me & me

Clothes

The swearing-in ceremony is May 9, and there's no reason to think I won't be included. We are supposed to wear traditional Senegalese outfits during the big day. I don't really want to get a new outfit made right now, but it's probably best not to rock the boat so I am going to the tailor in a few minutes with Maggie for a fitting. I bought the fabric yesterday and wasn't too invested in the process, grabbing one of the first prints I saw. It looked sort of familiar to me and when I got home I realized why - it's my sheets. I'm wearing my freaking sheets.

New address

Hey everyone,
My new mailing address is:

PCV Emily Morris
B.P. 152
Vélingara,  Senegal
West Africa

Velingara is about two hours away from my new home, but I guess people make the trek in once a week or so to check the internet and collect mail. If you send letters/goodies you will really make it worth my while. Feel free to start sending stuff now so it is there waiting for me when I get to site. I’ll view each material item as tangible proof of your love.

I'm baaaack

Hey. I got in today from demyst, which is ten days in a village with current volunteers so we have a better idea of what we are getting into in a few weeks. The village I stayed in is about 150 people with no running water or electricity. In the morning we biked 15 minutes to a neighboring village where two more trainees were staying for training.

I’m tired and reading a good book, so I’ll just post some random thoughts here as they come. I am not going to write about the food situation though, it is just too depressing.

1. Everyone who said they want to visit my village in Senegal might want to rethink that plan. I’m sure I would love to have you and enjoy showing off my place, but getting there was hell.  Don’t forget this because I WILL LIE later in an effort to get visitors.  On the other hand, if you know this going in and feel you are up for it don’t blame me.

We left Thies at 7 a.m. and didn’t get to my area until 10 p.m. The mode of transportation was a sept-place, the nicest way to go unless you want to rent a private car. The sept-place literally means that, 7 places for 7 people. It’s cramped (it wasn’t actually on my ride because the Peace Corps rented the entire car, but it was still uncomfortable) and the road is legendary. It is a main thoroughfare, but Dufferin, the bastard road of Sarasota County, receives more maintenance.  In fact, a good portion of the ride was off-road because it was smoother - I’m serious.

Broken down vehicles and cattle are an added delay. We clipped a calf on the way down which I thought was unnecessary. Also, I’ve never seen partially decomposed livestock. Did you know they split open and look hollow? The hides look like they are melting off the carcasses.

2. I was tired when I did get into the village and my first impression was breasts. I’m a little embarrassed to write that, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see when it got dark, and when the headlights panned the village the first people I saw were groups of women sitting topless on wooden platforms.

Bare breasts lost their shock value pretty quickly. (Not everyone is topless, during the day most aren’t.) There’s nothing sexual about the breasts here, nursing children just walk up to their moms and latch on when they are hungry. The children aren’t gentle either, and I winced a lot the first few days when I saw the way they attacked their mothers during feedings.

One day we took a half hour bike ride to a village with electricity and got some cold drinks. We were lounging around drinking them when an old woman walked up and started greeting us and shaking hands. When she turned to leave (mind you she already shook my hand), she sort of cupped my breast and squeezed as a last little “bye.” It was brief and I almost didn’t believe it happened until I looked up and saw the others gaping at me.

Another note on the women, some of them decorate their faces with black markings. They stain a wide area around the mouth and sometimes a vertical line between the eyebrows.  I imagine this is an old practice, and I don’t know what they used to use to make the stains, but nowadays they use melted tires.

3. I saw the biggest scorpion ever, and I'm including pictures I’ve seen in National Geographic. It stung someone else, not me, so I don’t feel the need to exaggerate it's size. It was the length of a dollar bill and I think it’s claw span was wider. I’ve always had a special fear of scorpions, since Mrs. Shultze brought one into my first-grade class. I remember she seemed especially terrified of the (now tiny) scorpion, even through the plastic box, and that fear transferred itself to me.

The scorpion in the village stung some guy who had just burned his entire face the day before (yeah, bad run of luck). It seemed like everyone turned out to see it; someone told us as they brought our dinner bowl and we all sprinted out to join the growing crowd. Two men teased it out into the circle of villagers so we could all admire it, before they all started whacking it toward a violent death.

