Pete Freeman in Senegal

Chechaouen

2009-04-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

A little taste of Morocco.

Le Retour

2009-04-04T11:57:00.000-07:00

Agsi naa!

After 2.5 years, I have returned to the US for good! It was tough to leave my Senegalese host family, work partners, and friends for the last time. These people will be a part of me for a long time to come and I hope very much to get back to Senegal before too too long.

That being said, it is great to be home. I left Senegal March 12th, traveled for two weeks in Morocco, and returned home the 26th. It's been good to spend some time with my parents, and I look forward to catching up with my friends in the US.

I'd like to address the 'Are you going through culture shock?' question. My answer is: Not really, I was here 3 months ago so it's not that crazy. The only things I've had to get used to are the Chicago weather, hearing English around me all the time, and eating dinner early. I suppose it will also feel weird not getting on a plane to cross an ocean any time soon...

There will be more to come on both sides of the equation: the end of my Senegal experience and the new life in America. It will take me months and years to process the last 2.5 years, and it may take me as long to tell about it, so this blog is not done.

When I grow up, I want to be...

2009-01-28T01:45:00.000-08:00

A wrestler!

Walking down the street the other day, I looked to my right and saw a group of boys (10 yrs old or so) hopping backwards in a line with no shirts on. I laughed as my mind flashed back to an ad that's currently running on repeat for the upcoming wrestling matches. These are not the kind of heroes I was hoping for in my previous blog post. But it was pretty funny to watch these 10 yr old 60 lbs. boys work out as if they were 23 yr old 250 lbs. guys.

Heroes

2009-01-13T03:06:00.000-08:00

This found scrawled on my Cubs desk calendar:

Senegal needs heroes. Kids don't have anyone to look up to, especially on a national level. The community's importance over the individual prevents people from wanting to be different. Being exemplary needs to become socially acceptable in order for this country to move forward.

Sed na dé!

2008-12-07T04:43:00.000-08:00

Cold season is here! Woo! My mornings and nights are spent bundled up in long sleeves, a jacket, and even socks. All unheard of outside of this beautiful time of year. This morning I even busted out the winter hat. The temperature? 68°

C'est quoi, "Thanksgiving"?

2008-11-29T02:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving.

I want to catch you up on my life by sharing a story and the things for which I have to be thankful. I have been blessed with many things over the last year- patience and love from others, opportunity and incredible life experience from the world around me. Let me start at the beginning:

In June of 2007, I was approached by Amadou Sow and Masamba Kébé, the leaders of a village-based Association, who wanted to strengthen the artisanal activities of the group. Women from their villages weave pretty colored grass baskets that I had seen all over western Senegal.

"What can you do for us?" the men asked.

Clueless as to how I could help these people, I deflected their question with my own question: "Well, what do you think we could do together to advance the group?"

The villagers looked at each other, and I quickly felt unease that this idea would not go anywhere.

But then we took a step back. I asked them to tell me more about their group: How many villages were involved? How many women weaved? What else do people do to support their families? How much schooling have you all received? What is the story behind these baskets anyway?

As answers to my questions came back one by one, Sow's interest in the project shined through. The Association is called And Suxali Sunu Gokh, which means Working Together to Make our Villages Flourish. It was started because a young girl in their village, Diama, contracted malaria and died before she could get to a hospital. The community was outraged by this avoidable tragedy and resolved to establish better access to medical care in the immediate area. While they were at it, they selected committees to start tree nurseries and organize the basket weavers. That was in 2005.

“We’ve planted some tree nurseries, which have been good for the community, but to this day nothing has been done for the artisans,” Sow related to me. “Today we’re here to see if you can help us get something started for them.”

Sow continued to tell me how little money the women made selling their baskets in my town’s weekly market (about $2/week), and how sometimes they wouldn’t sell anything at all despite leaving their children in the hands of others for the entire day.

“Their lives are not easy,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s more, these intermediaries come to the market and fill big buses with baskets to resell for a large profit in Dakar and the tourist hotspots. It’s not fair.”

I nodded my head in agreement as the economist in me clicked on. “The intermediaries have all the power. One intermediary walks into a market of 500 women and he can play one off another to pay the lowest price possible.” With the women struggling just to get by, this exploitation should be a crime, but instead it’s a daily operation.

“How about if instead of having 500 women compete with each other for just a few customers, you formed 1 group to find orders from bigger clients that will pay the women a fairer price?” I asked.

The men nodded their heads in agreement. “Right. This is our plan, and you will find Americans to buy our baskets,” they said smiling.

I laughed, hoping they were joking about the last part. It seemed like a pipe dream at the time, but I was happy to have a prospective work partner that seemed to be enthusiastic about their project.

After a few weeks, I went out to visit Diama. I rode on a horse cart, taking in fields of millet and peanuts as far as the eye could see, and I was captured by its beautiful simplicity.

Finally, in November we held a meeting with the women to propose the idea of forming a group of weavers to market and sell their products together. As I sat in a Diama schoolroom with Sow, Kébé, and 15 women, I didn’t have the slightest inkling of the journey I was beginning. All I knew was that the women were looking at the ‘Toubab’ (foreigner), asking “when will you place an order with us?”.

Sow laughed nervously, explaining “Moustapha is a Peace Corps Volunteer. He is here to work with you, but he doesn’t have any money for you.” They nodded knowingly, but they have never believed it in the year that we have worked together.

After Sow explained the proposition, the women spoke. One by one, they lamented the hardship of weaving and selling in the market. “We work every morning and afternoon until we are tired, but we don’t get anything from it. It is too difficult!” shouted one. “We cook lunch and take care of our children. Then, we weave to try to earn a little money, but we take our baskets to market, and half the time we don’t sell anything!” another said, exasperated. These grievances rained down on me like fists, and I resolved to figure out a way for these women to earn what they deserved for their hard work.

The meeting concluded as the women enthusiastically dictated their names to be taken down on our list of weavers; most of them are illiterate. “Get us an order soon, Moustapha!” said one, clapping me on the back on our way out. Sow and I looked at each other, hoping that we hadn’t stirred the pot for nothing…

Then, only three days later, something amazing happened: the group got an order! Talk about timing, another artisan Association we had partnered with received an order from a large French buyer the day after our meeting. They couldn’t make all the baskets by the deadline, so they gave me a call. “Can your group help us out with production?” they asked. These words were music to my ears. “Yes, they can. There are at least 30 women ready to work,” I laughed incredulously. I jubilantly relayed the news to Sow, and we set off to work.

First, a prototype basket had to be made that each village could copy. The basket in question was a laundry basket about thigh high and 20” wide. All 100 baskets of our part of the order had to match the provided dimensions and look the same. Easier said than done.

When I showed up in the village to inspect and pass out the prototypes, I was crestfallen. The prototypes looked nothing like what they were supposed to.

Panic set in. “How can you say this basket is good when it is nowhere near the dimensions we gave you?” I fumed.

“You’re right, it’s not what you and Sow told us to make,” was all Nar, the responsible weaver had to say.

As I asked Nar to compare the dimensions of the basket in front of her to the dimensions provided, my anger evaporated. She didn’t know how to read a tape measure. I looked at Sow, smacking my forehead at our naïveté. Nar had simply made a laundry basket how she thought it should be made, ignoring the specific instructions we had failed to properly emphasize.

The problem was that the group was on a tight deadline, and Sow figured that they would not be able to finish the 100 baskets in a month unless they got started in a couple days. In Senegal, where everything takes 5 times as long, that meant crunch time.

I left Diama on the verge of giving up this crazy idea. The challenges involved in bringing a new group of people together to execute an export order on a short deadline were greater than I expected.

We had one shot left that day-another village in the Association called Mborin. Sow had to prepare for class that afternoon (he is a teacher), so I headed off to the other side of the national road on my own without much hope.

But what I found in Mborin made my eyes bug: the perfect basket! Haha, it sounds a bit ridiculous, but after trudging around all day in the sand and being zapped by the sun, I can’t tell you how stoked I was to see that basket. My faith in the potential for development projects to succeed in this country seemed to rest on whether this group could execute this order or not.

Riding off on a horse cart through the millet fields at sunset with my arm slung over the basket and the day’s quest fulfilled will be one of the best memories of my time in Senegal. My question had been answered: yes these projects can succeed, and yes the Senegalese can make a better life for themselves.

Now, I knew the rest would happen. And it did. The group filled the order, and finished it so quickly that the partner Association increased the order. Our group answered that call too.

