between asking how it could already be down to this last home stretch - literally the home stretch - and how it could have possibly taken so long for 2 years to go by. Everyone talks about the roller coaster of emotions during service, it isn't until the end that they mention how the very end looks like a richter scale recording.

I am so excited to go home. I'm ready to go home and move on to the next phase of my life. My belated birthday is pretty much planned. I know what I'm going to eat first. I'm going to spend a week and a half with my sister and brother-in-law down in California in May. I am over the moon, ready to have my cake and eat it to.

But the actual act of leaving my village terrifies me. Will I be a helpless puddle of tears? Will I be able to actually say goodbye to my brothers and sisters? My dad and moms? My best friend in village? My family and I haven't really talked about my leaving. We've joked about what I'll leave for them. My younger brother is getting my running shoes because his feet are the same size as mine. My multi-tool and knife will go to my dad. My sisters and host moms will have the pick of most of my clothing.

We have not discussed saying goodbye.

How do I say goodbye to a group of people that I genuinely love? Forever? It won't be the same as when I told my family in America 'goodbye'. It wasn't even really goodbye. Just, 'see you in two years.' I cannot make that promise to these people. My little brother, Jarta, who calls me 'mom', will not remember me. Nor will Alpha, or Saliou or any kid I've come to know and care about who are under the age of 5. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about what I will say to them - or their mothers - on that very last day. "Take care of them, please, because I love them too."

My throat burns and my eyes are watering just thinking about it now.

I've screamed at them a couple times in the last 23 months. Wished to God that I was anywhere else and with anyone else. But they are and always will be my family. I love them, worry about them, and hope that every kid gets a chance to have a better life than just to live in Badion until they die. I want my sisters to go to highschool and college. My brother Adama is a genius with electronics and all things mechanical. Please, God, give him the means and the opportunity to study something like electrical engineering, or aeronautics or hydraulics. Wouldn't it be amazing if he put our little village on the map by inventing some awesome new device that could lift villages throughout Africa out of the dark with little more than wireless technology and well placed *insert name of awesome new invention*? This kid takes my dad's broken down radio and flashlight and makes his own working radio flashlight. Not exactly an iPod, but for a couple wires, string, well placed sticks and soddering via the heated handle of a spoon, he could put McGyver to shame.

The hardest step I have isn't the very last - getting on the plane in Dakar won't be difficult. The hardest step will come on or around March 30th, when I have to keep myself together long enough to put into words how I feel about the people in my village and say it to their faces.

You tell me, what would you say to this face on the last day, and not burst into tears in the process:

If you have an idea, let me know. Because I certainly don't have a clue.

Cheers,
Christine

Telephone via Two Year Old

Happy Thanksgiving from the Kolda crew

I can't believe it is already the end of November. The last month has flown by like no other month during my service. Between well projects, GREs and now Thanksgiving, November has vanished in a snap. The rainy season is now nothing but a distant dream and the plague of bugs is slowly diminishing as the nights get cooler and cooler. I've even started sleeping in my sleeping bag. There is nothing like cuddling up in my sleeping bag with my cat and her kitten curled up at my feet to make a cold night comfortably toasty.

Penda, the sleeping bag hog

Last week I went to Sing Thiang Poullo to check up on the progress of digging. The work is going, though slowly. The diggers have hit rock which slows things down. "I prefer rock to sand," said Omar Balde, the lead digger. "When there is sand, we have to dig slowly and put cement in all the time. When there is rock it is harder to dig, but I don't have to think about the wall coming down on my head."

Omar Balde at work.

Everyone loves watching others work.

Chipping away. Where's a jack hammer when you need it?

Rock removed so far

It is a team of three and they work from 8am to nearly 6pm every day, except Friday, where they work half days since Friday is the day of prayer. Despite the rock everyone is very optimistic. Since it is the cold season there isn't any need to stop for several hours in the afternoon to avoid the intense heat of the day, which just fuels their optimism. "If it was May," Omar explained. "The rocks would be a very bad thing. The sun would be too hot to work all day, and it would take much longer to dig." But since it is cold season: "Rocks slow us down, but the sun doesn't. We will get these two wells done," he finished smiling.

