In this world

For those of you interested, I have not posted anything previously regarding the attacks in Beirut, Paris, Kenya, or Mali. I don't usually use social media to try and work out what's going on in the wider world. That's just too hard. But with the Mali attacks, I have had a few people write to me and others post statuses angry that more people aren't posting more about it. This one hit close to home, literally. I live about 890 kilometers from Bamako. We were a bit worried, mainly for our Malian PCV friends but also for the future of Mali. I was worried because of the proximity to Senegal but was reminded by myself, my friends and Raki and Bouna that it is extremely unlikely that kind of attack would happen here. Nonetheless I am still worried and I'm still sadden by the death of the American who had once been a Peace Corps Senegal volunteer and I'm worried about the state of our world. That being said, I have always felt safe, at home, loved and supported living with my Bambara Muslim family. What I heard  of the attacks in Bamako was that the terrorists ran into the Radisson screaming Allah Akbar, which means God is great in Arabic, a phrase that I hear probably 40 times throughout the day for prayer calls. And while I personally don't believe in God, here in Botou I do believe that God is great. I believe that prayer brings peace to many people and that religion can be used to help unite and welcome people into this world just as much as it can destroy and take people out of this world. The world is messy. It seems to be getting messier; in America with oil pipelines, xenophobia, racial violence, sexual violence, and ignorance; in Europe with xenophobia; Asia with natural disasters; and Africa with war, militant extremists, poverty, and environmental degradation. It isn't a world I am proud to live in at this moment, but I am proud to live in Botou.  I cannot live in fear but I am fearful. I have no hate in my heart for those that committed crimes because that won't do anyone any good but I'm confused at how religion is affecting my life so positively in Senegal and so negatively around the world. I believe the world is scared, unsure of what to do, and vulnerable. There seem to be so many tipping points, so many bridges broken and lives lost that I am not sure how we will recover. But all of this, what's going on in the world, is not new to humanity, despicable, but not uncommon. For such a supposedly intelligent species, we are not doing very well for ourselves and things need to change. I want to be proud to live in this world, much like I am proud to live in Botou but for now, being here is all I can manage.

Letting myself fall in love

Falling in love is one of the greatest and most intimate gifts we are given.  Humans claim to fall in love and I would argue that other creatures do as well.  To do so is to give a piece of yourself, a big piece, to someone else.  Doing so puts you at risk, makes you vulnerable, and to a certain extent makes the intimate and private rather public, or at least shared.  For many people, particularly those in my generation falling in love is a difficult decision, we keep ourselves guarded waiting for that someone special to come along, or we give in, fall in love, and then wait and see if that love holds or not.  While I don't usually share my most intimate thoughts and feeling this post seems to need them.

In my few years on this earth I have only fallen in love a few times.  I actually have yet to experience falling out of love, I believe that love stays with you and shifts its form as you grow, meet new people and experience new things.  Most of us grow up loving our families (biological or not) but after that, we choose who we love. I have been reluctant, at best, to put myself in situations where my heart is at stake.  Finding the "worth" of love has been difficult for me and so I have kept myself quite reserved. Those times that I did take the leap, stay with me as the best moments of my life and the deepest attachments I have with other people.  The most recent has been a young girl, age 2 1/2 and she has taken my heart in more ways than one.  Tene is my youngest host sister in Botou.  She is learning to speak and her vocabulary is expanding by leaps and bounds every day.  She is my favorite Senegalese dancer and she runs like the wind.  She and I spend lots of quality time together. Unlike other people in our family I do not reprimand her physically.  She is young and in my mind still needs the comfort and security of people that love her and lots of verbal attention. She is a fast learner and eager to become a Senegalese woman, but also still a toddler.  She comes to me for safety, sleep, and siips (cheese puffs).  Recently a few of my volunteer friends made the trip to Botou for a visit.  One of them commented on how well Tene and I get along and said that she was happy to see that I've let myself get attached.  Often volunteers choose to keep a certain distance from the people they are close to because they know that they are not permanent and that as transient beings, leaving is the hardest part.  I disagree, I understand the sentiment, but for me there has been something powerful for me to become attached.  The power of letting myself love and my ability to watch as Tene reciprocates has been one of the biggest blessings of my service so far.  It took me awhile to come to this state. I was reluctant at first when she only referred to me as -Tar, referring to the volunteer before me.  Then I was on the fence because, yes she is adorable, but was that all she was to me?  When she began to communicate and I saw a light in her eyes when she spoke, when she used her hands to talk to our deaf aunt, and her reaction to me upon my return from other cities or the bush I realized that I had to let myself fall.  And so here we are.  She is quite the talker and recently I was trying to ask her if she had any other young friends that she could play with, while I or her siblings were at work or at school.  She thought about it for a moment and then looked up at me and said, but you are my friend.  I tried to explain that I would be leaving in a year and that she would need to find some other people to play with.  She wouldn't have any of that talk so I left it alone.

It will be one of the hardest things I have ever done to leave Tene and Botou next year.  But falling in love with Tene is one of my most treasured accomplishments.  She has been added to my list of few that have made their way into my heart.

The Fifth Sense: Touch, Feels, etc.

For those of you that have been following my blog you know that I agreed to do posts on the five senses.  I have not forgotten that I still have one left.  The most difficult to accumulate details worthy of the written word but I figure a year in and I've touched a lot. Time to give you a sense.

The feel of new born babies (literally a few days old).  The feel of a recently shaved head (baby or otherwise).  Shucking peanuts on a hard service, enough to give you blisters.  Shucking corn, also gives you blisters.  Mixing cucumbers together for salad, with your bare hands.  Wiping your tush.  Pouring water over your head as a shower.  Baby peeing/pooping on your lap.  Holding up a bleating baby goat upside down.  Rubbing dirt encrusted on your face in sweat off your face.  Shucking beans (if that is the correct verbiage for that). Working in the gardens/fields with hand tools all day and also receiving blisters.

