News

The wild child: There is a young boy (maybe 11-12) in my village who all the locals tell me is “dof,” a word that encompasses crazy/stupid/mentally handicapped. This kid’s name is Xali (pronounced “hall-y”), which means “kid.” Since my first encounter with Kid I knew he was not like the other kids—he exists in a constant state of uncontrollable energy comparable to that of a severe ADHD kid after drinking three cans of soda. He also loves heckling foreigners aparantly, evidenced by him shouting the mildly insulting “toubab” (westerner/white person) at me incessantly the first time I met him, demanding cash, and repeating some nonsensical prayer-like phrases concerning peaceful days and sacks of money. I realized the hazardous waters I was navigating in an instant. If I reacted to this boy in the wrong way I would likely earn his enmity and then endure his unbridled ridicule for the next two years, since not even an adult with a swift stick in hand is enough to curb him (and they try). So I have, since that first day, set out to make Kid my friend.

The other day I realized with some surprise that I am actually happier to encounter Kid than many others in my village. Maybe it’s because our interactions are on a simplified level. Kid has no inhibitions so I gladly drop mine to engage with him. I return his taunts with tousling and tickling, and respond to his demands for cash by stealing his own money out of his pocket. I give it back.

I’m glad to notice that our engagements earn approving smiles and laughs from any onlookers, as I can tell they are just as happy as I am to turn a potential menace into a friend.

The monster: To celebrate my birthday another volunteer and I went out kayaking in the brackish mangrove-filled river delta next to our regional office in Toubacouta. We saw pretty birds, lots of mangroves, and a monkey. We followed tiny channels in the mangroves until the branches hedged in our kayak and forced us to turn around.

The most memorable event was the monster though. I had two sightings of it. The first was merely a glimpse of a sleek black shape terminated in a fin or flipper, disappearing under the surface with a slight ripple. By the bit I saw I guessed it must have been at least 6 feet long. The second spotting enlightened me further. I saw a glistening black body bulging up and out of the water, like a breaching wale. I saw only the lower portion of its body but it whatever the creature was it was at least 8, probably 10 feet long. My friend caught just a glimpse of it the second time as I stuttered for him to follow my gaze. My detective work is underway to uncover the nature of this mysterious aquatic phantom.

Cashew fruit: They are finally ripe. After staring at all these cashew trees for four months with nothing on them I am finally enjoying the glorious fruit. People grow the trees for the nut, but the fruit is extremely juicy, sweet, and incredibly satisfying on a hot day, i.e. everyday.

Master farm training: Last week I biked out to another volunteer’s site where she had organized a training day for local farmers. Several of our Peace Corps bosses came to help run the event, and most of the volunteers in the area. This is the second Master farm training I have helped out with, and they are a great example of what the Peace Corps agriculture program is trying to do here in Senegal. Each Master farm training is essentially a small-scale version of what we are pursuing throughout the country, and in many other countries too.

A Master farm is a created when a Senegalese farmer with ample farming experience receives a sponsorship from Peace Corps. Peace Corps provides funding to dig a well, erect a fence, build a tool shed, and buy basic equipment for a (usually about) one hectare farm. The farmer is also trained by Peace Corps staff in a variety of farming techniques and best practices. In return, the farmer agrees to manage his farm in the Peace Corps approved fashion and use his farm as a demonstration to teach other farmers these techniques. Thus the Master farm sites are ideal locations for summoning local farmers for a day of agriculture training.

I was helping explain live fencing—how to set up and care for a tree nursery, when to outplant your seedlings, and how to properly outplant the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of thorny young trees and then prune and manage them afterwards to maximize the effectiveness of the living hedge of thorny trees.

Tough day--quicksand, thorns, and getting shot at: OK, he probably wasn’t aiming for me, but when the birdshot ripped through the mango tree I was sitting under I decided it was time to leave the garden. Apparently tourists pay to get driven out into the remote bush (where I live and work) to hunt things. This always attracts crowds to come see the toubab, mostly little kids. This is not optimal, since the foreigners seem to have no concept that there are people nearby, and fire recklessly after their exotic birds with no concern for what lays beyond. I don’t think anyone’s been shot yet, so I guess it all works out. It sure ruins a peaceful afternoon in the bush though.

The quicksand was real though, and just about swallowed my Peace Corps boss's car when he came to visit my site. It was right next to the farm I work at everyday, where the water table is low enough to create a sinkhole of mud perfected disguised by the desiccated sand above. The car sunk all the way to the chassis and it took eight guys a full hour to dig, wedge, jack, and push it out. I was all for bringing on a couple teams of cows to pull on it, it would have been interesting at least.

Thorns, while not as threatening as bullets, have done more damage to me. I covered my watermelons with branches cut from a thorny tree to keep monkeys, other beasts, and children from molesting my melons. The first victim was me, however. Running around watering my veggies I managed to lodge one of the nearly 2-inch thorns into the ball of my foot where it then snapped leaving the hardened black spine embedded inside. It took me a while with my pocket knife but I cut it out at last.