This experience proved to me that small people can do big things, and it taught me to dream. Since then, we’ve told everyone we know about what we’re doing. As a result, Peace Corps Senegal works with 25 artisan groups around the country, the basket makers sent a sea container to the US (you can purchase them here:
http://www.swahili-imports.com/home/si3/page_3068), and we’ve organized two Artisan Expositions in Dakar where artisans have sold $3,000 of product each weekend!

Now I have come full circle, to what I am thankful for. It is for these projects that I have decided to extend my service by 4 months, and remain in Senegal through March. Stories like the one just told have made me see that each of us can catalyze change in our world and that no goal is too big to be attained. My Peace Corps service has been what I hoped it would be, and more. Senegal will be tattooed in my brain for the rest of my life.

I am thankful for the people I have spent my time with here- Senegalese, American, and other. I did not know what ‘exceptional’ meant until I met Awa Traore, Amadou Sow, Serigne Babacar, and others who have completely ignored what society tells them to be, in favor of being something infinitely more to those around them. They continue to inspire me.

Finally, I am thankful for my extended family Stateside. The patience, strength, encouragement, and love you have shown me is humbling. Particularly in my decision to extend this crazy journey, thank you for being by my side through every twist and turn of this roller coaster. You too, are exceptional.

2008-09-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Making a leather briefcase...in Africa.

2008-09-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Planting a tree...in Africa

Tonz o' Baskets

2008-09-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

Here's the final count of the baskets that were shipped to the US: beaucoup.

(That's not me in the picture)

2008-09-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

All I want for Korité is my two front teeth

AH!! Toubab!!

2008-09-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Karaw u Toubab

2008-09-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Today my host sister cut off a lock of my hair. Her relative is using it in a gri-gri to ward off evil spirits from their little baby. It's great being treated like a troll...

Come on Down!

2008-08-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Danga am gan ?

Over the last few months, I’ve been lucky enough to receive a few visitors. In April, my dad took advantage of a business trip to Europe by swingin’ down here for a few days. I made him sit through some of my work stuff, but he met the World Peace Corps Director, so hopefully he wasn’t too bored. We took the rest of the time to see a bit of Senegal. We went to Bandia, a wildlife reserve, where we saw giraffes, impalas, crocodiles, antelope, and even rhinos! We visited my site and stayed with my host family. It was really cool to take him around town, and show him my life here. I think he appreciated the chance to hang out with my host family, and to compare his Peace Corps experience to mine.

A month later, my birthday present was a visit from Becky Regan. Once again, this was a great opportunity to show her the country that has become my home. I was surprised to discover a beautiful desert of sand dunes and camels a mere hour and a half from my site! For better or worse, Becky got to hang out with some Volunteers and catch a little jazz in St Louis. Of course the best part was taking her around to show her my ‘commute’, my friends around town, my work partners, and even the main village that I work with.

Last, but not least, Molly Buccola and her mom came in August. We packed a lot of sites in- Gorée Island, Dakar, Bandia, Lompoul desert, and my site. A highlight was Keur Bamboung in Toubacouta- an amazing spot in the mangroves of the Sine-Saloum delta. I put them through the ringer of public transportation (even riding a donkey cart), and they took it right in stride.

Sometimes I forget that my guests don’t understand Wolof, and have no idea what’s going on when I’m negotiating for a cab or what have you. I appreciate their not telling me that I’ve gone off the deep end. Molly recounted the interaction like this: ‘At one point I thought you were so mad! Then you were laughing with your arm around the guy, so I thought you had become friends. Then you were yelling at him again with your finger in his face, so I was worried. Next, you started to walk away, only to turn around and get in the car, saying ‘let’s go’. I have no idea what happened.’

I want to thank all of you for buying plane tickets, taking long journeys, and putting up with my idiosyncrasies. It was more than a pleasure to have you. I hope you help me convince the rest of our family and friends that this place is worth 2.5 yrs of my life. More than anything, I’m comforted to know that, better than others, you will understand what I am talking about when I start my ‘In Senegal…’ stories.

Don't Call it a Comeback...

2008-07-06T12:40:00.000-07:00

I've blatantly neglected my blog over the last few months. I'm going to get retrospective and catch you up on the life that is. The entries around this one may be pre-dated to show when these events took place. Without further ado...

I went down to Kédougou for the 4th of July. If Senegal were the United States, I live in Northern California. Until this trip, I hadn't been past New Mexico, and Kédougou is the equivalent of Florida.

With 7 bikes stacked on top of a station wagon, my Volunteer friends and I headed out to the wild blue yonder. The Kaolack-Tamba road has a reputation for being a terrible road. 5 foot potholes every 15 feet make it so. The rainy season has ruined the detours around the worst parts of the road. For us from the western part of the country, the road had reached legendary status. All told- just over 200 miles and about 13 hours later, we rolled into Tamba. For the record, the road wasn't really that bad. :)

The next morning we biked out to our friend's village 5k outside the city. They had already had lots of rain down there and actually have trees, so it was a really nice ride. On the way out there, I realized that this was how I pictured Peace Corps to be...

Anyways, we roll up to what we think is the right village. The four of us city folk, who speak Wolof and French, cruise through rural Pulaar territory alternately yelling our friend's name and 'Toubab!'. The universal 'Where the heck is...' hand motion paired with repeating 'Saare Moudou' (friend's village), gets the villagers to point us onward and rattle off some gibberish Pulaar.

At one point a woman was trying to direct us down the right path. Her 5 words of Wolof and my 2 words of Pulaar added up to...comedy. After a minute of me saying 'Saare Moudou?', and her responding in rapid Pulaar, we were nearly on the ground laughing. It got to the point where she walked to the first path and said 'Déédèèt' (no in Wolof). We understood. Then she walked to the other path and said 'Eh' (yes in Pulaar). We understood. Finally we found the village and my jealousy of this Volunteer's beautiful site continued.

The next day, the adventure continued after another 4 hour car ride down to Kédougou. We hopped on our bikes and road out to Ségou waterfalls, about 15k from town. This was sweet bike riding through huge open fields, around puddles, and in between hills. We got to the river and hiked up along the forested banks. I thought I was back in California. Just beautiful. There were a few little pools and eventually we climbed up to a waterfall with a nice big pool. It was a decent height and had a lot of water, with a panoramic shelved face. This has to be the coolest spot I've been to in Senegal.

I hope there will be more journeys like this one to come.

Diarama!

Ségou Waterfall

2008-07-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

Saare Moudou

2008-07-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

Ahmed, dafa ñaw!

2008-04-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

Senegalese call their babies ugly, but they know they're cute.

Fallou shakes it

2008-01-20T08:26:00.000-08:00

…Happy Holidays !

2008-01-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

I had the distinct pleasure of receiving two lovely guests over the holidays. My mother and sister arrived in the Dakar airport before dawn on Christmas morning. I couldn’t have asked for a better present. After hauling luggage through the sea of considerate people (read: shameless budgers), trying to avoid getting our heels run over, we hopped into a cab. Of course the cab driver took us somewhere other than where I told him to go, which I have since realized is a scam rather than poor communication on my part. ‘Ooooh! You want to go to the Gorée Island dock, why didn’t you say so? That will be an extra 3 mille.’ So within 30 minutes of embracing my family, I was yelling at a local. How’s that for peace and world friendship?
But overall, we didn’t have any major issues, and managed to have quite a time! My mom and sis get a round of applause for rocking the greetings, and I know that both of them would be awesome Peace Corps Volunteers. They even went to a baptism! The Senegalese were impressed.
We did a whirlwind tour of the Northwest portion of Senegal, which has some good things to offer. We got out to mangroves, bird parks, big cities and little towns. The highlight was the last night spent with my host family. An intense series of card games left my host brother jabbering incessantly in Wolof about the game, as if everybody, including my real mom and sister, or nobody (I’m not sure which) could understand him. My host brothers and sisters rolled as I caught an offhand comment from Iba and reminded him that my mother is not his equal. I dropped my own game as I realized that my real mom was responding to Iba in turn (in equally not understood English). The breath was gradually sucked out of my body as I listened to Iba tell my mom, ‘Yow, danga bon! (You’re a bad person!)’, and her respond, ‘Don’t get mad at me that’s how you play the game!’. They continued this way for 30 minutes without translation.
It’s weird- I’ve started to count down how much time I have left here rather than count up the time I have spent. I comprehend this change bit by bit, and I am again reminded that I can’t sit more than three days without feeling different about my surroundings and my place in them. The only constant is change.
Until next.