This is a short post. I'm sure can get the picture but I cannot think of much more now.

Some recent updates

For those of you that read my last two blog posts, I have updates for both.

Apparently there is a fourth option for my sister Sorkna.  She can do the last year of primary school again in Botou and try again for the middle school in Tamba next year.  One of our teachers came to our compound yesterday and talked to Raki about it. Let's hope she makes it!

The second point, as I was delivering photos to Tacko yesterday she mentioned that I should have told her I don't like to take photos at night (because of the shitty flash I have) because they would have moved the dance party to the afternoon when there is daylight.  Next time, I told her, next time.

A sad reality

A few months ago, I posted a photo of one of my host sisters Sorkna with a caption stating that she had scored first on her exam and would be going to middle school in Tamba. Unfortunately this is not true and was never true. I did not deceive you on purpose nor was I deceived myself. I am here to try and understand the qualities that now go into my kind, smart witted, and caring sister staying in Botou and ending her formal education.


We have a primary school in Botou. Kids can begin to go to school around age 4/5 but many wait until much later either because their parents don't care or because they need them to help around the house or in the fields. The teachers that come to the school in Botou generally do not choose to teach here. They are sent here by the government via the department of education (affecté). Many of the teachers are quite young, some haven't even been to university but rather received teaching qualifications through a certificate program.  Some are quality teachers, passionate about teaching and interested in helping their students succeed. But many take a laissez faire attitude toward teaching. The style of teaching mimics that of the French, memorizing lessons word for word and regurgitating them in class. Many students also miss days here and there often because they are helping with harvests, child care, laundry, what have you. This combination can make a perfect storm or a perfect rainbow. In the case of my sister, the former. Her teacher was a new director to the school. Very rarely did I actually see him teaching. Even rarer did I see Sorkna pull out her notebook after school and read or learn her lessons. And never did I see her parents helping her or encouraging her to study. This year was her second attempt at going to middle school. One day in June she went to Tamba and took the entrance exam. A few weeks later she told me that she had gotten first and I took this to mean placed first in the exam and would be attending school in Tamba. So I posted the photo. It has become apparent to me now that whatever she recorded "first" in was not related to her ability to go to middle school (I am still not sure what she was referring to). It looks like she won't be going to school, likely ever again. There are three possibilities that can come out of the exam for middle school. 1) you pass and go to the next year with zero restrictions 2) you pass and proceed to the next year but you are on probation and must take the same exam after the first year of middle school 3) you do not pass and you end your schooling

This is public school. This is Senegal. This is what happened to Sorkna.


School starts on Monday.  We have a new school director, someone from Botou which I believe that will be very beneficial to Botou and the students in the near future.  He held a meeting for both the mamas and the papas of the students and was very concerned with low number of students that have been passing the exam to go to school in Tamba.  He has brought the attention to the parents, telling them that they need to be concerned and active parents with their students if they want to succeed.  The parents seemed to hear this, but we will have to see what happens in the months to come.

Dancing in the name of

My one year anniversary was the 21st of September. One year since I arrived in Senegal, had a thermometer shoved in my ear to check and make sure I didn't have Ebola and landed my feet in the hot, and tropical climate that is Senegal. Most people might get sentimental at this point, reminiscing about all the things they've learned about themselves, about their work partners, family members, etc. and about what they are looking forward to in the 14 months to come. I too, might have written such a post if Tacko had decided not to have a dance party in my honor. It was a few days before the big Senegalese holiday when I went over to her house for something and she told me that in a few days "we are going to dance and play." I asked her what for and she answered, "for Halima". Not knowing exactly what that meant (maybe another slip up of my Bambara language skills) I sort of put that into the back filing cabinet of my brain. Later I asked Raki what she meant and why they were going to dance. "To make you happy," she said, and happy I was made.

It was organized for Sunday afternoon but when Tacko came over only a few other women showed up because they were still busy greeting people for the holiday. It was suggested that they do it after dinner (a time when many of you know I hit the sack and read). I decided I could probably stay up for an hour or so and watch the women dance. So during dinner women from my village came filing in, dressed to the nines, and with hollowed out gourd bowl and baignoire of water at the ready the dancing begun. They sang my name, and danced their hearts out. One woman, Sambura, about 80 years old, sang her heart out, orating my name and my redeemable qualities as a human (toubab) and as a worker. Singing in then name of Halima Fofana the women danced together, danced apart, and shook their booties until sweat was dripping off their foreheads and onto the ground. It was fantastic. I joined them in my hideous attempts at dancing Senegalese style, and I laughed, smiled and occasionally hooted my praise at their amazing moves and incredible energy. The greatest part about this celebration was just that, their energy and their celebration. The focus, at least for me, was on the women and the way their bodies move to the beat of the gourd and the pleasure they get out of dancing.

Rainy Season

I wrote this on June 11 and sent it to my email.  It was then buried very deep.

This first time it rains in Senegal it's scary brilliant. Not scary in a "I lost my mom in the mall" kind of way, but instead in the "oh my god, it can storm here just like in Vermont" kind of way.  I'm writing this from inside my hut at one o'clock in the morning, because today was the day it happened. The day it rained. But not only did it rain, it thundered and poured and lighting struck and lit up the sky like I have never before seen in Senegal. I didn't know thunder storms existed here. I love them at home but here when there is nothing to protect you except your hut, grass roof and mosquito net it comes in with a vengeance. It is as if the rain gods are punishing the earth for not giving the Sahel enough rain. When it first rained for the first time I was sleeping. But let me be clear. I was sleeping outside, naked, with my iPhone and my kindle. This is Peace Corps 10.0 people. At first it was just a terrible dust storm. The kind where you pull the sheet over the head and cover the pillows to avoid dust. The wind blows so hard the dust is forced up and into every possible surface and crevice and you just wait and hope that it ends soon. But this time, the drops came. The sky would light up and the dust and wind continued. And then the rain really came down. I tried to cover my head with the sheet but it wasn't going to suffice. I quickly gathered up my three pillows, my blanket, my sheet, my kindle and iPhone and headed for my hut. I would like to say that I skillfully managed to get out of mosquito net but that was hardly the case. I became entangled in my net (the last thing you want when it's raining dust). Finally I untangled myself and rushed myself and my stuff instead only to realize that my sleeping bag (which I use as a pad) and my net were getting wet. I rushed back out to get them as well leaving the already soaked mat to get nice and clean from the Senegal rains. I'll deal with that tomorrow. I came inside and immediately took the things off my desk that would suffer if wet- my electronics, my planner, and my journal. Tucked safely away in my metal trunk I did the same with myself. Back in my bed with my mosquito net I'm watching the baobabs light up in the fields out my window. The cracks of thunder are the most intense I've ever experienced and here I am, drafting an email to myself on my iPhone. Welcome to rainy season.

