This, my friends, is progress. Latrine project is well underway! Update soon.

The time I ate a fried rat.

In October I went on my first, and likely only, vacation from my two years here in Senegal. With the exception of traveling within Senegal for work and/or short breaks from site and maybe crossing the border to Gambia or Mali, I don’t have plans (or the funds) to leave for any other extended period of time.

I never blogged about my trip to Europe, and there’s a few reasons for that. First of all, time. I was so busy catching up with work and my family and everything going on throughout PC Senegal that blogging was not a priority (is it ever, though?). Secondly, Senegal got in the way. Electricity and internet connection are hard to come by in my village and usually the last thing I want to be doing when I do have internet is writing about what I did last week. But the last reason I have been so hesitant to write about my trip is definitely the most influential and weighty; guilt. From the moment I told my host family back in July that I would be leaving for almost a month to go on a vacation with my American parents, little seeds of guilt were planted deep within me and it has taken a while for me to realize what this uncomfortable feeling and uneasiness was and how it was affecting me.

The guilt grew proportionally with my excitement as the departure date crept closer, but during my time in Portugal and the UK I was somehow able to suppress those feelings and have a mildly enjoyable time. (That last comment should be read with a healthy dose of sarcasm.) Undoubtedly, I had an incredible time exploring the Southern coast of Portugal with my parents and then gallivanting about Edinburgh and London with a close friend from home, Kelly. The trip was energizing, thrilling, relaxing, and clarifying and by the end of it I was really ready to be back in Jammagen with my family and in sleeping in my hut. Those are the best kind of trips, I think, that get you all worked up with anticipation about a new place, capture you attention completely for a time, but then kick you around enough that by the close you’re ready to go home. I look back on that month with the fondest of memories, but still, somehow, feelings of guilt are tied up in my heart.

Where did the guilt come from? It might be easy to see how someone from my situation in the world (middle class American family, University education, first world nationality, opportunities galore) could feel guilty when affronted with the realities of life for the average person in a village in Africa. I have so much more than they do here, and the vast majority of my worldly belongings aren’t even on this continent; they’re arranged in boxes, stacked in my childhood closet of my parents’ house. My host mom can’t even afford to take a trip into Kaolack once a month, and even if she did, she doesn’t have money to buy anything there. I have more sheets and blankets for my two beds than my entire family could scrounge up amongst them. The kids get over excited for a piece of chalk to write on the chalkboard with, which I stubbornly withhold because I don’t want to be seen as an indefinite source of gifts. I have a gas can that I can light up at my leisure to cook meals when my mom has to go out into the bush multiple times a week to gather wood, which she carries back to our compound on her head. She might wait until the next day to chop it. My family doesn’t even know that I have a laptop computer, solar charger, or iPod touch because I am embarrassed by the disparity between our economic statuses. Peace Corps volunteers joke around about how pathetic the amount of money we get “paid” for our two years of service abroad is, when in reality, it is mountains of riches compared to the wealth of the families that take care of us. I feel guilty because I have so much more than they do, and I didn’t do anything to deserve it.

My host family wasn’t the only source of guilt relating to my vacation, however. Right about the time I was preparing for that trip I was also bombarding friends, family, acquaintances, strangers, and celebrities back home with pleas for donations to the latrine project I had started with my village. The project was, and still is, something I am quite passionate about and want to help my village accomplish, but I felt a strange discord between trying to raise money for a project here in Senegal and jetting away on vacation for a few weeks. To make myself feel better I might mention that my mother (a bargain shopper extraordinaire) found very reasonably priced tickets for our flights, we stayed at the home of wonderfully generous friends in Portugal and London at no cost to ourselves, and enjoyed gratifying yet frugal meals and activities through the span of our jaunt. This was not an extravagantly lavish vacation, but the dissonant feelings and underlying guilt persisted, nonetheless. Did I have the right to ask for people to donate money when I was about to take a timeout from service for a whirlwind tour of Europe? Is it right for me to even take vacation when this project was still so far from being implemented? Would forfeiting the vacation help or change the outcome of this project? I didn’t have answers to those questions, or didn’t want to confront them (especially the last one) so I swept those feelings away and averted my eyes. Towards Portugal.

It wasn’t until very recently that those feelings were discovered to be still lurking just beneath the surface, ready to return with any opportunity. By way of planning a short trip to Mali with some fellow PCVs, the opportunity has arrived. In preparing to tell my family that I am yet again leaving for a few weeks with the express purpose of self-indulgence, the guilty feelings once more make me second guess the choices I am making. I know what most of you back home would say; “you are giving up two years of your life to try and help people in another country, you deserve to take a vacation”. But I really don’t. I can’t get my mind to accept the idea that just because I was born in the place that I was, with the color skin I have, and the opportunities I’ve been given, I deserve more than someone else.