One of my tree nurseries. Papaya on the left, Zisiphus mauritiana (a thorny tree with little crab-apple type fruits) in the middle, guava on the right.

New rabbit hutch. Finally proper housing for my bunnies. They seem to like it, although they keep flipping their water bowls over, despite me wiring them to the wall.

Local kids hanging out in my room. They can be pretty helpful sometimes, sweeping my room, getting water from the well for me, feeding my rabbits, etc. In return I set up movie night for them with my computer, and feed them whatever I happen to cook up. The little one on the right is a real troublemaker. Always pushing the limits. But he's my nephew and we understand each other.

Sunrise runs: My daily routine now incorporates an hour or so of running in the nearby national forest at dawn, before jumping in the pond and then watering my garden. It was just what I was missing. Running clears my head and leaves me more energetic and positive for the rest of the day. It's the perfect mental stimulant I need to keep me motivated.

Photo Essay

Sunrise on my walk to the farm

Local hooligans who helped me set up my rabbit hutch in my yard (see hutch in background). Pop built it out of sticks, and with just a bit of work to wire shut some gaps and build a door it was rabbit-ready. I bought the rabbits in the local capital, Kaolack, since there were none in my subregion. The rabbits and I caught a first-class ride in a Peace Corps car that was conveniently headed to my neck of the bush.

Final product. The sheet is for shade, not just stellar aesthetics

Male rabbit: aka Gerard

Female rabbit: aka Lola

My plan is to let these two grow up a bit (they are 3-4 months old) then begin cranking about bunny babies. I'm currently feeding them a mix of corn/millet/ leftover rice and plenty of sweet potato leaves.

The mice plaguing my room didn't see it coming. They had apparently grown complacent in their years of luxurious crumb-eating life in this hut. No previous experience or training had prepared them for the wrath of American made mouse traps in the hands of a kid who spent his middle school recesses trapping rats under the school. The first night I rigged up the trap (with my patented peanut butter-soaked string baiting method to snag their delicate teeth) I caught the foolhardy ringleader. What is better than catching a mouse on the first night? Catching two the second night.

 Photo-documentation of the extremely rare phenomenon of dousmus carnificinatum--two mice executed with a single trap

If you are a careful observer and perhaps cross-referenced this photo with the picture from my last entry you may have noticed this is a different puppy. While I was away for a week for my language seminar Pop gave away Blaze to a friend who was in need of a dog. But he got another puppy, even younger and smaller. I was never asked to give this puppy a name, it was just assumed this dog would be called "Blaze" as well.

Blaze seeking shade and water; two rare and precious commodities in Senegal.

My bed of snap peas and squash in which the soil was NOT amended, only dug and mixed to a depth of 18 inches.

 Bed beside it, given the same treatment but with the addition of ground peanut shells and manure. Watering can for size reference. The importance of amending the soil is well-known here, and I have seen manure used. It is more common, however, to buy small sacks of chemical fertilizer. Therefore a more useful comparison will be to have neighboring beds with the same treatments except one is given chemical fertilizer and the second is given manure. Then I could find out if the chemical fertilizer is any better than the natural alternative.

My garden

Pop's sweet potato trenches. He digs the trenches and mounds the soil, letting the adjacent pond fill in the rills to create beds full of sweet potatoes that only need to be watered once per week.

Pop's prolific onion production

Pop, a "seekur," and Blaze. This is the second time Pop has shot one of these creatures out in the forest, and the second time I have eaten my fill of meat since being here.

Causes for Celibration

Exciting development #1: Puppy

Pop got a new dog! Now my daily routine includes taking the dog with me to the garden every morning, and back in the evening. He spends all day at the garden, while I commute twice, making it back to the village for lunch. His future profession is monkey-slayer. Monkeys are a serious pest in gardens like Pop’s, destroying crops, stealing mangos, and generally wrecking havoc. Pop used to have a dog to protect the farm, but the dog fought a gang of five monkeys, killing them all but succumbing to his wounds several days afterwards.

I named the pup Blaze. Blaze enjoys eating the millet mush I so despise, and especially likes the fish bones, my least favorite part. Our diets dovetail quite well, with him getting plenty of scraps to eat. Occasionally he and I both share in the bounty of a fresh-cooked feast in Pop’s garden, which leads me to:

Exciting development #2: Bush meat

The other day, Pop went hunting in the forest and came back with a creature resembling a badger. He stewed it for several hours over the fire with onion, sweet potato, salt, and spices. It was delicious. It had a texture and flavor much like a cross between dark chicken meat and slow-cooked pork shoulder, surprisingly fatty and tender. That day we all stuffed ourselves to excess.