Finding your self worth

Development isn't easy. Defining it is an issue all unto itself but I'm not getting into that because a definition isn't what is needed right now, and anyways my Marxism would just get in the way.  You can't throw money at it. You can't just "do development" for people. You can see it. You can sense it. And you can watch it happen over many years. Technically as Peace Corps Volunteers we are development workers. We are all here for different reasons. We all have job descriptions. We live by the code of three goals.  These goals are not tangible. We cannot always see the fruits of our labor. What we can see is love lost, folks back home not quite understanding what we are doing here, ourselves unsure of our competences and our value. Why are we here? Why am I, someone who got a degree from a liberal arts college in political science, helping people with their agricultural development ? Why is it my right to walk into someone's field and tell them how they might better grow their corn? As many of you know my knowledge of field crops and farming in general is limited to say the least. I spent my "formative" years studying human rights in Africa, francophone literature and understanding why ethnic conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo occur. But now I'm here, living in a village that is the epitome of subsistence farming. We grow what we can eat and if the rains come in full throttle (400mm during rainy season) we can maybe make $100. Everyone in my family eats off about a dollar a day. I am here because I chose to come here. I wasn't forced to sign up for these 27 months. My tour of duty, as I like to refer to it, is my choice alone. I received a very comprehensive training (in my opinion and others may beg to differ) from the Peace Corps Senegal team. I feel comfortable in village. I have integrated very well into my family and my village. I have a few work partners whom I cherish and some friends who think the world of me, as I do them. But my job isn't always easy.

Right now in the midst of rainy season I am extending improved variety field crop seed to farmers as a joint effort in cooperation with ISRA a Dakar seed research agency. I have about 16 farmers who I have given seed and a training to about the program and their responsibility to the seed and to me. They will notify me when they sow the seed, add any herbicides, weed or thin, etc. I visit these farmers at least once a week. As of now only about a third of my farmers have sown their seeds. They are all very busy planting all their other seeds, the seeds that to them matter so much more than my seed. Their seed is their livelihood and my seed is just a side project. Something that may produce a good yield but not enough to make a profit in their pocket. Often when I go to visit a farmer's field or to see them at their houses they are not there. They are out in their other fields. I find myself feeling frustrated with myself for not being more productive. Once field visits are done with the farmers that have seeded and I have answered all their questions and asked them mine I go back home. It's early, before anyone else has returned from the fields. People ask me why I don't have my own field of peanuts or bitter tomato or okra. I tell them what I have in my garden and explain that I visit other people's fields and I'm free to help anyone with gardening or tree planting, etc. but it isn't easy coming back around noon and feeling useless as everyone else rolls in on the charette at 2pm exhausted. But let me be clear, my job while it may be agriculture work is not to do the work for my farmers. I'm not about to go and be free manual labor for someone. That isn't development. And frankly, as a woman, people tell me I'm exhausted after I've used a small hand hoe for ten minutes. But that doesn't seem to bother me. If all these things were to bother me I would be miserable. And if I were miserable I would go home.

 Instead I chose to look at my service through a different lens. I believe I am helping people, not all may be agriculture related but it all "counts".  I've been planting trees out in fields where there normally aren't trees. I've taught farmers about thinning their crops and adding amendments to their soil. And above all, I've seen my baby sister speak before anyone else her age in the village. The small successes should be celebrated. We should be proud of ourselves and I know our families back home are proud of us. Our Peace Corps service is much different than it was for those volunteers twenty or thirty years ago. Yes I can type this blog post on my iPhone in village and post it this weekend. Yes I have easy contact with my supportive parents. But that doesn't mean that my service is easier than it was for those volunteers many years before. I can't, and no one should, compare my service with that of my doctor who 20 years ago served in the DRC. My service isn't lesser because I can contact my friends and family. My service isn't lesser because I am not able to be as effective in changing the behavior of planting seed in my village. Every volunteer will say that their service is their service, unique and independent. But everyone suffers from comparing their service to someone else's and struggling with the judgement of their work from their host families, counterparts, other volunteers, our Peace Corps bosses, people back home, and none of it makes this any easier.


 Peace Corps is not supposed to be a permanent reality. It also shouldn't be something that makes us question our self worth. I tell my fellow volunteers that I think of my service and my time in Botou as a hiatus from my real life. I understand that this is my present. But I also know it won't last forever and that my other life is waiting for me back home. I am looking forward to finishing my two years and come back to my life a changed person: changed by my service, my language, my name, my village, my incompetences, my successes, and my self worth.

What's in a life?

As Peace Corps Volunteers we work under three goals.  The first is the most quantifiable but the second and third are more about the exchange of culture, ideas, and language that we have with host country nationals.  So much of my time is spent talking with people in my village and around Senegal about everything and anything.  The following is by no means a complete list of things I have discussed.  These conversations happen in Bambara and so often the exact translations and sense of words do not come across, but I do my best.