4. Everyone I met was nice. Genuinely nice, and I have to say that was strange. The evening before we left everyone gathered around to hear us say goodbye. I thought it would be an in and out sort of thing, but after we thanked everyone the villagers started getting up one by one to make little farewell speeches of their own and thanked us for coming. I looked hard for sarcasm, but detected none. I feel like it should have been there; we are all poor communicators (I’m the worst, by the way) who pretty much sat in the middle of their village taking language classes all day, drinking the tea and eating the meals they prepared for us. All I did was help some of the schoolchildren plant a tree nursery, and believe me when I say I brought no special skill set to that particular project.

So the sarcasm should have been there! Except sarcasm supposedly doesn’t exist in the villages, so at the very least they should have just let us say thank you and walked off. But no, they thanked us too and then the village elder led a prayer for our safe return to Thies and a successful service in Senegal.

I hope some of this niceness rubs off on my while I’m here, I really do. It’s still pretty foreign, but when I move to my town I’ll have lots of time to absorb it and become a better person.

5. Lots of animals roaming around in the village. The villagers can hear a car coming for miles, but they sleep right through the chickens, donkeys (my God do they make disturbing noises, and they set each other off too - like a chain), lambs, etc… They are all entertaining during the day, but while I can sleep through traffic sounds I have trouble ignoring the roosters before dawn.

The cattle are all over the place, including bulls. Now, I’ve always had a healthy respect for bulls and feel they deserve their distance. Anyone who has read A Land Remembered will recall that scene when Zech‘s wife is impaled by the Texas Longhorn he bought. Great scene. I don’t recall her last words as she hung there dying, but it was a memorable and vivid death.

I don’t know my bulls, but these bulls sort of look like I imagine (smaller, slightly undernourished) Texas Longhorns to look, with huge horns and strange humps  (-- Update, I just looked them up and I was way off, humps aren't comparable.) I casually brought up the bulls in conversation and was told they are usually tied up because they sometimes get aggressive. Fair enough. But who tied them up to the community well?

6. One Sunday our group biked two hours to my new home and I am feeling pretty good about it. My priorities might be a little skewed here, but I can get cold coke in my village and that does wonders for my moral.

I met my host “dad,” a really energetic guy who made an impassioned welcome speech that lasted about five minutes when we met. Told you the people are nice.

My hut’s nice too! It’s huge by volunteer standards, and I don’t have to bend over to enter. I’ll write more about it later, I’m answering e-mails now. I miss you all.

I couldn't sleep so I wrote you instead

Disclaimer: I apologize for all the rambling I do here. I would like to spend more time responding to the individual e-mails, but I don’t want to have to repeat everything so I keep the e-mails short and this long.

These are also easier to compose at home where there is no Internet. Most importantly though I don’t indulge in the petty desire to punish bad e-mailers (you know who you are, and it‘s not mom or dad). Actually, I think I am getting too comfortable with this blog thing and promise to work to recapture some of the self-consciousness so evident in the earliest posts. Next time I’ll be my own best editor.

I’m pleased to report my host family thought the story about the cat eating the kitten was weird too. I was a little concerned it was something everyone would just take in stride, but I was satisfied when my host family looked properly disgusted during my dinner announcement. It was brief, but seeing that cat gnaw on the kitten’s haunches left me feeling the way a really bad nightmare does, horrified by my subconscious.

(I think it turned everyone off dinner too. Good thing we were having salad and no one wanted it anyway. My timing by the way is still impeccable.)

Africa continues to be interesting at times but really boring for long stretches. That’s because I am in training and as mom says, “you aren’t supposed to like that.” Actually, mom says that about most things I don’t like, so I’m never sure how to take it, but she’s probably right in this case. (Hi Mom! I love you.)

Okay, what else to tell you? Oh I got one - I’m sick again! It’s just another minor cold. I wish I could blame the woman who sneezed in my face today at the market, but if she’s hoping to get me sick she’ll just have to get in line.