I’m not saying that I think everyone in America should give up all their belongings, sell their mansions and move into grass thatched huts (although that would be a step in the right direction as far as educating people about these issues). I’m not saying that we can solve the problems that exist in the undeveloped world by throwing money at them. I’m not even saying that I’m not going to Mali. I am.

All I can say is that the guilt I felt about these trips opened my eyes to the bigger picture. My guilt isn’t just about taking vacation, it’s about the general unfairness of the inequality that exists between different groups of people in the world. Most of the time guilt is seen as a negative emotion, but I wonder if underlying guilt isn’t one of the reasons I joined Peace Corps in the first place. I felt that I had been given so much, and I wanted to give some to someone else. Is that not guilt? Is it not better to do something out of guilt than to do nothing at all?

I don’t have the answers to any of this. But I don’t think we’ll ever find them unless we ask these hard questions to each other, and most importantly, to ourselves.

P.S. If you want to see pictures from the Portugal trip you can see my Picasa album:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100887218598407899475/Portugal?authkey=Gv1sRgCM7zqoz8wde15gE#

Senegal’s Presidential Elections are to take place late next month, and this past weekend the eligible candidates were announced. This sparked riots, protest and strikes across the country as the current president Abdoulaye Wade has been allowed to run for a third presidency which is illegal according to the current constitution.

It is generally known that Wade (87) only wants to continue his rule so that he can place his son, Karim, (who was raised in France, speaks no Wolof and therefore is not considered to be Senegalese) in power when he dies - which could be any day now. Many Senegalese that still live in rural areas and villages, such as my family, still support Wade, mainly because it is easy for the government to pay them off.

Most regional capitals and large cities have seen violent protesting over the weekend and so far one police officer has been killed in Dakar in the riots. We got word yesterday that the covered market in Kaloack (my regional capital), the largest covered market in West Africa, was set alight and burnt to the ground.

Today I whitnessed firsthand a group of students and teachers from Nioro marching through the streets and rallying in the market. Having come into town to meet with three schools about school gardens, we were met with angry teachers and students that had been sent home by the gendarme (military police), saying they weren’t allowed to teach today. The group was not violent at all, but it’s easy to see that the teachers and students are upset that they their studying is being interrupted by the government, especially the private schools. Apparently they’ll be back at it tommorrow.

February is going to be a very interesting month leading up to election day on the 26th.

Would I be scolded for five minutes for not eating all of my mystery meat and orange mashed potatoes by a small man wearing a royal blue vest and bowtie.

Would I be instructed to call the woman in the kitchen and ask for whatever I want to eat at any time because I am her turrando (meaning we have the same Senegalese name, Aida).

Would I be given a mercury thermometer to take my temperature. In my armpit. I made the mistake of putting it in my mouth first. She didn’t clean it after it was taken out of my armpit. I shudder to think who’se temperature was taken before mine.

Would I already know that 39 degrees celcius is above 102 degrees ferenheit without having to use the converter on my phone.

Would I be given baggies of drugs and expected to self medicate in a timely fashion.

Would the hospital staff be cool with your best friend finding a bed in another room, rolling it into your room, setting up next to your bed and sleeping over for two nights. I think they even expected it.

Would the head nurse on your floor come check on you every morning, mostly to try persuade you to marry her son.

Would your doctor buy you millet cous cous on the street so you can have chere ak meew for breakfast, because he knows that you miss village food.

Guess where I’m blogging from today!

The hospital! Actually, Clinique de la Madeleine is more like a full service hotel… where doctors happen to come check on you every once in a while and stick needles in your arms.

I have yet another tale of sickness to tell, tis true.

Last Monday, while I was in Nioro to charge my cell phone and skype with my parents I started feel a little baby headache coming on. After biking back to the Jamm I layed down to rest a bit, thinking I was just dehydrated. When I woke up later that afternoon the headache was worse and I had a fever heatin’ up as well.

I told my host mom that I wasn’t feeling well and that I was going to bed early that night after taking an ibuprofin for the fever and headache. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up with chills and a severe pain in my neck, radiating down my back, and the backs of my legs. This was no ordinary soreness or stress pain, like my host family called it, it was sharp, pinching and felt almost electric. Not enjoyable.