Mom & Sis in Saint Louis

2008-01-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

Freeman Peace Corps Volunteer 3.0

2007-12-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

2007-11-18T08:07:00.000-08:00

Ana xaalis bi?

Pëndum tank moo gën pëndum taat.
Dirt on the feet is better than dirt on the butt.

It’s been a minute since I wrote on here. A lot has happened, but how to summarize…In the same day I was simultaneously encouraged meeting the new PC Country Director and saddened by news of the tragic death of our Safety & Security Officer. Send love to Lamine Ndongo and his family (You can send money too. Let me know if you want details.). It seems I haven’t been able to stay at site for two consecutive days in the past month. The last couple weeks have seemed particularly whirlwindish. Sometimes my life feels like a tragic comedy- riding my bike (read: walking my bike, trying to get on it every once in a while to find that the sand is too loose, and walking some more) to a village to find the desired baskets already sold and gone. Other times my life feels like an epic- riding off into the sunset on a horse drawn cart with the long-sought after basket prototype and restored faith in the basket makers.

I’ve turned into a travelling shoe salesman, which has been kind of fun. My guys own the local market, and we’re trying to find more international buyers. Check out the catalog: www.picasaweb.google.com/pcvsenegal/sandalsinmekhe. I want to send you all a pair, but it’s not gonna work unless you’re buying 50 some odd pairs…so who wants to buy 50 pairs?

Ramadan has come and gone, alhumdullallah, and I am happy that things are back to normal. It’s a weird normal, but it’s normal enough. Korite was uneventful, aside from my host sister knitting me and my buddy some fly clothes (see picture).

Seeing kids come back from other towns for the start of school and hearing fellow volunteers referring to things that happened ‘last year’ made me realize that I have been here for a while. I feel I that am a part of this place, as it has long been a part of me. Which makes me all the more indignant no one will let me say that I live here, yet they all claim that Akon does. Will I ever get to the point where the Senegalese agree that I ‘live’ here? Probably about as soon as they agree that I’m headed to work when they see me, rather than visiting my ‘girlfriends’…

2007-11-15T11:46:00.000-08:00

Bonjour les enfants !

Njêlbeen du dara. Mujj bu rafet moo am solo.
The beginning means nothing. A beautiful ending is what matters.

A flashlight trained on a white basket, enveloped in darkness so thick, I momentarily forget there are people huddled all around me. ‘In one month, we want to see 100 baskets that look just like this one’, I bellowed, feeling like some sort of artisanal prophet. ‘Can you do it? Will you do it?’ The ring of women around me sings a chorus of assurances: ‘Yes, no problem! We’ll do it in 2 weeks! God gave us an order and God will help us fill it! We’re ready!’

Sow chuckles and emphasizes, ‘Don’t just say yes. If you say yes, you are making a commitment. Can you make this basket in 5 days?’ A moment of consideration sobers the air, until the same chorus of enthusiastic yes’s comes raining down upon us. I hand off the flash light and allow myself a night-cloaked smile.

This is the way the journey began. Sow (Vice-President of the village Association, called And Suxali), Kebe (Treasurer), and the village women had the opportunity to take part in an order destined for France mere days after they had formed a cohesive group.

It seemed that every one of those first couple days, we were thrown to the ground at noon only to be picked back up again at sunset. Take the day we had the prototype basket made. This was the basket that the other 99 were to be copied off of, so it was important that it be perfect. We had dimensions, we had a picture, and I figured that we wouldn’t have a problem. Wrong. The first two attempts made me wince- they were half as tall and twice as wide as they were supposed to be. I called over the woman in charge of quality control and asked her what she thought of the baskets. She told me they were beautiful. I told her we had a problem. I asked her to get out her measuring tape and compare the basket to the dimensions we had given her. In the middle of chiding her about respecting commitments and following through, I stopped. The botched prototypes were more our mistake than hers. She can’t read numbers.

After a lesson in numerics and trying to come up with another way for her to measure baskets, I was off to the third village, praying that I would find an acceptable prototype there.

A charette (horse cart) ride in off the main road brought me tired, frustrated, and at this point without Sow or Kebe, through sand and sun to my destination. The kids in the village alternately running away from me yelping and running up to me to shake my hand, snot-nosed all the while, reminded me that the baskets are just a means to an end. Basket or no basket, life would go on.

I settled down into the chair provided and began running through plan B. I was awoken from my thoughts by the last thing I expected to see: a perfect, beautifully made basket. The tape measure confirmed my intuition, and I could hardly suppress my glee. In a moment I was fiving the woman who made it (I have yet to get a single Senegalese to high-five) and taking pictures like a bizarre, confused tourist.

I mounted the charette, perfect prototype in tow, and rode off into the sunset…

Which one is Moustapha?

2007-10-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Jed and I sporting the clothes my sister weaved us for Korite.

2007-09-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

Naka kor gi ? Yaangiy war ?

Laaj nga mbotta geen= You ask for the tail of a frog. Or, you ask for the impossible.
Or, more relevantly, to ask a non-Muslim Toubab to go without water or food until sundown for thirty days in triple digit heat is to ask for the impossible.

We’re in the swing of Ramadan, and this place looks like a ghost town. I am eating like a good Catholic, despite constant encouragement to fast like a good Muslim. My little brother, Fallou, has been scolding me for not praying with them. Don’t all fall in love with Fallou, he’s a hard-headed little punk; I only tell you the cute stories. Speaking of little brothers, I’ve got a new one! Muhammad Niang was born on 12 September, 2007. This may be the most official recording of the event.

In other news, I hit the one year mark last week! I had some starry-eyed new volunteers in town to ring in the occasion. It’s strange to think back on the early days of Moustapha Niang…For an abridged version, read this blog in its entirety.

Breaking the Color Barrier

I got on the field in the football stadium yesterday! It was a real game, and I had on a uniform and everything! You would have been so proud, Mom! The other kids snickered and called me mean names, but I told ‘em: ‘Hey! Don’t mess with me! I can play football just like you guys!’ And I did. I felt like Jackie Robinson out there (Mr. Robinson is a hero, and I have nothing but respect. I just can’t resist making light of my goofy life.).

But my team lost, and unfortunately we’re done for the year, so that’s the end of that escapade. There’s always next year…Which reminds me- I hate to invoke the spirit, but everyone in Chicago knows where I’m going with this one.

The Cubs! Now fingers crossed, toes crossed, lord willing, in sha allah, etc. but is it possible, could it happen? I doubt this is the year, sorry Mom. But we sealed up the division!

Besides, what do I know; I ride camels around all day. Yesterday, I informed my host sister that baseball is in fact not the same sport as volleyball.

2007-09-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Fallou Niang!

Get your hair did

2007-09-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Host Sisters Mary bundow and Ndeye Ami

2007-09-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

I love the plastic bag rain cover hat. Very Derelicte

2007-09-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Host mom and I

2007-09-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ana sarice bi ?

I just got back from my America trip, and I was so happy to see a lot of you! All my inshallah-ing paid off. There were Cubs games, and parks, and road trips galore. Well done. The highlight had to be the Adam and Amy Moreland wedding, two of the best people I’ve ever met. Congratulations!

I got a good question or two such as ‘Is Senegal black & white since color is too expensive?’. However, the prize has to go to one of my favorite Senegalese, Aliou Cisse. This guy is old and old school (not Adidas old school, Senegalese old school), always wearing traditional clothes, a knit cap (even when it’s 115 degrees), and a huge goofy grin. I ran into him a couple of days after I got back, and he inquired ‘Ndax nampa nga?’. As my latest Wolof student, my (real, American, and best) mother, can attest, this question is not in the standard greetings. I had never been asked this question before and had forgotten what ‘nampa’ means. Cisse then asked me if I had missed my mom, to which I responded with a hearty ‘Waaw, waaw! (Yes, of course!)’. He then repeated his original question. I still didn’t understand. Then the combination of the words mom and breast rang a bell, and I doubled over with laughter. He had asked me if I breastfed while I was home since I missed my mom so much.

Back to the Lab

Coming back to site was even smoother than I thought it would be, and despite not wanting to leave you on the other side of this blog, it is good to be back. I never thought I’d see it here, but the rains have brought grass! This place looks completely different, it’s awesome. I’m hoping for a new start and a fresh perspective to get some more good things going with work (hopefully more classes and a couple trainings), as well as doing my best not to take any of this life for granted.