Exciting Development #3: Beans

As delicious and filling as bush meat is, I’ve only had it once, so for the daily grind I need a more consistent food source. I’ve finally got a system together for cooking my own bean stews. The survivalists on the interwebs taught me about ‘thermal cooking,’ which comes in very handy when the world ends, anarchy reigns, and one needs to economize cooking fuel. Essentially I soak my beans overnight, then add all my other stew ingredients (potato, carrot, onion, garlic, peppers, salt, etc) bring to boil, simmer for 15 min, then take it off the burner, wrap it in a blanket, then inside my 15 degree down sleeping bag, then stuff the bundle into a plastic bucket. My improvised thermal cooker does such a good job of insulating heat that the pot is still too hot to handle for up to 14 hours after. As far as I understand, the stew continues to cook for several hours after leaving the burner, and then just stays hot. Whatever happens, it yields a scrumptious and hearty stew. Now my only problem is storage, since I don’t want to have to cook beans every day, and they spoil after about 36 hours.

Exciting Development #4: Banana bread

I love banana bread. Now I can bake it here. It’s not quite the same as back home, and the thought of tossing in a handful of something as precious as the chocolate chips I brought all the way from Washington DC is abhorrent (what if the bread gets ruined and I lose all 63 chocolate chips????) so it was a little plain. But still, it was tasty and reminded me of home. My neighbor routinely stokes the large clay oven with firewood, burning it down to coals and then producing dozens of loaves of bread (this bread has become another of my staples) and when he was done working the oven the other day I asked him to toss in a bowl full of my improvised banana bread batter (all those years of baking my own banana bread without following a recipe has finally paid off). It turned out baked to perfection. I shared it with my family, neighbor, and Pop, and all agreed that whatever the strange bread creation was that the American had made, it was darn good.

I just realized that three out of the four topics I wrote about are food related. This reflects quite accurately my preoccupation with feeding myself. I do other things of course, like work and interact socially. But trying to stay well-fed (in the American sense of the word) is much more difficult and time-consuming here than it was in the US. I find it somewhat perplexing that many people in the US spend more time trying NOT to eat so much.

Work has been going well. Several villagers have approached me with a desire for fruit trees so I have given out tree sacks, seeds, and advice. Nothing large-scale yet, just small 20-50 sack pepinaires to enlarge orchards and start new ones. My garden continues to grow, well some of it does. The carrots, corn, sage, and oregano failed to germinate entirely, and the green beans have a paltry 5% germination rate. Others, like the beets, broccoli, squash, kale, tomatoes, and snap peas are looking much more promising. Still, it compromises a bed of 3-sisters when one sister no-shows, the second is non-committal, and the third has to pick up the slack.

Some other random photos:


Two kids who helped me fill, place, and seed this pepinaire in my yard. The one on the right is one of Pop's sons, Andala.


The kind of brand loyalty I give to Chaco deserves sponsorship. In the background are my pepinaires (I have papaya, guava, moringa, and several species of thorny trees growing), and my solar panels getting some use out of the blazing sun.

One month at site

The sounds of Senegal

My most precious item brought here from the US is my iPod, well my solar charger too then, without which I would never be able to use my iPod to near the extent that I am currently. Which is a lot. Essentially whenever I am in my room or my little backyard, my music drowns out the cacophony of noise threatening to overload my brain. 

Sometimes it’s the awful radio stations spewing static, caterwauling strangers, and cackling news reporters. 

Other times unruly bands of children hurtle screeching through the streets beating makeshift drums with that fierce tenacity of over-excited kids—this is preferable, however, to when they wail and scream in hysterical fits, often following a beating from one of their parents (childrearing here… a topic for another day). 

Or perhaps it’s my neighbors on the east side of my hut—they often wake me up at night with an ensemble of banging of buckets, spilling water, and loud, monotonous, open-mouthed chewing that seems to have no end. Still, sharing a wall with two donkeys and a horse is preferable to a family full of frightful banshee-children. At least this way the crying babies are two huts away.

Yet other times it’s the harshly shouted conversation of adults that invades my American desire for peace and quite. For reasons not quite yet clear to me, people here converse at a decibel that in the US would be considered shouting, yet here is mundane chatting. 

Still other times (i.e. dawn, midday, evening, dusk, night--the 5 Muslim prayer times, and then sometimes at the awkward hours of early morning and late night when most normal people would be sleeping) the devout Muslims proclaim the call to prayer, or give village updates, or just chant for a while for the heck of it over the harshly grating public announcement system. 

I am also frequently serenaded by angrily mooing cows, shrilly braying donkeys, and impatient roosters competing to be the first to announce the sun that is still shining on the other side of the earth.

Often, it is some or all of these noises in dreadful chorus. My iPod is a blissful sanctuary for my sanity.

Work:

My garden is coming along well. I’ve now dug, amended, and seeded most of my beds. Here is a visual progression of my garden work over the last several weeks:

View from my garden looking back across Pop's farm. Trees are mangos, flowering now, can't wait for fruit season!

