me & me

names

Names are my Achille's heel. When people greet you or even see you they say your full name, it can happen a few times during a conversation and people tend to notice when you don't repeat their name back to them. The names are foreign sounding and difficult for me to remember, but if I don't people get really offended. Personally, I think people should be more understanding. It's not like the names are Jessica or Kim, it's Kumbayla or Ramatakuleyne (actually, I have no idea how to spell it), and it's hard for me to remember.

During the women's meeting this week I wrote down everyone's name with a description of their clothing.

They are going to expect me to remember, but unless everyone wears the same outfit I'm out of luck.

Whites are 'Toubabs,' something small children and occasionally adults yell out to you when you are walking on the street. I am told this will get old after awhile, but for now I'm relieved when people don't remember my name. It's technically rude though, and when my host dad hears it he says "her name's not Toubab, it's Hawa."

He's my host dad so I can't really stop him. But my closest neighbor came to visit me a couple days ago and when people yelled Toubab at us she said that wasn't her name and her real name is … Finally I told her to knock it off. In a few months asserting individuality will be fine, but in the meantime if people want to stick with general derogatory labels that works for me. If people are supposed to call me by my name it stands to reason I should return the favor. Frankly, I am not up to that yet.

snippets

How I felt during the first week:

I alternated between giddy highs of "ohmigod I'm in Africa" and real lows of "what the f#$% was I thinking?"

The highs were usually when I was sitting around with my host family dancing for their amusement or learning new words. The lessons usually go in one ear and out the other, but we have fun and we laugh a lot at me. The dancing is also a good time at my expense, but I don't mind.

The low times are erratic, but I can usually count on hating life at least once between the hours of 11 and 5, the hottest period of the day. People tend to lay low during these hours, so I shut myself in my hut, get naked and take bucket baths to cool off. I can't wait for the rains to start.

My living situation is relatively posh. There are about five or six huts in my compound. I have a large hut to myself that is really nice; I don't have to duck to enter and there is a really high grass roof. As of a few days ago my hut has electricity. That's a pretty big deal in my area, so I'm lucky. There's a fenced little backyard area where I take buckets baths and do laundry. The first day there was a goat tied up back there, but he's gone now. A chicken laid eggs in the corner of the yard, but while that was initially pretty cool I lost interest after thirty seconds.

There is a faucet in the street, but it doesn't work so water comes from a well about 50 yards from my hut. I am still new enough that if anyone sees me walking toward the well with my buckets they hurry to help me, but I assume that will taper off.

Walking through the village with my host-dad, Bale, is something I am going to try to avoid. He's the village chief and everyone wants to talk to him about some problem they are having. I told him about a certain dentist I know from home who disguises himself in public to avoid being recognized. Bale thought that was hilarious.

Bale took me to a market to buy a mattress. I am really excited to try this mattress out. It's a six-inch foam pad. That might not sound like much, but for the past two nights it was a one-inch foam pad, and I was only able to sleep my balancing my hip bones between two wooden slats. I thought that was something I had to get used to, so imagine my relief when I learned we were going to get a better one. After the purchase we folded it up and hitched a ride back to our village.

Update: the foam pad is an improvement, but can't be called comfortable. When you lay down at night you roll into the indent your body made the night before. So you sleep in a hot foam crevice all night

My arrival

My village had a baptism ceremony for me, complete with drumming and dancing. The turnout wasn’t as good as it should have been. It was supposed to have taken place the day before, but I was about five hours late arriving and people got tired and went home (I got in around 9:30). Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, the next day the ceremony coincided with someone coming home from Mecca. (If you don’t know what that is, look it up) When someone comes home from Mecca the drums start beating at the mosque and people turn out to greet them.

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Anyway, about 30 of 40 women from a group I am going to be working with came to my baptism. One of the women was the drummer and storyteller, she chanted for a loooong time and women got up to dance. Americans dance with their butt, here the women lean over from their hips and stamp their feet. They get up one by one and dance in the middle of the circle, while everyone claps and shouts. Yes, I got up and danced. Yes, I felt like an idiot  And yes everyone thought it was really funny.

Village

You are all wondering what the village is like, and I don’t really know where to start. People eat with their hands, they cook over woodstoves, families sleep together on mats outside, etc … I was doing the dishes a few days ago near the “kitchen” (the fire where food is cooked) and the 4-year-old girl came up next to me, pulled up her skirt and peed. Then she grabbed a mango slice and ate it. It wasn’t the peeing outside that surprised me, it was peeing in the kitchen.

Things are mostly communal. I was sitting in a telecenter trying to get out of the heat when I set my fan on my lap to drink some water. I shouldn’t have done that because the man sitting next to me assumed I was done and took it for himself. He gave it back eventually.