The other night I came back to my house to find my host sister being led away sobbing. Scorpion. We went to our neighbour, the local scorpion/snake expert. This is the same guy who protected me from snakes a couple months ago by flicking some elixir at my feet and hands. He took a look at my sister’s stung toe. He snapped at it. He mumbled something. He waved at it. He asked her to stamp her foot. He snapped and waved at it some more. I was watching this half trying not to laugh and half trying to see whether this guy would actually do anything legitimate to take away the pain. He did not. Just snapping, waving, and mumbling. He straightened up, sent us on our way, and said to me with great confidence, ‘See, I took care of it’. I looked sceptically at my now calm host sister and asked her if it was better. She said it was. As much as I want to mock beliefs like this, how do I know he didn’t cure her? She looked better to me…

What do you think? Does this guy have some intrinsic knowledge/power of scorpions and snakes or is he just a crock? Consult Life of Pi before you jump to any conclusions…

2007-07-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

Naam naa leen !

- Ku dul toxu doo xam fu deck neexe.
- If you don’t change your seat, you won’t know what place you like.

I have felt lately that I haven’t much to say on this blog of mine. Strange as it may seem, the ups and downs, ins and outs, nuyoos (greetings) and waxtaans (discussions), buñs (refusals) and waxaales (price negotiations), in which I participate on a daily basis have become very…normal. The timing should be good for a trip to the States in a couple weeks (inca allah) to step back and process this process.

I challenge each of you to come up with good, thoughtful questions. I am more than happy to answer the ‘how is it?’s and the ‘is it hot?’s, but we can take it higher than that. I will publish the best question I get while I’m home. I know that at least Clarke will read about it, so there’s your motivation. People seem to want to know more about my work- I am reluctant to write about this subject in this space because I have more negative things than positive things to say and more stories of frustration than stories of success. Suffice it to say that this work is even more challenging, and the problems facing the Senegalese even more fundamental, than I imagined. My experience here has led me to a deeper understanding of the challenges of development. Anyone who has known me well over the past five years knows that I will relish any related discussion. My only apprehension is that I will inevitably find myself telling you that you need to fly across the Atlantic to see what I mean. I know I did.

Simb Link

2007-07-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.au-senegal.com/art/simb.htm

This is what I was talking about in the Simb/Faux Lion post. I get stoked just seeing pictures!

2007-07-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

Ana gayndé gi ?

I recently came up on a book of Wolof proverbs, and I am thus inspired to start off my blog entries with a lil nugget of wisdom from now on. I’ll start with one of my favorites:

-Kakator mooy soppaliku, gël melow suuf, waaye suuf du gël melow kakator.

-The chameleon changes, takes the color of the earth, but the earth doesn’t take the color of the chameleon.

Needless to say, I am a chameleon these days. Allow me to illustrate:

My host brother Khadim just went back to his hometown. He was lodging with my family here (my host dad is his uncle) for the school year, which has now come to an end. I am bummed that he has taken off as he has become a good friend over the past few months. But our relationship did not start off on such good terms…

My time spent here has generally been very good. But when pressed for the difficult times, my mind points to the first couple weeks at site. Some things take getting used to, and being the only Toubab is different than being surrounded by them as was the case during training. Images evoked from this difficult period involve Khadim in particular.

After a long day, I went on a run to burn off some steam and get away from people for a minute. “Moustapha! Moustapha!” is the call that followed me not long after I had escaped from my house. Khadim had rushed out to join me. After cursing in English (which means I was not happy) only partly under my breath, I put on my smile and asked him, dangay entrainer (are you going for a run)? Baax na (great)!

That same night I took a walk around town with my brothers and sisters. Still not in my best mood, Khadim draped his arms over me to ask how to say some inane word in English. I taught him a different word instead, which I will not repeat, and pushed him off of me. I considered calling it a night.

But my insult, rather than injure as intended, sent Khadim staggering in laughter. He told me I was a comedian, and asked me how to say comedian in English… It’s hard to stay mad at people that have a good sense of humor and a good heart.

Over the next days, weeks, and months, I was conscious of small personal transformations: children’s bothersome demands for gifts didn’t stop, but they now led to my own demands of futbol jerseys. The questions regarding girls did not cease, but the ranks of fictitious wives began to pile up. The woman at the Mayor’s office never left me be, but she became my yaay (mother). Cisse still hasn’t stopped busting my chops about everything he can think of every time I see him, but now I give it right back, and he has become my waay (man). A nod of the head (yes) is now accomplished by a click of the tongue, and a suck of the tongue has replaced a shake of the head (no).

Being the chameleon, taking the color of the earth, has been the key to opening the Senegalese people and seeing them for the big teddy bears that they are.

And so increasingly over the course of the last 7 months, I found myself telling Khadim, ‘let’s go, get up!’ as I walked out the door. I realized that his inquiries into the English language came from a sincere desire to learn, one of the most essential qualities a human being should have. Anyone else who tried to greet me with their “How are you? You are fine?”, was dismissed with a “degguma Anglais (I don’t speak English)”. But a smile came to my face every time Khadim would stammer out his “How do you write…?”, and the English lesson would begin. Bey= goat, G-O-A-T, goat. He would surprise me weeks later by busting out the absurd things that I had taught him, by, for example, appropriately labelling Fallou a chatterbox.

A few days ago I turned serious, and told Khadim how proud I was of his progress in English, and that I want him to call me in 6 years with his Bac (high school diploma) in hand. Whenever I think in these terms, I see the fate of these people hinging on one boy’s studies, and I wonder whether I will ever get this call, or whether Khadim will fall into one of the many traps that await him on his path.

To my encouragement, Khadim responded in well-spoken English, “I will never forget Moustapha Niang (that’s me)!”. I will never forget Khadim Caam, and I pray that one day I will get that phone call.

Simb/ Faux Léons

2007-06-15T08:42:00.000-07:00

Ci loo nekk ?

Just when I thought that I had seen it all…

One day I was walking around, muttering to myself about the challenges of development, when I noticed a group of kids running towards me. I prepared to shake the little hands and tell them to wait for their cadeaux until later. However, the kids kept running, and passed me by. Confused, I turned the corner and saw a whole swarm of kids running after the first group. A look at their faces revealed not the playful glee of children playing, but the sincere fear of children fleeing. I turned and ran too.

After avoiding my potential trampling by 12 yr olds, I followed my curiosity over to where all the kids were coming from. ‘It’s a lion!’ Was the answer to my question. Now, sorry to burst your bubble, but the closest thing we have to a lion here is a wild dog. There had to be some kind of joke I had not been let in on.

I hung around long enough to see what the kids had run from: a guy with face painted like a lion, dressed and built like a wrestler (see wrestler pics below), and a bunch of gri-gris all over him. As I watched him stomp out the rhythm of the drums, I thought to myself, ‘these dudes are what I pictured when I thought of ‘traditional Africans’ before coming here’.

The next day I followed my host sister through the throng of kids demanding that I buy them tickets into the Simb. The Simb (or Faux Léons in French) is, I am told, a Serer tradition that has evolved into a Senegalese tradition. My guess is that the Muslims wiped out stuff like this from the culture of the Wolofs and others, sparing only the traditions of the Serer and the tribes of the Casamance with cool stuff like the Simb.

Here’s the drill: A bunch of these guys dressed like lions dance to the prototypical tam-tam (drums) and chase down kids outside of the event, while guys dressed as girls (don’t ask me why) mess with people. I don’t need to reiterate that these guys can dance. When they catch kids who haven’t bought a ticket, they bring them into the center of the ring of people watching to ‘beat’ them until someone comes to their rescue to buy them a 100 CFA (20 cent) ticket. They mostly just want to embarrass the kid and pretend to beat him to entertain the adults and instil fear into the young.

You know you’re a freak when the little kid at the Simb is watching you instead of all this craziness going on in front of him.

Yesterday evening was spent sprinting away with the children in only half-faked horror. I ran partly because I think this whole thing is awesome, partly because everyone watching me thought I was hilarious, and partly because I would do anything not to get caught by those guys. It’s all fun and games until you’re the sacrificial Toubab lamb. I get messed with plenty already, thank you.

This is probably the coolest ‘African’ thing I have seen. Guys on stilts and dudes in crazy costumes are cooler than the meat-eating contest Muslim holidays. My name may be Muustaafa, but I haven’t converted yet. The Senegalese think I’m kidding when I say I’m bringing this back to America. They’re wrong. Mungiy ñew de!!

Spain Calling...

2007-05-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

2007-05-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Birthday

2007-05-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

Yaangiy ci kaur ?

