Volunteer Visit

I just got back from a whirlwind visit of my amazing site-to-be.  Botou is 10km outside of Tamba-meme, which is the regional capitol of the Tambacounda region.

On Thursday we left Thiès for Tambacounda.  The roads in Senegal are not of the highest quality so severe holes in the road surface are common.  Some that even span the width of the road.  This makes driving particularly dangerous, especially when the drivers go 40km/hour over the speed limit.  Our bus driver was not particularly cautious and so we ended up blowing out one of the inner tires in the back, and the other one was about ready to go as well. After a number of very startling noises we eventually pulled over and the driver decided to replace one of the tires with the spare, but because the other tire was about to go, he wanted to replace the other, but there wasn't another spare.  So he called back to Peace Corps and they managed to get another spare tire on a public transportation bus that eventually met up with our disabled bus on the side of the road (I'm pretty sure there's really only one main road from Thiès to Tamba).  Pretty crazy!  Then the driver put the other tire on the bus and proceeded to get sick on the side of the road because he was dehydrated...We gave him some Oral Rehydration Solution (what we at Peace Corps call ORS) with some raspberry lemonade and went on our way. The whole trip took about 8 hours.  I arrived at the Tamba regional house and met Connor, my VVer who is also my ancien, the person I'll be replacing, and who just happens to be from Vermont! We ate lunch and then after a tour of the house before we biked to his (our) village.

Botou is a village that is 99% Bambara and has a population of about 2,500 people.  The village itself doesn't feel like that many people, but I think that is because so many people live in each compound so large groups of people are in "quartiers" of sorts.  When we first arrived I got my name from my host mother (who's name is Raki).  My new name (which will replace Awa Kouloubali) is Halima Fofana!  I'm pretty pumped, it seems like a great name.  My tahoma (namesake) is actually Connor's namesake's younger sister.  We are both named after people from a generation above the current village chief's (our host dad) generation.  Connor after Bouna's (host dad) dad and me after his sister.  All in all, it was a good third naming experience.  To top it all off, Lianna Fofana is pretty much a stellar Sengamerican name.

Thursday night Connor showed me his (our) hut, the garden space that he completely worked over so that it has become a beautiful demo garden complete with an extensive (and intensive) earth works, a water catchment system, as well as the douche (bathroom/shower) and the other things that he has done to the space over his two years.  At site in the village chief's compound we have a really nice hut with a stick bed frame from the village in the bush that we biked to this weekend, a table and stool that our uncle made with Connor's help.  We also have shade structure in the front that's kind of like a porch, as well as a tripod of poles that Connor used to set up punching bags when he had his martial arts gym at his place and where I can now put up a mosquito net for sleeping outside!  The whole place is just great and I'm so excited about what I have to look forward to in just over a month!

Friday we greeted many of the people in the village that Connor had worked with or had become friends with.  We first went over to the elementary school and met all of the teachers, who all speak French, and some of them speak Bambara.  We also met one of my counterparts (who are the official liaisons between us, as volunteers, and our community).  They aren't Peace Corps affiliated except through their work with us.  They are picked by the community and are there in village for any support we might need, linguistically or technically during service.  Karim is my male counterpart and he has an extensive garden that Connor helped set up as well as the punching bags that Connor once had at his hut and that Karim is now taking over (it was a big hit in the village)!  Karim was very outgoing, super nice, and seemed understanding and keen on working with me in the future.  We met with many women throughout the village (who I'm looking forward to working with I think) that Connor had become friends with and had extended trees/techniques to as well as the families that Connor most enjoyed in the village (which was the majority).  Everyone was so nice and so understanding of the fact that our service is only a two year term and that I would be replacing Connor.  I'm sure they'll be sad for him to go (his service ends in about two weeks), and I certainly have big shoes to fill, but Connor graciously reminded them that I was still learning Bambara and that they should speak doonin (slowly) so that I could learn Bambara and understand what they are saying. His Bambara was amazing and it really gave me the inspiration that I needed (a boost, if you will) to work on my Bambara during this long CBT stay so that I can feel as confident as I am capable of in my Bambara when I get to site in December.