There are a lot of horse drawn carts here, and one got a lot more interesting this week. Now, I don’t know a lot about horses but I know they all have blinders for a reason (this was well illustrated by Clark Gable in a scene from Gone With the Wind). The particular horse and cart I’ve started watching out for here is easy to spot, because the driver decided to decorate the bridle with brightly colored paper flowers, the kind that flutter a lot in the wind.

The flowers might be pretty if all that bright movement wasn’t occurring in the horse’s peripheral vision, terrifying the poor thing and causing it to gallop like a drunk down the street, constantly veering in a fruitless effort to evade whichever flower scared it last. I’ve seen this same cart for three days now (probably saw it every day before that and didn’t know it) and each time I say a little prayer that today I’ll be able to get out of the way in time.

Is it a marketing scheme? I think he gathers people’s trash for burning, so I can understand wanting to dress up the outfit and it is does stand out. Guess I’ll never know though because he’s never going to be slow enough for me to stop and ask.

Pulaar class is continuing at roughly the same pace, super slow. My homework last night was to write a letter home about my daily activities. Here’s the (translated) letter I had to read aloud in class today:

Mom and Dad (there’s no salutation, I asked but Pulaar’s not a written language so writing a letter in Pulaar is sort of an oxymoron), I am doing fine in Senegal (for some reason my teacher snorted with laughter here, not sure why).

I still don’t speak Pulaar. In the mornings I wake up around 7. I go to work at the center and eat bread and drink tea. Then I have Pulaar class. Sometimes I have “tech” class. Pulaar class is hard, really. Then I eat lunch with the volunteers and teachers. Usually fish and rice. I rest a little then Pulaar class again. I go home around 7. I bike. I study Pulaar with my family. They cook, we eat. Then I sleep. I’m finished. I miss you a lot.

Isn’t that a dull letter? Even the good students had dumb ones though because we still don’t know how to say interesting stuff. It’s coming.

Jackie made a good comparison in an e-mail about my Pulaar progression. She said it reminds her of when I took Russian in college. I have to agree.

In all fairness though, training isn’t bad. All the trainers are really nice and easygoing and they do a good job. I just get tired of biking off every morning to a full day of classes, but I started trying to get out of going to school in kindergarten. Since I’m the youngest of four mom was pretty hip to my tactics, but no one ever presented me with a Perfect Attendance certificate during those end-of-the-year assemblies.

I went to the beach over the weekend, which was fun but exhausting. I didn’t overdo it with beer or anything, but I did maximize my hours on the sand and that can take a lot out of a lazy person. For about $15 each, 35 of us rented three little houses for the night (the monkeys we saw on the way were free). It wasn't the South Seas, but pretty nice.

Now that I think about it, I might actually break even on the trip. Another guy and I returned the beer bottles and crates to the store for money. I announced there were leftover funds because it was the right thing to do, but only one person has come to collect a portion and it’s Wednesday. I hope no one’s planning to “remember” in a month, because they’re in for about $4 worth of disappointment (we’re all really cheap, being volunteers and all).

I’m pretty sure my bed at the beach had bugs in it, but it’s one of those things you don’t really want to let yourself think about. One girl had a bedbug run-in here and it looked like her legs were getting ready to fall off. The bites started out as small red dots, but the next day they grew to quarter-sized, cone-shaped welts. I had no idea bedbugs could be such a menace.

I haven’t had much of a reaction to any type of bugs yet, so I’m lucky and calamine free, unlike some people. To date I haven’t had to pull out the mosquito repellant either, but I know that will change once I get to the south. The south is where one hears the greeting, “how were the mosquitoes last night?”

Today we learned how to cook a natural mosquito repellant using leaves from the Neem tree. You grab two handfuls of leaves, boil for ten minutes, remove leaves, add grated soap and vegetable oil, (perfume is optional) and voila - a non-toxic mosquito repellant.

Interestingly, the Neem repellant followed a presentation on dipping mosquito nets. That lesson left everyone reeling from the chemical fumes, suddenly worried about cancer. It was a nice juxtaposition; sleep under a carcinogen-coated net at night and slather yourself with homeopathic repellant during the day. The Neem lesson was fun, I wonder if I can make lavender or rose repellant? The perfume used today was musk, and maybe it’s misplaced vanity, but I don’t think musk is my scent.

