PCV: Amanda Lyon
BP 320 Tambacounda
Senegal, West Africa
I love letters and pictures and will post a wish list soon!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Africa always brings something new...
The last week I have been in my training village attempting to advance in language by hanging out with my local family and practicing as much as possible. I had my second language proficiency test and it seemed to go adequately. We are expected to reach a level of mid-intermeadiate (whatever that means) by swear-in, which is to take place May 14th.
My weekend was full of good times. Saturday after language class some friends and I visited a local turtle conservation park called " Le Village des Tortues du Senegal." The park is meant to promote education and conservation of African tortoises. It was neat to see an eco-friendly side of Senegal. I spent the rest of the day visiting the families of other volunteers and praticing Pulaar...along with some Uno and creme glace of course.
Sunday some friends and I visited the beach once again. The day was perfect and rejuevenating. We hired a car to take us directly to the beach and then called them to pick us up so transportation could not have been less stressful. Once we arrived we sat our butts right on the beach and filled our hearts desires with reading, swimming, listening to music, eating delicious melon and even practiccing yoga! There was even a random european family who entertained us by driving back and forth on the beach jamming to techno music and doing silly car dances. While waiting for our ride back to the village we enjoyed a ice cold beverae beside Lac Rose (which was not pink this time either and I am beginning to doubt that it ever is except when photoshopped on Wikipedia). The day was necessary given the constant stress that lurks in the background of daily life when learning a new culture and language.
Other than that the last week has been full of language and preparations for the arrival of all of our counterparts for a workshop in Thies starting tomorrow. This workshop is meant to give our the counterparts (I mentioned mine in my previous post) a taste of what we are going through adapting to a new culture and learning a foreign language. We are expected to form an action plan for our first three months after being installed in our permanent village. Around 80 counterparts from all over the county who speak different languages will be staying at the center. I imagine it will be an akward and difficult couple days but luckily this Saturday our whole stage will be rewarded with a day at the beach!
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city of Senegal and cannot adequately be described in words. It is chaotic in both and exciting and frightening way. We unfortunately spent most of our time in Peace Corps headquarters meeting Peace Corps staff and on a bus getting a quick tour of the city. The city itself is a mix of riches and poverty mounded on top of one another...literally...a heck of a sweet house on top of a shack.
You can buy anything your heart desires. Q-tips are found at the same stand as mangoes, cookies, sunglasses, hair weaves, spoons, poo-kettles...and who knows what else. You are approached every time your vehicle stops to buy a myriad of items through the window. The city seems to have beautiful beaches (from what I saw through the bus window) and dirty crazy streets. The best thing about visiting the city was a place called "Nice Cream." It is the only real ice cream I have seen in country and was more like your choice of every flavor of heavenly gelatto. I choose caramel, pecan vanilla of course. Ammmmazing.
Recently the president of Senegal had "The Monument of the African Renaissance," built in downtown Dakar. It has been very controversial because much of Senegal is in poverty and a crazy amount of money was spent on the statute.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Tamba is hot...that is what every Senegalese person will tell you when you mention you are moving there. Believe them...it's true!
The past four days I have spent at my permanent site in Medina Dar Salam. I stayed with Mary, the volunteer who's site I am replacing, and Spence a fellow trainee who is going to be my closest neighbor once at site. Although it started out nerve wracking, the visit was a positive experience and gave me an idea of what I will be working with for the next couple years.
It was exciting and overwhelming to meet the family that I will be living with for the next two years. I have approximately 17 family members living in my compound in nine huts. I have a dad, two moms (polygamy is the norm here), 7 brothers (3 adults, 18, 15, 10, 10) 2 sisters (14 and 7), 2 sister in laws and 2 neices and a nephew. Everyone is extremely welcoming and friendly and the kids are adorable. We have donkeys, cows, roosters, goats, chickens and a dog named Meanie (from a past volunteer). This equals loud at all times of the day and night. It is much like sleeping in a petting zoo. I am officially in "the bush."