What my garden space looked like before I began...

 After clearing grass

Digging beds and amending soil with manure and peanut shells

Unfinished bed on left is still getting daily loads of manure that I lug from the village on my head in a sack. Hoping to plant potatoes there soon. Beds on right are planted with 3-sisters (corn, green beans, and butternut squash).

Planting! This is my pepinaire where I seeded tomato, pepper, eggplant, and peas. I'll let them grow for a while then transplant into the few beds I haven't seeded yet. So far the beets, broccoli, snap peas, and a few tomatoes have already emerged. I await with hesitant excitement to see how these American vegetables will perform in Senegal.

Leisure:

 Some of my fellow volunteers at our regional Peace Corps office in Toubacouta, enjoying our Christmas feast! We baked three chickens (they were small, and we were hungry) following as close as we could--given Senegalese produce--my Dad's time-tested Thanksgiving turkey stuffing recipe. Also on the table were mashed potatoes and stir-fried veggies. It was my first American-ish dinner since coming to Africa, and I gorged myself. So deliciously fulfilling.

**Latest update in the War Against the Zombie Frogs: These beasts will stop at nothing to connive their way into the moist, fluffy soil I so lovingly prepared for the plants in my yard. I built a fence out of sticks and old mosquito net, a quite impressive structure I was sure no frog could penetrate. So confident was I in my engineering genius that I naively seeded moringa and papaya, starting a small nursery to propagate these highly sought-after trees.

 That night the frog zombies struck. As soon as the sun went down they lurched out of their dark murky crevices and spread about, seeking insects and even wetter, darker places to nest for the night. Like inside my newly made tree nursery. Somehow the creatures wormed, wriggled, hopped, clambered, and nudged their way through my barrier. I woke to find my little 2x2 ft nursery infested with over 20 frogs, which had churned my clean seed bed into a mass of muddy, wrippling, amphibian flesh. I dug them up and flung them out with disgust. Thats when the fun ended and I was mad at the little buggers.

I pulled down my fence and began anew. Instead of layering several sheets of mosquito netting together where holes gaped, I sewed each hole closed and installed a single, intact surface, stretched taught between each stake--which were sharpened and pounded into the ground six inches at a negative angle, giving the frogs no purchase for climbing, no small holes to wriggle through, and no folds to push past.

The Ultra Frog Defier V 3. No frog has breached these impenetrable walls. Sometimes I sit in my wooden chair at twilight and smirk as the befuddled creatures press their slimy faces against my fence in vain. Victory at last. 

A few of the highlights of my life here:

 Peanut butter Nutella sandwich with fresh yogurt. Mmmmmm

 Shaded hammock + iPod + book = happiness

Eggs. They are paradoxically the most important source of protein I have and the font of artery-choking cholesterol that will prematurely terminate my two-year service of Peace Corps.

Cultural Observations:

Senegalese culture note #1: There is a much stronger sense of community and sharing here as opposed to the American ideal of pulling your own weight. Saving money, for example, does not exist here. If you have money you are expected to spend it, sharing the funds or what you buy with your family and friends. There is very little planning for the future.

Case in point: I have two moringa trees in my backyard which produce edible nutritious leaves that women like to cook into sauce with peanuts and fish and pour over their millet. The other day a random woman came by my hut asking to have my moringa leaves. I flickered quickly from startled to confused to indignant, my American brain thinking, “these are my trees, in my yard, and you want me to just give them away to you? I have never talked to you before, you haven’t done anything for me, haven’t offered me money, and haven’t even said please (granted there is no word for please in Wolof, but she wasn’t asking politely).”

I realized quickly there was some cultural misunderstanding going on, and that if she was demanding some moringa leaves then it probably wasn’t as rude as I thought it was. So I compromised by jokingly telling her that she hadn’t ever done anything for me and didn’t deserve my moringa, but if she gave me some of the dinner she made with them then I’d let her have them. She laughed and agreed. I then spat out one of the myriad questions bursting inside me, “if you want moringa, why don’t you plant it for yourself, it’s easy, grows very fast, and requires hardly any care?” Her response floored me yet again, “but I want moringa today, if I plant it I won’t have leaves today.” I reigned in my urge to get upset, masking my frustration with jokes (my stalwart stratagem here in Senegal, it has proved invaluable on countless occasions).

Our banter continued and I told her about just how easy it was to plant, how she could even plant the branches I had cut for her, just bury them in the ground and water once a week or so and they will grow. It is about the simplest plant possible to propagate. She protested that she couldn’t manage all that work, and that by the way, I didn’t give her enough leaves, she wanted more. Her family was large, she said, and my offering (I had lopped the top six feet off my tree!) didn’t cut it. I replied that with that large of a family she must have plenty of hands to help plant and tend a whole forest of moringa, and then she wouldn’t have to come take mine. So continued our talk, my mind split between frustration and fascination at what I was learning from this lady’s outlook. Finally she left, packing some cuttings off morings that she promised to plant in her yard, and she did send a bowl of her moringa leaf sauce and millet slop that night. I still can’t stomach the stuff so I let my family have it.

