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!