My living quaters are a tiny round cement hut with a thatch roof. I have my own douche (hole in the ground) for bucket bathing and bathroom functions. I have a shade structure out back to sleep under during the hot season because it is too hot to sleep indoors. Our compound has a well where we pull water for drinking, bathing, cooking, etc. We eat corn or millet porridge for breakfast and millet with leaf or peanut sauce for lunch and dinner. Not exactly taste bud friendly but I probably won't starve.
The first day in my village my host family gave me a new Senegalese name. In this neck of the woods I am now referred to as Issatou Ba. I am named after my sister-in-law, which here is called your tokora (namesake). For the rest of the day we talked with the family through mostly translation and biked around the surrounding villages.
During he rest of our visit we were able to meet with the directors of the nearest preschool and primary school. Both visits were encouraging because the directors truly cared about the children they are serving and the value of education, which was not at all similar to the previous Senegalese school that I visited. I also met with two local counterparts I will be working with. The first is a health relais whose job is to sensitize the community about health issues and work to promote healthy living. The other is going to be the very first employee at the health hut under construction in my village. A health hut is the most basic health care provider that does mostly first aid, provides some medications and recognizes greater health concerns to advise patients to go to a health post or hospital. I am excited to work with both women and think there is a lot of great work to be done together.
I am lucky enough to be located approximately 7 k away from the Gambia River. We visited the river bank twice and saw hippos, baboons, Green monkeys and beautiful landscaping. I am quite certain this will be an essential weekly visit for me that enables me to maintain my sanity. I also hear rumors of the amazing weekly market that comes near my village and its ability to provide almost anything you could possibilty need for life in Senegal. It will be a good excuse to meet my neighbors by the river and buy nutrient rich food once a week.
It was exciting and overwhelming to meet the family that I will be living with for the next two years. I have approximately 17 family members living in my compound in nine huts. I have a dad, two moms (polygamy is the norm here), 7 brothers (3 adults, 18, 15, 10, 10) 2 sisters (14 and 7), 2 sister in laws and 2 neices and a nephew. Everyone is extremely welcoming and friendly and the kids are adorable. We have donkeys, cows, roosters, goats, chickens and a dog named Meanie (from a past volunteer). This equals loud at all times of the day and night. It is much like sleeping in a petting zoo. I am officially in "the bush."
My living quaters are a tiny round cement hut with a thatch roof. I have my own douche (hole in the ground) for bucket bathing and bathroom functions. I have a shade structure out back to sleep under during the hot season because it is too hot to sleep indoors. Our compound has a well where we pull water for drinking, bathing, cooking, etc. We eat corn or millet porridge for breakfast and millet with leaf or peanut sauce for lunch and dinner. Not exactly taste bud friendly but I probably won't starve.
The first day in my village my host family gave me a new Senegalese name. In this neck of the woods I am now referred to as Issatou Ba. I am named after my sister-in-law, which here is called your tokora (namesake). For the rest of the day we talked with the family through mostly translation and biked around the surrounding villages.
During he rest of our visit we were able to meet with the directors of the nearest preschool and primary school. Both visits were encouraging because the directors truly cared about the children they are serving and the value of education, which was not at all similar to the previous Senegalese school that I visited. I also met with two local counterparts I will be working with. The first is a health relais whose job is to sensitize the community about health issues and work to promote healthy living. The other is going to be the very first employee at the health hut under construction in my village. A health hut is the most basic health care provider that does mostly first aid, provides some medications and recognizes greater health concerns to advise patients to go to a health post or hospital. I am excited to work with both women and think there is a lot of great work to be done together.
I am lucky enough to be located approximately 7 k away from the Gambia River. We visited the river bank twice and saw hippos, baboons, Green monkeys and beautiful landscaping. I am quite certain this will be an essential weekly visit for me that enables me to maintain my sanity. I also hear rumors of the amazing weekly market that comes near my village and its ability to provide almost anything you could possibilty need for life in Senegal. It will be a good excuse to meet my neighbors by the river and buy nutrient rich food once a week.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Village Placement...Medina dar Salam
Yesterday I found out where I am spending the next two years of my life. We were all shepherded out to a basketball court with a painting of Senegal and then blind folded and taken to our village sites. We were told to remove our blindfolds and excitedly looked around to see where we were placed and who would be our closest neighbors.