Senegalese cultural note #2: The phrase “may ma” translates to “offer/give me.” It is among the most commonly used phrases here in Senegal, especially when conversing with foreigners. This phenomenon relates to cultural note #1, because if I have something that somebody else doesn’t I should be willing to share it. Hence the lady asking for my moringa leaves, people asking for my watch (I stopped wearing it because this got annoying), the kids asking for my bike, or food, or money, or a new car, or… 

This gets old quite fast, and you develop strategies to deflect their demands: “It’s not my bike, my boss owns it and he’ll kill me if I give it away (maybe exaggerated but not entirely untrue), or, “I’m not giving you money for nothing, you have to work to earn money.” One of my most commonly recurring confrontations with “may ma” is people asking for my vegetable seeds. Since I work in the garden every morning, I inevitably end up discussing what I’m doing there with anyone I see on my way to or from work. Despite whether I’m talking to a man, woman, child, stranger, friend, family member, or any assortment of the above, the dialogue strays little from this track:

Me: Good morning

Villager: Good morning

Me: How’s it going?

V: Fine, how are you?

Me: Good, how is work?

V: We’re on top of it. How is the family?

Me: They're doing well, how is your family?

V: They are fine, thanks to God

Me: Thanks to God. You’re going to your farm?

V: Yes, where are you headed?

Me: I’m going to Pop’s garden to work with my vegetables.

V: Oh you farm onions?

Me: No, everyone here farms onion so I am planting other veggies, seeds I brought from the US. Tomato, beet, squash, bean, corn, carrot…

V: Oh that’s good, give me some seeds.

Me: (Ugh.) I planted most of them already.

V: But if you have some left, give them to me, OK?

Me: I’d like to, but I don’t have enough to give seeds to everyone in the village so it’s not very fair to give some to you just because you are asking me, see what I mean?

V: Yeah, yeah, OK I see.

Me: But if my veggies grow well and I have lots I will give you some!

V: Ok, great!

This is almost always a pleasant exchange, and I have come to realize there is nothing inherently sinister about them asking for my seeds (or bike or whatever), it is often just their way of interacting with me, as mundane a comment as an American mentioning the weather or a sports team. I try to keep this in mind and never get upset since they don’t know that their words border on taboo in my culture.

Sometimes people tease me maliciously, to try to get a rise out of the “toubab” (foreigner), but this usually only happens when I’m traveling outside my village, and then a quick rebuttal in Wolof will often ameliorate the situation as they realize I’m not just a tourist passing through since I know their language and don’t get flustered by their harassment. Instead I joke with them or change the subject, lingering long enough to let them know I am comfortable chatting with them and want to be their friend. Maybe I even impart a valuable lesson to them about America, i.e. there are poor people in America, work is often hard to find and difficult once you get it (especially if you are a foreigner who doesn’t speak English!), it is very cold where I come from and snows sometimes (closest translation for snow is, “rains ice”) and then I head on my way.

I get the feeling that foreigners rarely, if ever, stop and discuss with these types of guys (yes, usually young men are the ones more likely to be harassing people). I’ve realized the kind of impact I can have if I just hang out and talk to these fellows, listen to them, and give them solid answers about the reality of America. They all say things like, “America is so great, there is tons of money. Akon is in America. I want to go there. Take me there.” I do my best to paint a more realistic picture of America, how different and harsh the culture could seem to them there (if you knock on a stranger’s door in the States, chances are you will not be getting a free dinner and place to spend the night) and why maybe they should be happy here, because Senegal is pretty cool too.

Life in the bush

Figured I'd start with pictures, then you can just look at them and not bother with any of the rest. Kind of like an executive summary or somesuch thing.

Loading the bus to drop the roughly 22 new volunteers in the Kaolack, Fatick, and Kaffrine regions. I'm proud to say the heinous stack of bags and bikes on top of bus is mostly my handiwork. It did the job though and nothing fell off, although it drew lots of stares, pointing, and shouting from just about every Senegalese we drove by.

My friends--the frogs. At least we were friends at first before they started swarming my yard, hopping into my tree sacks, and burying into the soft soil around the roots of my newly panted guava tree. Friendship destroyed. In this picture they cluster around the base of my water filter, where a slow leak causes a nice muddy patch of soil perfect for overnighting.

My grandfather (one of roughly 6--the brothers of my grandpa are also my grandpas, as is this man who is actually the husband of my grandfather's little sister) with his farm. The peanut crop is just wrapping up here (this field had peanuts on it). In the mini fences are young mango trees that my grandpa wants to graft with a variety that produces bigger and tastier fruit. I hope to help with this project and others. He is full of great ideas.