Living off the grid (in Vermont).  Acne and other skin issues including but not limited to, sunburns, heat rash, and bug bites.  The moon and the stars, yes we have them in America too.  Trees, our trees are not the same as here in Botou but we have lots of trees.  Why my mother is "so old".  Cows, donkeys, horses, goats, sheep, and chicken can all be found in America.  The difference in development between America and Senegal as it relates to our respective independence dates.  Farming, and how we do it in America and how we used to do it in America.  Industrialization.  Skyping and the fact that I can see my parents and friends as well as talk to them.  Looking something up on the internet i.e. googling, particularly Senegalese holidays.  Meteorology and what weather prediction people do.  The fact that our milk generally comes in liquid form, not powder.  Why I'm still not married and why I will not get married in Senegal.  Why people in America have fewer kids than the Senegalese (I tell them that it is expensive to have lots of kids in America).  Obama and how Obama essentially paid for me to come and work here (it is the simplest explanation I can give for how I came to Senegal without paying any money directly myself (for the ticket and visa).  The war in Yemen.  British/Gambian English versus American English (Where does American English come from they ask?) My father's profession (I describe it as a doctor for people who are sick in their heads).  The fact that we get wood on horse drawn carts too (West Braintree).  Villages in America and their similarities and differences between villages in Senegal.  Starting a Bambara language school in the U.S.  Reading for pleasure.  Married couples in the Peace Corps.  People early terminating their service.  The fact that I play the saxophone.  Swimming.  Mountains and hiking up mountains.

This is obviously not a complete list but this should give you an idea of what people ask me about.  If you have any things you think might be interesting to discuss, feel free to let me know.

Tastes: a continuation of the five senses

So I'm finishing up the five sense posts. I figured I've been here for almost nine months and while I may not have seen, smelled, touched, tasted, or heard everything there is in this country I'm ready to report in on my final two senses and give my two senses (cents).

Tastes are a miraculous thing in Senegal because they can be absolutely wonderful and make your day or they can ruin it. Many of the following are very subjective.

The taste of oil. Oil (vegetable mainly) is used in many of the rice dishes in Senegal. It's almost a food staple, much like ketchup is for me in the States. The national dish in Senegal is called Chebb u Jenn (in Wolof) and is rice cooked in oil (yes you read that right) with fish, and very cooked vegetables. The rice is also cooked in these spice cubes that are very similar to the bouillon we use in soup stock. It is a dish that I can barely stomach, but not just because of the oil. It's a lunch dish here in Botou usually 2-3 times per week. Oil also shows up in beignets, doughnuts, and fatayas. All of these are fried goodies that you can find anywhere. Women sell them on the street and people make them in villages to sell as well. Beignets are fried in oil to the point that, like the oily rice, you can squeeze the product and watch the oil come off. Doughnuts (we call them "bon bon") here, are less greasy but more doughy and still fried in oil. I like these better and I think they taste like apple cider doughnuts from Vermont. That is if you hop on one foot and tilt your head to the side. Fatayas are dough filled triangles or half moon shaped with fish and vegetables. Sometimes a fish bone or twelve and fried.

After oil there are peanuts. Peanut butter is not eaten the way we eat peanut butter in America. In fact when I describe what we do with peanut butter to people here they raise their eyebrows and wrinkle their nose. Peanut butter is made into a peanut sauce (and not like the peanut sauce you might dip your chicken satay into). This peanut sauce has more bouillon, sometimes tomato paste and tomato powder, sometimes baobab leaves, and sometimes fish or meat. It's served over white rice and in Bambara we call it naa jii, or tiga dege which just means peanut butter, with name variations if there are different things in it. In Wolof it's called maffe. This dish I quite enjoy. As long as my spoonful has some hot pepper and not bones. Another taste is our "couscous" which is made out of corn. We pound the kernels and then soak them in water. The corn is then brought to a machine where it is ground very finely. Then it is sifted into two different grain sizes. One is made into basi, a couscous like texture that some volunteers describe as sand. It is then served also with naa jii but a lighter version. Sometimes this will have moringa leaves, beans leaves, or cabbage in it. Sometimes it will contain fish or beans!.  But most of the time it is plain  "peanut water" as we volunteers love to refer to it as (and is the direct translation).

The other diet staple is breakfast. We call it mooni and it is basically sweet mini matzo balls in a porridge. The finest grain from the corn is sifted to basically a flour and then mixed with water to make little balls that are then boiled in water (sugar added) and we drink it with large spoons like ladles. Another frequent taste is that of sugar. Because most of Senegal is Muslim and because many/most Muslims do not drink alcohol they drink sugar instead. In Senegal it comes in the form of attaya (thé) which is a strong green tea boiled (unlike how your heart healthy father knows you should steep green tea) with sugar and mint or basil or the leaves of a lemon tree. When the Senegalese don't drink this bitterly sweet tea they get headaches. And complain. I've noticed the withdrawal myself. The tea is not good (at least in my opinion) but it's not bad and I usual don't refuse. These are all food tastes. Food is not very varied here in Senegal. Oil comes in breakfast sandwiches where eggs are cooked to form a whole new beast. While raised culturally Jewish I was accustomed to eating a food's weight in oil in the form of latkes. But when I realized that this once a year treat was actually making my stomach hurt I quickly asked my dad to make sure we had lox and brisket instead for Hanukkah. This stomach pain resulting from oil came back with revenge in the form of oily rice. And while I am polite I eat a bit of the national dish when served but the oil always brings me back to my dad's delicious latkes.

The other taste that I can't help but ignore is that of dust from tracks driving by as I'm biking. Exhaust and dust are my delicious. Although if given the option between exhaust and dust and oil I might have to c

onsider. The smell and taste that unfortunately comes into your mouth of burning trash is also seriously disgusting. Most of the trash burned has plastic in it. And as we put it here in Peace Corps. Burning plastic leads to us breathing and tasting cancer, something most of us try and avoid.

