Yeah! Yeah!

This month, I am prouder than ever to be part of the PC/Senegal/Tambacounda family. Here's why: we're planning a marathon. And not just for "shits and giggles," as my beloved high school rowing coach used to say; we actually aim to do something great for Senegal's girls. The name may not be witty, or an alliteration, but it gets the point across:

(courtesy of Mika, graphic artist extraordinaire)

The idea came from one of my neighbors, Amanda, but our entire region has jumped to help. We're all very excited. I have been set to work writing various explanatory and fundraising emails to PCVs, PC admin, RPCVs, expats, companies, etc. And, of course, you are all cordially invited - to help us fundraise, or to come pound the pavement. What better excuse to visit a country that you, honestly, never really wanted to visit? Here's some incentive: adorable Senegalese babies (definitely), Senegalese food (the good kind), mild verbal abuse (makes you stronger), monkeys (yep), good beer (not really), me (duh), lions (I wish), helping empower Senegalese girls (yeahhh!), getting to boast about your Senegalese marathon experience (we will also have shorter distances, so no excuses). If you do want to make a donation, run (!), or have any questions, feel free to email me - aschier87@gmail.com

For a more thorough explanation, here's a shortish article I wrote for PC/Senegal's website.

Dear PCVs, RPCVs, friends, family, and noble internet passers-by,

Greetings from Tambacounda, Senegal! We are a group of Peace Corps Volunteers with jobs ranging from urban agriculture and preventative health education to small enterprise development. No matter what sector we are assigned to, however, we all want to work in one common area: girls' education and empowerment.

In Senegal, especially in rural areas (where we primarily live and work), girls are often taken out of school at a young age to work in the fields, or marry. They have little say over their futures or the future of their daughters, and the sustainable development work that Peace Corps strives toward is possible only if the women of Senegal can make their voices heard. The best way to empower women is through education, and that is why we are so excited about this opportunity.

Work centering on girls’ education has been a Peace Corps initiative since… well, since the beginning of Peace Corps. However, this time we are planning something different - the first ever Peace Corps-related marathon, to take place in early March. The race will be run in the spirit of continuing girls' education, with emphasis on informing and changing local attitudes and, hopefully, inspiring girls to think of themselves as capable of continuing their studies, having a career, and balancing that with family.

We have been overwhelmed so far with the positive response from our fellow PCVs – not only are they committing themselves to going the distance on foot, they are also asking how they can help us in our awareness and fundraising efforts. However, we need all the help we can get! Even if you aren’t living in Senegal at the moment, and can’t picture yourself flying over to West Africa to run with us, there are ways you can help out from the air-conditioned comfort of your own home, take-out Mexican food and a chai latte close at hand (my current Amerik daydream; don’t judge).

To meet the goals we’ve set for ourselves, to really achieve something special with this marathon, we need donations. PCVs, RPCVs, family, friends, American or Senegalese companies, school clubs, famous celebrities, the guy who goes through your trash every morning – you get the picture. Anyone can lend a hand. Marathon T-shirts are being designed, and will be available for purchase – we’ll let you know when and how. Fundraised money will be used in a couple big areas. One is our Michelle Sylvester Scholarships, in which we reward high-achieving but economically disadvantaged girls with funds to pay for school and supplies, something their families cannot always afford. Another are Peace Corps Senegal’s country-wide girls’ leadership camps, in which girls are able to talk to and learn from successful Senegalese women, think outside the “village box,” and develop their own personal identities, life skills, and self-confidence. Funds will also be used for other GAD (Gender and Development) activities.

This is going to be a game-changer, people. We have high hopes of not only facilitating a successful event this year, but of even making it an annual affair. Girls’ education and empowerment, of all things, deserves a yearly reminder. Join us in making this possible!

Also, find us on facebook! Or, here, I’ll make it easy for you: http://www.facebook.com/senegalrunforeducation

And now, Tamba’s own Amanda Lyon will explain how to make donations:

As of right now, we will be doing everything through the country fund.  Friends and family, American businesses, Senegalese companies, and so on, can donate at:

 https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-CFD

From there they click on Donate, which prompts them to fill in their credit card information.  On that page there is a comment section where we would like all donors to comment, "Marathon for Education," so that we will know what funds actually belong to us...whoopee!  PS:  TAX DEDUCTIBLE.

If you have a Senegalese Company or anyone else that cannot donate online or via credit card, they can write Peace Corps Senegal a check.  If you are in this situation contact me because PC is not sure how they want the check addressed thus far.

For comments, questions, concerns, etc. – email us at senegalrunforeducation1@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Team Tamba and the rest of PC/Senegal

Still alive!

Ok. It’s been a while since my last post (as always) and a lot has happened. Actually, that’s a lie. We’re on Africa time. However, enough has happened to merit a blog update.

In mid-September, 8 fellow Tamba Volunteers and I embarked on a 4-day “tourney”. The purpose of this one was to educate villagers about the causes of diarrhea, how to prevent it, and how to treat it. Due to a lack of basic knowledge about proper hygiene and sanitation, diarrhea is extremely common, especially among children. And although it is easily treated, parents often wait so long to take their sick child to the health hut - many times because they cannot or do not want to pay the small fee – that by the time the child IS seen by a health worker, it’s too late. This is actually one of the biggest health-related problems I’ve seen, and it frustrates me beyond belief.

Anyway – three teams of three (each team speaking a different local language, depending on the village) performed educational skits and demonstrations. Using a flavored drink powder, we were able to demonstrate how germs are spread, and the importance of using soap while washing your hands. Once damp, the powder (representing germs) stained a village volunteer’s hand. Shaking hands with others showed how it was passed easily from person to person. And afterwards, the only way to get it off was with soap – water alone didn’t cut it. After that, we showed them how to make ORS – Oral Rehydration Solution – by mixing certain quantities of sugar and salt with clean water, and explained how to use it. Simple, cheap, and enormously effective.

Side note: Every PCV is supplied with ORS in their med kit, and we have a large supply here at the regional house. Great for intestinal distress, also good for quick rehydration after a wild night. It’s said that if your ORS tastes like candy, you know you’re in trouble.

Over the four days, we visited 12 villages, five of which were Jaxanke speaking, including my own. It was a great experience. It gave me some new vocab, more confidence speaking the language, and it allowed me to see friends’ sites, which was really fun. It was also exhausting. The best part, though, has been catching my villagers reciting lines from the skits to each other, or the ORS recipe, or how important soap is – even weeks after the tourney. Talk about a warm, fuzzy feeling. I can’t wait to do another one – we’re thinking family planning would be a good topic (but really, the possibilities are endless – nutrition, malaria, the American boy band phenomenon, etc).

I also just finished a proposal to fund a latrine project in my village. Quite a few people in Bira don’t have access to a pit toilet, which means they’re doing their thing outside, near living and cooking areas. No good, for obvious reasons (see above). So we’re planning on constructing ten new latrines around the outskirts of the community, where most of these bush-poopers (sorry, latrine-deprived) people live. Hopefully this plan goes off without a hitch. That’s too much to hope for, maybe, but this project is meant to gauge the enthusiasm of my community, and single out people who may be good work partners in the future.