My rigged up cooking assembly. Sticks, wire, and tin foil unite to form a trinity of heat-holding, energy-saving, aesthetically mind-blowing synergism.

My hauls from the nearest large "louma"--market. About 2/3 of this went to my family, the rest I hoarded for myself. I plan on making the hour-long bike ride out to this market every Sunday to restock myself and my family with veggies. If I don't, there are no veggies to be seen in my meals. 

The closest I can come to making a fridge. Every hut in Senegal has one of these large clay pots for keeping drinking water cool, as the water slowly leaches through the clay it evaporates from the outside, cooling the water within. It actually keeps the water significantly cooler, so I thought I could capture the cooling effect for my veggies by building a platform that fits into the bottom to hold my produce above the water, and keeping about 4-5 inches of water in the bottom results in cool--not really cold-- produce, and hopefully improved shelf life. It has worked pretty well so far.

My hut, with water filter/frog mud bath arena (depending who you ask) on the left. My bike and chair that my friend made me on the right.

I installed at my site, Keur Andala Wilane, on December 5th. Its been pretty good at site, the only downside is Ive been getting sick a lot. At least the first week I was feeling healthy and was able to meet and greet lots of people and work in the fields and make good first impressions. But this last week I've been hit with diarrhea, vomiting, head cold, and then general lack of energy because I've lost my appetite and can't eat enough of the food (food here is pretty lame--mostly this corn/millet meal mixture with the consistency of wet sand, and then a scoop of sauce on top) I just can't stomach more than a few bites and then I'm hungry but have nothing to eat to keep myself going. Feel kind of like I'm wasting away, but there's nothing I can do about it right now, just trying to take a rest day today and heal up. I have bought my own food and began cooking for myself, which helped for a while but now my gut has gone rogue and even my own stews and scrambled eggs are unappetizing.

Other than food/sick issues, life here has been a lot of fun. I love that Peace Corps gave me a brand new Trek mountain bike to hit the sandy bush roads with. I've already spend several days exploring new villages, new roads, and visiting a few other volunteers who are (relatively) near me. Both are about an hour bike ride away, making me the most isolated volunteer in my region. I enjoy this though, as the area I am in is beautiful and my bike rides are one of my favorite parts of the week so far. Especially heading out at dawn or returning at sunset, the country here is stunning. There are no mountains (miss them already) but the rolling savanna scattered with lone acacia and baobab trees, or the occasional village nestled in a protective grove of huge old mango trees have their own charm (like my village, so many mango and cashew trees, can't wait for fruit season!).

My work situation is also pretty swell. My host father/counterpart assigned by Peace Corps is not often around since he lives and works in a nearby town with some of his relatives, but he is a very hard-working, patient, and understanding man, and is quite willing to help with any question or concern I have. My main work-partner is Pop, one of my neighbors--also the step son of my grandfather (almost everyone in small villages here in Senegal are related somehow, and marriage of first cousins is common--even preferred sometimes). Pop has a farm about a 15 minute walk outside of the village, and it is a mini paradise--filled with mango, banana, and cashew trees, with a big pond in the center for easy irrigation, and a living fence of eucalyptus growing around the border. He farms cassava, sweet potato, tomato, onion, cabbage, eggplant, and others. On the far side of the pond Pop set aside a generous amount of space for me to make my own garden, which I am extremely grateful for. It is really an ideal place for me to have my own garden and tree nursery, since it has easy access to water, decent soil (quite sandy though), a good fence to protect from livestock, and a dedicated farmer who can water and care for my plants and trees if I have to leave on Peace Corps business.

I've already cleared the head-height grass, leveled off my beds (they are on a slope), and amended my beds with manure, ash, and ground peanut shells (the last is my own invention--since the soil is so sandy I wanted a way to increase it's water-holding capacity and organic matter content, we'll see how it works. I left one bed unamended to test the efficacy of my amendments). I'm planning on planting the American seeds I brought: tomato, broccoli, beet, carrot, kale, and pea. I also have plenty of space to expand my garden, I estimate I've used only about 1/3 of the space so far, so lots of room to expand later, hopefully with some larger beds and bigger crops like three sisters (corn, bean, squash), watermelon, and potato.

So far I've been gardening in the mornings when it is cooler, and then spending the rest of the day in my village, either working in my yard (lots of small home-improvement projects like building platforms to wash/dry dishes, making my tree pepinaire--100 tree sacks, mostly guava with some other ornamentals--and making compost) or visiting other houses to talk, let people know who I am, and just be friendly. I try to be as social as I can, since introversion is a near-blasphemous offense here in Senegal. Being sick makes this especially difficult though, which is one of the reasons I came into the regional office in Toubacouta for a rest day--if I can't be outgoing and talkative I'd best remove myself from my village otherwise people will think I don't like them. The fact that I'm sick is a frail excuse, since I can't really tell anyone that I'm sick (also culturally unacceptable--I'm supposed to say I'm feeling much better whenever asked). 