I am hoping to go back to STP before I leave for Christmas just to get one last check for the year.

In other news, school just began - and I do mean just - and the actual school building that the government is putting together is of course still not finished. The students and teachers are back in the bamboo and tree limb rooms, much to their disappointment. Another disappointment is the lack of well at the school site. After months of delays and promises of 'starting soon' it has now come to the point of either we find someone ourselves to dig the well outside of the government's timeline or I send the money back. The principal wants to do the former because he doesn't trust the government to finish things by the time I leave - which is the requirement for Appropriate Projects, the organization through whom the financing for the well was possible - so we are going to see what happens in the next two months. If we don't start by January then I'll have to send it all back.

Which will seriously suck for all parties involved.

As for the family, my host mother, Aisatou, has returned to our compound at last after Boubacar's funeral. It is nice to have her back as another of my host moms (the third wife, Umu) has been gone for just shy of a month now. She and her baby, Jarta (who is my favorite kid), went off to her dad's village and has yet to return.

We've also started a new game with Alpha, my two year old brother. This little dude - who could easily personify the definition of the 'terrible twos' -  is learning more and more language every day. He's now picked up on how to say the negatives of words. For example, he hates wearing clothes and is subsequently always SO dirty. And when I tease him about it or admonish him for rubbing his dirty face all over my shirt and say 'You are so dirty', he looks up at me with the biggest smile and says, defiantly, 'Not dirty.' His communication in general is really quite humorous. Certain words he knows well but others not so much. As he tries to tell people what he wants he'll start out with clear words and then fill in the blanks of the sentence with sounds that imitate the words he thinks are right, but doesn't quite know. It's hilarious. But he repeats words like a parrot, so the kids in my family came up with a new game.

I call it Two Year Old Telephone.

Instead of the usual line of kids whispering in each other's ears to pass along a message, we just send Alpha. We'll call him over and tell him something like, "go tell mom to give you 25 CFA." He'll scamper off and bug his mother until she finally pays attention to him. Odds are that he's already forgotten what we asked him to say (which just amps up the hilarity factor), in which case he smashes some incoherent words together and points towards us. If he actually remembers it, he'll loudly tell the target what we told him to in his two year old speech. The target will tell him something in response and he scamper back to us with their answer, which is usually in the negative.

It's a great game to take up the time as we all wait for dinner to be ready and get our minds off the chill in the air.

There is one word he knows and I take full credit for his knowing it: 'No.' There are those occasions where someone will ask him to give him something - usually food - and he'll shout 'No!'. He doesn't use it at the wrong times, which leads me to believe that instead of a simple parroting action, he actually understands the word, which is awesome. I'm trying to teach him 'yes', 'mine', 'come' and 'go'. Easy words with easy associations in pulaar and personally I think teaching him 'mine' would just be fun. He, like all other two year olds, isn't the best sharer so why not teach him the word that goes along with 'no' when someone asks for his bowl or his cup or whatever is  in his hand at the time.

My lasting legacy.

With four and a half months left in village, I do think of that legacy outside of projects and work. I know that Alpha and Jarta will not remember me. Nor will my neighbor's son, who is Alpha's age. But perhaps if I can teach them a few English words part of me will linger with them even if they don't remember how they know those words.

The next two weeks will be spent in village and then I'll be back in Kolda to start my trip to America for Christmas. Once I get back I'll have around 100 days left of service. I really can't believe that it has already come down to this. I remember arriving and staring down 24 months as though it were an eternity. Now I've only got the last quarter left and much of it will be spent out of village because of Close of Service Conference, All Volunteer conference, closing medical appointments, needing internet access to close out grants and write up my service documentation. It is so strange to imagine I've come to the last home stretch.

My family and friends in village say I'm not allowed to leave.

Even if I didn't 'accomplish' a lot in terms of work, their wish for me to stay means everything in the world and makes these last year and a half time well spent.

Cheers to all and a very happy Thanksgiving!

-Christine

October, etc

We're now in the last third of October and I have struggled on just how to start writing this blog post. A lot has happened in the last month and a half. I'll start with the biggest and best news:

WELL PROJECT IS FULLY FUNDED!!