"Spring" in Botou

I like to think of myself as a site guru instead of a site rat. Let me explain. Some people spend weeks on weeks at site, without venturing because there is nowhere to go and nothing else to do. Some like it (I think) and some think it is what you do if you want to be productive at your site. I however, am not in that position. For one thing when I leave site I only have to travel ten kilometers to get to relatively reliable electricity, WiFi, a freezer with cold water, and the peace corps Tambacounda regional house.  And for another I do not leave my site frequently enough to be deemed someone who is escaping site or work and does not really like to be here. Instead I leave site to gather my own sanity and prepare to head back. I've realized that (among many other things) being happy at site is paramount for me. If I'm not happy something is wrong. I'm generally a very happy person and that has translated to the me in Senegal as well. But in order to keep this order within myself and in my village I travel the ten kilometers (about once a week), usually on my nege-so (lit. iron house) to the house where I breathe in some serious dust, experience a warmer city, and bask in a few hours of cold water and conversation with my two other halves (three cheers out there for my mama and papa) and anyone else who might be around. I pick up any letters that you may have sent me and I recharge (literally, I reload books on my kindle, podcasts on my iPod, and charge my Nokia phone).

 At site, recently I've been keeping busy. I've been working with the director of Botou's primary school to bring water (via a spigot) to the school as well as fencing and tools for a school garden. The produce from the garden will supplement the rice, beans and oil given to the school by the World Food Programme. We had to measure the space, calculate what the community already had (tools, land) and what the community could give (labor, sand) in terms of a community contribution (active participation). I had numerous meetings with the men in the village, including one where eight men between the ages of 20-50 and I walked around measuring things out. Then I spent a few trips to Tamba trying (at first unsuccessfully) to get numbers and pricing for piping for the water, and eventually pricing for the door. We figured out the piping back in Botou at the water tower (al hamduilliah). With all the numbers worked out I also met with the inspector of schools for the region of Tamba who wanted to know who I was, what I was doing, and to thank me. The grant has been submitted and we are waiting for the go ahead and the funds which hopefully will come in during the summer so we can get everything set up for when the school year starts in October.

It has been exhausting getting all these minor details worked out before the actual work happens. Something I've realized about working with the Senegalese is that they are very patient and eager for things to work or, but the organization of business and commerce is such that nothing happens when or where you want it to. It can be frustrating but patience has come in the form of Halima Fofana and has become second nature to me here. Frustration often abounds but usually not much else can be done. I have been persistent. Meeting with people multiple times a week or a day to make sure that I get the information I need. Hopefully it will all pay off and there will be fruits of our labor (and vegetables). Only time will tell. And time is all I've got.

Tambacounda Girls' Leadership Conference

Most regions in Senegal (if not all) have some sort of gender focused event each year.  In some regions it is a girls' camp focused on leadership, some are youth camps for both boys and girls, and in Tamba, it is a leadership camp for both girls, and their fathers.  By including their fathers, the hope is that the girls will be able to interact with their fathers (or father figures) in ways that are not the norm, and that these men will learn to support their daughters towards their futures.  Our conference was a two-day event where we hosted 26 young girls in middle school and their fathers or guardians.  We had host country nationals as wells Peace Corps Volunteers help lead sessions on leadership and self-empowerment, sexual and reproductive health, the environment and our stake in the future of the physical earth, and in personal finance and business management.  The guardians and girls had simultaneous sessions (sometimes together) but mostly separate with time for everyone to speak their mind.  And speak their minds they did, in many different languages.  One of the most unique and difficult things about the leadership camp we have here in Tamba is that there really isn't one language that unites everyone.  As volunteers we speak Bambara, Mandinka, Jaxanke, Fulakunda, Peulafuta, Wolof, and French and as citizens of Tambacounda our guests speak the same.  However even if we were to try and use Wolof or French as the main language to conduct various sessions there were always people who didn't understand or speakers who would translate into two or more languages.  The girls' sessions were conducted mostly in French, but there were still some girls who were too young to understand French and so occasionally speakers spoke in Pulaar.

With the girls it was slow to get them active and participating in discussions, but when the sexual health sessions came around and our environmental field trip out to see some trash, they were much more vocal.  The dads/guardians were always animated and continued to speak their minds about issues such as women as leaders, early child marriage, and the reproductive organs of a woman. It was amazing to see this all happening (see, mainly because I couldn't pick up on the Wolof or Pulaar discussions).  It was also great to see the dads and the girls begin to interact in ways that they might not normally in their homes.  The first meal we all had the men and the women ate at separate bowls (which is what we do in my village) but after that first meal the dads and girls begin to mingle.  It was so much fun to witness all of these people in a new environment, socially and mentally.

Even more so it was wonderful that my host father was able to participate with his daughter and niece.  He biked in each day (because he had some things to take care of as the village chief) but he was there each morning and left after the last session every day.  When I returned home earlier this week I asked my host mom Raki if Bouna had told her about the training.  He had, and we went on to talk about early marriage, forced marriage, and bride price.  In Bambara!  I then saw Mahdu and he apologized for not being able to attend which I said was fine.  He said that Aissatou had told him about the training and he said "Félicitations" (Congratulations! in French).  I don't know what will come out of this training for the girls in my family.  Will they stay in school until the end of high school?  Will they go onto university?  Will they be married off before they are 18?  Will they talk to their families about birth control options?  Or will they begin to speak more to their fathers about what they are thinking?  Anything and everything is great in my mind as long as they have been exposed to new ways of thinking and new horizons. I am excited to be part of their future and a part of this family, both the Fofana family here in Botou and the Tambacounda people in Senegal.

Sounds, noises, goats oh my!

A new post will be up next week about the Girls' Leadership Conference we just had in Tambacounda.  In the meantime, here is another installment of the five senses.

If you want to check out the photographs from the conference follow this link :

http://liannareed.smugmug.com/Peace-Corps-Senegal-2014/Tambacounda-Girls-Leadership/


Sounds!