P.S. The Peace Corps director is visiting Senegal and sat down at my lunch bowl today. Nice guy, he has a house in Naples.

Everyone hates vegetables

My host-uncle is living here for a few months and I am reaping the benefits. The good news for me is that he is a diabetic and ….. wait for it…. he gets salad every night! As a Senegalese man this is a sad, sad fate, because as we all know the Senegalese don’t like veggies. The salad is really just lettuce with a delicious onion sauce, but it leaves me feeling better guarded against scurvy. Scurvy is like gout or the rickets; I’m not very clear on the particulars, but I want no part of it.

Anyway, the salad’s really nice. I don’t get it every night, just the nights my host mom doesn’t feel like cooking two separate dinners (he’s a man so he eats by himself). I’m the only person enjoying the arrangement, salad is not popular in this house, and the younger kids seem especially irritated.

During every meal here my host mom or Mami, the 18-year-old girl, is throwing food in front of me. We all eat from the same bowl and five minutes in the meal, without fail, I am the one with the largest mound sitting in front of me. It’s a cultural thing, nothing I can do. Anyway, fed up with salad, the littlest girl,

Natalie, 7, decided she would be clever and toss her own portion in front of me too. One second Natalie was reaching over and depositing lettuce in front of me, in the next instant I heard a shriek and saw poor Natalie gets whacked (hard) on the head. She had used her left hand!

The left hand is foul, foul, foul. Natalie should have known better, but I can’t hold it against her because I forget a lot of the time myself. In fact, just today I used my left hand while eating from the same bowl as one of my teachers (he’s used to dirty Americans though).

The interesting thing is that it doesn’t phase me too much anymore seeing Natalie or other kids take a hit like that. Americans (and I think Europeans too) are super gentle with their kids, in part because no one wants to be labeled a child abuser. At least we are really indulgent compared to the Senegalese and, from what I hear, the rest of Africa. It’s nothing here for a sibling to turn around and hit another, or for an adult to slap someone else’s child or their own upside the head. 

The other day Mamadou, the 2-year-old, started screaming because he picked up some hot cooking spices and put them in his mouth. I was the one who ended up getting him a cold drink because everyone else was laughing too hard. Another time Natalie fell off a table and hit her head - more laughter.

The result is I am always vaguely surprised when I witness a tender moment, or if everyone exclaims over something cute Mamadou did. At home I’m used to everyone marveling at how adorable my niece and nephew are (totally appropriate by the way, they are adorable), it‘s everyone‘s favorite conversation. The Africans obviously love their children too, but it’s no one’s trying to prove it. So when they do find Mamadou cute, I’m briefly thrown and it takes me a minute to get my bearings. By then everyone’s over it and I never get to hear the endearing stories.

Oh well. Someone send me some news on Jake and Charleigh, I love hearing what they are up to.  The pictures of them with the rabbits were great. For some reason there were pictures of the garage and a water leak included in that parcel as well - I didn’t enjoy those quite as much, but still appreciate the thought and loved getting a package.

Might be awhile....

Or I might post again tomorrow. I am going to visit my region on Thursday and will not have the Internet there. I would write every one of you now, but this cyber cafe is making me hate life. The beach was nice. I saw a cat eating a kitten today and that was disturbing, but I don't think that can be blamed on Africa.

Some updates

Okay, I take back what I said about wanting the people I live with to shut up between the hours of 11 and 6. The night I wrote that the 2-year-old, an adorable little boy named Mohamed, had a sickle cell crisis.

Poor Mamadou started screaming around midnight and didn’t stop until his voice gave out around 4 a.m. I’ve really never heard anything like it. All night his mom Ndeye held him in her arms, trying to calm him down while he screamed that his hands and feet hurt. The pain is caused by too much activity during the day, and being a baby he doesn’t understand he can’t run around like other kids.