In under two months you donated just over $1700 and I could not be happier. Best news in the world to be in my inbox when I came to Kolda for and illness three weeks ago. Not only was it fully funded, but the money was already in my bank account, waiting for me to pluck it out. When I returned to village I immediately talked to Kebou (the man who pretty much arranged the whole project) and he was ecstatic. Apparently he'd been fending off some not so nice things being said about me since the wells weren't being dug immediately and he couldn't wait to rub this in their faces.

His joy was nothing compared to Moussa's when he came around my hut later the next day just to greet me. He had come to Badion to pick up medicine for their Health Hut (the lowest level of medical facility in Senegal) and had to return with it, but said he'd be back in the next couple days to talk over the plans, get the village's money together and start this ball rolling. As with everything in this country, the few days were stretched into several weeks (Tabaski, the largest Islamic holiday, in the midst slowed things even more) but when I return to village we will be going to a city called Velingara to buy all the materials and get transport for it all. My hope is to break ground by the end of the month. Optimistic? Probably. But at this point I figure it couldn't hurt and as long as we start by mid November we should still be on a timetable that will fit with my departure in - now -  under six months. Paperwork and all.

That's another bit of news. I'm in the last quarter of my service. I remember last year feeling as though I would never make it to this point. Staring down the long line of 17 months is daunting. Six months, less so. Now I worry about getting all my work done before I leave, whereas last year I was worried about being bored out of my mind since I had none.

What a difference a year makes.

Though, in some cases, a year doesn't seem to make any difference at all. In fact, some things repeat themselves.

Last year I wrote about the tragic death of my 16 year old host sister, Kumba. This year, I must right about the loss of my 10 1/2 month old baby host brother, Boubacar.

He'd been sick for several weeks. Extremely high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and refusing to eat. This was common with a lot of young kids in my village. The other two 'babies' - one year and two year old - in my family were also very sick. They all went to the health post and got medication. But Boubacar didn't respond in the same way. He'd get better a little and then revert. Five times in a month my host mom - his mother - went to the health post and got different medicine for him. None of it worked. In the last few days Boubacar, the little boy everyone teased was my husband, was a shell of his former, fat, healthy self. The soft spot on the top of his head was sunken, his eyes were big and sunken. His body looked too small for his head and his mouth and tongue were white. His body was always hot to the touch. Not just warm, but hot. He couldn't sit up. He would just lie on his back, or his side, or his stomach - whichever position he was put in, for he no longer even rolled over - and stare out. He stopped making fussy noises. Didn't cry.

The day he died, the 14th of October, my host mom mentioned that she needed to take him to Velingara, to the larger, better equipped hospital 30km away. But it was too late. Around noon, as his mother thought he was asleep, his little body gave out. He died under the shade of a mango tree.

I was on a walk for most of the morning and came back around 12:30 or so. Everything was oddly quiet in the compound and my host mother's mom, Turi, was sitting under the mango tree next to my hut. My host dad's big yellow mat was laid out in front of my hut. My host brother, Ibrihima, sat in a chair, bent over his knees with his face in his hands. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dark forms of many women in my host mother's hut. "What happened?" I asked.

"Boubacar died," replied Turi.

My host dad came out of his hut a second later. I stared at him as he repeated the same thing that Turi just told me. No matter that I had finally, verbally, acknowledged that Boubacar was dying that very morning - I was stunned. I sat down next to one of my sisters and did my best to hold back tears as a few more people trickled in and my friend and neighbor, Hawa, sat next to me. She briefly put a hand on my shoulder in support before starting the typical greetings.

There is nothing more surreal than hearing the response 'Peace Only' after someone asks how the kids of your family are. That is, I think, the Senegalese in a single phrase. No matter what is going on, you and your family are always at peace. It made me angry to hear it. All I wanted to say was 'Things are not good. Things are awful. A baby is dead. That is how my family is.'

But I didn't. I said 'Peace Only' and continued to sit, feeling just as helpless and utterly unprepared to face death in this culture as I did a year ago when I was still new. I can never remember the phrases and prayers that are said to a person in a time of loss. For the same reason I can never remember the phrases and prayers that are said for holidays like Korite and Tabaski - the situation for their use just doesn't arise often enough for me to remember them.