Today was good. I tried to pitch in with the housework by sweeping the yard. The yard is dirt, so the exercise is about 90 percent self-defeating. Still, I got a lot of mango pits and stray leaves and I think the gesture was appreciated.

brief update

hey everyone,

I am in Kolda for two days after a week in the village. I've been renamed again and am now Hawa Balde. This is proving to be a little confusing because the word for 'ok' is awa and I'm constantly turning around. I live in a compound with the village chief and an unknown number of people. I'm not being flippant, but aside from the two wives and five of the younger children I can't tell who actually lives there full-time - I think it's a shifting number. I'll write more and e-mail before I go home on Monday, just not now because I hate this keyboard and the connection is slow.

it's about time

I finally passed my language test. Everyone can exhale now.

warning: all I do here is whine

Today’s language class included a visit to someone’s house. Yup, just some random visit with people I don’t know so we could chat. It wasn’t too bad, someone handed me a bowl of uncooked rice to paw through so I could pick out the dirty stuff before it was cooked. My language teacher was playing a soccer game on his cell phone throughout the visit, and frustrated he wasn't doing his part to carry the faltering conversation I leaned over and hissed he was being rude. He just looked bewildered and went back to the game. Judging by his chatter on the way back to the center I don't think there were any hurt feelings.

As far as the day to day stuff goes I am officially tired of being polite all the time. Seriously, it’s draining me. Two days ago I came home tired and assuming one of my host-sisters was out I didn’t go looking for her. When I saw her twenty minutes later she was angry with me for not asking about her. Yesterday my language teacher came to the house so we could do the language class here. A half hour after the class was finished he was still sitting on the couch chatting, and I’m thinking ‘is this ever going to end?’

Okay, no I’m not a very nice person. I can’t say this is a revelation, so I’m just going to grit my teeth and smile. I’m probably just having a bad week because I am thoroughly sick of language classes. It’s my own fault too, which only makes it worse because I tend to be more gracious while pretending to be the martyr.

P.S. I’m writing this in a hurry at a restaurant and two French women came in smoking cigarettes. They don’t look like prostitutes.

P.P.S. Is it homesickness when you really, really want to drink beer in your sister's backyard and have a gossip session? I feel like you should be homesick for the smell of chocolate chip cookies or something, and while that would be nice I think I would prefer beer and gossip.

Okay, forget the postscripts. Mom, I bought some fabric today you would love. I'm having it made into a skirt, but clothes seem to fall apart quickly here so I don't think you'll ever actually see the fabric.

Having clothes made here is fun. For $3 I bought 2 meters of fabric, and for another few bucks I'm having it made into a skirt. I don't turn the whole experience into the sport other people do though.

Peace Corps volunteers are notorious for loving to haggle. Myself, I enter the tailor's thinking no price is too outrageous. Keep in mind here, were' talking about half dollars. I'll probably get over it soon. I know the other volunteers don't appreciate it when I'm supposed to be the one doing the French translation and cheerfully agree to the first price quoted. I prefer to think there's more goodwill going around when I do the talking and we Americans get a little incentive to learn the local language. The exasperated looks from my fellow volunteers say differently.

it's the little things

Language class is taking a lot out of me, but I’m learning some useful stuff. My language teacher and I were doing a verb conjugation exercise (thrilling, I know), and somewhat at a loss for good verbs I came up with the uninspired phrase ‘he coughs a lot.‘

Samba, the language teacher, jazzed it up a bit with “he coughs a lot because he smokes too many cigarettes.” Hoping to distract Samba from the lesson I wondered aloud why I never see women smoking here in Senegal. I’ve met female volunteers who smoke, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them do it in public. Men smoke here on the street and in restaurants (my computer is actually sitting in a small pile of ashes), but not women.

Samba kindly filled me in:

“When a man is feeling like a ‘player’ (that’s really the best translation), maybe he can go to a bar and if a woman is smoking perhaps approach her for sex,” he said. “She’s maybe a prostitute.” 

Whoa. That’s definitely worse than college when my roommates and I (all of whom smoked at the time) called them 'smelly girls.' I’m no longer in college and this isn’t still a concern, but it’s good information to have! Luckily the only female smoker in our group has gone back to the states, but I’m fairly sure no one pulled her aside to tell her either.

Other than that language class was uneventful. It had some frustrating moments. He’d give me a phrase and I was supposed to think of the question that would prompt that phrase. We got stuck on this:

“I passed 10 days in Mouting last year,” answered Samba.

“Uh….” I said, fumbling for a good five minutes.

You know what the correct question/answer was --“Where were you existing for 10 days?”

Not "where were you for 10 days?"

I admit a lot gets lost in translation, but that’s an awkward phrase.

study karma

It's finally happened. I'm being punished for all those bad study habits over the years. (mom - this is the moment you always said would come; I'm officially sorry for being such a bad student). This week I am stuck in class from 8 to 5 for individual tutoring. I'm sure it will be effective and Friday evening I'll feel grateful to have had the opportunity, but right now I am HATING life. Love you.

P.S. well this is weird. of the three of us who were supposed to have language classes today, I'm the only one who bothered to show. I'm not sure I've ever been the responsible student before. Granted, I'm the responsible student in a flunking group, but still...

the road to Vélingara

I posted recently about the condition of the road to my village. There are a lot of potholes and it doesn't make for comfortable travel. If you don't believe me, click on Maggie's blog  to see a film clip taken from the car. It's under the post "On the Road Again."