Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

In the Kindergarten Circus I was a tight rope walker. I had a tutu and slippers and I had perfect balance... if I do say so myself.

Now more than ever, I feel like I am again walking a tight rope between my rapidly approaching life in America and current life in Senegal. I have five months left of my service. It may sound like a long time, but it is going to fly by. Just about everyone in my stage is feeling the pressure to come up with a post-Peace Corps plan. Here's the hard part...

I have enough work to keep me more than busy until the day I leave this country. I have trainings to do, meetings to run and materials to prep, and i probably should have been done with all of them already. And at the same time I am trying to organize letters of recommendation, hammer out entrance essays and kiss my mom's feet for the amount of work I am dumping on her as my personal assistant. Finding a balance between the two worlds is becoming increasingly challenging.

Emotionally, I am all over the place. I think about America all the time, but I am geniunely excited about and proud of my work here. I worry about getting in to school while I am in the village and worry about the village while I am in Kolda working on applications for school. I miss my family back home, but I can't help but realize that I only have five more months with the people I call family here. What's a girl to do?!?! I tell myself to chill out and enjoy the time. As my best friend puts it "Savor!" Believe me, I'm trying!

In the meantime, I have a bit of a split personality - perhaps more so than usual. Things really are going well... I just have to remind myself of that more than I would like to admit. I'm actively channeling my inner circus performer and hoping my balance holds out just a little longer.

Mariama Lives On

To date, I can identify myself as any number of things: daughter, sister, student, teacher, graduate, dancer, licensed driver. Some of these titles required tests, interviews, even the processing of official government documents. But if you know me well, you won't be surprised when I say my most prized title is that of 'Aunt'... and I didn't even have to apply!

My nieces, Eve and Marlee, are the coolest people I know. And being away from them for two years is one of the hardest parts of my Peace Corps service. Before coming to Senegal, I was actively campaigning for supreme title of 'Coolest Aunt Ever,' which is in serious jeopardy at the moment. And while there are plenty of babies here to play with, it's just not the same.

When I arrived in my village 17 months ago, my village father's younger brother's wife (you follow that?), Djonfollo, was pregnant. I watched her go through her entire pregnancy (her first ever pregnancy) and at 8.5 months she lost the baby. It was devastating for her and made me miss my girls even more. She got pregnant very soon thereafter and has been ready to burst for a few weeks.

And nine days ago she gave birth to the smallest baby girl I have ever seen!

I had left my village to visit my closest neighbor for the afternoon. No more than four hours later I was back in my village. I barely made it past the first fence when I was informed of the baby's arrival and shuffled into the women's hut to see her.

While the baby was cute, I was much more astonished and amazed at the condition and demeanor of the mother. Please keep in mind that less that three hours prior (it could have been 20 minutes before I got back for all I know), this young girl gave birth in a mud hut 18km from the closest medical facility where she lost her first child no more than 12 months earlier. And there she was, sitting up, smiling and wondering when I was finally going to get back. Should I ever be blessed with children of my own, I have NO intention of being that calm and collected post-labor! Oh, yeah, and I was BEYOND THANKFUL I happened to be gone during the birth so I was not asked to help or dispense medical information in any way, shape or form... I am NOT a doctor!

As soon as I had a moment to process what had just happened, the real news was announced. The baby was going to be named Mariama Sabaly (that's my village name)! And they were SO SO SO SO excited to tell me! You would think I had been gone for days. The whole village had already weighed in - apparently everyone agreed this was to be the baby's name. The village Imam (religious leader) had already been consulted about it even. Who says you need cell phones and internet for information to spread like wildfire?!?

In the Pulaar culture, a person named after someone else is called their 'Tokora.' So I have now had an African baby named after me (and I am so thankful the poor thing was given my Pulaar name and not my American name - that's just cruel). Only the real kicker is that babies here are not given their names for seven days after their birth. Usually their first name is given by their father and their second name is given by their grandmother. In this instance, she was only given one name, seven days early, by an entire village. And I can't ignore the fact that neither the father nor mother was truly given any real say in the baby's name. It was a done deal.