That day was nothing like the day we found out Kumba died. There was no theatrics. No un-ending wailing. My host dad didn't cry. Our compound wasn't beset with a hundred people coming from the surrounding villages. No distant relatives made plans to visit the family. Under Islamic tradition, Boubacar was wrapped in white fabric (white is the color of death here) and the men - and men only - went to the graveyard and buried him that afternoon. 

For the rest of the day I listened and observed. I played the part of the foreigner who couldn't understand the language being whispered around me. I heard (or perhaps merely understood) for the first time questions of blame, what happened, what lead to the death and if it could have been prevented. On the whole curiosity about what Boubacar died of didn't exist. In America, one of the first questions out of our mouths is 'What happened?/How did he die?/What was he sick with?' Here, such questions make no sense because the answer doesn't mean anything. Knowing isn't going to change the fact that this child is dead, so why does it matter how he died?

But even those whispers were few and brief. Devine Will is a cornerstone of Senegalese culture. People live, are sick, get well, and die by the Will of Allah. No human has any right to question His methods or reasons. What is done, is done.

Even knowing that, I still couldn't help but question why there was such a huge difference between the reaction to Kumba's death and Boubacar's. The conclusion I came to is this: Boubacar was sick for a long time. Mine could not have been the only acknowledgement that he was dying. I was probably a late comer to that particular revelation. Infant and child mortality is high - relatively speaking - in Senegal. Most especially in rural, moderately remote villages like mine. Culturally, pregnancy is not spoken of because that life does not yet exist. A baby is only alive after it is born and even then, it doesn't get a name until a week after birth. This is one of the many obstacles to getting pregnant women to go to pre-natal visits. Acknowledging the pregnancy and recognizing the life within as truly alive is going to take a while to take hold.

This particular cultural aspect may have also played into the subdued post mortem atmosphere: Boubacar hadn't really started his life yet. He barely recognized himself in a mirror. Kumba, on the other hand, was a vibrant, vigorous, rambunctious 16 year old, bubbling over with life and personality. She had demonstrated so much potential.

A loss far more shocking and tragic when looked through these filters.

My family made it through another Tabaski on the heals of death. Full of oily rice, goat meat and macaroni noodles. My host mother's absence was the only real evidence that anything had happened. My host siblings were playing and fighting like usual. My host dad was smiling and enjoying the holiday like everyone else. Boubacar's clothes were passed to his brothers. He'd been a fat baby so his clothes were big enough for Jarta - the one year old - and he even had one outfit that he could swim in that now fits my two year old brother, Alpha. It felt strange to see the two of them in clothes I had seen Boubacar wearing only a few days before.

Life must go on.

So it does.

As I look towards the end of October and the beginning of November there are lots of things to fill the space. School will open this week, despite the fact that it was supposed to open 2 weeks ago. So my scholarship girls will finally be back in village, supplies will be in boutiques for me to buy and we can have a nice little ceremony for the girls and pass out certificates. I'm looking forward to that day. Hopefully my principal will be back so I can plan it with him.

The new Agriculture volunteers have arrived, making my stage the oldest group of volunteers in country. An extremely odd notion. We've already been saying goodbye to several Ag volunteer friends here in Kolda who are heading home with 2 years of service completed. I hated saying goodbye to the last Health group. This is no easier. They've been our mentors, councilors, friends and guides through the last year and a half. Ours was the group that made theirs no longer the 'newbies'. Their departure now makes our group the 'oldies'. It is said that we don't choose our friends here in the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps chooses our friends for us. Seems to me that the Peace Corps chose rather well for us down here in Kolda. We call ourselves a family, and in many respects we are.

It isn't easy to say goodbye to family members who move away.

The well project, as I mentioned in the beginning, will hopefully move forward smoothly enough and I've got about 2 weeks or so until I sit the GREs. I haven't been able to do as much studying as I hoped, but I'll make do. By that time I'll have just a hair over a month until I head to America and home for Christmas.