The pain, fever and headaches were kept at bay all day Tuesday with ibuprofin and acetominophen every few hours, but were relentless and increasing in intensity. That night I found myself writhing in my bed, yelling into my pillow with each wave of pain, trying not to let my host family hear me. Another night without dinner was proof enough for them that I was really sick.

When I woke with pain Wednesday morning I knew it was time to see the doc. I left for Kaolack first thing and then headed to the garage with a friend who would accompany me to med hut in Dakar. The usual four hour sept-place ride was extended beyond seven hours due to a two-day transportation strike that had kept people all over the country stranded for the past two days. I think I’ve claimed this before, but that was definitely the most miserable car ride I have ever experienced.

The doctor took a lot of blood that afternoon to test for malaria (even though I had already done a rapid malaria test in Kaolack, which was negative), dengue fever, borrelia and to do a CBCC. No one really seemed to have a clear idea what was causing my symptoms because I didn’t have the classic symptoms of an infectious disease (vomiting, nausea, diarrhea) with my fever, just pain. On Thursday, with my symptoms still worsening, the doctors decided it was best to see a neurologist. The neurologist was just as stumped as they were, but wanted to play it safe by admitting me to a hospital in Dakar to have my fevers monitored and to do a lumbar puncture. “You want me to let a Senegalese doctor stick a needle in my spine?” was my first though when I heard this. And that is exactly what they did, three times. This turned out to be the right call, because the results of that (very painful) test showed that I have meningitis.

The doctors are pretty sure it is viral meningitis, not bacterial, which is a good thing. I am taking antiviral meds and took a full course of malaria meds as a precaution. I am feeling much better now except for some lingering soreness in my neck and back and a lot of fatigue. The doctors are waiting for a few more labs to come in and they are doing another CBCC today, so if all is well with those tests they will probably let me leave the hospital and go back to med hut to finish recovering there.

Everyone at the Clinique de la Madeleine has taken wonderful care of me and I have had amazing support from my Peace Corps doctors throughout this ordeal. Thank you to all my PC friends who came and visited me with gifts of fruit, baby toys and baby animal posters to brighten my day, and to all my friends and family back home who have offered prayers and support from afar. I plan on busting out of this joint and getting back on my feet asap. There is no time to lose because W.A.I.S.T. is this weekend!

I’m sitting outside Baay Essane’s compound right now while the men take Fallou’s body to be burried in the clearing of the baobab trees at the front of the village. I can’t bring myself to go inside. I thought writing might help stop the tears but it’s not working. I was sitting with Tafa, his eyes red from crying and another one of Fallou’s young brothers. The men are returning, carrying only shovels now. They quietly file into the compound, his family members stopping to wash their hands. They were the ones carrying his body. All I can do is stare into the clear sky to try and keep from sobbing openly. That’s the hardest part, they’re so much stronger emotionally. He wasn’t my son or brother, but it could have been, and that’s why I cry. Because I will miss his smile and his big belly poking out from under his too-small blue shirt. I will miss his look of pride because out of the cluster of little boys always playing in the sand street in front of his compound, his was always the only name I knew by heart. I’ll miss the way he took care of Xadim, even though he was only two inches taller.

I sit ouside on a log with a few kids while the entire village chants and recites prayers inside. As people start to leave the compound they greet each other and me, share laughs and make plans for the afternoon. They are so much more used to death here.

