me & me

I’m embarrassed

I really am. I know I owe everyone some blog posts now that I am in town with the Internet, but the thing is I’ve been really busy. Not with work so much, but has anyone heard of ebooks? It’s this program that lets you download books to your computer and … well, there’s really no excuse, is there? I’m not going crazy downloading books by the dozens or anything, but I came here desperate to get the sequel to the book I just finished. When I got to the internet café though I realized I had left my debit card in my village hut. I didn’t panic though because I knew Julie would come through for me and she did! No questions asked, even though she was on vacation (sort of, not really) in California. That’s love.

Grayson is graduating today, so congratulations to him. This is the second graduation of his I’ve missed, but he’s had more than the average person so he can’t really expect perfect attendance.

I promise to pound out some blog posts today and post them before I leave town tomorrow.

First project

My host-dad asked me to work on my first project. It involves funding a mass circumcision/summer camp for boys.

In Senegal boys are circumcised around the age of 7 or 8. Up until about twenty years ago this right-of-passage included a two-month retreat of sorts during which the boys received an education in social norms. I am not quite sure why that stopped, but I was told it had something to do with white people. Actually, I was told it was my fault, but I choose to think they were blaming my race as a whole.

Nowadays everyone is short of money, so a lot of families wait until they have money from the October crops to do the procedure, when school starts. So instead of starting school on time the newly circumcised boys are at home recuperating. My host-dad's idea is to round up about 50 boys for a summer circumcision. If I can find the funding he wants them to stay at the empty school for two months, during which they will heal and do the social education.

He wants to do this in a month. I don't really see how it is possible with so little time, but I'll give it a shot.

Food

Everyone knows I'm not a picky eater, right? No arguments, I'm sure. I've always thought the ability to eat pretty much anything was a key component to cultural adaptation, and I considered myself well-equipped. Having said that, the food situation here pretty depressing.

There are two items on the Senegalese spice rack, salt and Maggi (bouillon) cubes. Breakfast every morning is rice with crumpled Maggi on top and I'm sick of it. Lunch is rice with a leaf sauce and boiled fish, then a variation of that for dinner. I don't like fish or rice anymore. I never liked leaf sauce.

Other volunteers have told me that you can get out of certain meals if you claim to miss American cooking. Then the correct thing to do is to prepare enough of your 'American' meal the first time for everyone to have a little. Because Senegalese aren't used to American food they will hate it and you are free to eat your foreign food in peace with no guilt.

At least that's what they told me.

I followed that plan and it totally backfired. After two weeks of pondering my strategy I thought this morning was V-day when I casually said 'the rice was great, thank you, but I sort of miss American breakfasts.' I then went into my hut and mixed some muesli and powdered milk and started making the rounds for everyone to have a little.

I had to remake it four times. It's nighttime and everyone is still talking about how much they loved my precious muesli (carefully chosen for fibrous content and brought down with me from Thies - through the Gambia, mind you). They loved it so much the kids started crying and fighting over it, and all I could do was stand there in dismay and watch my selfish plans unravel. Two months ago I couldn't understand muesli getting this sort of reception, but it's never tasted as good as it did this morning.

I know how bitchy I sound. I did notice the semi-truck loaded with rice parked in my front yard yesterday. Due to food shortages the government is giving every family 3kilos of badly needed rice and my house was a distribution point. Nutrition is a non-discussion. People here eat what they can get.

The thing is, I don't think I did anyone a favor by letting them taste something they loved. They won't get it again, the closest in-country distributor is a 14-hour car ride away. It was a lose-lose situation; they'll never have it again and I'm feeling demoralized because it's nearly gone and *unlike *the muesli, protein bars are not improving in taste.

N.B. I know prospective volunteers read this blog and I hope you are learning from my mistakes. If I could do this over I might have mixed the muesli with water. Or maybe I would have purposely made something unappetizing. The upside to all this is no one here wants to tell you all about their Asian-fusion cooking class.

hey again

Remember how I wrote you from town last week? Well I got sick the last morning I was there. It was an entirely unpleasant experience - yeah, I know being sick is always unpleasant, but small towns in Africa don't have public bathrooms. Also, until recently, traveling in packed station wagons with strangers wasn't part of my routine (that was scary prospect, a car trip while sick - luckily the worst thing that happened was the driver spitting out the window and it landing on my face.)

When I got back to my village everyone was very sympathetic. The next day I decided the residual sickness and stress merited a personal day so I locked myself in my hut and read. If you are one of those people who've never taken a personal day in your life I don't want to hear about it. I'll think less of you anyway. My special day did wonders for my moral and, despite the heat, I managed to be quite chipper for several days following that.

I'm finishing out another week and I have to say it was easier than the first. For example, I am counting in weeks now, not days. Also, I've developed a little bit of a routine. I get up at 7:30, choke down a few bites of breakfast (more on that later), do the breakfast dishes … on second thought, this isn't that interesting. Let's just say there's a lot of sitting around and talking, but it's pleasant enough and I genuinely like everyone I've met.

P.S. It's still really hot.

P.P.S. Book situation is dire. Despite everyone's claims there were no trash novels at the regional house. The best I could do were Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I don't know what these people consider trash, because their definition sure varies from mine.