I plan on posting pictures as the well project moves along so stay tuned.

Cheers to all and a Happy Halloween.

Save me a few Reece's Peanut Butter Cups.

-Christine

Kittens and N'Ice Cream

Just like I promised, here are some pictures of my new kittens. Go ahead, melt. I won't judge.

Morning of Korite. Less than 8 hours old

One week old and just a pile of kitten fluff

Three weeks old and trying to get out of the box

Kitten with the black spot is the oldest. Haven't named him yet.
He's a cautious little fellow

This is Penda (named after my counterpart).
She's very playful and has been trying to escape the box for a week.

Wide eyed and romping around momma

Except Julde (named for the Pulaar word for Korite, since he was born on that day)
Always sleeping. This time curled up with the bunny.

Too keep this post from being completely 'kittens-in-a-box' centered I'd like to tell a tale about animals and the Senegalese culture. Fair warning, it does have a lot to do with my cat, Tennan. (I'm so much a cat lady it's crazy)

There is a strange dichotomy of attitudes and treatment of animals here. Animals are a lesser form of life. They are not worthy of concern, remorse, respect, spending money (eg medicine or food) when tea could be had, and animals are the dumbest of all living creatures (read: they are incapable of learning). Dragging them across the compounds by one leg, folding goats/sheep up into a basket and strapping them to the back of a bike is no problem. Need to transport a chicken long distance? Tie their legs together and hang them upside down from the handle of a motorcycle or bike. Have a small cow? Hog tie it and haul it on top of a bus. Horse not 'behaving', balking or 'not moving fast enough' - take a tree limb/rope and beat the crap out of it. Nothing but your hands? Closed fist in the jaw a couple times will make them listen.

Goats and sheep regularly eat themselves to death. Or they get hit by motos, or even occasional get eaten by the few predators in the woods where they are grazed (if they are even taken out to graze). They waltz through huts and into the cooking area, leaving a trail of little black balls of poop as a thank you gift. Any animal on four (or two) legs can lick out a bowl of remaining rice, sauce, veggie scraps, etc and people will scare them away with a few kicks or waves of a tree branch and then promptly dole out the family meal in the same bowl from which 6 people will soon eat.

Horses, donkeys and cows can be worked to death - underfed especially during the raining season when they are out in the fields pulling plows 6 hours a day (ironic, really, since the rainy season provides so much free grass to eat) - or starve to death because people cannot afford/refuse to buy adequate food during the dry season 8 months of the year.

These types of actions scream 'we couldn't care less about these animals'. But on the flip side of this dichotomy is a value system [albeit restricted] applied to the same animals.

Case in point: my little brother, Alpha, is now 2 years old and he is the walking, talking, breathing example of the 'terrible twos' label. He's a holy terror to animals. His entire life he has watched animals get smacked with sticks, kicked and hit with anything in reach. That is all he knows about animals. See them = hit them. Older, larger animals he can't catch and he is a bit afraid of them. But baby animals are easy pickings. Two weeks ago he beat a baby goat to death.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

He beat a baby goat to death.

When my host dad found out about it three days later and at night, he beat the kid for it. He told him why he was beating him, but at 2 years old - and screaming at the top of his lungs - he understands less Pulaar than I do and most certainly was not listening to anything that was being said.

If people (most especially children) cause bad things to happen to animals, there is hell to pay. No matter what the Senegalese think of the mental/emotional capacity of the animals they own or how treatment directly relates to behavior, every single one is money on legs. Goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, cows, and donkeys can all be sold to pay for one thing or another. Or they can be eaten to sustain the family. They have value. In place of saving money in a bank - which more often that not is just too far away and requires the ability to read and write French - animals are a family's savings. 'Piggy Bank' takes on a whole new meaning.

Cats and dogs, on the other hand, have no value what-so-ever and can even be seen as a menace to society.

The oddity that is my gentle treatment of Tennan (and previously Talata) is now such old news that people in my village just enjoy asking me how she is and laughing when I answer with the same answer one gives when asked about a person: "Hono Tennan? [How is Tennan?]" "Jam tan mbo woni" [She is peace only]. My closer friends felt bad for me after Talata disappeared, the nicer ones telling me he just went out to find some lady friends like all males do.

