me & me

bye for now

I'm heading back to the village tomorrow. I'll be back in Kolda in two weeks for a regional meeting. Maybe I'll have a lot to share with you then, maybe I won't.

I am not looking forward to going back to the village. In fact, I'm dreading it. I know my family is going to hit me up for gifts. I am bringing plenty but I they'll still make me feel like I don't give them enough. I am also not looking forward to village life. It wasn't that bad before, then I went to Thies and Dakar.

I think this is all pretty normal. At least everyone else seems to feel the same way I do. My first time in Kounkane I had no idea what to expect. It was all new, so it was all sort of cool even when it wasn't. Not the case this time around.

Oh well. It will be fine. I just need some time to readjust. At least now I can finally start to work on projects. Hopefully that will keep me busy, or busy enough so I don't get shanghaied into chores like sweeping the dirt yard.

It's hard to tell here, but I seem to remember liking my village and family. So I promise to be more upbeat in the next post. Just give me two weeks to get there.

P.S. I am looking forward to Ramadan starting tomorrow. I don't plan to fast, which means I'll eat and drink in secret (that sounds healthy). It feels like a reprieve. I have some packages waiting for me at the post office - God bless you mom - and I hope they contain some Easy Mac.

No more

I can't send text messages. Not sure why - something broke, I guess. If my text messages meant that much to anyone you're welcome to send me enough money to cover the cost of a new phone. Somehow I don't see that happening.

I don't want to go

I have to leave Dakar soon to go back to the village. I don't want to. It's nice here.

The other day my host told me to leave my clothes in a pile so the housekeeper could wash them. After a lot of indecision I added my underwear to the load. In Senegal you wash you own undies. My host has a washing machine though, so I wasn't sure if the ruled applied and I really wanted to clean them before going home. I agonized over it all day and when I got back my clean undergarments were waiting for me.

They had been ironed.

just so you know

I'm in Dakar right now. I'm staying with an employee of the American Embassy. Since so many volunteers are in town at once our country director set up homestays for us. It's a great idea.

First thing I did when I got here was take a shower. The combination of hot water and pressure felt so good I decided to make it a bath. Twenty short minutes later I was regretting the decision, because I couldn't unplug the drain. Ten long, frantic minutes later I finally figured it out.

You might not think asking for help with the plug would be such a big deal, but you would be wrong. I've been taking bucket baths for almost six months now and I am disgusting. Or I was until shortly before this post. I didn't want anyone seeing that bath water.

So there's no confusion in future e-mails, I went to Mbour but ended up skipping the big event. My stomach was doing horrible things and I thought it would be best to sweat it out alone in the dark hotel room - dark because the electricity shut down as soon as we got there - while everyone else attended the dance party. I wasn't bored for long. The combination of worms (possibly amoebas), a broken toe and stomach issues of his own brought Ben back to the room early and he caught me up on all I missed.

I shared a bed with Maggie who came back around 2 or 3 a.m. The poor girl had just fallen asleep when I rolled over and punched her in the head. She was really nice about it.

P.S. It was the first day of school for both Jackie and Jen last week. I hope it went well and I was thinking of you both.

I'm stuck

I'm missing language class right now. I ran to the cafe with four other people during lunch to check my e-mail, and I can't get back because the rain started when we got here and now the streets all over the city are flooded. At one point we tried to get a cab to take us back to the center but the guy kicked us out when we told him our destination.

Walking through the river known as the Rue Nationale cost me my favorite pair of flip flops. Good thing this isn't the states; I don't have to worry about a "no shoes, no service," policy. Ben lost his shoes too. Poor guy's having a bad week. He was diagnosed with worms yesterday (you can guess at his symptoms), the upside is the medicine he took this morning should kill whatever he just picked up in the street.

You know, wading through the street reminded me of hurricane season back home. The street looks like the drainage ditches we swam in.

Training will be finished Saturday at noon. I'm heading to Mbour for a big Peace Corps party that night and then it's off to Dakar.

beach day!

The environment and health volunteers were supposed to plant 100 trees each in Mbour today. Once we got there it was decided the ground was too hard for the seedlings (?) so we ended up planting ten total then spent a few hours at the beach.

Also, apparently every Peace Corps stage makes a group t-shirt for a souvenir. My stage is trying to decide today on the design. Unfortunately I fall into the group that doesn't want to do any of the actual work, but has a definite idea of what we want the shirt to look like. So while I'm in the majority I'm predicting a loss for my team. No big deal, the other design looks pretty good.

P.S. Feel free to call me whenever you have news on Fay. It's no bother.

Happy Birthday

Dad's birthday was this week and tonight is the family party. I wish I could be there because I love and miss everyone who will be singing "Happy Birthday." There's not a whole lot of variety to these things, I'm predicting grilled steaks and German Chocolate Cake. Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay is approaching though; so there will be the added element of tension. Bet I know what Dad's wish will be when he blows out the candles. Good luck with that and Happy Bird Day dad.

P.S. Julie, don't forget to bring Tobias the tortoise inside. We can't have that little guy weathering Fay by himself.

I just overheard this

So people have been asking me what I'm up to here. Apparently no one wants to believe me when I say there's not a whole lot going on. I just heard my friend say the following about training, and I think it perfectly summarizes the whole month:

"If I'm not eating, I'm in class. And if I'm not in class and I'm not eating, I'm probably drinking beer at Pamanda's. That's my life in Thies. I'm okay with that, but I'm ready for it to be over."

I'm writing because I feel like I should

Hi everyone,
It's Saturday and I just came from a TOSTAN presentation. It's an impressive organization that has done a lot to combat female genital mutilation/female circumcision/female cutting (whatever you want to call it) in Senegal. Look them up because I hope to partner with them on some projects.

I haven't really mentioned this before, but female circumcision is widely practiced where I live. My host dad tried to explain to me one night that a little girl is closer to her father because her mother is present during her circumcision and she naturally resents her for that. It was a rough explanation and doesn't really deserve repeating, but there you go. I don't understand a lot about the practice, mainly why the women seem to be the ones who value the tradition.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hi and I love most of you (I don't have a lot of readers so I can safely say things like that).

P.S. Hey, just occurred to me I met a celebrity. Molly Melching is the founder of Tostan and was easily the coolest person in the room today.

another dutiful post

this is going to be quick because I'm holding a charwma sandwich in one hand and typing with the other. The EE class went on a field trip to an animal reserve today. Basically there are a lot of animals there that may or may not have once roamed free in Senegal, but don't now. They were imported from South Africa. I'll upload a few photos.

It was a good time, felt a lot like an elementary school outing minus the bag lunch (plus there was a little shot of passion fruit liquor at the end). We sat in benches mounted on the bed of pickup trucks, and the driver raced around shamelessly chasing animals. We followed a white rhino for five minutes before he finally got tired of us and hid in the bushes. Then we got out of the truck to chase a small herd of giraffes. The seats were a little dangerous, because there were a lot of thorny branches in the way and now my arm is throbbing. I'm not sure how all this helps us as environmental volunteers, but I don't care.

One last thing, we saw a cemetery tree. Apparently the Animalists in Senegal used to place corpses in the Baobab trees. This stopped in the 1960s (I think) when the president made it illegal. The tree we saw had the remains of about 150 people in it. I didn't take a photo of the skulls because I thought that would be tacky.