Goats sounds like children.  When they cry, sneeze, cough, or are thirsty.  It can be very disconcerting at times when you think a young child is in distress when really it is just a kid.  The sound of getting a flat tire is one of the most disappointing sounds that I've heard so far.  The air wheezing out of my tire, while on my bike, makes a pleasant bike ride into a relatively unpleasant bike walk.  My uncle Daouda's phone speaks the numbers of the person he is calling...in English.  So I often here 7-7-6-5-4-3-8-5-1 or some similar combination.  It can be very distracting when you are woken up by the automated voice speaking in English but I have just used it as a teaching tool for my siblings.  The French radio or the Senegalese radio with music is also a frequent alarm clock for me.  Donkeys braying is one of the most identifying sounds of village life.  I've gotten used to it while I'm sleeping so that it no longer bothers me.  Although it does sort of surprise me when I walk by a donkey braying because they fart while they are braying...who knew?  The donkeys did bother me at one point when my family started keeping them right outside my hut because I could hear them peeing, their stream is apparently very strong.  The call to prayer is a sound that has become a sort of comfort, a marker of time throughout the day if you will.  The other odd sound is that cows don't moo here.  What is up with that?  Babies cry a lot.  And my other alarm clock is the sound of the pulley on the well.  The sounds of Senegal and of my village no longer alarm me in the ways that they used to when I first arrived.  But I wouldn't say that they are all comforting sounds.

6 month-aversary

Hello my wonderful readers around the world!  I thought I owed you a post because it has been awhile.  I have been back in Botou for about three weeks, next week is our Girls' Leadership Conference and eventually my real life should start...

Just kidding.

Life in Botou is wonderful, complex, beautiful, and my whole life right now.  Yes, sometimes it seems boring or slow, but I have come to love my life as a villager in Botou.  I spend much of my time with other villagers, my friends and my family.  Sometimes my life here seems like a hiatus from my real life, as if it isn't my real life but some sort of break that I'll stop after 27 months and go back to my America and my "life."  But in reality, and something that has become clear from the moment that I became comfortable in Botou, my life is here.  Botou is my life.  Peace Corps Senegal is my life.  At the same time my life is so much different than those of the lives people are continuing at home.

I love walking through my village, taking photographs of people and their babies.  I enjoy shelling peanuts, listening to village gossip, and most importantly speaking Bambara and getting to know my fellow village mates.  But sometimes it is hard when there doesn't seem like there is much to "do."  I'm working on a grant for my school garden, waiting for my tree sack and tree seed order to come through, and helping people with dry season gardening techniques but all of those things are very slow coming.  Minutes here, minutes there.  But I've also come to realize that my job is speaking Bambara, learning about people, and being in Botou.

I will post a blog next week about the Girls' Leadership Conference!

Post Pre-service Training

I just finished PST 2 (Pre-Service Training) which was the final installment of our technical training.  These past two weeks were full of techniques, practices, and more English social stimulation than I've had since PST 1.

Aside from the technical practices that we learned, which I'll get to later, we also learned about Monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation (something we here call, MRE).  This is the method with which we as PCVs use to record and report on our work at our sites while in country.  This process is multilayered and comprehensive as some of the data that we report goes to Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, while other pieces of information stay in Peace Corps Senegal for our sectors individually, and, for my program as a sustainable agriculture extension agent, some of our data also goes back to Senegalese organizations working on improving practices, seeds, etc.  It is a lot of paperwork (digital of course), but also pretty straight forward and it seems like a cohesive way of collating data and information and disseminating to the sources that can best use the information.  I'll have more of an understanding of how collecting this data will actually look once I'm in the field.  We report this information through the Volunteer Reporting Form (VRF) that is used worldwide by Peace Corps.  It is a bi-annual extensive account of all of our extension activities and the way that our work is aligned to our project framework.

We also learned about how to apply for grants through Peace Corps' system.  I can use grants if my village expresses an interest in a project that would benefit the community, address their needs in terms of food security, etc.  We can also use grants for group projects like the Girls Leadership Conference that Tambacounda will be hosting later this month.  Some of the grants are funded by USAID or NGOs like One Acre Fund, World Connect, etc. while others are funded through community and families members back in the United States through a partnership program.  It was all a lot to process but I am excited about the many opportunities that I have for my two years of service in Botou and in Senegal.

Our technical training was also much more specific than what we received during PST. I'll give you an overview of what we learned and if you want me to expand on anything please let me know.  We learned about our seed extension program for field crops, SRI (System of Rice Intensification), permaculture planning and implementation, earthworks (boomerang berms, contour berms, cuvettes, etc), pruning, seed selection and storage (vegetable and field crops), companion planting, intercropping/mono-cropping, advanced gardening techniques (staking tomatoes, helping cucurbites climb), Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), vegetable propagation, integrated pest management, soil fertility management, chemical fertilizer best practices, and a few other things that I'm sure I'm forgetting.  It was quite the comprehensive education, particularly for someone like me (typical Peace Corps volunteer with a liberal arts degree) and I appreciated that they do give us a baseline of knowledge so that we can go back to our villages with something to teach them.  It is exciting and overwhelming and thrilling, and many other different emotions, but I'm very excited and looking forward to settling back into life in Botou and beginning the technical work of my Peace Corps Senegal experience.

Bakel, Monkeys, Donkeys Oh My!