When I returned from Kolda 2 weeks ago Tennan was sick. I won't go into the whole story, but she had some sort of infection and she needed medicine. There is no vet anywhere near my village. Kolda is the closest. So I needed to get the medicine from my health post. Just a simple children's amoxocyllin. Inexpensive and easy to use because it dissolved in water and I could use my eye dropper to force Tennan to drink it. When I asked the ICP (guy in charge of the health post who has the medical training equivalent of nurse practitioner) if I could have the medicine and told him why he stared at me like I'd grown a second and third head.

"I don't have time for this," he said dismissively. "Medicine is for people, not for cats."

Now, I totally understand this. The medical supply chain in this country is deplorable and people really are more important that animals. I get that. I agree with it. That said, there is no vet; I was asking for a medicine they had in extreme surplus and I had no other option.

Tennan is my sanity. Losing Talata was hard enough, if anything happened to Tennan I'd go bonkers. Your opinions of my dependence on a four legged creature for my sanity are what they are, but when my day feels like hell I can always go into my hut and cuddle with my cat who loves me even though I speak Pulaar like a 4 year old.

I went back to my hut, a bit irrationally upset now that I look back on it - but extenuating circumstances of little sleep and bad stomach problems for a week exacerbated all issues at that point - and called my parents. I was not quiet about my distress and anger at being so coldly dismissed when my cat was suffering.

My host dad heard me and came into my room after I got off the phone. He asked me what was wrong, insisting that I tell him after I said it was stupid and nothing. "You are crying," he said. "It is not nothing." So I explained about Tennan and the need for medicine. "I know the way I think about animals is different than everyone else," I told him in the end. "But Tennan is my health [I couldn't remember the word for sanity in French - the language that comes out when I'm emotionally stressed out, apparently]. She is my friend."

He looked at me and shook his head. "No, Aisatou. It is not stupid and it is not nothing. I know you. You care about all animals. Their health is sacred to you. I know how much you love your cat. I will talk to the ICP."

Shamed by having the chief come to him and ask why I was refused medicine, the ICP told a song a dance story of not understanding me. He said he thought I was talking about my younger brother and wanted to buy medicine without having a consultation. Utter BS, but whatever. I got the medicine and Tennan got better.

Yay for happy endings, right?

I try not to think about what might have happened if my host dad hadn't been so understanding, or if the ICP had stood his ground. Western ideas and treatment of animals is extremely foreign in this part of the world. Animals are animals. They exist to serve us or else there is no other reason to care. Overpopulation of cats and dogs is handled by mass poisoning and drownings. Population control is practically impossible (spaying is impossible outside of Dakar and extremely expensive; few people take the trouble to neuter dogs) and in the case of those animals that 'matter' (donkeys, cows, sheep, etc) it is not desired. Goats and sheep are as prodigious at breeding as rabbits so that's just more free money, provided that they live.

I didn't mean to make this post depressing and I'm sorry if I brought anyone down with my tales of animal woe. To lift your spirits (and mine) here is a lovey picture of the ice cream I pretty much inhaled at N'Ice Cream while here in Dakar.

This is Obama flavor and Rock flavor.
Otherwise known as Triple chocolate ice cream (Obama)
and chocolate and peanut topping mixed with vanilla (Rock)
SO GOOD

I hope to have an update on fundraising for my well project by my next update. If you'd like to help that along please click Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project. To read about the project in more detail, take a gander at my last blog post, Water For Sing Thiang Poullo.

Upcoming events include returning to village next week, planning the ceremony for the girls' scholarship with my middle school principal, studying for my upcoming GREs and planning a sexual health education class with my friend Julia Bowers that will take place at the middle school as well. Also hope to do some mural paintings. My goal is to do a world map, a map of Africa and one of Senegal. As in America, geography has gone by the wayside in classroom curriculum so perhaps a giant multi-colored map will spark some questions and discussions about other countries and the world in general.

Cheers!
Christine

Water For Sing Thiang Poullo

I received news a few days ago that my grant request for a well project in another village has been approved. I've referred to a well grant in the last few posts with little detail, so today I'm going to start from the beginning and tell you all a story of how this project even came to be.