Quick story about my dog, whom I haven’t mentioned before: In August, I really wanted a puppy. I bought one off some kids, spur of the moment, in the street for the equivalent of two dollars. I named him Tigo, which means “peanut” in Jaxanke. Tigo was adorable, but quite a handful. When I took him back to Bira, I led him around on a leash for a couple days so he could get his bearings, then set him free. He immediately ran into my host family’s backyard and ate a baby chicken. This is not good, especially in a place where every baby chicken represents possible future food and money. I was mortified. A couple days later, he ate another baby chicken – this time it had pretty much wandered into his vicious, adorable puppy face while Tigo was tied up. Two strikes.  I had to keep him on-leash and under surveillance at all times, which was stressful for both of us, I’m sure. So many other Volunteers have dogs that wander the village happily, managing to avoid killing anything. My only explanation was that since Tigo lived his first 8 weeks in Tamba, perhaps away from small animals, he never learned to leave them alone, as village dogs do. Anyway, after casting about wildly for another solution, my friend Pheobe (my savior) offered to take him. She works with a Master Farmer in a field right outside Tamba. Tigo would have 1,000 square meters of space to roam, and people working there almost all the time to keep him company. And best of all, if any small animals wandered into the field – a demonstration farm, basically – they’d be pests and, therefore, fair game. I’m not sure if Tigo is actually still honing his hunting techniques, but I do know that he is fat, happy, and I had to pull a mango fly larvae out of his tail. You can look it up. Keep in mind that this also afflicts PCVs. Constant vigilance!

Some exciting news: my amazing friend Becky is going to visit me for two weeks right after Christmas! I’m very excited to A) see her, and B) show someone around this country that is now, somehow, my home. Honestly, there are some people to whom I would hesitate to recommend an African trip, but after many travels with her I know she can handle it easily. Maybe there should be a warning on airlines’ websites…

Side effects of prolonged exposure to West Africa may include: excessive use of Imodium, refusal to pay more than 40 cents for a baguette, increased rate of arguing with vendors and taxi drivers, increased incidence of sass (related), redefined definition of ‘shopping,’ ‘heat,’ ‘public transportation,’ and ‘balanced meal,’ sudden desire to spend all your money on fabric, admiration of fake hair and complex cornrows, speaking African French, thinking that African French is what French actually sounds like, decrease in vegetarianism, increase in tolerance for strange meats, increased chance of wearing jelly sandals, intimate knowledge of both tropical afflictions and donkeys’ social habits, thinking SPAM, canned cheese, and fish mash are delicious, strong opinions on international development and NGO work, disdain for money-tossing tourists, indignation when people assume you’re a tourist, increased incidence of hiding money on your person, thinking all of the above is normal, increase of cross-cultural understanding, and of course a huge increase in BADASSNESS.

Til next time!

Cultural Lessons

August is Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. The faithful fast completely from sunrise to sundown – that means no food, no water. They are also supposed to abstain from any other practices that may distract them from worship – nothing pleasurable, basically.  Children are excused from fasting, as are pregnant and breastfeeding women (though many times they do, despite our pleas to think of their babies’ health), as well as the very old or sick. What about Peace Corps Volunteers? Our host villages’ opinions seem to vary, from what I’ve heard. Some of us were told “you must fast!” and others, “why would you fast? You aren’t Muslim.”  Ultimately, of course, it was an individual choice – it’s easy to stock up on “Ramadan food” and retire stealthily to your hut to snack. I did a bit of everything. For a couple days, I breakfasted with my host family at 5 a.m. on bread and coffee, then didn’t eat again until 7:30 p.m. For most of the time, I ate my own breakfast later in the morning, then waited again until sundown. Some days, I did snack around lunchtime. For a couple days at the end of the month, I fasted out of necessity – I ran out of money to buy food! But I always drank water. I wasn’t prepared for that extreme (and unwise) of a discomfort; also, we’d had a discussion about kidney stones during PST that left me with a healthy regard for proper hydration.

How did my village cope during Ramadan? Everyone still worked in the fields in the morning, but by 11 or noon they were all back, lounging in the shade, napping or doing small chores. The kids, (unfortunately) fully fueled, ran screaming circles around their exhausted and grumpy older relatives. Come evening, everyone waited for the call from the mosque, the sign that one more day’s deprivation was behind them. We all broke fast with mono, or monoo, or whatever (Jaxanke isn’t a written language, so I get to invent spellings) It’s a type of weird porridge – their customary breakfast – made with flour, water, and sugar. Easy on the stomach. Later on, a proper dinner was also consumed. My counterpart liked to tell me how he would get up each morning at 2 a.m. to eat more. He was also very fond of shouting at a daughter to bring him water, gulping the entire liter-size cup in one go (reminded me of my brother drinking milk as a child) then setting the cup down with loud emphasis and proudly telling me with his fingers how many liters he’d downed so far that evening.

As for me, I learned that not eating for 14 hours is hard, but doable. Sure, by 7:30 I was listening as hard as everyone else for the mosque’s permission, but I discovered that (temporary) hunger itself is – I don’t really know how to put it – not so dire. While after 8 hours back in the States I would have probably declared that I was “starvinggggg” and gone to the fridge, here that milestone passed without me really acknowledging it, and I went about another 6 hours or so without suffering too much. Of course, the fact that eating was simply not an option probably had something to do with my mental (and physical?) fortitude. Nevertheless: on August 30^th at around 7 p.m., the slightest slice of a moon was sighted over the village, a drum was sounded, and everyone was suddenly very happy. Ramadan was over! It took me a while to actually locate the moon myself, and my family made sure that I saw it with my own eyes before they let me alone – after all, if the moon hadn’t been sighted that night, there would have been another day of fasting. Thank God it was a clear night. “Tomorrow, eat only! Eat and drink only!” my host mothers gleefully told me.

Korite is the day following Ramadan. Every woman undid their cornrows and then had them rebraided, some with luxurious fake extensions. Littler girls had so much black yarn weaved into their short braids that after everything was done it looked like life-size dolls come alive were running around the compound. The women bent over their cooking fires all day, and the food was delicious – bread and sweet potatoes and macaroni and onions and meat. The cow they had killed, distributed, and cooked several days prior, so the meat was tough, but meat is so rare in my village (despite the feeling that I’m living in a petting zoo) that it was indeed a joyful holiday. I privately dreamed of my dad’s barbequed tri-tip. In the afternoon packs of kids roamed around the village, dressed to the nines in brand new clothes and, in the girls’ case, makeup, glitter, and sassy attitudes. The women looked stately and beautiful in their new complets and braids, while I just looked like I was at a questionable costume party. Yes, I did wear a traditional outfit and let them cornrow my hair. I’d had one previous traumatic experience with this, at the hands of a sadistic teenager, and it took many, many assurances of painlessness for me to submit again. But it was fine. I guess my own host sister doesn’t feel the need to test the limits of my pain tolerance. While this was going on, girls kept coming up to stroke my hair, so different from their own.  Later in the night, there was music and dancing. I went to bed at 9:30, a good hour past my usual bedtime. Impressed? I was.  

In other news…

A girl died a couple days ago. This isn’t big news in itself; at least two or three children have died in my village since May, but this was the first death that exposed me to the rural Senegalese attitudes about it. She lived in the house directly across from my hut, so ever since I installed she’d been, along with the other 17 kids, a daily fixture in my compound. She was one of my favorites – three or four years old, the smaller of a pair of twins, very quiet and shy. I was just starting to make social inroads with her; she liked high-fives.