I hope I get my appetite and energy back soon so I can once more engage in proper Senegalese social interaction. This involves lots of joking, teasing, shouting, laughing, and smiling. Most of the time I am up for this rough and tumble banter, and they all love it when I can hang with them with my Wolof, its great fun for all. But it's almost like being on a stage all the time, and can be quite wearisome, especially if all I feel like doing is hiding in a cold dark cave and reading a book. Such is my conundrum.

Overall though I am very grateful to be where I am. My village is full of friendly people who are all eager to talk and get to know me. I'm glad I spent so much time and effort on improving my language during training, as I can jump right into making friends here. I also greatly enjoy exploring my surroundings and establishing a routine that will help me be an effective and efficient volunteer later on--for example assigning a day for going to the market to restock food, going into Toubacouta to work on the computer and chill out, and keeping a free day to explore a new place, forest, or village once a week. There are so many things I want to do with my time, so many ideas I have, I can't really imagine feeling the boredom that older volunteers talk about. Maybe it is a feeling that can sneak up you, so I plan on keeping an eye out for it and trying to always keep myself motivated. That will probably be one of my greatest challenges but also one of my strongest attributes if I'm able to pull it off.

Training almost over!

“Slowly, slowly, one catches the monkey in the forest.” So goes one of the proverbs I’ve learned here. Along with many others, the primary lesson is patience; things in Senegal happen when they happen, and the urgency of the American work environment doesn’t exist. Taking your time is valued over rushing about. People will lounge in the streets with neighbors, chatting under the shade of a tree while sharing ataaya—the ubiquitous tea brewed in small pots over charcoal and generously amended with sugar.

Such an environment is great for learning a new language, as I have found an abundance of patient teachers to sit and talk with. Nobody is in a hurry to get anywhere, and people are generally very open and friendly.

Senegalese also take lots of time for meals, at least lunch. Breakfast is French baguette bread with margarine. Dinner is often rice with a sprinkling of beans. Both are eaten fairly quickly and with little lounging before and after. Lunch, however, is a social affair. Generally I eat with my family and whatever guests or neighbors might be over for the day, usually between 5-10 people. There are two large bowls, which we all crouch around and eat from with a spoon or hand. Lunch is almost always ceeb u jën—rice and fish with some veggies thrown in. It is quite delicious although a bit heavy on the oil and salt. My strategy (developed and perfected over the my several weeks with my host family) is to ignore the rice and go straight for the fish and vegetables. Inevitably I will end up consuming ample rice since one can only be so deft with a large spoon, but if I wait to long the fish will be gone, leaving me essentially protein-less for the day.

Having only one big meal per day has been tough to adjust too, especially when I’m trying to focus on language class and my stomach is eating itself. So I’ve recently been buying second breakfast in the late morning, after my garden chores are done. A sandwich of beans and hardboiled eggs makes all the difference. I also have a stash of oranges in my room for snacks. Despite my father owning a fruit orchard we ironically eat very little fruit.

Another exciting part of my life is the dramatic but sporadic dreams I’ve had since being here. Partly I think this is a product of the malaria medication I take, Mefloquin.

**Reader alert—the following recounting of my dream is somewhat graphic (violence and scary monsters) so please skip ahead if such content may be unsettling to you**

The other night I dreamt I was trudging through a snow covered forest, with heavy flakes obscuring much of the blanketed undergrowth. I happened upon a man covered in heavy furs, crouched by a fire under the canopy of a sprawling conifer tree. As I approached the edge of his camp a massive six-limbed monster thundered out of the blizzard and burst into the clearing under the ancient tree.

The creature resembled a demonic blend of horse, man, wolf, and ram. In place of fur was flayed skin, revealing ligament and muscles covered in a sheen of bright red blood. The beast had four powerful legs and two bulging arms terminating in wickedly sharp spikes of weathered bone.

Neither man nor demon had seen me yet as I crouched behind the snow laden branches of a bush. Before the man could do more than turn to face the fearsome creature one of its bony bladed arms was rammed clear through the man’s torso and out his back. I didn’t stay to watch the gruesome scene, but backed into the swirling snow and fled.

Uncertain of whether I was being pursued, I struggled through the deepening snow searching desperately for some means of escape. My random flight led me to a cave that appeared suddenly as gaping hole in the earth, with a jagged slope leading into darkness. I could see remains of broken metal struts, wood planks, and barbed wire haphazardly forming makeshift barricades as if in a forsaken attempt to deter intruders. I began my decent into the earth, more slowly now to avoid snagging the jutting metal scraps littering the floor and walls. The cave gave me a foreboding feeling of uneasiness, but I feared the demons above more. Thinking only of my immediate survival I pushed onwards through the cave, deeper underground.