Laundry and water gathering at the one well in Sing Thiang Poullo

Sing Thiang Poullo (pronounced Seen--Chang--Poolo) is a remote village approximately 25km (about 15 miles) northwest of my village, Badion. I'd been there before when I accompanied my counterpart on a meningitis vaccination tourney. I remember thinking to myself how lucky I was to be in Badion - 'the big city' - with easy access to the main road and a market every day.

A man I really only knew in passing, Kebou Camara, came to talk to me about a friend of his in this village and their water problems. At this time particular time, just after my birthday, The Appropriate Projects grant for my school well had just been approved and I was in the middle of trying to understand why there were delays in starting the actual work (government interference is sooo annoying sometimes).

"The chief found out about you giving a well to the middle school," said Kebou, "and he wants to meet with you about getting a well in his village." I asked him to explain a bit more, as I can't just go around promising wells for people who don't really need it, nor can I help finance private wells (such as those found in individual family compounds); it has to be a real, community wide need. So he invited me to his house to sit down and discuss the issue and of course to make some tea.

"There is no water over there," he began, dumping a packet of tea leaves into the small green tea pot. "They have only one well - one! - for their entire village." That snatched my attention.

"How many people are in the village?" I asked him. He shook his head slight and frowned. "I'm not sure," he replied, fanning the coals. "300 I think. Maybe more but that isn't the whole problem." Not the whole problem? I thought as he dumped a ton of sugar into the now boiling tea. 300 people and one well is a large problem already. "The well is far from the houses and all of the animals come to drink there."

Now that's a problem.

Sipping the first round of the strong, extremely sugary tea, he told me that the water table was between 30 and 35 meters (98-115 feet) and two other wells had long since dried up/collapsed because of 'stupid men who stole the village's money and told them to dig in the wrong spot'. So water was very hard to come by, especially during the dry/hot season from March to July.

I told Kebou it might be possible to do something about it, but I first wanted to meet with the village chief and see for myself. He agreed and a week later I went out to the village. I didn't have any of the forms, or have much of a clue as to what kind of grant I would need  - as that all depended on cost - but I was armed with a pen, a small notebook and some basic knowledge of needs and requirements.

A view into the village

There I met with the chief's son who is pretty much chief in all but name. Moussa Soh is around 40 years old, tall and extremely skinny. He toured me around the village, showing me the one good well where a bunch of women were pulling water, the two dead wells and introduced me to the co-leaders of the women's group. Over 330 people live in this village. They own, collectively, over 200 cattle, 40 horses, 60 donkeys and a ton of sheep and goats. All of them must have water. They all get it at one place (see the top picture).

Because of the distance of the well to the houses, women do all their laundry right at the well. Contamination from animals, the soap and bleach chemicals is prevalent. It seeps into the water table and is carried in their water storage containers.

Since women and girls are the primary water gatherers, a lot of time is spent waiting for their turn at the pulley, carrying benoirs and buckets back and forth. Time they could spend doing other things like cooking meals, looking after their kids, or taking a well deserved break under a shady tree.

Teenager on the way to the well to water his father's horse

We settled down outside Moussa's hut, tea already boiling away and talked about what he wanted, what I could provide and where we could meet in the middle in order to make this whole thing feasible. Since I didn't know the exact details of the requirements, I explained that any grant I could give would require a contribution from the community. They would have to pay for part of it, in cash and goods. A little surprised - as people are so used to just being handed everything without having to pay any part of it - he agreed.

I told him I'd get all the paperwork when I came back from my sisters's wedding and return to fill in all the information. His job, until I returned, was to find out the cost of everything: materials, what the well diggers would charge, supplies, etc. Grants take forever to get approved and because of the large expense of this project (2 wells at 35 meters and fully lined is not cheap) I knew the type of grant was going to be way more complex than the Appropriate Projects grant for the school. So the sooner submitted for approval the sooner we could start searching for financing. That was another surprise, but Moussa said he would do his part and wished me a peaceful trip back to America and his father gave a blessing for my sister's marriage.