I don’t know much about sickle cell anemia. I knew it was serious, but I am embarrassed to admit I thought it was treatable. I’ve since learned Mamadou’s got a bad case, his cousin died at the age of 6. He was in a lot of pain that night, but I guess there was no point in taking him to the hospital. Either they can’t afford it, or I don’t know. If they can save the money, his parents want to take him to France in a few years for treatment.

Mamadou is the youngest of five kids in my host-family. The oldest girl has a less serious form of sickle cell, but all the others got lucky. Ndeye said they “won the genetic lottery.” Ndeye’s brother and his wife, the ones who lost their 6-year-old, divorced after they realized they both carried the gene.

Mamadou hasn’t cried for a few nights, but last I noticed his right hand was still crimped and he held it as his side for two days because it hurt too much to use. Tonight he is starting to limp, I hope that doesn’t mean another night like last time.

April 11:

They told us our villages today. Rather, someone swept off the basketball court to reveal the faded map of Senegal painted there. We closed our eyes and a staff member took us by the hand and led us to the area of the country where we will be living, presumably for the next two years. The map isn’t really the most accurate representation, and we had to keep our eyes closed until everyone was in place, so there was some unintentional groping of fellow volunteers (sorry Annicka) and readjustments from faceless staff before the big reveal.

It was a mixed-bag of reactions, but I was a little under whelmed by the combined effect. I had read somewhere that after hearing “you can open you eyes” there is a pregnant pause, followed by loud crying. I’m not saying I wanted people to be unhappy, not at all, but I was having a bad day and would have appreciated the distraction of a little drama.

I knew the region of the country where I would end up, but not much else. Turns out I got lucky, landing in a “posh” town of 5,300 about 30km from Velingara. Looks like I will have electricity but no running water - as of today drawing water from the well is still a novelty. An added bonus is there will be another volunteer about 3km from me, which doesn’t always happen. My next-closest neighbor was decidedly less pleased with his site placement, a town of 200 about 20 km further down the road from me.

I am leaving to visit the area for 10 days next Thursday. I don’t know if I will get to see my town, but I’ll let you all know how it goes. So far all I know about my living situation is that I have a one room hut with a cement floor (okay, it’s dirt, but I am told that will change) and a private little backyard in some family’s compound.

Another cool thing is I am going to be working with middle school students. The majority of the environmental programs are with elementary aged children, and while I think little kids are as cute as the next person, I think it will be fun to work with kids who are older because there will be more of a conversation. Oh wait, I have to learn the language first. 

I am going to the beach tomorrow with most of the other volunteers in my stage. Looks like I am missing a party at my house I didn’t know about until I announced I wouldn’t be attending. It’s not clear whether they forgot to tell me, or if they did what language it was in - but either way I am missing it. No big deal, it’s for my host father’s military buddies and their wives (I think).

My host father’s a nice guy (he didn’t correct me during the first two weeks when I was calling him by a woman’s name), but we haven’t had much interaction and I am shy around him. He works in Dakar, about two hours away, and is only home Friday night through Sunday evening. It’s not like I see him much when he’s home either. As the man of the house he is served his meals separately in another room, so not much chance to talk. I was actually invited to eat with him and some other adults once, but unwittingly asked to sit at the kids table instead. That was a little embarrassing, but the truth is I prefer the kids table. Less chances to screw up.

Update:

Wheee! I am going to the village where my host family is from! I should have known, almost every contact listed on my sheet has the same last name as them. My host-uncle just told me the coolest part will be the nearby city of Diaobe, which every Wednesday draws thousands of people to the largest market in Senegal. That means vegetables can be found a mere 8 km from my hut!!!! I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but veggies aren’t popular here and when they do end up in the dish it is mainly for decoration.

All the other volunteers in my stage say they are going to grow their own vegetables, and while I plan to do that I have some private reservations about my abilities. I once kept an aloe plant alive for a couple years, and was sort of proud of it until Julie told me they are nearly impossible to kill. Admittedly, there were a few rough patches during which it almost ended up in the trash, but instead I decided to add water just to see if anything would happen. They really are indestructible.