What I will say is that I have felt like a member of my community since I got there, nothing more, nothing less. I know people in Thiewal Lao genuinely care about me. But I am a guest. No matter how well I integrate or participate in their day-to-day activities, I am still a white, educated American female who is only experiencing what they call life. But as cheesy and mushy as it sounds, and if only for the very moment when I was given a Tokora, I felt like a member of the Sabaly family. Mariama Sabaly will remain in Thiewal Lao long after I return to America and part of me is touched and comforted by that.

So I am now an American African Aunt. Every morning I greet my family and make a b-line for baby Mariama (finally someone in my family who speaks worse Pulaar than I do). I start my day by holding a beautiful baby girl. And just like in America, when the baby poops I get to hand her off to her mother.

Waterfall Wonderment

The south eastern region of Senegal is called Kedougou. It shares a border with the Guineas and is home to mountains and waterfalls unlike anywhere else in the country. Since I got to country, I had heard how phenomenal the falls were and I finally found the occasion to make the trip...




After five hours of biking in a downpour, I lost my grip and flew over the handle bars. I landed on my left knee.














I woke up the next morning to find I grew a rosy-red saddle bag from what we are assuming was a spider bite. It then spread and consumed my entire right thigh.










And we crossed the river first on a "bridge," and the second time we opted to go with the flow.

And you wonder what could possibly be worth all this hassle?
















Spending two days playing in the waterfalls at Ingley, that's what!
Matt, Roxy, Kay, Annicka, Jordan and I worked hard to get there and played hard too! I can't say I'll ever make the trip back, but I am so happy I went... worth every bump, bruise and bite:)

It is the rainy season. We get lots of rain. In fact, we get rain almost every day.

There are things that come along with lots of rain. Things like lots of mud and vegetation and bugs. My door swells so it won't close. The seasonal variations of "hot", "hotter" and "hottest" just become "hot and wet" or "hotter and wet" or "hottest and wet" (what I usually just describe as "miserable") in the rainy season.

But I have experienced one rainy season and survived so I was prepared to make it through one more. When the steady rains started a month ago I was ready for the mud and vegetation and bugs. I knew what to expect. What I didn't remember was the MOLD!

The mold is taking over my life!
Ok, that might be a little dramatic. But it is certainly alive and well.

When I got back to village after two weeks out of site, I found my favorite CamelBack backpack covered with green fuzz simply from hanging on the wall. Wet wipes and some serious time in the sun took care of the problem.

I then went to hang up some dirty clothes on a rope in my hut until I wash them. When I lifted the tarp to hang them up I found the same green fuzz meandering across some socks, a pair of pants, and a t-shirt that was not worth salvaging.

My latest concern is that my quick dry towel is already a foamy green color - dangerously close to the pale green shade of mold that's been popping up everywhere. I just have to believe that the makers of the Original PackTowel know what they are doing and I'm not drying off with a moldy towel every night.

I don't recall such aggressive mold last year, but I'm doing my best to keep it at bay. The sun helps dry everything out - when it is shining. And I have made an effort to do laundry more often (ok, correction: to have my laundry done for me). And that's about all I can do.
So don't feel too bad about the random vegetable that's been in the crisper too long. At least your walls aren't growing fur!

REALLY BIG BEETLE!

(and it flies with precision accuracy right toward your face!)
oh, yeah and it was in our regional house...

What did you say?

Fact: When teaching a foreign language, repeating the same word or phrase LOUDER does not actually help comprehension.

I have been frustrated on numerous occasions over the last 15 months with this very same technique as I attempt to learn better French and Pulaar. When I am at a loss for the correct translation, an alternate explanation - versus an alternate decibel - would be appreciated.

And yet, despite my recent adventures in learning a foreign language, I caught myself adopting the LOUDER is BETTER philosophy on several occasions this past week as I taught English to 80 middle school kids in Dakar. Talk about a hypocrite!

Every summer the US Embassy hosts summer English camps as an extension of their Access English program in the schools. Peace Corps Volunteers have the opportunity to work with these middle schoolers for one week in the summer to help maintain the progress they've made over the last 3-4 months of formal English classes. At the end of next school year, 10 of the participating students will have the opportunity to go to America to study at a public high school for one year. It is literally a life-changing opportunity and one that is not taken lightly.