At 5:30 one morning, I woke to the sounds of crying. It sounded like one woman, and one older child. The crying sounded anguished, and it scared me. I’ve never witnessed a grown Senegalese woman expressing grief before. I lay in the dark, eyes wide open, wondering if someone had really died. I’d heard that the women set up an eerie wailing in the occasion of a death, but this sounded like natural, bitter grieving. No wailing. The sounds died down soon after, and I went back to sleep, thinking that for a death there probably would have been more commotion.

Later, ducking out of my hut, everything looked normal except for a couple extra people sitting silently outside the house. I walked the 20 yards to my host family’s door. “The girl died this morning,” my counterpart told me. The verb one uses is “xa ban,” which is also used in the context of “There’s no more water” or “The water is finished.” “Jio banta.” Who? I asked. “The twin, the small twin.” Why? “She was sick,” with a shrug. Did they take her to the health post? “Yes, but the doctor was not there.” I’m going for a walk. “But nobody is going to the fields today!” I’m still going for a walk.

A surreal experience. Not twelve hours before her death, I’d seen the girl sitting on the concrete bed outside with her siblings and neighbors, swinging her legs and eating with great relish a bit of meat. She looked like herself – quiet, but very much alive. What sickness killed her? Malaria? Some random fever? I’ll never know. When I got back from my walk, a man was carrying the tiny body out of the compound, wrapped in a mat, the father and a couple other men in tow. A little while later they returned, mat empty, and women started filing by to greet and console the mother. By midday everything seemed back to normal. The women joked and laughed and did their chores. The father fanned himself and greeted passers-by. The lone twin came over to play with the other kids, smiling and chewing on some meat. Is she too young to understand what had happened to her sister? Business as usual. The only sign that a child had died that morning was the sadness of her mother, imperfectly concealed. Dry-eyed most of the day, in the afternoon she briefly lost her composure and was quickly escorted, sobbing, into the house. I asked my counterpart why nobody was crying. “They did cry, at 5 a.m.” 5 a.m. only! “Well, 5 to maybe 6 a.m.” In America, when a child dies, everyone cries for a long time. “But it is because God wills it! If the mother cries, everyone says, shush! Calm down! It is God’s will” It’s because God wills it, or because the only doctor skipped town?

This is just one more incident in a long string of incidents and conversations that frustrates me beyond belief about A) the medical care available, and mostly B) the Senegalese attitude towards seeking care. It’s too big of a subject, and I have way too much to say, to include it in this post. I tend to get exasperated and angry just thinking about it. So, I’ll deal with it later.

Also, for those of you who are wondering when I’m going to do some “actual” work: coming up soon, I promise. 

America, Senegal

I love your dress! Where’d you get it?

I love your dress! Which tailor did you use?

I’m kinda craving M&Ms. I think I’ll drag myself to the store.

My mom is sending me M&Ms in a package in a couple weeks… BEGIN THE COUNTDOWN!

It’s 100 degrees today? WHY GOD, WHY?

100 degrees today? Thank God.

I mean, that’s pretty expensive for a cup of coffee, but okay.

WHAT? You’re giving me the white person price. PREPARE TO FIGHT.

I’ve worn this shirt twice. I should probably throw it in the wash.

I can’t really smell this shirt when held at arm’s length. All good!

I can see your butt in that skirt. Scandalous!

I can see your knees in that skirt… you may be a prostitute.

This taxi looks dirty. Gross.

I can’t see the road through the bottom of this taxi! Fancy.

She killed a chicken?!  Awwww, poor thing.

She killed a chicken? Delicious!

Look at the cute fluffy sheep!

Can someone please eat this mangy loud annoying animal already?

Put on your shoes. Your feet are getting dirty.

Put on your shoes. You’re getting parasites.

OMGOMGOMG he proposed!

You’re proposing again? For the fifth time this week, NO.

The mosquitoes here are killer, man.

The mosquitoes here will literally kill you.

There’s a cockroach in my bathroom! Call the exterminators!

If you shine your headlamp at the cockroaches that live inside your pit toilet, they’ll usually stay away from your feet while you’re using it.

Don’t walk alone after dark. You never know what creeps are lurking out there.

Don’t walk alone after dark. You never know what creeps or hyenas are lurking out there.

My puppy ate my shoes.

Rats ate my shoes.

There’s only rice here… where’s the chow mein?

Plain rice again? Lame.

The garbage trucks woke me up soooo early this morning.

I was woken by roosters, then the call to prayer, then donkeys fighting.

She got married at 20? That’s way too young.

She got married at 20? I’m so glad she could wait!

Let’s have a wine and cheese party!

Someone got Cheez Whiz in a package. PARTY TIME.

This rain is making traffic pretty bad.

This rain prevents me from leaving my village.

Ewwww, why do I have a rash? Google it!

You don’t have staph yet? How’d you manage that?

Hitting children is wrong, so wrong, totally morally inexcusable.

…Undecided.  (just kidding!...)

Village life

Imagine yourself in a rural Senegalese village. It’s 3 p.m., the hottest part of the day, and the family is hanging out in the shade, both adults and kids relaxing in a sweaty, post-lunch haze. The women and girls are busily cracking peanuts (all day, every day) and, being a girl yourself, you’re helping out. You’ve become rather good at it, actually, which is probably not a cause for celebration, but it helps pass the time. The man of the house is lounging in one of the only plastic chairs, fanning himself. He takes a handful of peanuts, and for a second you think he might- just maybe – for the first time ever – help out, but instead he pops them into his mouth. Of course. One of his sons is busy making tea, which in Senegal is superstrong, supersweet, and served in shot glasses three times a day. The younger children are nursing or playing on the ground with whatever comes to hand – peanut shells, a piece of string. Three horses stroll past single-file on their way to the well. Goats and sheep hang around nonchalantly, looking for their chance to steal in and snatch a couple peanuts. A chicken, with a blue piece of fabric tied around a wing denoting ownership, pecks at ants around your feet. Everything is peaceful.

Suddenly, a kid hits a smaller companion and steals her piece of torn-up paper. An older sister punches the perpetrator. A mother swipes at all three of them with a stick.  The baby on her back screams. The three kids wail. A quartet of wild-eyed donkeys stampede past, kicking at each other and braying, while other adults snatch children from their path, yelling. The tranquil afternoon has dissolved into typical village chaos. You retreat back to your room to nurse your burgeoning headache and raw fingertips (peanut cracking ain’t easy!) and open a book, trying to ignore the flies buzzing around your head and the screeches still echoing around the compound.

So, village life. How to describe it? Village-y, say some of my peers, and that’s about as accurate as you can get. It’s slow. It’s strange that even though most people are continuously working (peanut cracking, cooking, working in the fields) the pace of life just seems… slooooow. Of course, I don’t do much of the work myself, which contributes. I do a lot of sitting around, listening to conversations and trying to respond if any Jaxanke is directed at me. I read, a lot. Thanks, Dad, for building up my library – a sanity saver. I pull my own water. One bucket per day, used for filtering, showering, brushing my teeth, etc. I use unfiltered water for everything except straight drinking – figure that if I’m going to get a parasite from brushing my teeth with well water, I’ll just learn my lesson that way. I do my laundry out by the well, with the rest of the women, while they laugh and ask me over and over again “Kuuro ke? I kusanta!? I kusanta?!” Laundry? You can do it?!  “Mkusanta!” I tell them repeatedly, shooing away the cow trying to drink from my laundry basin. I go to bed early, usually by 9 or 9:30 every night. This is for a couple reasons – there’s not much to do after dinner, so after a bit of sitting around in the dark I excuse myself. Also, reading or doing anything else with my flashlight just attracts bugs of all kinds. Therefore, it seems like the most reasonable and safe decision is to go straight to bed. I sleep outside every night because of the heat – when it rains I have a fancy shmancy shade structure with plastic to keep the rain off my cement bed, which I can hook my mosquito net to. I realize that rain AND wind together will be a problem; I’ll deal with that when I come to it. Maybe I’ll retreat inside. I don’t like the idea of sleeping inside, though. I’ve only done it once or twice, and besides the heat, there’s the constant scurrying and scratching that tells you there are unwelcome creatures sharing your hut/bed. Not very conducive to a peaceful sleep. But then, neither are the nighttime village sounds, inside or out. One night, I woke from a Jurassic Park-themed nightmare, half-convinced that the donkeys’ wheezes were really velociraptors on the hunt, and I’m pretty sure my mosquito net was not made for dinosaur repelling.