One of the dead wells.

Water is there, if that tree growing out the side is any indication.
This is the well we're going to rehabilitate.

I flew back into Dakar in mid-May, talked to my supervisor about the proposed project and he told be because of the expense of the wells, I'd need a Peace Corps Partnership grant. The paperwork is a pain in the butt to fill out, and requires a lot of information - minute details that I didn't think to talk to Moussa about when I first visited. And the community contribution was much larger than I thought. 10% of the entire cost of the project has to be cash.

Cash.

Something this small farming community didn't have in droves.

Another 15% had to be 'in kind'. Food, lodging, labor, materials, etc. That part was easy to do. Hard part was going back to that village, finding out how much it was going to cost and then tell them that 10% had to be in cash.

As with everything in Senegal, I did not immediately go out to the village upon return to Badion. I had to wait for Kebou to arrange a time. There is no phone reception in Sing Thiang Poullo, so you have to send messages with others that are going there or hope to run into Moussa when he occasionally comes to Badion. But a day was finally set in June and Kebou and I met with the men and women who were concerned with the whole project.

The project leaders in Sing Thiang Poullo. Kebou is on the extreme left trying to stay out of the picture.
The chief (in blue on the left) and his son Moussa (in green to the right) gave me a chicken in thanks for helping them.

Four hours of discussion and figuring out percentages went on while men smoked, ate Kola nuts (a large nut the size of a walnut, bitter and chalk full of caffeine) and made tea. I asked them every question I could think of to fill in all the little boxes on the excel spreadsheet I had sitting on my lap. When we had finally filled in the boxes, and before I left, I explained to the group that if, during construction, more money was needed, I would not be able to ask for more. "What we ask for, we get and no more," I said. "You will have to pay any extra."

That brought on a few price changes on transportation costs and materials.

End result:

We will dig one new well and repair another well (see picture above), which will result in a fairly even distribution of water access through the village. The total cost is just a hair over $2000. $1760 needs to be graciously donated. The rest Sing Thiang Poullo is providing.

Since then I have gone back and forth with the Peace Corps office in Dakar, making changes, clarifications and adjustments to the request until at last I received a text from our grant coordinator saying that my request had been approved and posted on the Peace Corps site.

Best news ever.

The next day Moussa came by to greet me and check up on the grant and I was so excited to be able to tell him that Peace Corps had accepted his request and now we could raise money.

"Thanks be to Allah," he said with a large smile.

"Not done yet," I told him. "We still don't have the money."

He just smiled and said, "It will come if Allah wills it."

I'd like to add one more thing to this story and that is to point out its relative uniqueness. This community came to me and asked for help. Not to build them a road, or bring electricity. They didn't ask for a new school or a water tower. They asked for helped to dig some wells. A feasible project within both our means. This doesn't happen very often. They didn't balk at contributing to its success. Didn't complain or ask why I wasn't just giving it all to them like 'other Toubakos' [foreigners/whites]. They want and needs these wells so much they are willing to sell an animal if their cash reserves are low.

I can't even begin to explain how much of a big deal that is.

With just under 8 months left in my service, this is my last (and really first) big project. The time it will take get funding and dig will take me to January or February, at which time I will be attending my Close of Service conference, writing up reports and planning my flight home. The nature of this project, the true need of the community and the fact that they asked me for help makes me so anxious about making sure these wells get dug before I leave. I cannot pass this project on to anyone. And I cannot leave the country with an open grant. All things must be finished a month before we leave. No loose strings.

Which brings me to the point of this whole epic novel of a post: we need the funds.

If you would like to donate to this project, just follow this link: Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project and fill in the little white box on the right. Any amount helps. I and the wonderful people of Sing Thiang Poullo will be eternally in your debt.

My next post will be a return to normal programming. I've got three new kittens sleeping in a box by my bed, pictures of which I have in droves and will post to the brink of cuteness overload. That will come in two weeks or so as I'll be in Thies and Dakar for summit and my mid service medical exam. Gosh darn I'll have to suffer through pizza, ice cream, lots of wireless internet places, cheaper fruits and veggies and access to a grocery store.

Whatever shall I do?

Cheers!