Let's Get Some Perspective

The heat we experience in this country is unreal. For most of the year I can't brush my teeth without working up a full sweat. But Senegal is entering the "cold season." I have been sleeping in sweatpants and a hoodie. In just a few weeks we will be able to see our breath in the morning and I will have to take my bucket bath before dark or it will just be too cold.

My closest neighbor told me that the other day she woke up in the morning and was so cold that she rushed to put on socks and shoes. She then glanced at the thermometer on her wall which proclaimed the current temperature was... 77 DEGREES! She laughed out loud.

That's right, we are practically rendered immobile by a 77 degree morning. In our defense, that is a solid 30-40 degrees cooler that what we are used to. If it dropped from 80 to 40 degrees in Lincoln, I imagine there'd be some complaining... Last year I went home for Christmas in a blizzard. How I survived the temperature shock is still baffling. It all goes to show that the human body is incredible, Africa is hot and everything is relative.

Add It to the List

I make lists. I make a lot of lists. I have been known to rewrite lists to make them look better and I will even admit to writing a task down on a list for nothing more than the satisfaction of then, immediately, crossing it off. Lists keep me sane. And post-its make it all possible.

I have carried over my compulsion for list making into the Peace Corps... some may even say it has escalated. Several shapes, sizes and colors of post-its made the trip with me to Senegal and they have served me well thus far (despite decreased stickiness due to unhealthy amounts of humidity and heat). I continue to color code and compartmentalize my life here.

Most of my friends and family back home have come to accept and embrace my affinity for and addiction to my planner, post-it combo. It took my new friends here some getting used to, but I think they too have come to accept it for fear of what I would be like without it:)

But the secret is out... now even my villagers have noticed!!

There is a man in my village named Ibrahima Balde. He works at the village level disbursing scholarships to kids at the elementary school through World Vision. He is educated, can read and write in French and he is even able to write in fairly impressive English. He is one of my main go-to guys, always helpful and very astute.

The other day I happened to be walking into my hut to grab something when I heard my name being called. I turned around to find Ibrahima charging up as though he was a man on a mission. I got excited. It was then that he pulled from his pocket a partially used, single stack of yellow sticky notes. For me. He was almost giddy with pride. And I was utterly confused. Had I missed something in translation?

Nope. Somewhere, at some point, Ibrahima came across a stack of post-its and wouldn't you know it? He thought of me! I am sure he was in Kolda at the World Vision offices or in my road town at the health poste and asked if he could have the random, lonely stack sitting on someones desk. But he knew that I would love them - and I do. I remain slightly alarmed at the transparency and predictability of my habits (I suppose that's why they're habits). However, it was also incredibly refreshing to have been here long enough and to be good enough friends with someone for them to instantly think of me when presented with office supplies (the true way to my heart - oh, how I miss Office Depot!).

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...