Friday afternoon we walked across Route 1 (the road that goes from Tamba to Mali!!!) and looked at some of the field crop plots of seeds that Connor had extended and we talked about his service and some of the advice he had regarding seed extension and best practices for keeping up with data collection, etc.  It was really great to be able to see his service (at least to the extent that I did) up close and sort of imagine what my service might be like.  We also walked to the water tower that became operational during Connor's service and is operated by our uncle and he let us climb up to the top (which Connor had done before).  It is a tall tower and this one is four stories while most are three maximum.  I am the first woman to ever climb up it, and there is an amazing view at the top with a visual distance of abut 15km.  On a clear day you could probably see Tamba-meme.

On Saturday we biked to one of the bush villages that Connor frequented during his service. It's about 6km away on a really nice bush road that was a thrill to bike on, particularly for me because I have been chaffered from place to place since my arrival in Senegal.  It was nice to have the freedom of a bike again and the flexibility to be where I wanted to be.  The village is also a Bambara village but it has a Pulaar name, Jam-Jam which translates to Peace Peace.  It was a smaller village but the chief in the village is the father of one of the women in the chief's compound in Botou (small world).  What was most interesting about this site was how different it was linguistically from Botou. Botou is right off the main road and the level of French amongst the people there is pretty high (relatively of course).  French is sort of mixed into the Bambara and some phrases are always used like est-ce-que, mais, peut-être, etc.  But in Jam Jam even the days of the week in French didn't register.  I'm curious as to whether this is because they are more isolated from a main road, or if there is another reason.  They aren't really that far from a main road, if you bike 3 or 4km from Jam Jam in the opposite direction of Botou you reach a road that connects up to Tamba-meme as well.  I've found that the linguistic differences among these languages are so interesting and pose many curious questions that may not have answers about the evolution of these spoken languages.

On Saturday afternoon we walked over to the hospital which just recently got a doctor who is living in Botou.  My female counterpart Hawa works with the hospital a lot (baby weighings among other things) and so Connor thought it would be a good idea to introduce the two of us to this new doctor.  She is a Pulaar and doesn't speak Bambara although seems to understand some of it. She does speak French and I'm thinking about possibly starting some projects with her at the hospital itself because there seems to be some really great land available for garden space and a number of trees that could make the hospital compound a productive and sustainable area.  We shall see.

What was terrific about Volunteer Visit was having a window (a sneak peak) into what my life will be like for the next two years.  My host family is terrific.  It is the chief's family, Bouna is the village chief (de facto actually because his brother is actually the chief but he lives in Tamba). His wife, Raki, and then his two brothers with their families.  Raki and Bouna have 10 kids all together but only some still live in Botou. I'll wait to tell you more about them when I move into site.  Right now I'm just thrilled at my site and my site placement. I think Peace Corps did a really great job matching who I am as an individual with a site that I will work really well in (or at least one that I will try to work hard at) and I can't wait to move down to Botou during the first week of December!

Botou, Tambacounda, Senegal

It's official...well almost!  Considering all goes well, inshallah, I will be a volunteer in Botou, Tambacounda, Senegal!  And guess what?!  I am replacing another Vermont volunteer!  Tomorrow I am going on Volunteer Visit which is my chance to gain as much information from the volunteer that I will be replacing.  I can ask him questions, get to know the village a bit through him, and use him as my first resource and my first look into my next two years.

This is me dancing right before we were allowed to take off our bandanas!

Taking off the bandana!

Oh my goodness!  I'm here! But where am I?

What I know so far...and I'll post more when I get back, is that Boutou is a village of about 2,500 people right off of the main, paved road.  This is the main road to Mali, from Tamba, the capitol of the region. This village is 10km from Tamba (which is within biking distance).  A village that is 99% Bambara -- woot woot!

26 more months to go!