It's been awhile since I last posted, and a lot has happened (at least for village life).  A week ago, I made my way to Moribugu, the village where Jordan (Moussa Diarra), the other Bambara volunteer lives.    He lives in a region called Bakel, a sub-region of Tambacounda.  He is about 250km from me in an area that borders Mauritania and Mali.  I rode up with Cheryl Faye, the new director of Peace Corps Senegal.  Peace Corps encourages us to ride with PC vehicles if we ever have the chance and our travel plans align.  We had some good conversation about the future of Peace Corps Senegal, and the five week challenge party that we are going to have at her house in Dakar in a few weeks.  We also saw about 20 small monkeys on our way up...I'd have to say that was definitely a highlight.  We first stopped at another volunteer's site because Cheryl was doing site visits in the region of Bakel.  This volunteer is an agroforestry volunteer who speaks Pulaar du Nord, which is what most of the volunteers (except Jordan) speak in the Bakel work-zone.  We then arrived at Jordan's village and after a tour of his site and his Master Farm Cheryl continued her way north and I stayed in Jordan's village.  While our plan was to have Falaye (our language instructor meet us in Moribougou for our language seminar) that didn't end up working out and we decided that it would be better to have all of us meet in Botou.  I decided to stay in Moribougou, since I had already made the trek, and Jordan and I spent a few days in his village and the neighboring villages, greeting people, working in his Master Farm, talking with the school teachers about their future projects, and speaking Bambara.  It was so interesting to hear his Bambara as it is a bit different than the Bambara spoken in Botou.  The region of Bakel was very cool, besides the monkeys, there were mountains (hills more like) and huge spots of erosion (which while aren't "cool" per se are very interesting geologically and ecologically).  The state of his land and the work that has to be done up there is different in many ways than the work that I think I will do in Botou, but there are similarities too.  It will be interesting to continue our service together and see how our villages react and work with us in the projects that we hope to do during our two years.  Unfortunately I was sick for most of the time I was up in Bakel so I hope that I can go back later and see more of the land and maybe even one day nearby Mali or Mauritania!

We left at 5am on a bus to Tamba and came back to Botou.  It was a terrific homecoming.  I got a huge hug from my host mom Raki and from Sorkhna (hugs are not common at all for the Senegalese).  People were singing Halima naa naa, which means Halima is coming/is back.  It was so great to be back home, and to really feel like I belonged and back where I am supposed to be.

On our second night I woke up to the sound of some serious crunching noises in my garden and I looked out my window and saw that there were donkeys eating away at my garden. I was furious, but didn't want to go through the ordeal of waking someone up, or going out in my shorts and risk being seen by my family (shorts aren't taboo but not something that I would wear in front of my family).  I decided just to wait and see if the donkeys would leave, or if someone else would come out after hearing their crunching. Not long after I got back in bed I heard Kooli, Seynabu, Raki and Bouna out in the garden trying to shoo the donkeys out of my garden.  In the morning I woke up and saw that the donkeys had eaten all of my cucumbers, most of my tomatoes, my sunflowers, basil and the peanuts and corn my family had laid out to dry in the garden.  I talked with Bouna who said there were 7(!!!!) donkeys in the garden in the middle of the night.  They had pulled out the wooden post that had been in the ground holding the door together.  I was upset, but there wasn't much we could do about the garden except fix the fence and hope the donkeys don't come in again.  As it turned out, it was a big deal for my village.  All of the village elders, including the Iman came in and toured the damage.  Bouna would tell everyone that came how much I had been working in the garden, watering twice a day, etc.  He clearly was very upset about the donkey business (particularly because they were not all of our donkeys but neighbor donkeys as well).  I think the village was also concerned that it could easily happen to other people's fences as well.  Most of the donkeys aren't tied up and instead just wander around.  After they all toured my now garden museum they all sat down in my compound and had a meeting about what to do.  They asked me if I wanted them to pay me for what was eaten.  I said certainly not, I had seeds that I could replace what was lost, but that what I really wanted was for the fence to be fixed so that it wouldn't happen again.  They decided that those whose donkeys had been in the garden had to either pay money or help with the rebuilding of the fence.  It was quite the ordeal, and even today as I was leaving Botou, people were coming up to me and apologizing for the loss of my garden, telling me how bad donkeys were.  Jordan and I reseeded most of the beds that had been destroyed, and although my two and a half months of work are now in the bellies of asses, I hope that something will be growing again when I come back from my technical training in Thiès.

This month I will spend most of it out of site.  I am going to Thiès for a few days to spend sometime with my friends around my birthday.  Then we are going to Dakar for W.A.I.S.T (West African Invitational Softball Tournament) which is a big sports-like event with Peace Corps volunteers and other expats in Dakar.  Then we head back to Thiès for two weeks of intense technical training.  Then I head back to Botou for two years of service!  I am excited to learn the rest of the technical things, like grant writing, that I need to know for my service, but I also will miss my family and my community in Botou as they have become the best family and community I could ask for in Senegal.

Sights in Senegal

Introduction to the Five Senses of Senegal:

Since I did a post awhile back on the smells of Senegal I thought, (along with some discussion with that certain father and a certain mother as well) that I would go through all of the senses and try and give you, as a reader, a better sense of what life is like in Senegal.  These sights, smells, touches, tastes, and sounds are a part of my life in Senegal.  They are not unique really to one day or one celebration, most often they are things that I experience frequently.