Ok, honestly, village life at this point, still the settling-in period, is pretty boring. Sometimes the days stretch on impossibly. But IST starts in a couple days, and afterwards I hope to begin some projects, and at the very least give myself a small task every day. I know that once I start feeling productive, and less like a participant in some strange social experiment, I’ll be happier. Thank you to everyone for your support so far!

Until next time!

Hello, Bira

I was installed in my village almost a month ago. I would like to say time has flown by, but in reality it seems to be crawling. One month down, 23 to go. Daunting. Honestly, it’s been harder than I anticipated. It’s not the lack of water or electricity that I’m finding hard to deal with, but rather the feeling of isolation. The people in my village are nice, and my counterpart especially has tried hard to make me feel at home, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am the only white person in the vicinity, definitely not yet capable of having real conversations with anybody in Jaxanke (very few speak French, and many of the ones that do, like my counterpart, speak it even worse than me), and cut off from the outside world by a lack of cell phone reception – although I can find it if I climb a hill a short walk from the village. Another thing that is getting to me is the lack of work. I know we’re supposed to be “integrating” these first couple months, and not starting any big projects, but I feel fairly useless sitting around all day, every day. When I go back to site tomorrow I’ll be bringing paint with me so I can start a couple murals around, just to do something productive (Considering painting some maps, since nobody I talked to can locate Senegal on the world map I brought from home, or even identify Africa. Some people were holding the map upside down). I know from talking to other Volunteers that feeling like this isn’t abnormal, especially in the first couple months, and that it does get better.  It’s a tough transition, but certainly an adventure, and I’m also hoping for a lot of character building!

So, about Bira. I don’t really remember what I’ve written about it so far, so I’ll start again with the basics. It’s located 7k off the main paved road that runs from Tambacounda to Kedougou, and is home to around 1,500 people. Most of them speak Jaxanke, and about 30% speak Pulaar. French is rare among older people, although students learn it in school. There is a school that will educate children until they are ready for high school, at which point they can travel to Tamba for further education or, as is almost always the case, especially for girls, drop out. There is a health post, with a doctor that goes back and forth between Bira and Tamba. It is a farming community, and they eat what they grow – millet or couscous with peanut sauce is the usual fare. Besides an onion here or there, I haven’t seen a single vegetable appear in meals, and I can count the number of times I’ve seen meat or fish on one hand. Although there are a surprising number of villagers working in Spain, and some pretty big cement houses built with the money they send back, the large majority of people are very poor and uneducated. I was talking to the women in my compound, and I learned that the great majority of them hadn’t left Bira in years, not even to travel to Tamba, the fare of $2.50 being too expensive. Some of them had never even been further than 25k from their village in their entire lives! Men travel more frequently, but the women are working 24/7, nonstop, and as it is their husbands who make all the decisions for the family, many of them simply never leave. By this point, discoveries like this hardly surprise me, but the thought of being stuck in this tiny village for 40 years straight fills me with claustrophobia and the urge to run away. But, different cultures, different lives, right? This is their life, and they accept it. If I can’t throw money in the air and yell to them “Go! Travel! Explore! Learn!” then I can at least try to improve their lives right here. That’s my job, after all.

I’ve already got a couple ideas for projects, but won’t be starting anything until after IST (In Service Training) at the end of July. I’ll do a post about my own village life sometime soon. Until then – I miss you all. Send happy thoughts my way!

New address

Ok, here is my address for the next two years, Inshallah:

Anne Schier, PCV
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 320
Tambacounda, Senegal
West Africa

As for things I would love to receive - anything. Really. Seriously, getting a letter or a package here is extremely exciting for everyone involved. Howeverrr, if you need some suggestions, I would be happy to provide.

-Pictures of you, to put on my wall and/or show off how hot my friends are
-A good book/magazines
-Pita chips
-Candy
-Protein bars/powder.
-Those boyfriend Ts from Target, you know, the ones that have a little pocket on the chest and are 5-8 bucks... whatever colors, M or L. I should have brought 10.
-Nail polish/remover
-TEA! good English breakfast tea.
-Northern California weather, if they've figured out how to package that up yet
-Pre-addressed envelopes/stamps!

If you do send something, let me know so I can keep my eyes open for it. I think you have to check at the post office to see if you've received anything. Thank you thank you thank you!

Big long post, then off to Tamba

Hey guys. Big things are happening. As of yesterday, I’m done with PST. Tomorrow, we’re swearing in  at the American ambassador’s house in Dakar, dressed in our Senegalese finest. From now on, we're PCVs, not PCTs. Woo! On Saturday, many of us ship out to our new regions. On Sunday, the rest of us do, including me. This Wednesday at exactly noon, I will be installed in my site, presumably to much fanfare on the part of the village since I’m their first ever Volunteer (but we’ll see).

I thought I would do a slightly more detailed post on my life in Mbour, my training village, since I had just left for good. Then I had the crazy idea to write in the third person just for fun. So I did. Then I read back through it and thought writing in the third person was kind of stupid. Here it is anyway.

It was a dark and noisy morning.

Well, dark because it was only 4:30 a.m., and noisy because noise is what you get when you live in Senegal.  Anne groaned. She had just been dreaming about something nice for a change, couldn’t quite remember what, but it had a distinctly comfortable American feel to it. But no use fighting the inevitable - it was time for the second or third wake-up call of the night. The mosques were yelling about Allah knows what. There were cats fighting outside her window, and a donkey was screaming somewhere in close proximity.  Anne fumbled around for the iPod that she had misplaced somewhere in her sheets, ignoring the mosquitoes that buzzed threateningly just outside her mosquito net (hope they don’t find the holes) and searched for loud yet relaxing music. Three more hours, she told herself as she settled back, let’s try to make the most of it.

Every day in Mbour starts pretty much the same. In fact, as she’ll bemoan quite frequently, every day is alarmingly similar. Shortly before 8, after changing into something more appropriate (knees are generally frowned upon in Muslim countries) she tiptoes out of her room and around her host sister, who is mopping the floor. This always makes her feel a bit guilty because A) this sister has been cleaning the house for an hour already, and B) walking through the just-mopped area is unavoidable, and everyone knows how annoying that is to the mopper. Some things transcend cultures.