I don’t really have any personal affection for plants either, which might work against me. All Julie’s plants seem to flourish (she has orchids for God‘s sake), but she also has a personal relationship with each and every one of them. Once I realized that aloe plant didn’t need me anymore I abandoned it in someone’s backyard.

Another update:

We, the environmental education volunteers, placed ash around our the perimeter of our tree nursery today. Did you know ash is like ground glass to termites? Me neither. It was a visual I could have done without.

I’m back again because I like you guys so much and have tons to say…

So this party is a communal effort. While the women in my family were busy getting new hair, Ndeye’s friends came over and as I write this are sitting on stools around the kitchen plucking chickens, pounding garlic, etc…

The new hair everyone is sporting is pretty cool, but my host sister Mami outshines them all. Since I’ve known her she’s had a short bob, but today she went and got “Linda” hair. It’s long, curly and touches her butt. Quite the change. She was waiting for me in the street when I biked home today and I didn’t recognize her until I was right there. I knew she was getting the new hair because she showed me the package last night. I thought the look was called “Linda,” (that’s what the packages says) but she says it’s Spanish and means cute or something. I don’t know, I don’t speak Spanish and I prefer to think she is wearing Linda’s hair.

My host mom’s looking pretty snazzy as well; she’s got gold paint in her hair. But I don’t know how long that will last.

A side note, there are a naked chickens in the kitchen right now. In case you didn’t know, Senegal is a poor country. I was surprised to learn, what with them being all over the streets and all, chickens are really expensive. My host family only has it twice a month for that reason. They pair it with Moroccan couscous and it’s sooooo good because it’s not fish.

The joy of language

Quick congratulations to Tiffany! For those of you not in the know, Tiffany Lankes is the Sarasota Herald Tribune’s best and coolest reporter. Less impressive, but certainly worth mentioning, she was recently announced as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her work on the series “Broken Trust.” For those of you really not in the know, that’s huge. (and Tiff, I think winning at your age would have been a little tacky. Wait until you’re 27).

Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know why someone wouldn’t like me?”

This is a really valid comment. I was walking with three girls today when I heard it and the other two quickly said similar things about themselves. I’m no philosopher and it’s late, so I won’t point out all the reasons this statement makes sense to the speaker. I get it and so should you.

The thing is, I can think of plenty of reasons people might not like me. I can be a bitch for no reason, I laugh at the wrong times, I often say inappropriate things, etc…. No worries, I like myself fine, but I have no trouble seeing why other people (who don’t read this blog) might not.

It was this self-awareness that had me worrying about the host family evaluations. It needs to be said that I have an awesome host family. I wouldn’t change a thing - okay, just lied because I would love to shut everyone up between the hours of 11 p.m and 6 a.m. - they are nice, patient, and perhaps best of all, they don’t care too much about what I am doing. This is a good point to make. My host family members are like professional Peace Corps hosts. They have had 30-odd volunteers in the past. I like to tease my host mom that she is the Peace Corps mafia (it actually is sort of funny when translated), she knows everything before anyone else does.

I know someone else who is also staying with a family that has had a lot of past volunteers. She’s a cool girl, but not delighted with her host family situation because she feels like she is just another person getting lost in the shuffle and no one is making any special effort to show her things and introduce her to Senegal. One could argue I am in a similar situation, (they’ve let me blend in as much as the white girl who doesn’t speak the language can) but the big difference is I love it! I don’t want to be someone special, I just want to sort of take it in while no one else is looking. Now, if you were a host family really excited to introduce an American to Senegal wouldn’t you hate me?

It’s week four and the peace corps staff visited all our families to see how we are getting on. Aside from the noise issue, I really have no complaints. I even like that the 18-year-old and I are sometimes catty with each other after dinner, it’s that relaxed. Things had been going so well that this past week I have had myself convinced I was doing something wrong, that I had inadvertently offended everyone but was oblivious. I don’t want anyone to think I was losing sleep over the possibility (I don’t need everyone to like me), but I was prepared to hear some unflattering things when I sat down for my evaluation this afternoon.