One the other hand, camp was a ton of fun for students and Volunteers alike. Our job was to get them to speak in English as much as humanly possible for 5 days... FINALLY, something I am qualified to do linguistically!!
We kept it simple. Simon Says, Pictionary, Olympics and BINGO all had their place. We gave them "American" names and we were blown away by their knowledge of American history and all things Obama! (The Senegalese are very big fans of the current President, and that comment spans all age groups). We finished the week with a Talent Show and snacks like PB&J, rice krispy treats and we even found Cheetos at the one big grocery store in Dakar. It was a huge hit!

I am sure that more than half of what we said was lost on them - even if it was said loud enough to be heard:) But it was a great week, albeit tiring (I am not used to structured activity - something I need to readjust to quickly when I get back to America), and summer camp remains a staple of growing up... in any language.

I May Be Getting the Hang of This

Well, let's be honest, I came to Africa over a year ago not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

After two months of training, I still had no idea what I was doing.

And then I was placed in my village, Thiewal Lao, deep in the bush of Southern Senegal. From the first day it has been made perfectly clear what I was brought there to do. The only problem was that I had NO idea how I was going to make it happen. So I started making it up as I went.

My task: complete a rural health poste.

I started talking to people. I practically stalked the members of the local government. And layer by layer I started getting the full story. On the west side of my village there stands the rough shell of a building. It has walls and a roof and a long history of lies, greed and all-too-typical scandal that I was given the task of rectifying.

So here’s the background to what has been my primary project:

In 2004, an international NGO was solicited by the local government to build a much-needed health facility. The NGO handed over millions of CFA to the local officials who handed the money over to a contractor to do the project.
For those of you who are counting, four HUGE mistakes were just made.
1. The NGO gave out money (a lot of money) with no system of accountability in place and a year later stopped doing work in Senegal.
2. The local government no doubt skimmed a portion of that money before handing it off to a contractor with no system of accountability in place either.
3. The contractor was chosen by the NGO, both of whom were based in the capital city of Dakar, more than 14 hours away from Kolda.
4. The contractor started the project having no doubt skimmed a portion of that money and then continued to steal project funds over the next four years as he started and stopped progress on Thiewal Lao’s health poste construction because there was no one to stop him.

Then I showed up.

And when I started talking to people I realized that none of them were talking to each other. The local government, Ministry of Health, other local NGOs and community members were all working independently of each other with little to no progress.

If you’ve read my blog you know that months of begging, insisting, pleading and even crying through formal and informal meetings with World Vision somehow established a working relationship that has resulted in the full funding of the completion of the health poste in my village.

You would think this is the good news, but I have known they were going to fund it for several months with no actual progress on the construction.

But that has all changed.

On July 8, 2009, a tractor arrived with every single nail, paint brush and piece of plywood needed to finish the project! This present came complete with a foreman and crew of four masons. They began work on July 9th at 8am and have been working every day but Saturday, since. Not only do they work quickly, but they are very good at what they do. The foreman supervises their work demanding quality. I meet with him every morning and evening to go over what was accomplished and what is coming up next. The crew calls me over every time I am within ear shot to show me their techniques and (probably more so) to see if I can do it too. If this whole saving the world thing doesn’t work out, I may have a future in masonry!

So it is happening. My villagers have stepped up too over the past few months, long before our crew showed up. They have formed a Health Committee that will oversee the proper function of the facility. Health outreach volunteers representing ten surrounding villages have been chosen and began training to connect people to the health poste.

And I have never been more popular in my life:)

We expect to have construction done by September 1 and there is no reason we shouldn’t be open and functioning by the end of the year. The Ministry of Health is on board. Not only does it mean that more than 10,000 Senegalese will have better access to medical care, but it gives the Volunteer who will replace me next year the resources to reach out to all these people and work on education and prevention now that the infrastructure will be in place.

So I am stressed. The project is going well, but it is not done yet. I will hold my breath until then. Because the economy is so bad, solar panels and a well have been cut from my budget so I am anxiously working to find funding. And we are in the heart of the rainy season which generally just makes things a little more difficult.

But I am thankful. I am thankful I was given such a defined purpose. I am thankful for the people of my village who are willing to work to better their own lives. I am thankful for the support I have received from other PCVs and friends and family back home. And I am thankful that this thing might actually get done during my service!

So that’s what is going on with me.

You can see pictures of the progress at www.peacecorpspav.shutterfly.com in the “Health Poste and School” Album.