As my lovely mother said, 24 years ago (plus a few days now) a bundle of joy came down from heaven. Thank you all who filled my inbox with your kind words. You made my day. But I still haven’t seen any packages!! Just kidding, I know they’re on their way…

Y’all gave me a chuckle with your inquiries on Senegalese birthday traditions. When I told my host family we were celebrating my birthday, they gave me this look which seemed to say: ‘Your birthday? Who celebrates their birthday? Clearly the 6^th pilgrimage of the year for a 20^th century marabout to some obscure village is more cause for celebration than a birthday.’ Most Senegalese don’t even know their age, let alone their date of birth. My curiosity often leads me to wonder how old people are. That’s an important part of how we Americans frame people in our minds. Sort of like how Senegalese wonder whether a person is married. I always get a kick out of asking people how old they are, as they ponder this bizarre question, beginning with a year of birth, correcting themselves, waiting for me to do the deductive math for them to arrive at their age, and finally responding with a range of two or three ages, while I change the subject. It’s hard not to laugh out loud.

Cakes are things that we volunteers joke about having, as they are far from attainable in our cow-cow towns. Chickens, however, are had easily. My family cooked an awesome lunch, see pictures. A fellow volunteer came and hung out for the day. My host sister took the liberty to invite all her friends over, which gave me a headache, but all in all the day was a fine one. I only got a little bit of crap from random people that I’ve met but once for not having invited them to my extravaganza of a birthday party. So I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

In other news, it is heating up. If I’m in my room, and the power is on, so is my fan. I complain on this blog in hopes that my fellow volunteers will not read it, as they assuredly have it worse than I, what with my relatively cool location. But it’s still hot! Let the countdown to the rains begin…On the plus side, mango season has begun. I am hooked.

A quick anecdote- the other night I walked into my room and found my five year old brother, Fallou, inside. When asked what he was doing, he responded by saying that he was looking for me, and proceeded to scurry out of the room. I found this to be even more contradictory than the normal conversation I have with people here. Slightly confused, I noticed that my desk was mysteriously missing the change that was there not ten minutes before. Even I could solve this case pretty quickly. Word later came back to me that Fallou justified his thievery by explaining how he was saving money to go to Spain and work. This is the Senegalese equivalent of an American 5 year old stealing to save money for a down payment on his first house. I bit my tongue as I put on my stern face to tell him that stealing is bad. This kid is the man.

Dem naa.

Music

2007-04-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

Yeenangiy noos ?

Have you heard of Akon, the Senegalese/American R&B singer currently on the charts and running with the likes of Eminem? I find the prospect of someone reigning from this small West African country commanding his fifteen minutes in the ‘cultural’ juggernaut known as the American media intriguingly random. But it seems that is what’s happening. I find this more appealing than the American commercial garbagio that the average kid here likes. It blows my mind how many 50 Cent t-shirts there are here. When the subject of American music comes up, I try to pitch the likes of Mos Def and Rakim, only to be answered with questions like “Where does Shakira live?”

Luckily it is far from all watered down American nonsense. The true school of Senegalese music is mbalax. Mbalax is driven by the tama drum, the pitch of which can be changed by the player. There are usually multiple rhythms going on at once, and often at a feverish pace. This combination sounded less like music and more like chaos at first, but the more I listen to it, the more it makes sense and the better it sounds. My lack of innate rhythm and the beats of hand-clap simplicity I learned on left me confused when presented with this more complex rhythm pattern. But as with many other things in this country, after a while things start to make sense, and you feel the rhythm.

Youssou Ndour is the biggest name to come out of this country (Akon included), and can wail to back it up. Mbaye Gueye Faye sings the hit- Bolokas- that gets my brothers and sisters egging me on to bust out the song’s namesake dance. I oblige by hopping up, circling fist over fist, crouching lower and lower to the delighted praise or unabated mockery (I seldom know the difference these days) of the onlookers.

Even more than the music, Senegalese can dance. The average mbalax video puts Thriller in its place. Michael Jackson could have learned a thing or two from the splayed arms and whirling legs that constantly blur across our television screen. You all know that I can’t dance. But here I cannot even attempt the rubber-legged whirling dervish act that the average guy can bust out at will. I stick to the Bolokas.

Babacar! Babacar! Babacar!

Language

2007-04-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

Yaangiy lekk sa xaalis ?

Senegal is a former French colony and so the ‘official’ language of the country is French. TV is broadcast mostly in French, with the occasional théatre shown in Wolof. Schools teach in French (minus the Koranic schools, which teach Arabic), and so anyone that has gone to school for a few years speaks French. In big cities, and even in towns like mine, most everyone speaks French. Some French words are adapted into the local language, but they do not speak a form of Creole. Their ‘Wolof’ ends up being an njaxas (a mixture) of French conjunctions, numbers, days, etc. with the rest delivered in local dialect. There is a radio contest with a prize awarded to one that can speak a local language for 3 minutes without a word of French (or Wolof in the case of another local language). Yet there are those that don’t understand Toubab (as the language is lovingly referred to), and in rural villages the majority of people do not speak French. People that want to sound smart and educated speak French to show how much better they are than everyone else. People also speak French to me personally when they are too narrow-minded to realize that a Toubab can communicate in the local language. In short, I do not like it when people speak French.

That’s enough about that colonizer language anyway. On to the cool ish- the local dialects: Wolof, Pulaar, Serrer, Mandinka, Jahonke, Jola, and Bambara among others. Now (being a racist) I feel obliged to first explain the ethnic makeup of Senegal before dipping into the tongues. Being the racist that I am, I will proceed to make sweeping generalizations about each of the tribes. I have already rattled off most of the tribes. The Wolofs are the most prevalent, composing 45% of the population. They are all over the country, but the main concentration is in the Kajoor (the heartland), which is my ‘hood. The Wolofs may be best thought of as the big bad wolf. They are aggressive, they are next in line unless you push them back harder, and they are smack-talkers. But they’re all talk. The Pulaars (25%) are traditionally nomadic herders found largely in Northern and Eastern Senegal. When the car has to stop to let the cow herd cross the road, a chill, laid-back Pulaar is sure to follow with cloth covering all but his eyes to keep the wind and sand out of his face. Serrers (15%) are almost all Catholic, and it is rare to find a Catholic who is not Serrer. I believe that this religious persuasion is derived from a closer relationship with the French during their time of colonization. However, unlike Haiti’s Mulatto elite or Rwanda’s ‘more European-looking’ Tutsis, this relationship did not violently divide the Senegalese along ethnic lines. Alhumdullallah. In fact, although blatantly racist, Senegalese have achieved an impressive level of social harmony (the fact that people don’t hate each other because of differences in their ethnicities is noteworthy is a terribly sad reality). While people are far from ‘PC’ (e.g. Serrers and Pulaars call each other their slaves), they are beautifully tolerant when it matters. Few places in the world have a Mosque and a Church situated side by side, as can be seen outside of Joal on the petite cote. This outlook makes far more sense to me than pretending that everyone is the same. We are not and there’s nothing wrong with that. Why not give each other a hard time about it? It works for the Senegalese, why wouldn’t it work for the rest of the world? But I digress. Back to racial profiling.

The Mandinka, Jahonke, Jola, and Bambara each fall into the Pete has met no more than 3 category, and so therefore I know little about them. What I do know is that Wolof is eating each of these smaller dialects day by day, word by word, person by person. Muwahaha! Nu moo epp dole!

And finally arriving at the Wolof language itself- word on the street is that Klingon was based on Wolof’s subject-emphasis sentence structure (i.e. yow yaa war ma jox xaalis = it is you who must give me money). All you Trekkies out there are j-lous.

But what’s cooler about the Wolof language is jumping to certain etymological conclusions. For example- yow (pronounced yo and meaning you) could be followed by MTV Raps and enter the vocabulary of masses of young Americans. Or yaangiy degg? (rhymes with egg and means you hear/understand?) could easily evolve into ‘ya dig?’ of On The Road era hipsters. Anyone who wants to send me a book on such interesting etymological evolution, I would certainly read it ;) (that way I can increase my use of the word ‘etymological’ exponentially). The more liberal the interpretations the better, I don’t care about things being factual. That’s not the point.

Wolof lesson: Aasalaam Maalekum (Peace unto you. [Hello.])

Maalekum Salaam (Peace unto you as well. [Hello.])

Nanga deff? (How are you doing?)

Maangiy fi. (I am here. [I am fine.])

Ana waa ker ga? (Where are the people of the house? [How’s your family?])

Nunga fa. (They are there. [They are fine.])