I have been a Peace Corps Trainee for a month now!  Sometimes it feels like much longer than that, and sometimes it feels like just yesterday I was hanging out in Vermont, Colorado, Rochester, New York and New Haven.  I am back at the Training Center in Thiès until Thursday morning.  We just had our technical mid-term exam this morning on all of the various agriculture/gardening techniques that we've been practicing at our CBT sites.  I think it went well, although I couldn't remember whether rice had a head or a panicle...pretty sure that when I need to know that, I can look it up in my manuals.  We have so many manuals with so much information and while I understand needing a basic comprehension of some of the technical information, so much of the information will become ingrained in my head after months of working and being in the field.

Tomorrow we find out our permanent sites which is the biggest surprise after our language announcement.  I honestly have no idea where I might be placed, I know in general the region but after that it's anyone's game.  It's pretty exciting because as soon as we get our site announcements we go and visit our sites on what Peace Corps calls Volunteer Visit.  This is where we travel (with Peace Corps Transportation) to the regional capitol and meet up with an existing volunteer to visit our future site and ask questions about our site, life as a volunteer there, etc.   I even got a bike because my volunteer said that it would make traveling more convenient.  I'm expecting this weekend (Thursday-Monday) to be a very intense, overwhelming, and exciting time.  I'm trying to think of all the questions I have or should have so that I can be the most prepared installing into my site at the end of November.

Last week we were at CBT for 11 days.  It was much less overwhelming than the initial CBT stay but everything is still so unusual and strange.  The language is becoming a bit easier although my family still speaks Wolof occasionally but now I am able to decipher a bit better between the two.  Last Friday we had our first Language Proficiency Interview which is Peace Corps' method of assessing the level of language comprehension and ability.  I was able to speak about my present, my past, and my future using a somewhat limited vocabulary after about 3 weeks of classes and immersion.  I think this is pretty great! I was thinking about how much Arabic I learned in a year at Bryn Mawr/Haverford and it is just amazing to see how great of an impact intense culture and language immersion has on one's language capabilities.

I am also adapting more to living with my family and I have adjusted much more to the daily pace of life which has been one of the biggest struggles for me.  I appreciate now, the down time under the neem or the gemelia arborea, when the wind is just right and the dapple shade provides a refuge during the hot afternoons.  Sitting around is still different, and definitely takes an adjustment but as my language improves (and even when it doesn't) I like trying to make jokes with my family using limited vocabulary to make them laugh or make myself seem silly. One of the younger kids in my extended compound is less than two years old and we call her Mamawa (her name is also Awa) and she has gotten quite close to me over this past stay.  Now, whenever I enter the compound she runs up to me saying Awa, Awa, Awa and puts her head between my legs.  She's always dirty, covered with sand, but she's such a bright addition to any moment in my day.  The other young person who has recently warmed up to me is Mambo, a boy of about two, who wouldn't come near me during my first stay.  Now, he greets me as well, extending his right hand or running up to give me a leg hug.  It is so nice that these kids have grown accustomed to me and to having me around and it will be sad for both me and them I assume when I leave for my permanent site.  Just the night before I left to come back to Thiès my aunt asked if I would come visit or if I would call regularly when I was at site.

One of the times when I was able to make my family laugh was during one evening when we were all sitting outside at the big compound watching TV and these enormous grasshoppers started hopping on top of everyone and everyone was squealing.  Mambo is terrified of all of them so he cries if one even gets close to him.  I was chasing after them into one of my aunt's houses and then at one point my host mom had one in her hand and I asked her if she was going to eat it and she laughed and said, no, are you?  I said maybe in one of the beignets that my aunt Jo cooks and they thought that was hysterical.  I'm sure half of what was actually funny was me trying to joke about eating a grasshopper stuffed into a beignet but I thought it was fun just to try and make a joke in Bambara.  Now they know that I like to laugh and that me laughing is a part of who I am.  It's interesting because not much laughing out loud actually happens in my family.  People will smile at something nice or funny, but big belly laughs don't really seem to exist in Senegalese culture so when I can make my aunts or my mom laugh it really brightens my day.

Photos, a post to come!