Now, I don’t know how seriously they take these evaluations and the woman who does them is understaffed, but I got nothing. It was perfect, no complaints. This is probably due in large part to the fact that the Senegalese “don’t like to trash other people,” said a volunteer who has been here longer.

Crazy, huh? A culture that doesn’t like to say bad things about people. Don’t know if it’s true but I’m just going to go with it and count myself lucky. There have been no actual indications that I am upsetting anyone, so overall I am very pleased.

Maybe the best part of the evaluation (since the whole thing turned out to be pretty much a non-event) was my host family’s response when asked about my language progression.

I think the direct quote was, “she has trouble with the pronunciation and memorization, but it is clear she is motivated and we can see she is trying very, very hard.”

I don’t know what you get out of that, but I think the I sound “special needs,” and I can guarantee you my (real, American) siblings agree. Apparently everyone can see the wheels grinding in my head when I attempt Pulaar. I think I also look panicked and wring my hands a lot, which explains the “are you okay?” from the language teachers.

I wrote more about how language was coming along, but figured it wasn’t in my best interest to post and will just leave it at ‘slowly.’ If I am saying the same thing in four months it’s okay to wonder, but for now stay relaxed. Lord knows, I am.

Okay, back to my current book. Can you believe someone actually commented today that they didn’t my serious novel was the sort I would be interested in? Clearly I have to work on my image. Someone send me Tolstoy.

*In the interest of accuracy I want to say that I am ready to sleep, not read. I’ve been ready for the past 90 minutes. But there is no, and I repeat, NO concept of reducing the noise level so other people can sleep. No joke, two nights ago I woke to what sounded a lot like a toddler banging pots with a metal spoon. The toddler was crying in another room and wasn’t to blame. It was the 18-year-old girl reorganizing the pots and pans right outside my window. It was midnight.

Streets of Laredo…

(I wrote this last night and it is clear to me today that the first four paragraphs should be erased, but whatever. if you are reading this it’s only because you love/like me and you already know a lot of what I say is pointless, so deal with it.)

Remember when Grayson was living in Hong Kong and he used to call home on Saturdays from the pay phone outside the MacDonald’s, claiming he felt like a king? That’s a good comparison for yesterday’s café experience. I’m not living in a halfway house with junkies or anything, far from it, but I felt the way he used to sound on the phone.

As of today I have officially finished with trash literature, at least for the near future. This isn’t due to any admirable resolution on my part, I’ve simply read all that’s available. I’m moving on to Phillip Roth’s “The Human Stain.” Roth’s cover has a ringing recommendation from the Chicago Tribune, claiming “In American literature today, there’s Phillip Roth, and then there’s everybody else.”

Well, we’ll just see about that. As Julie said, good literature is just a story that leaves you feeling bad about life. With a title like “The Human Stain,” Roth is right on track.

Streets of Laredo was available too, but even though I’ve read it I was concerned because the cover had fallen off and I didn’t want to lose the last pages mid-read. That happened to Julie once when she was in the Peace Corps, and that particular book had a great ending, so I don’t want any parallel experiences. (hey, if anyone has an extra copy of “Terms of Endearment” laying around will you send it to me? It’s the best book to cry to, and since I will probably want to do a fair share of that the book will be a great excuse and I won’t feel like such a loser for bawling.)

Okay, enough about my books - obviously no one (with the possible exception of mom, and I hope this post isn’t causing her to doubt her parenting skills) cares what I am reading. It was the Laredo reference that distracted me.

I don’t think the Senegalese have pets. There are a lot of animals here; mangy cats and dogs, chickens, horses, etc.. The animals are investments, and there is not a lot, if any, affection muddying up the relationship. One of the cute baby goats on the street today had a red string around it’s neck. The string made me think of Tabaski, when I am told that cute little goat will have it’s throat slit so it can bleed out before being prepared for the Tabaski feast. I wonder if the owner was thinking about that when he chose the color red for the collar. On second thought there probably wasn’t a lot to choose from.

I hear Tabaski meat is quite the treat. I also hear that in the villages it is really good for the first day, then it’s placed in a bucket and served up for a second and third day. Supposedly it starts to smell on the afternoon of the second day, the heat nicely aiding the decomposition process.