Leegi degg nga Wolof! (Now you speak Wolof!)

2007-03-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

IST- Back to Thies

2007-02-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

Numu demee?

I have returned to the fine city of Thies for 3 weeks of In-Service Training. This place is incredible! You can get pizza, hamburgers, schwarmas, and more- it’s mindboggling! Haha, I can only imagine how my fellow volunteers who live in isolated villages view this relative material paradise. Their noticeably skinnier faces (remember we have only been at site for two months) tell me that their diets- as scant as rice/millet with sauce sometimes, not much meat, and rarely with vegetables- made them overjoyed to return to civilization. I refrain from telling them what I eat in my town for fear of proletariat uprising. J It has been great to see the returned diaspora of volunteers with whom I entered this fine country, seemingly so long ago (but really less than 6 mos. ago!?).

Language class has taken on a new purpose as I realize ‘Oh, I’ve been saying that wrong everyday; I’m glad no one in my town cared to tell me’. Every grammar rule and every word I learn gets me stoked because I know I will use them every day to communicate. I want to kidnap my language teacher and bring her to site with me.

We have talked a lot about teaching techniques for work. A significant part of my work will be teaching people business skills (how to write a business plan, marketing, accounting, etc.). Teaching people from another culture in another language is a huge challenge, especially if and when their business background is limited or nonexistent. But starting by teaching my peers familiar subject matter in French gives me confidence that the Wolofs can learn the importance of the 4 P’s of marketing too. Besides, as different as people are, they’re still all the same. You just have to get inside their heads (read: culture) to understand how they think and why they act the way they do. Nah mean? I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but that’s a conversation for another time. Also, I talk as if I have the Senegalese pegged, which is far from the case. Plus, knowing how they think about marketing and getting them to see my way of thinking about it (and whether it’s in their best interest to change) is another ballgame. But ndonk-ndonk rekk.
All that being said, training is still training. Being thrust back into a rigid schedule of waking up at 6:30 everyday and having a place to be most of the day is less than fun. There’s no time to just talk, and that is not right! After staying up to watch my Bears not win the Super Bowl, I have been too tired to do much outside of the classroom this week. Thankfully, the past couple days have been replete with sleep.

Super Bowl
I was fortunate enough to catch the Super Bowl live in a hotel in Thies with some other volunteers. Alternately explaining the game in broken Wolof to my Senegalese friend, screaming at Rex Grossman in English, laughing at how ridiculous the French language makes our great American pastime sound, and teaching my Senegalese friend how to talk smack to my friend from Indiana, I watched my hopes of another Super Bowl Shuffle fade. So goes my bizarro life…

Catholic Cemetary, Baobab Background

2007-01-27T03:57:00.000-08:00

Taken in a village outside Joal.

Beri bi

2007-01-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture from the wrestling.

Fishing in the Mangroves and Wrestling

2007-01-25T05:10:00.000-08:00

Nu mu demee?

The other weekend I visited a friendly fellow volunteer in a small village outside of a town called Joal (on the Petite Cote- a noted tourist area). This is a pretty area and his village is in a quiet, isolated area of the region. He’s on a peninsula in between the Atlantic Ocean and a river. Turning to your left and seeing water is almost as sweet as turning to your right and seeing more water. The combination of palm trees and the ever-present baobab adds further to its natural beauty. To top it off, this is also mangrove territory.

We had the pleasure of fishing in the mangroves one morning. This involved a net about 15 yards by 5 feet with a pole on either end. You stake the net around a section of the mangroves. Then you jab sticks into the mangroves and the water underneath them to scare the fish out into the net. We only caught about 25 small fish in a couple hours (you can catch twice that in half the time, I am told) because the water was too cold. I had a blast anyways- mangroves are cool.

That night there was wrestling in one of the villages. The Senegalese have two major sports: futbol and wrestling. Futbol may be played more on a daily basis throughout the entire country, but wrestling is more culturally significant. Huge dudes jog around throwing sand, water, and other unidentifiable liquids on themselves while they wait to wrestle. The event went on for three hours and the whole time they have people wailing on drums, singing in this feverishly high-pitched and fast-paced tone; it gets you juiced [excited]! The wrestlers wear basically nothing but short shorts and an assortment of gri-gri’s (small trinkets tied around their arms that give them mystical strength and protection), and they dance to the music to get pumped up for their matches. This all sounded kind of lame to me before I saw it, but I have been converted. These guys are hard core, and their dancing is the embodiment of power and strength.

The wrestling as a sport itself is kind of cool, with the occasional long match ending in sudden climax. There are no punches thrown and you win by getting the other guy to touch the ground with anything besides his feet, hands, or knees. After a big or hotly contested match, the winner’s arm is raised in triumph and he stomps out a victory dance to the drumbeat. American football’s end zone dance might find its origins here. Meanwhile, the loser writhes in agony on the ground. He sometimes runs after his opponent or the referee to dispute the contest and must be restrained by 3 or 4 of his entourage. After watching this happen a couple times, I realized that this display was exaggerated on purpose in order to portray of the agony of defeat. Wrestling (beri ci wolof, lutte en francais) is a prototypical Senegalese event that I’m glad I got the chance to see.

Lil Bro

2007-01-14T07:25:00.000-08:00

Falu, my lil brother rockin' my backpack and sandals like the goofball he is. I wish you could see him dance wearing that stuff...

Tabaski- Rey that Xar

2007-01-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

My host dad in the black and my brothers preparing the slaughter...

Balcony with a View

2007-01-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

Yes, this is where I live. On the 2nd floor, crazy! I live on the edge of town, so the right half is what it looks like behind my house for a ways.

Tabaski- Family and Friends

2007-01-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

Jed and I- Tabaski

2007-01-14T07:05:00.000-08:00

Better Late than Never Reflection on Ramadan

2007-01-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Yeenangiy ci diam?

Thursday was my little brother, Falu’s, 5^th birthday. Wish him a Joyeux Anniversaire! I somehow managed to miss the short-lived lil kiddy dance party in my house (I heard them yelling as I went for a run by my house), but I made some Fattaya with my sisters for the occasion. A man cooking- weird, I know. Fattaya is dough stuffed with ground fish, onions, pepper, and some other spices. Then they are fried up in classic Senegalese oily fashion. They are kind of like Asian potstickers. Pretty good stuff!

Ramadan

I feel the need to backtrack a bit here. I arrived in Senegal September 21. The Muslim month of Ramadan began just a couple days thereafter. The Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar, which I don’t fully understand (any research from you is always appreciated). In short, each month is about 4 weeks long, and is different from the calendar you use. Holidays seem to move up by 11 days or so every year (because of the difference between the calendars). As you see, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but that gives you a vague idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramadan These guys usually know what’s up with stuff…

But, the point I want to make is that Ramadan is hardcore. Everyone fasts for the entire month. They do not eat or drink during daylight hours…at all (they are not supposed to smoke, spit, or have sexual relations either). Look back at my first blog entry- go, look. I was watching my health everyday to make sure that I didn’t faint from the heat. Now imagine not eating in that heat all day. Pretty hard! Now imagine not eating or drinking all day in high 90s degree heat. Impossible! Except that I saw people do it every day for an entire month. This blew my mind. Women and men, young and old. Every good Muslim fasts (and almost everyone I knew at the time was a good Muslim). Kids start fasting as teenagers, and only the pregnant, sick, or very old abstain. My knowledge about the religious significance of this month is lacking, but the basic idea is to experience the suffering of those less fortunate than you. A very cool and worthy concept, but a bit extreme in my humble and reverent opinion. Most people don’t really work during this month, and at a certain point the economist in me overtakes the poet (and Muslim for that matter) in me. I myself did not fast during Ramadan, as I had enough fun adjusting to the heat. Maybe next year…

Another week down, and In-Service Training (IST) is steadily approaching. I will be returning to Thies for three weeks beginning the 1^st of February for a dose of reverse culture shock when I am once again surrounded by people who I can actually communicate with.

One more sidenote- I think I have aged to about a ten-year old. I can walk around by myself! I don’t need my friends to lead me around by my hand all the time (which is common for males to do). I don’t care when people call me names, it’s great mom! That being said, I still have trouble communicating with people, and am wondering how the heck I’m going to help anyone make more money in this place. But these things will come.

Tabaski

2007-01-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

Naka Tabaski bi? Dangeen lekk ba fur?