The name of my village is Medina Dar Salam in the Region of Tambacounda (Southeast). It is just outside of Niokola Koba National Park and near a river but I am not sure which river as of yet. Approximately half of my village speaks Pula Futa (the language that I am learning) and half speaks Mandinka. Most people are Muslim but many also have animist beliefs. Peanuts and cotton are the cash crops of my village.
Peace Corps has been in my village since 2000, but the village is still facing three main threats. Good medical care is hard to come by which is currently being addressed. Employment and other ways of producing income are scare. Village cohesion is a problem because eight villages are in the same area with different chiefs and cultures.
I will be living in a compound with a large family. My hut is one room with a thatched roof and cement floor. The village has eight wells but only two are cement lined. Biking will be my main transportation and will be easy with the roads being mostly clay and gravel. I will know more about the village next week after I go visit it so be sure to check back for more information!
Easter in Senegal!
The Easter holiday weekend was nothing like home but relaxing all the same. I went to a Catholic church here in Thies for Mass in French in Wolof. I can't say that I understood much that went on but it felt nice to have some structured time in a holy environment. The rest of the day friends and I ate good food and delicious beverages taking full advantage of our first free day in country.
The next day a group of us had our first experience at the Thies garage. The “garage” is indescribably chaotic. It is simply an open area crammed with cars heading different directions. There are a plethora of drivers, vendors, talibe (basically street kids that study the Quran under a marabou), and travelers. There doesn’t seem to any method to the madness, though I might understand it more in a few months. After plenty of drivers tried to take advantage of our group of toubabs we finally struck a deal and we were on our way to the beach in Saly!
The car ride was about an hour and a half and not bad besides the back seat being almost completely laid down. We were dropped off at a hotel call Blue Africa that had an amazing view of the beach. We bought drinks and were able to use their private beach for the day…what an arrangement! The weather was beautiful and the beach was clean. I couldn’t ask for much more. We spent the day basking in the sun, swimming, taking walks and trying to fend off vendors convinced that we needed what they were selling. It was refreshing and incredibly relaxing.
The hotels along the beach have guard dogs that chase off problematic people. The dogs are actually racist because European travelers spoil them while the Senegalese are not as kind to them. They dig holes near the surf and sit in them to stay cool and chase off anyone causing trouble while trying to snuggle up with visitors.
In the evening we headed back to Thies before dark. We spent another night eating good food and wrote reports for technical training the next day. Easter weekend was a success and unwinding with church and beach time was the perfect way to enjoy my time off!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Laughter is the best medicine
Bucket Bath Gone Wrong
The first home visit I had to begin taking bucket baths. I didn’t think it was that big of deal to splash water from a bucket onto my body, suds up and splash rinse. Apparently I was uninformed that I was supposed to have a tiny bucket to do the rinsing (although in hindsight it seems pretty self explanatory.) This for the first couple of days did not pose much of a problem. However, it was always inconvenient when trying to wash my hair. I had to bend over, dip hair in the bucket, shampoo and then dip and rinse.
Inconvenience turned to disappointment the last day of my first home stay when rinsing my hair bent completely over, ended in me getting my hair stuck in the bucket handle. There I was in Senegal, standing completely naked, in a small dark concrete room (lit only by my headlamp hanging in the corner), bent over with my head stuck in a bucket. It must have been a full minute before I freed myself from confines of the evil bucket that had captured me. As a friend of mine and fellow trainee said. “shit just got real.” Needless to say, I have now mastered the task of bucket bathing.
Radi/Ice Cream Truck
Throughout each day we take several breaks to trek to radi/crème glass vendors in our village. Radi or crème glass is the best idea Senegal ever had. This scrumptious delight is frozen juice in little plastic bags. The juice is usually bissap or from baobab fruit. One is never quite sure what all has touched the outside of these radi bags but when you bite into the corner and frozen heaven enters your mouth it is the least of your worries. One day while attempting to obtain radi our group was told it was gone for the day. Disappointed we walked away and when doing so heard a honking sound. We turned in the direction that the sound originated only to find a man pushing a cart with a picture of an ice cream cone on it. He was honking a horn like the type you see on little girl’s bicycles. There in Sangalkam we purchased what was almost ice cream…mmm.