“Fatumata,” says her sister, looking up. It’s a statement. Oh, Anne is not Anne here, she is Fatumata, and she is still not sure how she feels about that name. She rattles off the basic morning greetings that have been drilled into her since day 1: “I saaxoma. Heera sita. I siinoxota kende? Heera doron.” Sometimes, when she’s really just not in the mood for obscure African languages (you know how it goes) she’ll greet her confused family with a defiantly American “Heyyyyy, good moooorning!”  Breakfast consists of enough bread to drown a duck, and enough sugar to send even the most mild-mannered child into a fit. Anne/Fatumata watches as her host mother spreads watery chocolate (Nutella’s ugly cousin) on half a baguette and dumps sugar cubes into her tea/coffee/sweet powdered milk combination, and worries that this no longer seems abnormal.

Anne and Nicky (Nandin), living closest to the training garden, have been elected to water it every morning, which neither of them really minds since it gets them out of the house a little earlier. Plus, pulling water is one of the easiest forms of exercise to be found, and can be done even in a pagne (long wrap skirt). On the way out of the schoolyard, they converse briefly with a middle-aged man, dressed in a suit. Encounters like this are familiar, and the conversing is, familiarly, heavily one-sided. “Hello, you speak-a de English? I love you. Are you married?” Anne and Nicky continue walking. Honestly, no creativity. Marriage propositions are becoming positively tedious these days, even when aimed towards two girls at once.

Language class starts at 9. Anne has learned enough Jaxanke to satisfy Peace Corps’ training requirements, but somehow still leaves each class feeling a bit dumb. Along with her LCF (Language and Culture Facilitator) and three other Trainees/would-be Jaxanke talents, she learns vocab, structure, unnecessarily long greeting sequences, and how to say things like “I don’t eat mystery meat.” Recently, one of the sample phrases in class was “He talks to me every day about beating children.” Some things don’t transcend cultures.

After class, the Trainees part ways, and head back to their respective compounds for lunch. Imagine a streetlight, and the swarms of insects drawn to it at night. In Senegal, foreigners are that streetlight, and the insects are children. Night AND day. This makes walking anywhere a process. One must greet all the adults on the street, and deal with the insects, I mean kids. Common greetings from the children include simply screaming TOUBAB! over and over,  “give me a present,” or most often asking your name repeatedly in bad French. Before Anne became jaded, which didn’t really take all that long, she would usually try to explain to the kids that no, she was not TOUBAB!, her name was Fatumata Cissokho and she in fact lived here, and no, she didn’t have presents for them. After, she resorted to mental health survival mode, which means either ignoring them or telling them outright lies for the sake of entertainment (“My name is Michelle Obama/Britney Spears/ Your Worst Nightmare”) Granted, there are cute and polite kids on the streets (these receive smiles and handshakes), but many of the rest run in unsupervised packs, creating chaos wherever they go. As Anne rounds the corner, nearly to the safety of her host family, a boy wearing a pink sequined “Playboy in da House” t-shirt runs up to her and sticks out his hand. She shakes it. He then pokes her in the crotch and scampers towards the rest of his pack, laughing madly. Anne sighs. She wouldn’t hit him, but he doesn’t know that, right? She reaches up and breaks a small branch off the nearest tree, making sure to look like she means it. The pack scatters. Success!

Lunch is the most important meal of the day. Like nearly all Senegalese dishes, rice or millet is the main component, with a sauce or meat or fish and veggies over it. It’s usually very enjoyable, except when it’s intestine or when the fish bones are so small or numerous that half the meal is spent ensuring that none of them wind up in one’s throat, but the trainees joke that even then one can just attribute it to the “conditions of hardship” Peace Corps warns about. What doesn’t kill me (or lead to severe discomfort) makes me stronger, Anne reflects as the lid is lifted off the communal bowl. Sweet! Ceeb u jen, my fave! I love this family. Early on in training, Anne started taking long naps after lunch. Now, if she doesn’t immediately head towards her room, she gets questions like “You will not sleep?” or statements like “You will sleep now.” Fo naato, later, she says today. Instead, hanging out with her family seems like the better option. A mat is laid down in the shade in front of the house, and a couple chairs dragged over. Everyone lounges – mom, sisters, a couple brothers, whoever happens to be visiting at that time. While her host mom begins to prepare a type of porridge for the next morning – sifting flour with her hands in a well-worn calabash, tossing in water a bit at a time as the flour forms into balls – Anne amuses herself by chatting with one of her host brothers, age 21. He tells her that she’s old, and should get married immediately upon her return to the US. Waiting any longer is just inviting disaster. Anne tells him that it’s not uncommon for women in America to get married later than age twenty-five, and slyly suggests that maybe she’ll wait until she’s thirty, or forty. Who knows, maybe even later! He looks scandalized. “No, no, nonono! You can’t do that, it’s not possible! You will get married at twenty-five, no later. Who will marry you if you’re old? How will you have many kids otherwise?” “I only want two kids. Three at most.” His jaw drops and he emits a shrill, disbelieving noise. Cross-cultural education: shock and awe, Anne decides, as her host sisters laugh.

The afternoons in Mbour seem to drag on forever, broken up only by brief forays to the garden with the rest of the Jaxanke/Mandinka trainees to water, work on outside assignments, or simply hang out and exchange stories of strange encounters or awkward conversations. Back at home, Anne’s evening consists of watching horribly yet hilariously scripted Indian soap operas with the family, or, if the power is out, sitting and talking. Or not. Lots of sitting happens here, for hours on end, and Anne appreciates that the speaking is optional. The Senegalese are comfortable with silence (although nobody has informed the Senegalese animals) and it’s enough to just sit outside and enjoy the company of other people. Being a sporadically shy person herself, Anne is ok with this arrangement. Also, her Jaxanke is still at the level of a three-year-old, and the serenity of the evening is easily shattered by an embarrassing mix-up between “kanoo” and “kaano” (love and hot pepper)

Dinner is at 9, and as usual, is much more simple than lunch – tonight it’s rice and a single chunk of dried fish lurking in the middle of the bowl, origins uncertain. Anne claims fullness a bit earlier than usual, and retreats to the couch, where a brother is taking out his ADD on the remote: bad Senegalese music videos, bad soap operas, talk shows in Wolof, and footage of Libya flash across the TV screen. She excuses herself at 10:30 and heads to her room, where she can change into comparatively skimpy pajamas without fear of moral reprehension. Collapsing into bed, she doesn’t know yet that she will in fact wake up four times during the night for various annoying reasons. 

But given past experience, she has a pretty good idea.

News and a new name

Hello. Kor tanante!  

I got my permanent site! The name of the village is Missirah Bira. It has 1500 residents, not counting the ones with four legs. It’s about 50 kilometers south of Tambacounda, halfway between Dialokoto and Missirah, if you’re looking at a very detailed map. It has no electricity, running water, or cell phone reception (noooo!) It is off the main road, 5 or 20 kilometers down a dirt path, depending on how far you’ve already biked, how hot the sun is, how much water you remembered to bring, and if your bike is working properly. Since my first visit to my site was after a (25 kilometer, very very hot, not enough, back wheel shaky) ride, I was kind of in a daze while meeting and greeting my future coworkers/friends/nemeses. More on that later.

I have an allergy to mango skin! Yes, it figures that I have escaped the common curse of stomach ailments and viral fevers that have plagued my staging group so far, only to be struck down by a fruit. My lips started swelling last Saturday, and it slowly got worse. When I woke up at the training center Monday morning, I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror. When I showed my roommates, I got horrified “OH MY GOD!”s. It was truly disfiguring, not to mention embarrassing. I hid in my room that morning, and called the PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer). She told me to “stop hiding immediately and find a car to Dakar!” It was a miserable ride, even though I was in an air-conditioned Peace Corps vehicle. The Senegalese guard that was driving me kept glancing back and asking “Tu es malade?” NO, I just look like plastic surgery gone horribly wrong ALL THE TIME.  Watch the road, you nearly hit that goat, you jerk.