December 31st was Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday, and therefore the biggest Senegalese holiday. Although compared with Christmas because of its proximity and religious significance, Tabaski is culturally closer to Thanksgiving. The name of the game is gluttony. Every Muslim family is required to kill a sheep. The week before the fête, a decent sheep was running 35,000 CFA or around $70. I don’t know how to get you to understand how much money that is to the average person here…My friend, who has one of the best jobs in the town, told me he earns about $200/month (and I believe him). It’s a lot of money, trust me. I’m pretty sure everyone spends everything they can get their hands on for this holiday.
My family, being patron, killed two sheep. I helped a little with the butchering process, but mostly just watched my host father and brothers. This is kind of intense if you have never seen it before, but now I know that I have no moral qualms with eating meat.
The butchering process was interrupted by a call to eat some ribs (yes mom, everything I ate was cooked well)! I instantly understood that this day was going to be more about convincing others I was full than it was about actually enjoying the food. I ate 5 meals that first day (and I think I missed one other one that my family ate without me). Each meal consisted of nearly all meat with just a couple potatoes and some bread. The last meal of the day I was foolish enough to think I was eating macaroni with my meat...it wasn’t macaroni. The human body is not meant to eat this much meat without vegetables, fruit, carbohydrates, or some other food. It’s excessive. Throughout most of the day, everyone is in a food coma from all the meat, too tired to do much but sit around. The Senegalese love to get dressed to the 0’sies (the 9’s have passed, for those following at home). All the girls got their hair did and everyone wore new traditional Wolof clothes for the evening. You will see some pictures of my fly new bubu and the beautiful women of my family soon. Everyone walks around to their friends’ houses to ask each other for pardon and (so to speak) all accounts go back to zero. Pretty cool.
I am ever uncertain of the line between culture and religion, as they are essentially one in the same in my town of 98% Muslims (my host father may have underestimated on this figure), so I end up playing the passive observer in large part, reciting the ‘Baal ma aq’ and ‘Baal naa la aq’ only when spoken to. Plus my Wolof dess na (is insufficient).
The fete supposedly continues for three days, but the 2nd and 3rd days slowly return back to normal life. Although we ate a plate of meat, potatotes, and onions the 2nd morning, I had ceb (rice) again for lunch and was so happy to return to a more normal diet. I escaped Tabaski with no stomach problems!

As for the holidays I historically celebrated in America-
I had an uneventful New Years- I fought to stay awake until midnight, taught a couple people how to say ‘Happy New Year’, and that’s about it.

I had a solid Christmas full of Santa hats, stockings, and Christmas music. Inquire within for further details.

I hope that you all had some great holidays! Tell me some stories and send me some pictures of snow.

It has been windy here this week, and I have had fun confusing the heck out of people trying to explain that Chicago is known as the ‘Windy City’. Loxoy kajoor dafay weesaloo (the English equivalent being: it’s a two-way street)!

2006-12-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Just about everyday I have someone tell me I that need to convert to Islam or I have someone teaching me about the religion (which is intermittently interesting, annoying, amusing, and exasperating). My time here has rekindled my belief in my own religion, about which I would love to have a dialogue with many of you. It could not feel less like Christmas here since it is still too hot to be outside in the middle of the day, the concept of snow is incomprehensible, and Christmas is not really observed since there are barely any Christians here (but I am enjoying a great holiday and have loved walking around confusing the Senegalese by wishing them all a Merry Christmas). However, the overly exuberant consumer spirit that we Americans have grown to embrace during the Holidays is in the air here as well. Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday is in a week or so. La Fete des Moutons. Every family buys a sheep to eat and spends what has to be all their savings and then some to celebrate this holiday. More to come on this holiday after I have seen it with my own eyes.

As I have nothing more to say about Christmas at this point, I thought I would tell you a bit about my work here and what I have been/will be doing with myself over the next two years. After two months of intensive language and cultural training in the Peace Corps’ training center in Thies (called Pre-Service Training), this week I passed the one month mark at my site (woo woo!). The first three months at site (from a month ago until February, for those following at home) are considered an integration period. This time is set aside to learn the local language (in my case, Wolof), meet potential work partners in town, get to know your way around, and get over any pride or feelings of normalcy you may have had coming into site. The notion of true integration is an unattainable goal (we can only do our best), but a crucial one to strive for. I will try to explain later peoples’ perceptions of Toubabs (outsiders). In short, I will get nothing accomplished if I am not as integrated as possible because they have not been given the best impression of us Toubabs (see slave trade, continued European exploitation, and largely unsuccessful World Bank, IMF & NGO investment). I do not actually start working until after a 2nd training of 3 weeks in Thies in February (called In-Service Training).

As for a typical day in the life, I’ll break it down like this (cue beat):

7:45- wake

8:30- drive (yes, drive) to Mayor’s office where my host dad works. I emphasize the driving part because I could be the only volunteer in this country that drives to work on a regular basis, and the Mayor’s office is a ten minute walk from my house. But my dad is a patron, and I’m not one to rock the boat.
At the Mayor’s office, I chill on the stoop and chat with my dad and the other folks that work there as they intermittently praise me for the Wolof I know, and give me crap for not remembering their names, but only start work after an hour or two of talking.

9:30- I walk over to the primary school where my Supervisor teaches. Here I hang out with the teachers in between classes, and occasionally try to teach some 10 yr olds French or math (I wish you could see my pathetic attempts to exercise authority, haha!). The Director of the school teaches me a little Wolof also. This guy is the man; I’ll get a picture eventually.

1:00- I walk home for lunch with my family (see previous entry).

1:30- Nap. (I need to learn the Wolof word for siesta.)

3:30- Have some tea with my brothers and sisters.

4:00- Walk around town and talk with some folks. Try to convince them that they want to stay in Senegal and work instead of coming with me to America.

5:30- Come home and maybe play some football with my 14 yr old brother and other young’uns who kick my butt. Or I run by my house, where there’s nothing but sand, trees, and some cows. This is dope at sunset.

6:45- Time to myself: read/write

8:30- Dinner with the fam

9:00- Chill with my brothers, sisters, and friends. Try to understand what they are saying and drop my lil one liners that are still somehow funny after the 50th time.

10:30- Bed

There you have it. I’ve met women’s group leaders, mutuels (micro-finance banks), and other potential work partners (metal workers, animal breeders, etc). So mix those meetings, some football matches, a couple funerals, a baptism, and a wedding with the typical day above and you have an idea of the last month of my life.

So we’ll see how this all unfurls, but the reasons Peace Corps sent me here as a Small Enterprise Development volunteer go something like this (I stress again these words are my interpretation of Peace Corps’ goals, see disclaimer):

1. Increase the capacity of the Senegalese to develop small enterprises (there are other sectors- i.e. Agriculture, Health, etc.)

2. Promote a better understanding of Americans for the Senegalese

3. Promote a better understanding of the Senegalese for Americans

The 2nd goal is achieved through my high tolerance for verbal abuse and my unending desire to make people laugh (mostly at me). The 3rd goal is achieved through these nonsensical blog entries, and when I try to answer “what’s it like?” when I see you next. These two goals are attainable, and I think that they are natural products of happy volunteers spending time in their communities. I don’t know if I’ll ever get people to believe that my hanging out with them, going to baptisms, etc. is part of the reason I was sent here, but it is. It still bothers me when my host family says “tey liggeyoo” (today you’re not working). I know that although these cultural exchange goals are important, I need to give all the time and energy I can to the first goal, and I can always be doing more. So it makes me less guilty when they tell me that I never stop going places and I need to rest.

The 1st goal is the toughest. This is the work part. So much money has been spent (although much of it so poorly managed) and so many organizations have tried to lift Africa out of poverty. Little progress has been made. I struggle everyday to answer the question- why? I am slowly picking up some insight, and you will probably hear more than you want to from me on this in the years to come. My job is not to answer the why as much as the how to overcome. So I can do a range of activities to teach people how to fish, if you will (because that’s better than giving them fish, right?!!). Namely- I could teach marketing, accounting, information technology, microfinance, business planning, and management. At this point, I think the best approach is to get people to open their minds to the fact that they can create new businesses that do not even exist in their town already (gasp!). The contrast coming from Silicon Valley, the pinnacle of innovation, to my town, where everyone falls into 5 businesses and they all run their shops exactly the same way and sell exactly the same stuff, is almost physically painful to observe. So to open minds, I start by asking questions about revolutionary concepts like specialization and differentiation, and see if anyone bites. I also want to work on business plans. The two delivery methods for my work are through trainings as well as working one-on-one with businesses. I will share the manifestation of all these words as time goes along. For now I am just stoked when people say they want to work with me!