Pet Chicken..Pot pie
There was a chicken hanging out at our compound for a couple days and I asked my family if they had bought it. They said that it had wandered in and would wander away soon. It was sleeping in the kitchen, which I found ironic. At night it was falling asleep like a human nodding off. I used him in sentences while studying Pula Futa. Himo tampibue. He is very tired. After our bonding study session I headed to school. When I came back I saw my sister plucking my friend for dinner that night. Guess he should have wandered away when he had the chance.
Power Outage
At my home-stay I am lucky enough to have electricity and running water most of the time. This is something that I treasure dearly because I know I will not have it for the next two years. The other night the electricity went out in my village for a full day and night. For dinner my host family always crowds around the food bowl under our outdoor light. Without it we had one candle stuck in the ground and couldn't actually see each other, let along our surroundings or what we were attempting to eat. I saved the day by coming to the bowl with my headlamp on so I could shine it into our shared meal. It was so Africa meets America. I had to giggle thinking about how my friends in the states would react to seeing me eat around a bowl with 12 other people wearing a headlamp.
PS: People in Senegal think that Peace Corps Volunteers are in the CIA. My language instructor says that they are convinced because we write notes every night (i.e. journal). She has tried to explain that it is simply for our own record keeping but some people insist on believing that we are spies.
The first home visit I had to begin taking bucket baths. I didn’t think it was that big of deal to splash water from a bucket onto my body, suds up and splash rinse. Apparently I was uninformed that I was supposed to have a tiny bucket to do the rinsing (although in hindsight it seems pretty self explanatory.) This for the first couple of days did not pose much of a problem. However, it was always inconvenient when trying to wash my hair. I had to bend over, dip hair in the bucket, shampoo and then dip and rinse.
Inconvenience turned to disappointment the last day of my first home stay when rinsing my hair bent completely over, ended in me getting my hair stuck in the bucket handle. There I was in Senegal, standing completely naked, in a small dark concrete room (lit only by my headlamp hanging in the corner), bent over with my head stuck in a bucket. It must have been a full minute before I freed myself from confines of the evil bucket that had captured me. As a friend of mine and fellow trainee said. “shit just got real.” Needless to say, I have now mastered the task of bucket bathing.
Radi/Ice Cream Truck
Throughout each day we take several breaks to trek to radi/crème glass vendors in our village. Radi or crème glass is the best idea Senegal ever had. This scrumptious delight is frozen juice in little plastic bags. The juice is usually bissap or from baobab fruit. One is never quite sure what all has touched the outside of these radi bags but when you bite into the corner and frozen heaven enters your mouth it is the least of your worries. One day while attempting to obtain radi our group was told it was gone for the day. Disappointed we walked away and when doing so heard a honking sound. We turned in the direction that the sound originated only to find a man pushing a cart with a picture of an ice cream cone on it. He was honking a horn like the type you see on little girl’s bicycles. There in Sangalkam we purchased what was almost ice cream…mmm.
Pet Chicken..Pot pie
There was a chicken hanging out at our compound for a couple days and I asked my family if they had bought it. They said that it had wandered in and would wander away soon. It was sleeping in the kitchen, which I found ironic. At night it was falling asleep like a human nodding off. I used him in sentences while studying Pula Futa. Himo tampibue. He is very tired. After our bonding study session I headed to school. When I came back I saw my sister plucking my friend for dinner that night. Guess he should have wandered away when he had the chance.
Power Outage
At my home-stay I am lucky enough to have electricity and running water most of the time. This is something that I treasure dearly because I know I will not have it for the next two years. The other night the electricity went out in my village for a full day and night. For dinner my host family always crowds around the food bowl under our outdoor light. Without it we had one candle stuck in the ground and couldn't actually see each other, let along our surroundings or what we were attempting to eat. I saved the day by coming to the bowl with my headlamp on so I could shine it into our shared meal. It was so Africa meets America. I had to giggle thinking about how my friends in the states would react to seeing me eat around a bowl with 12 other people wearing a headlamp.
PS: People in Senegal think that Peace Corps Volunteers are in the CIA. My language instructor says that they are convinced because we write notes every night (i.e. journal). She has tried to explain that it is simply for our own record keeping but some people insist on believing that we are spies.
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