Anyway, the medical staff in Dakar was on it, and they got me an appointment with a dermatologist that very afternoon. It took two seconds for the guy to look at my lips and diagnose it as a contact dermatitis, or allergy, or whatever. Turns out those four mangoes my family gave me a couple days before were the culprit. The good news is that I can still eat mangoes – just as long as I don’t touch the skin, and put the fruit directly into my mouth without touching my lips. Alrighty. The other good news is that the “health hut” is more like “health heaven” – air conditioned, clean, big rooms, western toilet and shower, full library, amazing kitchen, and a western-style grocery store just 10 minutes away.  “This,” one of the PCMOs told me, “is not Africa. “ The second day, I spent half an hour wandering the aisles in stupefied amazement before finally selecting French bread and cheese as my lunch. It was possibly worth the temporary disfigurement. There were a couple other Volunteers there as well, and they took me around the neighborhood, ending with a beer on a hotel balcony overlooking the Atlantic and the Ile de Ngor. Pas mal.

Because of this whole deal, I arrived in Tamba for my volunteer visit a day late. I stayed with an older Volunteer who is mid-service, about 30k away from my future site. The entire four or five days that I was living with him, I oscillated between thoughts of “Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?” and excitement. I have faith that the latter will win out in the end. Spence, aka Babanding Tangian (or something like that…) is an Jaxanke-spitting, hard working, hilarious guy and lives in a village of 700 people and approximately a million goats, sheep, donkeys, cows, chickens, and horses. All these animals just go wherever they like in the village, even sometimes into houses, prompting the owner of the hut to jump up from his seat under the nearest tree and shoo them out. The cows especially are in the habit of plodding sedately around, glaring balefully at you as you swerve on your bike to avoid them and their enormous horns (these aren’t your sissy American cows, these are AFROcows) after they step into your path.

We spend a lot of time watering his garden, greeting people, avoiding farm animals, biking, and laying on the floor of his hut during the hottest part of the day.

The Tamba region is very hot. It must have been 115 or 120 every day, and was 105 degrees inside his hut until at least 10 at night, which made sleeping difficult. At around 4 in the morning it cools down to a more comfortable temperature, and starts heating up again as soon as the sun rises. Luckily, this is hot season. Rainy season is cooler, although mosquitoes and various skin infections thrive, and apparently during December and January it’s very nice. I hear that people adapt to the hot weather well and take lots of midday naps. The weather in Senegal in general, except coastal regions, is pretty rough, so I shouldn’t complain. Although I might in future posts. Just a warning.

Anyway – my site visit was nice, even if I was on the edge of heat exhaustion during. My hut is still under construction, but I’m already planning color schemes and murals, and trying to decide if I can fit a full size bed inside. (Don’t tell my amazingly artistic mother yet, but I’m planning on roping her into helping me design some decorative and/or educational murals for my village). My host family gave me a name within two minutes of meeting me: Fanta Savane, incidentally naming me both after one of my favorite delicious African escapes AND after the wife of my LCF. Strangely fitting, and awkward. So now I have two full Senegalese names to keep track of. I like Fanta better than Fatumata, personally. I saw the school and health post, both areas in which I will be working, and met the directors of both. My counterpart is very understanding about how difficult it is to learn a new language and integrate into a new community, which will help, especially since I am starting out in a brand-new, never-had-a-Volunteer-before site (many Volunteers replace other Volunteers, so their villages are accustomed to a white person living among them)

Ok, this is long. Sorry. Today was kind of cool – we had a presentation by a woman who works with the US Global Health Initiative and reports directly to Hillary Clinton, and some of her supporting staff. Tomorrow is “Dakar Day,” our first foray into the capital (except I’ve already been, ha ha suckas!)

One more thing – if you haven’t sent me a letter or package yet, or won’t in the next couple days, don’t send it to the address I previously posted. I’ll be moving into the bush soon, and will have a different address. I’ll get that one ASAP. 

Last but not least, I miss you all. I really do. I miss America. I miss driving and coffee shops and brunch and temperate weather and my dog. But I’m also in a good mood going forward, excited to rock the last month of training and develop ideas for projects once I get settled in my village. Life here so far is a series of ups and downs, but so far, the ups have definitely won out, and I think the ratio will continue to shift in my favor in the coming months.

There's a gecko in my mosquito net.

If you are a naturally timid person, Peace Corps will either make you want to jump into a well, or it will bitch slap the shyness right out of you.

After three weeks in my homestay, I have reached a certain level of comfort with my family and in my community. I greet people in the street (aka dirty sandbox between houses), give the “death stare” to any person over the age of 13 who calls me “toubab,” and joke with my host siblings. While eating, I’ll give them a taste of their own medicine: “You need to eat more. Eat! Eat! Eat!” They get a kick out of it. The other day, my 6-year old host brother and I played a quick but furious game of hot potato with a piece of cow intestine. He would throw it into my section of the bowl; I would throw it back. This continued until he threw it at my host mom, who ate it with gusto. However, I still hear two things at the end of every day: “You didn’t eat today” (not true), and “You like to sleep a lot” (very true).

I still feel extremely lucky in my living situation. Many friends have disturbing stories of their own homestays, a few of which are simply too disgusting to put on here.

We're all back at the Training Center for a couple days, which is a relief. Also a relief: I just finished my first oral exam in Jaxanke. (Fun fact: I couldn't even find this language on Wikipedia. Try googling it) It's a little intimidating speaking with the microphone on the recorder staring you in the face, and I'm pretty sure I now have five new facial expressions that mean "???" because I don't yet know how to say "I don't know what you're saying; can you please repeat that?" BUT - it's over. 

Next on everyone's mind is site assignments. Yes, in 24 hours we will learn where we will be spending the next two years. Exciting times. The plan is to blindfold all 46 of us, position us on a huge Senegal map that they've got on the ground somewhere in the compound, then have us all take off our blindfolds at the same moment. The person you are nose-to-nose with will be your closest neighbor. If you are five feet from everyone else, it means hours of travel to see another American face. I'll try to do another quick update before we go back to village with my site name, which is hopefully google-able. What I do know: I will be in the southeast somewhere, and it will be hot. Very hot. Good news: I am unlikely to be stationed in the region where, apparently, "things go to die." (The volunteers there have made a shirt that says as much)

Wish me luck.

Mtoxo mu Fatumata, err, le ti.

Week one of CBT (community based training) is over, and we all survived. Well, except for one girl who already skedaddled back to the USA. It’s been an intense experience. From the moment they booted us out of the minibus into the arms of our new Senegalese families (usually 20 or more arms; families here are biiiiig), we were no longer in the oasis-like comfort of the training center, or “Amerigal.”

I got lucky with my family, I think. It’s relatively small – a mom, two sisters, and four brothers. In comparison, the guy sitting next to me right now has a father, three moms, a brother, and something like ten other sisters in the household. My family is well off, and the older sister (22) was friends with another volunteer at some point, so she knows how strange us toubabs (strangers) can be. They are all very patient with me as well, repeating phrases such as “I need to go to my room to take my anti-malarial medication now” in Jaxanke until I pronounce it correctly. They speak French as well, which means most of the communication from my end falls into the “Fraxanke” category. Oh, and my name here is Fatumata Cissokho. I’m named after the older sister, which is fine by me cause she’s pretty sassy.