Fallou was a five-year-old boy, a son of my mom’s best friend, Yaay Mari. He was one of my favorite little boys, always giggling as he’d run behind my bike, chasing me on the path to the road. Last week while I was out of the village a pot of boiling water was accidentally knocked onto him, burning the majority of his chest, stomach, arms and thighs. He was at the hospital in Nioro for a few days until the doctors suggested his parents take him home to die, there was nothing more they could do. The night that I returned to Jammagen my host dad told me what had happened and that Fallou was dying that night. I didn’t go to see him. I didn’t know if it would be appropriate for me to be among the family at that time and I knew I would not be able to keep from crying. The Senegalese do not openly cry or show deep emotion. The only person I saw cry that day was one of Fallou’s aunts who momentarily stepped out of the compound during the prayers to wipe tears from her cheeks before returning inside. I sat outside of the compound during the funeral, listening silently, tears streaming down my face. A few people asked me to come inside but I politley refused, preferring to keep my emotions at a distance, surrounded by the young children who didn’t understand what was happening. When the funeral ended it was like someone flipped a switch on the general tone of the village, the somber state quickly breaking into the usual beat of village life. Everyone went right about their daily business as if nothing had changed. I walked out into the bush to be by myself. I didn’t know how to turn off my emotions as quickly as they do. I cut through some fields to the baobab trees to search out Fallou’s grave. I had never actually been to the cemetary before, women aren’t allowed, but I knew the general area where it was located. Like a magnetic pull, I walked straight through a patch of grass taller than myself and emerged directly in fron of a small, unmarked, sandy mound covered in dry weeds. The smallness of the grave seemed like a cruel joke. I knelt in the sand to place the small bunch of flowers I had gathered in fields along the way, and said goodbye to Fallou. This is the first time I’ve had to really deal with death here in Senegal, and it was awful. Needless to say, their customs and culture are very different from how we experience death in America, but I felt as if people were so eager to move on from this painful experience that they brushed off the death of a child as no big deal. After talking with my host mom later that night I realize thats not they case, they just don’t like to linger or wallow in sadness. They believe doing so will only bring more sadness. They so dislike the feeling that there is actually no word in Wolof for that particular emotion. So, in honor of Senegalese culture I am trying my best not to let my mind linger in the sadness of Fallou’s death, but instead remember him joyfully and appreciate all the love he gave me in our short time together.

Fallou will not be forgotten.

It’s finally chilly here in Senegal! We welcome the cool season with open arms, but only after we bundle up in jackets, hats, sweaters and scarves. Or coocoon ourselves in the outerwear of our older siblings.

August 24. 2011

Just after 7:00am. I wake up to hear my dad scrambling around the compound, asking my host brother if I’m awake yet. This is strange because my family never approaches or bothers me in the morning until I leave my hut to greet them, even if they know I’m awake inside. I called out through my window that I was awake and asked if he needed me for something.

“Jigeen ak doomam dannu na ci teen bi” he frantically yells. A woman and her baby have fallen into the well.

What?!

I threw on the clothes laying on the floor of my hut and literally bursted through my door, racing through the compound. “Which well?” I asked.

“Teen bu mag” he says. The big one.

My heart dropped as the thought of falling the 30 meters to the water level flashed through my mind. Its my worst fear, and the worst fear of many of the villagers, come true. Could they possibly have survived?

Just as I run from the compound towards the center of the village my aunt, who had spent the night before, calmly adds “sa tanta am na doom” in a strangely casual manner for the general mood of the morning. “My aunt?” I sputter. “Had a baby? What aunt? Who was pregnant?” My dad, in a most flippant tone (his sister is quite a handful) replies to her “she’s not her aunt… she’s her mom.”

Mom?

A baby?

MOM HAD THE BABY!???

What the heck, Dad! Yes, a woman falling into the well is a most critical and time sensitive piece of information but was that really the most important thing to tell me that morning? Could you not have woken me up a bit earlier while my mom was giving birth in our compound!???

Around 5:00am, while my Dad and aunt were praying, Baay Serigne Bessane was quietly (I didn’t hear a peep!) welcomed into the world. I did an immediate about face and high tailed it to my moms room where she was resting serenely on the bed next to a literal bundle. The baby was wrapped, swaddled and covered in so much fabric I had to dig to find him.

This picture was taken about 2.5 hours after his first breath. He looked a bit like an alien.

According to Muslim culture the name of a new baby must not be spoken out loud before the baby’s baptism ceremony, called an ngente in Wolof. The ngente was to be held a week later (which also turned out to be Korite, the celebration of the end of Ramadan) but until then my mom had started to call the baby “Doc” after my real dad. That eventually was adapted by me into calling him “Little Doc” which was my dad’s nickname as a child, and the name has stuck.

He was first called by his name, Baay Serigne, on the day of his baptism, but that was about the only time I’ve heard him referred to by that name. Even my dad generally calls him according to his American namesake.

This was his ngente outfit. I don’t think he appreciated the extra insulation.

Proud big brother, Woli, looking after his nene (baby). For the first day or two Woli kept calling him my baby. Maybe its because the babies are lighter skinned for the first few days?

Back to the tumultuous morning of his birth. After fawning over the new baby for a few minutes I resumed my mission to get to the well. As I arrived I passed through clusters of women weeping, hands linked, to scared to be embarrassed about showing emotion in public. I swallowed the tears climbing up my throat as I asked my friend Kumba what was happening. They were still in the well, had been for at least 30 minutes. My neighbor Baay Elhadji, father of two of my closest friends, had gone down into the well after them. He is the only person in the village that can swim, besides me. As the women were spread around the perimeter of the village’s central square I left them behind to join the men who were enmassed around the well.  Just as I was coming up behind one of Baay Elhadji’s sons the group let out a collective gasp and a conscious but incognizant looking woman was swiftly carried past me by four men, including my counterpart, Matar. They ran her to a waiting car, quickly followed by her mother and another man carrying her silent baby who had been tied to her back when she fell in. They were rushed to the hospital in Nioro and just a few hours later returned to Jammagen, shaken up but in good health.