**The dream goes on—a post-apocalyptic underground society, a desperate struggle for survival against demonic monsters bent on murder, and other strange things—but I’ll stop narrating here for the sake of brevity**

**OK you can start reading again if you skipped my bizarre dream**

Below are some photos of my host family in Mboro. I will be spending one last week with them before heading out to my permanent site. They have been such a friendly and caring family, I can’t imagine a better space to have spent my first two months in Senegal learning the language and culture and making friends. I will miss them when I have to leave, and will do my best to come back and visit.

 My older sister, Hadi, cooking lunch (yup, ceeb-u-jën). I've helped cook a little, which is fun because cooking is one of those gender segregated roles so they all get a kick out of me grinding sauce with the mortar and pestle. I aspire to one day cook Senegalese-style as well as my sisters.

 My other big sister, Ngone, with Abdila (her son, L) and Mustafa (Hadi's kid, and my namesake, R)

My host mom with the youngsters

                                     

 My younger sister Amicune, holding Mama Diaw (Hadi's son), in front of my sis's garden inside the compound. I've brought home several small trees that I grew from seed and a bunch of Aloe vera plants to plant here with my sister. The women love them! I made the mistake of bringing only one with me first time and all my sisters were arguing over who's it was. So next time I brought back enough for everyone to have their own--crisis averted.

One of the hobbies I’ve picked up here is seed collection. I suppose it qualifies as work, but it is so fun I count it as a pastime. I’ve been raiding every useful seeding tree I can find, building up stocks for my permanent site. Already I have a collection of eight or ten species, some with hundreds of seeds. My favorites are my guava seeds (scored them in Dakar where I found a lady selling the fruit) Parkinsonia aculeata (an ornamental but also potentially useful as a live fence) and Leucaena leucocephala (one of the super-hero trees here in Senegal with a plethora of uses such as animal fodder, nitrogen fixation, fuel wood, and live fencing)

Studying the language has been my priority for these last two months. I’ve been trying my best to seek out teachers (at the Thies training center) and neighbors/friends/family (at my host town) to speak Wolof with. Its been helping significantly, and my language is coming along fast. Still not up to par with my French but I think I’m learning fast. Most volunteers chat with friends and catch up while back at the center, but I’ve made friends with the language teachers here instead. They are an awesome group, love joking around and teasing, and are excellent teachers. I guess I might appear antisocial to the other volunteers because I don’t mingle with them much—instead preferring the company of our Senegalese teachers—but that doesn’t bother me. I’m having a great time making friends and learning the language.

Wolof is difficult, simple, frustrating, tricky, daunting, and comical all at once, depending on the context and my mood. The dictionary we were given was made in the 90’s by a UCLA linguistics student. It is frequently inadequate or erroneous (mostly because Wolof varies so much between regions and the student worked only in the north of Senegal) and therefore many volunteers here are not fond of it. It does, however, have some hilarious vocabulary, anecdotes, and proverbs. For instance I’ve learned (and used, much to my Senegalese friends’ amusement) how to tell someone to hold their horses and how to swear an oath by the drawstrings of my father's pants. One of my favorite words so far is the verb “bul,” which means: “to feed livestock (esp. camel) finely cut grass, at night.” Maybe one of these days I will get the opportunity to bul.

Mid-training update

This is just a short post to let you all my site assignment--where I'll be for the two years following training. It is in a small Wolof and Bambara-speaking village in southern Fatick, about 500 people. I will be the second agroforestry volunteer there, following an agfo volunteer who just finished her service and headed back to the US. I have not yet seen my site, and will not get to until I install in the beginning of December. The volunteer I'm replacing, however, left me a detailed description of her site, projects, and work partners, so I feel well-prepared. I'm content to finish up with technical classes in Thies and language practice in Mboro before heading to my permanent site.

One of my fellow volunteers in Mboro took some great photos of our CBT site, so here are a few to give you an idea of where I've been living:

 My host father and mother in Mboro, Medun and Nday Diaw.

 Rollo, Megan, Vivian, and me. The Mboro CBT group, and an awesome crew!

 An attempt to capture one of the stellar sunsets we get while watering our eggplant, onion etc.. in the evening.

Our garden at the local elementary school. Complete with recently planted live fencing stakes (they will grow into a thick goat/sheep/kid-proof barrier in a couple years eliminating the need for the current chain-link and wood post fence), field crops (rice, corn, millet, sorghum, and beans) and vegetables (onion, tomato, eggplant, pepper, cucumber, turnip, carrot, and some others) some young trees growing in sacks, and a couple piles of compost waiting to amend our field of sand we are desperately trying to farm. Of course we are in this for the long haul, and the school director, teachers, and students are excited to take over after we leave. We are just the instigators in this project, which owes much of its resources and design to a productive relationship between Peace Corps management (my bosses) and the school director.

I'm headed back to Mboro for the next two weeks, but will take my camera this time and hopefully have much more to share when I return!