Honestly though, I don’t know if that story about the three day meat is true. I can never be sure people aren’t trying to scare me away with stories about village life. I do know that several city people have told me, in complete seriousness, they could never live like “savages” in the villages. I understand where they are coming from, you probably have to be at a certain place in your life to want to give up things like electricity and running water. Still, when they are looking at me and warning me about what I will experience I feel like they are hoping there’s still a chance to change my mind.  Then I wonder why they care enough to bother. Maybe people in third world countries are nicer.

Back to the animals. There are a lot of them, including two adorable kittens born a few weeks ago at the training center. In between the volunteers taking turns lightly petting them and making funny cooing noises, a language professor kicked one when it got to close to her. We must have looked pretty dirty to her after we spent all day petting the thing. (I looked especially nasty when, sick of kneeling in the sand/manure pile we were using to fill up our seed bags, I chose to sit down in my skirt).

Lower than cats on the totem pole though are pigs. This is a Muslim country, and pigs are reviled as filthy, disease carrying beasts. Muslims won’t even eat pork, it’s that bad. Someone told me some people will even go out of their way to run over pigs when they see them on the roads, chalking it up as a good deed. Again, unverified story.

There is a herd of piglets in my neighborhood, my host-brother tells me the Catholics are to blame, and while they probably aren’t too popular with most of the people, I am delighted by their presence - a sentiment I’ve learned is best kept to myself.

I was so thrilled to see the pigs the first morning my host brother Ee-Hadj walked me to the bus stop that I excitedly told him the story of Laredo, my pet pig. I blame the excitement for erasing my judgment. So entertained by the sight of the piglets, I gave Ee-Hadj a detailed account of the best parts of life with Laredo. At first I thought he liked the story, “he slept in your room?!” he asked, just as animated as me, “he liked to snuggle?!”

“Yeah, and he…” I said, rambling again before I gradually registered what could only be described as repulsion on Ee-Hadj’s face.

As one person summarized for me later, I might as well have said that I like to keep piles of feces laying around in my room.

I had incriminated myself pretty badly by the time I realized my error, and knew I didn’t have time to turn the situation around before the bus arrived. Still, who am I kidding? What could I say - pigs are actually sacred in America? He’s not stupid. He is, however, pretty cool. And with some quick begging, a hurried reminder of how culturally ignorant I am, he agreed to keep it our secret. Nice guy, that Ee-Hadj. I think he’s kept the secret too, because I am still allowed to eat out of the same bowl with everyone else.

p.s. Quick observation before I say bye. I know I’ve mentioned to you that toilet paper is not used here, water is. I have NOT mentioned that water is unreliable and can cut out with no warning. I find that very unsettling.

The toilet adjustment is pretty funny though. There’s only one per family, and used to our private or semi-private bathrooms and what with the no paper thing, all the volunteers are sketched out about the whole bathroom business. We all feel reasonably at ease in the dorm bathrooms at the training center, something about comfort in the familiar, and in the morning everyone can be found in their favorite bathroom. I think of us as toilet refugees.

p.p.s. my host mom was complaining about cutbacks in the Peace Corps budget and blamed it on “that problem you’re having in Iraq.” She slipped it in mid-sentence. I loved that. 

Since I have this platform...

I am going to use it. Will everyone guilt mom into sending me my package? Everyone else is welcome to send me stuff too, she has the address. And will you strongly suggest she include the latest Lisa Kleypas novel, Blue Eyed Devil? There, I said it. I have worked my way through all the trash novels at the center, I'm getting desperate. I actually find myself re-reading a novel I read several years ago when I was in Africa with the family, and it honestly wasn't that great the first time around.  Oh yeah, some prenatal vitamins would be cool too (pregnant women are serious about nutrition, and they need lots of calcium, right?). If I never eat white rice again I'll be happy.

p.s. book situation is getting critical. I've run out of options and have resigned myself to something with a little more quality. Hey Julie, did I bring the latest John Irving novel with me or were you still reading it? Throw that in the box, would you?