According to others in the village, the woman has some sort of mental disability that does not seem sever enough to be called retardation but just slower than most. The “big well” is indeed quite big, and as the woman was leaning over the well wall to tie the pulley up to the crossbeam she lost her footing and fell into the well, headfirst. Her sister grabbed one of her legs as she went over, but was not able to hold her. It is a miracle that she and the baby survived the fall and that she was able to keep both their heads above water long enough to be rescued. My family tells me that she is the fifth person to fall into a well in Jammagen in the past 5 years. Matar promptly asked me if we could do a project to cover all the wells.  Apparently there is a need.

Now, one more picture of the baby, just to end on a high note :)

I have started, but not finished, many an update in the past few months, all of which have not been posted because of problematic internet connections, the loss of the ability to use the mouse on my keyboard, a sudden and urgent need to run to the nearest bathroom/latrine, our computer crashing at the Kaolack regional house, etc… basically because of Senegal.

Oh, Woli.

Since the beginning of rainy season most of my work time is spent in the demo garden behind my compound weeding, thinning, and tending to the plants in numerous ways. I quasi-fasted (I covertly drank water in my hut) for about 2 weeks of Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting) and gained some serious street cred in the village for being “jambar” enough to hang with the Senegalese who were not eating or drinking from sunup to sundown. I have also been trying to get out and visit all the fields of the farmers that I extended seed to earlier this year. There are about 12 farmers that received a kilo of either corn, bean, millet, rice or sorghum seed and were taught improved techniques such as spacing, weeding and manure/fertilizer application that, when combined with the improved varieties of seed we extend, can usually guarantee an increase in crop yield. Even though the majority of my farmers casually disregarded all of the improved techniques I encouraged them to try I will continue to do field visits and crop yield estimation with them as they begin to harvest their crops. We have already started harvesting “niebe” from the bean field my dad planted with the seed I gave him and they are delicious! My mom used to always talk about “niebe bu tooy” or wet beans which I didn’t really get until I tried them. Fresh beans that have not been dried out yet are so much softer and more delicious than their old, wrinkly cousins!

That’s corn… not beans.

Moringa! The miracle tree!

Earlier this week my boss, Massaly, came to Jammagen as part of his rainy season tourney where he visits all the Ag sites and master farms. I took advantage of the influence he has with the villagers and invited all the farmers to my demonstration garden to show off the work I had been doing back there. Since most of the farmers didn’t take my planting guidelines seriously it was really helpful to have Massaly explain the techniques I implemented in the garden and validate that those techniques really can make a difference. As the farmers compared my corn plot to the corn my dad planted I relished their comments of “Aida’s corn is bigger than Souleyman’s…. yes hers is definitely better.”

Dad’s sad sad corn field.

We also recently out-planted 10 papaya trees in the garden. Can’t wait to eat those fruits!!

Last weekend I snuck out of village to go to Toubacouta to help with the Mangrove Reforestation that about 30 volunteers from across the Kaolack region took part in.

Side by side with a Senegalese women’s group and a bunch of Sereer kids from a nearby island village we transplanted over 30,000 mangrove seedlings into the sandy muck of a bare island tucked away amongst the mangrove maze of the Sine Saloum River Delta. Those asparagus looking things the kids are holding are the seedlings.

Some of the older guys helping out went along ahead of the group drawing lines in the muck one meter apart. All we had to do was walk down the line plopping a seedling into the quick-sand-like soil every giant step.

Like that…

We also danced a little.

And I got my first Senegalese bf. His name is Assane and he’s from Nioro. He said I can wait a few years for him to grow up then we can get married.

It was a fun two nights in Toubacouta and felt really good to be part of a project that was accomplished so successfully, in such a short amount of time, and with so many of my fellow PCV pals.

All that’s left to do now is wait out the remainder of the rainy season, which I can’t wait to see come to an end. Hopefully as it retreats, so will my numerous skin infections, the army of cockroaches that have commandeered my latrine, and the suffocating humidity.

We’ll bide our time playing with Sacckat. Only two more weeks and I get to fly away to another foreign land to be reunited with my real parents!