Termite mounds are abundant throughout Senegal.  When I first saw them I thought they were ancient ruins, much like the Mayan pyramids that you can see still hidden in the "bush" of Mexico but before I actual spoke about those thoughts to anyone I asked.  Turns out they are termite mounds, disgusting, bad for the trees, mounds of termites.  Kids.  Kids are everywhere in Senegal.  But the most interesting difference about the kids here is that they go to the bathroom wherever they please.  Most often in my compound it is on the ground and one of the mothers or an older sibling scoops up some sand and cleans it all away.  There was the one time this week when my little sister, Tene, decided to go on my front porch, but just like everywhere else it is now spotless!  Whenever I bike to Tamba I always love seeing the mile-markers.  It isn't that far, 10km, but knowing which dilapidated mile marker is about to show up on my bike trip is a terrific motivator when the wind is blowing in my face and my backpack is loaded down with vegetables.  Coming to Tamba is the time when we get to see BACON!  And by this I mean the wild pigs that roam around, particularly in the trash river.  Biking into Tamba provides me with lots of sights (and smells and tastes for that matter but that comes later).  I always bike into Tamba in the morning, leaving Botou at 7am and as I arrive in Tamba I see many women walking with baskets and buckets to the daily fish market that is just on the outskirts of Tamba.  Men shave their heads at what seem to be random periods of the year.  One moment my uncles or host dad will have a modest head of hair, the next moment, bald!  Babies are also bald.  At birth, most babies come with some hair but a week after they are born before the naming ceremony they shave off all their hairs, even the baby girls!  It is quite distressing actually to see them take a razor to a tiny baby's head.  They also cut dogs ears and donkeys tails.  I'm not really sure why they do either.  I've heard that it is to keep the bugs/flies away, but it seems counterproductive to me when there are gobs of blood coming out of their ears and rear ends, a perfect habitat for blood thirsty insects.  Dust is everywhere in my hut!  I can't get rid of it.  Things are no longer clean or sponged off, they are dusty.  It's just a fact and I've gotten over my OCD about cleaning it 24/7.  Now I just clean everything only once a day.  Whenever cars come into the village it is a sight for the whole village.  A car, in our village?  Whatever are they doing here?  Nobody owns a car in Botou so seeing one is a pretty big deal.  Again when I bike into Tamba I see lots of truck drivers, many from Mali with their trucks parked on the side of the road.  Most of them have pulled out mats and blankets and are sleeping or praying underneath or beside their trucks.  UN trucks.  On December 29, 2014 there was an attack on a UN refugee camp in northern Mali and because of the presence of the camp and the attack in particular there are always (and sometimes more frequently) trucks with UN posted on the side going past Botou on their way to Mali.  Baobab trees, a tree many think of as a "typical African tree" are de-leafed in my village.  All their leaves stripped and eventually they will grow back during the hot/rainy season.  And finally, the sight of my host siblings watering the garden as I come back from Tamba is a true delight!

Babies and New Year's Eve

It isn’t every day that you come back from a skype session with your parents and its announced that there will be a brand new baby in your compound the next day.  Last weekened, after my rough week in general, my uncle, Daouda, announced that his wife had another baby and that the next day she would be at our compound for the baby naming ceremony.  I was thrilled!  As many of you know I love babies.  I had heard so much about naming ceremonies that I was excited to witness one.  I asked Bouna if it was all right if I took pictures, he said yes of course.  A bunch of women were cooking in the morning, some sort of corn mash with sugar that they made into balls.  When I got up, my host sisters ushered me into Daouda’s hut, where his wife was there with a teeny little baby.  They were about to shave his head.  I would learn later that this is what happens to every baby, boy or girl before they get their names.  The naming happens a week after they are born.   At around 10am, all the village elders, meaning old men, came into our compound and sat down on mats.  The iman, almami, was there front and center.  Then a younger man came out and seemed to be speaking with the Iman, I think it was more that the iman was speaking to him, telling him the name of the new baby, Djibie.  They passed around the corn balls with kola nuts inside (a very caffeinated nut that I think tastes very strong and bitter) and gave it to everyone that was there.  They sat and prayed, holding their hands in front of them and then praying, in Arabic.  It was quite charming and calming to watch.  After a certain short time, less than half an hour they all left, filing out slowly.  The older women were at my compound the whole day, cooking, and many family members from Tamba and neighboring villages came to see the new baby and to see the family.  Then later in the evening I walked out of my hut and my uncle was slaughtering a sheep, I thought it was in celebration for the baby but then it turned out that he was selling most of the meat, maybe the money goes to the baby, as I’ve said before, I think, I still don’t quite understand the money matters here in Senegal.  

Holding a tiny baby was pretty much a terrific treat.  The next day I went around the village and ended up finding two more small babies, both under two weeks old.  One that had been named, and the other that was supposed to be named the next day.  Everyone seemed to want to name it after me, Halima, which was I was at first okay with.  I told them I would go back and take pictures the next day.  I went back and spent a couple hours or so.  I watched the iman bless her, whisper prayers and I guess get or give her her name.  I asked her mother if her name was in fact Halima and she replied in the affirmative.  It wasn’t until later that I learned from my host sister Setou that in fact her name was Maimouna, not Halima.  Kind of a relief, just because it seems like a lot of pressure to have a kid named after you and on top of that the family isn’t related to my family, I’m not sure what the practices are.  But I got to spend a few hours with a number of babies and that was pretty cool. 

On New Years Eve my host sisters came back from picking cotton and told me that they were going to get together with some other kids from the village and cook spaghetti and eggs. I decided to help them out so I have them 300cfa and decided to go along with whatever they were doing.  After we watered the garden we went over to another compound and started peeling onions and potatoes and cooking beef.  My uncle earlier had slaughtered a cow, it was pretty amazing to watch them kill something that big with a dull knife.  All of my uncle and neighbors were holding the cows legs, tied with ropes and they had the dull blade of a knife that they sharpened by scraping it on the well.  Then they called Kooli (my other uncle) over and he took a pole of wood and laid it across the belly of the cow to hold it down so that the cow couldn’t move.  It’s amazing to watch them kill animals with the slip of a knife, they drain the blood and then begin the the butchering.  But back to the cooking.  I was with a bunch of 14 year old girls who were all chattering away cooking up a storm; beignets, beef with onions and mustard and spaghetti.  The irony of the whole thing was that the dish we were cooking was supposedly called couscous marocain (Moroccan CousCous).  I just think that is pretty crazy.  I helped out with the peeling and cutting of potatoes and onions.  At one point, about three hours later I was getting tired and bored, and they began to notice.  So they took a bowl as they were beginning to get ready to eat and my Tupperware container that they had collected peanuts in and they packed up my part of the dinner that I thought we were going to eat together and walked me back to my compound.  I thought we were going to eat all together but I guess that wasn’t the case.  I sat down with my own bowl of “marrocain couscous” and invited my host siblings and my aunt to join me.  They of course did and then we sat down and had our New Year’s Eve meal.  Pasta with onions, mustard and beef.