Here are my most recent photos!  I'll post a blog post this afternoon after my agricultural technical midterm!



http://liannareed.smugmug.com/Peace-Corps-Senegal-2014/October-2014/

N'toho ye Awa Kouloubali de ye

N’toho ye Awa Kouloubali de ye

My name is now Awa Kouloubali and I live in a village called Karamoho So which means house of the teacher in Bambara.  The village is mainly Bambara although there are also Wolof and Pulaar speakers as well.  One of the more difficult things that I have experienced during this past week is not knowing the difference between Bambara and Wolof when it is spoken in my family compound.  We just finished our first CBT stay (Community Based Training) and we are back at the training center as one large group for a few days and then we go back to our host families for ten days or so, this will happen for ten weeks or so, just until we swear in as official volunteers.  Right now we are not technically volunteers; we are trainees.  It is an odd stage to be in, as we are completely immersed in the culture and language at this point, but we are not doing much technical stuff and given our limited language skills after a week of class, there isn’t much communication that we can do. 

My room is on the left, the other room is where my mom sleeps with the three kids.  The building in the far left of the photo is the bathroom/shower.  Right next to my room, outside, is the kitchen.

Baba

I have a host mom named Koomba and a host father named Boubacar.  Nfaa (my father) is never home though because he has a small grocery store in Thiès (about 7km away) and an apartment and only comes home Friday until Sunday or so.  Nbaa (my mom) sells cashews in Thiès but she said that she is not working as much while I’m here (or at least I think that’s what she meant). There are three kids that live at my compound, which consists of two rooms, an outside toilet, and some “lawn.”  Ame is the oldest and is about 11, Baba is around 8 and Khadijah is 2 or 3.  It wasn’t until last night that I was finally told the whole story about my family.  I knew from the first day or so that my host mom was 25 so I thought it was a bit odd that she would have a 11 year old daughter but I figured that having children at a young age isn’t that unusual here.  Last night, Nbaa told me that she is in fact that second wife of Boubacar and that his first wife died during complications in childbirth with her third child Yaya (who is also deceased).  Ame and Baba are therefore the “stepchildren” of my host mom and she only has one biological child, Khadijah, This makes a lot of sense.  But Koomba and Ame (Boubacar’s first wife) are sisters.  In the compound next to mine is the rest of my family.  There I have a grandfather and a grandmother, who are the parents of Koomba, Ame, and all of my aunts and uncles.  There are generally 4 aunts and 2 husbands or so on a daily basis that all live in the same compound.  Then there are about 14 children from the ages of 4 months to 12 or so.  The first day I was completely overwhelmed by all of their names and after these past seven days I’m just beginning to know just about everyone.  At one point, for Bambara class, I made a family tree and figured out who the parents of all the kids were.  In my family compound, which is composed of 6 or so home buildings, a kitchen, and a room with two refrigerators that I’m not sure actually work there are 4 or 5 family units, all related.  I spend most of my days after class in the bigger compound with all of the kids, either doing my homework, just hanging out and trying to listen to their conversation, or watching them.  Sometimes I nap.  Around 4pm I usually go with my CBT partner (there are only two of us learning Bambara) to the garden (where we are doing our technical activities) and do some work; water our compost, double dig a bed or just berm.  It’s nice to be doing something hands on during the day. 

One of the hardest things for me is feeling bored and unproductive.  I’m completely immersed in the culture and the language, which isn’t boring or unproductive in itself, but it is a completely different way of living my life.  I’ve never had to live like this before.  I sit with my family, all of my aunt and cousins, and I’m surrounded by constant noise. The chatter of Bambara with the possibility of some Wolof mixed in is overwhelming but since my language and vocabulary is limited, I am not yet able to say enough to make myself feel productive in those situations.  And for me, an industrious and inquisitive American, I find that not speaking much or understanding much and just sitting isn’t doing anything.  I know that in reality, what I consider to be “doing nothing” is immersion.  What I have been doing for the past week is cultural and linguistic integration to an extreme but sometimes when I’m sitting under a neem tree it is hard for me to grasp that that is in fact what I’m doing.  I’m beginning to understand more that I will need to be patient with myself.  My language will come, and I will be able to converse.   But I also can learn to enjoy doing very little and having that become a part of who I am while in Senegal.