Hopefully this entry wasn’t too garbled and/or boring. I figure you’re more likely to read this than go to the Peace Corps website (www.peacecorps.gov). Next time I will write about my bizzaro holidays.

And a happy new year!

Naam

2006-12-13T03:28:00.000-08:00

Naka sed bi? Metti na!

That means how’s the cold? It hurts, huh! The funny part is I’m serious. It gets down to the mid 60’s, maaaybe the low 60’s at night as well as in the morning, and this is the type of conversation that circulates. Me, Mr. ‘I grew up in Chicago, I will never be cold in Africa’, I too was freezing my butt off last night! I was wearing the sweats and still shivering, dreaming about the searing hot weather of previous days…funny how quickly your body gets accustomed to the surrounding climate.

Senegalese Food (Naam)
Most Senegalese food has one consistent component: ceb (pronounced cheb)- more widely known as rice. There is ceb u xonq and ceb u weer (white rice and red rice). There is ceb u jin (rice and fish), ceb u yapp (rice and beef), ceb u ginaar (rice and chicken). Most other dishes have rice as the base of the meal even if the word ceb is not in the name. Yassa ginaar (my favorite dish), for example is rice with an onion sauce and chicken. Another money one is the mafet, which is rice with peanut sauce and usually beef. The peanut sauce has a bunch of pepper in it though; it’s different from a Thai peanut sauce. The other constant in Senegalese food is copious amounts of palm oil, which is heavy but I dig. I really like Senegalese food. It is repetitive, but I’m not that picky of an eater. The only thing I refuse to eat is this okra sauce they have occasionally in addition to ceb u jin which tastes and looks like salty green snot.

My mere recitation of the names of these dishes can send the Senegalese into fits of laughter. It’s even funnier than when they ask me who my mom and dad are, and I reply Cheikh Niang & Aminta Gueye (my host family parents; don’t worry mom and dad, I haven’t forgotten you). Yes, I am now a comedic genius.

Meals take place family style around a big bowl (maybe two feet in diameter). In my family, and in many places I have seen, the men eat from a different bowl than the women. So I saddle up on my foot-high stool around the bowl with my dad and my four brothers as eight or so women gather ‘round the other bowl. Most of the time we eat with spoons, but I have eaten the proper African way, with my hand. The deal is, you have to pack the rice into a ball and get the ball onto your fingers, not your palm, for consumption. The rest of the time we use baguette bread as a kind of scooper to eat.

I am blessed, as my family eats very well. They tell me that I eat too slowly and I think that I am spoiled with disproportionate amounts of meat & vegetables, but I never leave hungry. Hearing village dwelling volunteers talk about plain rice and skipped meals makes me grateful that I am where I am. Lekkal!

Disclaimer of Sorts

2006-12-10T02:31:00.000-08:00

The views expressed on this page are merely my own. They do not reflect the views of the Peace Corps or the American government. Every volunteer's experience is different.

My First Days at Site

2006-12-09T09:58:00.000-08:00

Lu bees?

Hey y’all. At this point my English is rapidly disintegrating so bear with me. I have safely arrived at site! I am not supposed to post my exact location on this blog, but I will email the name if you ask me to. Just know that I am about an hour and a half from my previous home, Thies, in a town of about 18,000 folks.

My three weeks at site have been a prototypical Peace Corps Volunteer roller coaster ride. The highs are incredible, the lows make me question my being here, and the rest of my time is spent in constant social awkwardness. The one word that describes myself at this time is infant. Most of the time I have trouble saying anything more than ‘hello, how are you’ in my language (Wolof), and my family and friends lead me around by the hand, rarely leaving me alone outside of the house. This experience is incredibly humbling; I am at the feet of my family to feed me, to introduce me to the neighborhood. I am at the feet of my counterpart and supervisor (co-workers more or less) to introduce me to the important people of the town, explain my goals/role here, and to beat the fact that I am not a walking check waiting to be cashed into everyone’s heads. That being said, both my family, as well as my supervisor, have been incredibly helpful taking me all over town every day.

After resetting expectations of myself, every small victory gets me so stoked. Every person I trick into thinking I speak Wolof (I wish you could see how funny they think it is, it gets me every time), every potentially valuable contact I make, every new work idea that I have gives me so much hope, and so my cup runneth over. For me, the key is to forget trying to fit in and I only begin to understand the meaning of 'show no shame'. Good thing I like to laugh because it is my strategy for survival.

It is difficult trying to communicate with people here not only because of the language, but perhaps more importantly, because of the social norms and subtle social cues that differ from society to society. Here, in the Pays du Taranga (Country of Hospitality), I am treated like a king in other peoples’ homes. I must sit in the best chair, I must always have meat in front of me during each meal, etc. As I am here to give to the Senegalese, it is difficult for me to accept this ridiculously excessive generosity. I tried to fight them at first, refusing things until my hosts would shove the thing into my hand. After more than likely offending a few people and wasting energy arguing, I have decided to accept all these offerings for what they are. It is a social requirement that guests are well taken care of in Senegal. By accepting these offerings, I am showing my appreciation. I also must show my own generosity back in other ways. The last few days have been a bit easier in this regard, but I still feel heavily indebted, especially to my family. They feed and house me, while refusing a financial contribution. I make as big of an idiot of myself (here I talk as if I do it on purpose) to entertain them, as I think of ways to contribute a bit here and a bit there.

OK, I feel sort of ridiculous trying to explain everything all at the same time. My town doesn’t have internet, but I am doing my best. Ndonk-ndonk mooy japp golo ci naay. (Little by little you catch the monkey in the grass.) That’s my word! I incite this proverb at least 7 times a day.

Email me your cell phone numbers when you have the chance so I can text you.

Ba ci kanam!

Pete aka Mustafaa Niang

Asalaam Maleekum-

2006-10-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have settled into my home stay in Thies, Senegal. I have been in country for almost three weeks now, but it feels like three months at least. I hope to keep these entries somewhat coherent, but I’m not making any promises…

So, as I mentioned, I am staying with a Senegalese family in the 2nd largest city in Senegal. The concept of ‘family’ is different than the American one. My family has 6 kids living in the house (and two more who live elsewhere). This is a typical family size here. Senegalese place as much value on the community as Americans place on the individual. The family eats lunch & dinner out of one communal bowl. There is a palpable feeling of unity that comes with every meal. Another example portraying the importance of community is the ubiquitous greetings. A simple Asalaam Maleekum, Nanga def?, and Ca va? earns a new friend anywhere in the country. As soon as I realized this, the foreigner feeling faded a bit.

The Senegalese are extremely welcoming people. Senegal is called Le Pays du Teranga, which means The Country of Hospitality, and this name is accurate. You will have to come here to experience what I mean- walk into a house during a meal and you will eat. When you think you are done, they will tell you to continue eating until you want to scream that you cannot physically fit anymore food in your stomach.

The hospitality and sense of community here are among the most beautiful things I have seen in any culture.

As for my obtuse ‘Senegalese’ life- I take a bus to the Peace Corps training center in town with my fellow PC trainees (we are not quite volunteers yet). Some of us have family members walk us to the bus stop, but unfortunately none of us get to bring sack lunches and trade for Nutter Butters. There are 48 trainees, which is quite a lot. Almost everyone is right out of college; I think I am in the older half of the group, which is ridiculous…but there are good people and we have a good time.

Africa is hot. It seems that the only time I’m not sweating is when I’m in the shower. It gets up to 95+ in my room every day. Whoever thought concrete would be an appropriate material with which to build houses in this climate should be condemned to an afterlife of perpetual midday in my room here. Concrete absorbs and then radiates heat, creating a nice oven, which serves to drain humans’ will to live. I’m hoping people are not lying when they tell me October was the hottest month of the year. The Senegalese are constantly complaining about the heat also, so I have faith that it will indeed cool off.

As for my current host family- My mother, Abby, is a very caring person and helps me with my infantile Wolof. The oldest son, Baba, is 24, and he just graduated from University in Algeria with an Electrical Engineering degree. Next oldest in the house is Ali, who is 18. Mami is the 16 yr. old girl who does the brunt of the housework and meal preparation. Elij is 13 and loves football (the real football, not American football). Bijou is a 7 yr old girl. And Aztu is a 2 yr. old cutie. Yesterday, she told me to come talk to my (Senegalese) mom, and to respect her. The Kane family is pretty rad and has welcomed me as one of their own.

Things are going well. I hope you all are doing the same.

Leegi leegi!

Pete