I had a slightly traumatic dining experience the very first night. The food was pasta, some sort of sauce, and chunks of meat. Since I was a guest, they were all throwing the good parts (meat) into my section of the bowl. I go for one of the ambiguous chunks, and this is my thought process as the food gets closer to my face: “Hmm, this looks ok, I’ll take it..  uh oh, doesn’t look so good up close…oh no, oh no, it’s too late now, can’t put it back, we’re going innnnnnn…” I spent the next five to ten minutes chewing, trying not to upchuck into the communal bowl/embarrass Peace Corps/Senegal, and trying not to think about which part of which organ of which animal I had in my mouth. I decided on enormous cow, stomach lining. I was on guard after that, but the rest of my meals have been pretty good. Fish bones have been the most unpleasant item I’ve found in my mouth since then. After a couple days of using a spoon, they told me I have to learn to eat with my hands because eeeeveryone in the Jaxanke region eats with their hands. Two nights later, they give me the spoon back and tell me I’ll have to buy one myself when I get to my village. Senegal: 1, Anne: 0. Another aspect of the Senegalese dining experience: they will try to force you to eat, as it brings them honor if their guest gets fat. The dialogue at the end of meals goes something like this:

Family : Eat! Eat! Eat!

Me: I’m full.

Family : You don’t want to get fat? EAT EAT EAT YOU MUST EAT! (shoving food at me)

Me: I’M FULL I’M FULL I’M FULL! (in Jaxanke, Mfaata Mfaata Mfaata!)

In other news, I have my own room with a door that locks, which is a Peace Corps requirement for homestays. I have a mosquito net and a lightbulb that works whenever the electricity isn’t cut off, which happens multiple times per day. Mbour, the town that me and about 6 to 10 other trainees are in, is a tourist town on the coast, but you wouldn’t know it from the quartiers we see daily. Imagine lots and lots of sand, trash, fish guts, goats, sheep, and kids running around with apparently nothing better to do than scream “Toubab!” at you. Cute with the 3-year olds, super annoying with the 15- year olds.

Other things of note…

- Found a goat leg in the middle of the road. Just a single goat leg. How does this even happen?

- Roadkill rats the size of cats

- Horse and donkey carts sharing the roads with decrepit cars and buses

- I realized, 4 days in, that my family has both a roof and a goat family living on it

- Cold soft drinks = something appropriate to get overly excited about on hot days.

- A pelican chilling in a doorway. Lost? A pet? Who knows. It was alive, we checked

- I received three full outfits from my family. I think it means they like me. Two are made of material that resembles outdoor tablecloths, which was convenient when I was attempting to eat with my hands.

- Confusion among PCTs: “I can’t tell if it’s his third wife, or visiting cousin”

- Hand vs. spoon, toilet paper vs. water: pros and cons

- Bucket showers are heaven after a couple hours in the garden

- Getting to said garden requires ten minutes of pushing through groups of elementary school children

- 3 hour long, super intense language courses after which we can’t think straight until we take a nap

Anyway, after our first 6 nights there, we headed back to the training center. The day before, texts were circulating among the trainees, all of which read something like “Sooooo ready for a beer.” Upon arriving in Thies, the general consensus was “drink before shower” which resulted in us buying out them out of every beer they had.

Heading back to the village on Wednesday, for 13 nights this time. The bar might want to get a bigger fridge in the meanwhile.

Oh, and my mailing address for the next two months, if you so desire:

Anne Schier, PCT

Centre de Formation Corps de la Paix

B.P. 299

Thies, Senegal

West Africa

Remember to send it by air, as land packages/letters have been known to take months, occasionally years. Mail here is a big deal, and I would be excited to receive anything :) If you figure out some way to send me thai food, I'll love you forever.

Training so far

Ok, this post is going to be super quick becuase A) I procrastinate, B) socializing has so far taken precedence over blog writing, and C) I'm leaving for my home-stay village in about twenty minutes! Kind of an exciting time. A couple things about the last five or so days we've been here in the Thies training center...

1) Meals - most are eaten around a huge bowl on the floor, four or five people to a bowl. The food consists of some sort of rice with sauce, with a huge chunk of meat or fish in the middle and usually some veggies. It's delicious. I'm told this are not the kind of thing we'll be eating daily at homestays, but I'll fill you in on that later. There are a bunch of social rules centered around eating, such as in which position you can sit (differs for men and women), what part of the bowl you can eat from, how many ingredients it's acceptable to mix together (none), and what to do with your hands (eat with your right, since doing nearly anything with your left is horribly, inexcusably rude) It's funny to watch my left-handed peers struggling to adapt. Meals are also taken in complete silence, which will both be a relief (since I can't speak the language) and kind of awkward (since I'm American)

2) Technical/Cultural/Medical training - We've had quite a bit of this. No time to go into detail now, but expect them later. I'll just say now that I can prepare some awesome tree sacks.

3) Language - There are about 49 of us PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) and we are learning 8 languages between us. These include Wolof, Mandinka, Jaxanke/Malinque, Sereer, and three different types of Pulaar. I'm learning Jaxanke/Malinque, which are similar enough that I should be able to switch between them easily. It ain't easy. 4 hours into classes, we've probably covered the equivalent of a couple weeks in high school language classes, and my brain is having a hard time coping. Time to locate some flash cards, stat. Some examples: Mtoxo mu Anne le ti = "My name is Anne" Mman futuu = "I'm not married." We also learned to explain why we aren't married ("I don't know") I'm fairly sure that I'll totally blank when meeting my host family tonight, and it will be an amusing and awkward clash of cultures. Can't wait.

4) The people - All I'll say is that the training staff is amazing, and we all feel like we're in excellent hands. My fellow PCTs are also an awesome bunch. Everyone here is genuinely a hugely adventurous, open-minded, decent person. Advice to the guys out there: join the Peace Corps if you want to meet a girl. There are 10 boys, 38 girls.

Ok, gotta run. More to come later. Wish me luck!

How I actually met Africa

So right now I am chilling in my Peace Corps-subsidized Holiday Inn bed, complete with pillows labeled "soft" or "hard" so I don't have to actually feel them to decide which I want to use. I fully realize how much I should be enjoying this luxury. Tomorrow is staging, which is when all the people in my training group get together, turn in registration forms, have a brief orientation, then get a bunch of vaccinations en masse and fly off to Dakar. BUT - I can't write about staging right now, having not yet experienced it. Instead, a short recap of the last couple weeks, which I spent mostly in Europe and West Africa.

Europe was great. I got to bum around myself for a few days in London and Paris, then I met some good friends for adventures in Germany and Austria. London was rainy and I was jet lagged, which means I slept through most of it. I was so happy to be back in Paris (and it was sunny!) that I found myself grinning stupidly as I walked along my favorite stretches of the Seine, took pictures, and got a panini from that place across from Notre Dame where I once accidentally insulted the lady behind the counter, oops. Munich has always been a city attached to some favorite memories, and this time was no exception. Salzburg was absolutely beautiful - if you want my advice, go in the winter. I don't think it could be any prettier without a blanket of snow.
As for Africa, I visited Eric in Benin. Because I'm lazy, I'm going to link to the guest post I wrote on his blog, which sums up my experiences pretty well. But I will say that the trip was eye-opening and probably the best thing I could have done before heading off to West Africa myself. Instead of stepping off a cliff into the unknown in the next couple days and weeks, I sorta have an idea what to expect at the bottom, and I know I can handle it. I'm even kind of looking forward to going back.

http://newtoninafrica.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html

Til next time!

Here goes..

Hello all, and welcome to my blog – something that is, it seems, as vital to Peace Corps Volunteers everywhere as water filters and anti-malarials. Most people start these things as soon as they send off their initial online application, but as you might know, I am a procrastinator. Plus, I didn’t want to jinx myself. That would have been embarrassing. Sorry for the length, I’m sure future posts will be shorter.

Deciding to Apply

I had actually seriously considered Peace Corps back in 2009 when, about to commence my senior year at UCLA, I thought to myself “Oh sh[ucks], what’s next?” I thought of the Peace Corps, which seemed to combine a bunch of things that I wanted to do – travel, new languages, cultures, and of course invaluable work and leadership experience. I even started my online application. But then, the time commitment – 27 months – seemed too much for me, and I abandoned the idea. I felt like I would be putting my life on hold to serve, an idea that now seems ridiculous. But hey, I was young and unwise back then.

Things changed when I discovered that a good friend of mine, whose opinion I value greatly, and whose values I, um, also value - was himself in the middle of the Peace Corps application process. I clearly remember exchanges that went something like this: Me (whining) “What am I going to do after I graduate?!” Him: “Well, you know what I think you should do after you graduate…”

I don’t know whether it was his experience that demystified the whole process for me, or whether he was just very persuasive, but I started to come around. I realized that I wouldn’t be putting my life “on hold” for two years – far from it. I would be learning, working, teaching, adventuring, and coming back to the US with that much more under my belt. So I re-accessed my barely started application (coincidentally, exactly 365 days after I had first begun) and began again. I finished while sitting in a hotel lobby in Philadelphia, where I had accompanied my friend on his pre-departure staging, and the next day, sitting in NYC’s Central Park. And here I am, almost exactly 6 months later, having just received my invitation to serve, and more excited than ever. So a huge shout-out to Eric Newton, PCV Extraordinaire, for giving me the push(es) I needed. I am extremely grateful.

The Application Process

I’ll make this part short and sweet. For those of you know who know me well, you know that I am not the most patient person in the world. So, the last six months have been trying – short bursts of action followed by long stretches of silence.

Here are the basic steps of the application process:

Online Application

The initial app is filled out online and very extensive, including personal essays and letters of recommendation. There is also an amazingly long medical portion, where they ask you about every imaginable illness or ailment that a person could have, save “death.”

Interview

Assuming you didn’t mess up your online app too badly, you get an interview with a local recruiter. Mine was in Oakland, lasted about 90 minutes, and was really relaxed – even though my recruiter, Travis, was typing everything I said. Whenever I stopped talking, he would pause, and look up at me – a new experience, as nobody has ever seemed that interested in what I was saying. Tip for applicants: speak French, they love it.

Nomination

My recruiter called me soon after that, and said, word for word, “Sooo, how do you feel about getting some volunteer experience in environmental education?” I said “So does this mean you’re nominating me for an environmental education program?” “Yeah, I was thinking about it. Sound good?” “Cool.” I got a letter in the mail a couple days later, saying I was nominated for a program in francophone Africa, leaving in March. I found a volunteer organization called “Environmental Volunteers” (how perfect is that?!) where I took a training course, and realized that I was the only volunteer trainee under the age of 40, most of the rest being retirees and scientifically dedicated mothers of third graders. I learned a lot of stuff, including the properties of salt water plants, and how not to totally bore kindergarteners.

Medical Evaluation

This was by far the longest and most frustrating part. The sheer weight of the package, when I pulled it out of the mailbox, was slightly terrifying. What followed was weeks and weeks of scheduling appointments, paper robes, shots, TB and blood tests, and even (this is embarrassing) my first cavity filling in 22 years. That’s right, boys and girls, my record was perfect until now. Although it was funny going to a voice lesson with half my face immobile from the double dose of novocaine I gladly received. And then, a month after I sent off the whole thing, I got an email requesting more forms. A bit more scrambling around phone trees and doctor’s offices, some more unusually helpful nurses getting gifts of French pastries.

Finally, fiiiiinally, two months later, I was medically cleared. But not the simple way, oh no, that would be too kind and easy. Instead they posted a vaguely menacing “A decision has been made. Please look for a letter in the mail” on my online toolkit, prompting another suspenseful couple days before it actually arrived. Sigh of relief.

Invitation

The last couple weeks, ever since I was medically cleared, I’ve been waiting to hear something from the placement office pertaining to where and when I might be departing. I was starting to think they might have missed my nominated program in March (a common occurrence), since the 6-week deadline for invitation was swiftly approaching. I wasn’t happy about that possibility. I kept my phone on me at all times.

So last Thursday, as I’m making someone’s drink, my phone starts vibrating in the pocket of my sexy blue apron. One hand holding the milk under the steam wand, I use my other to fish out my phone and – lo and behold – it’s the Washington, D.C. area code. Obviously I can’t answer my phone at work, even less so with this beady-eyed old woman staring me down across the counter (hate it when they do that), so I finish her (small, half-caf, dry, nonfat, uptight) cappuccino, practically jumping up and down in my eagerness to call them back. A couple drinks later, I tell my supervisor I’m taking a ten and go outside. The placement guy answers and starts asking me the same questions from the first interview – why do you want to join, what have you been doing volunteer-wise, how flexible are you in your choice of region/country/assignment, how do you deal with stress, etc – and my heart is sinking, thinking this will end with yet another infuriating “Well, we’ll look over your file again and call you in the next couple weeks...bye!” To my amazement, after all this, he tells me he’s willing to put me in a program for environmental education, in francophone Africa, leaving in March. He’s sending me the official invitation packet that day. I should look over it carefully, then contact them to accept or decline the assignment. I laugh. After all this time and effort and anxiety, I would have accepted a placement in the seventh circle of hell if he’d placed me there. I tell him this. “Don’t worry,” he says, “We don’t send people there. Too much political turmoil.”

So yeah, it was a long six months. Luckily, I had two jobs to distract me. In one I got yelled at, and in the other, I got to do the yelling, so they balanced out nicely. That would be working in a French café/bakery, and coaching for my old high school rowing team. Both invaluable jobs, in their own ways. From the café job, I learned A) how to do awesome latte art, and B) Don’t get between a suburban adult and their daily fix. I had to tell everyone, one early, chilly morning, that we were out of espresso – decaf only. It was a traumatic couple hours. I had no idea how many people had “death stares” as frightening as mine.

Coaching was an awesome experience, especially since it was my own club and alongside my own old coaches. Among other things, I learned A) be encouraging, understanding, and yell rarely – that way, when you’re really pissed, they pay attention, and B) plain old patience. I admire the people who do this year after year. So much patience. Deep breaths. Hopefully that will help me in my upcoming adventures, as I don’t see me making too many espresso creations in the near future.

So, here I am, headed to Senegal. It’s another 6 weeks or so until I actually leave, but I have something to keep me occupied in that time – a three week trip to Europe and Africa! It’ll be fun, especially with my abrupt change from frigid German winter to tropical Beninese heat. Talk about a bipolar packing list. And a pre-Senegal crash-course in West African survival techniques may come in handy too. Thanks in advance, Eric. Please, stop laughing and let me know if I start breaking toooo many cultural rules right away. I’ll make sure to leave my fishnets and stripper heels at home.

Until next time!