work (ing it out)

Imagine being shipped to a foreign country (a week after graduating college) where you know nothing about the culture (except from what you read on wikipedia) and speak none of the many languages. Well meaning people train you in their language but shortly after they then toss you into another city where you are left completely to your own devices. No one suggests a viable work path. You are a business counselor with no business experience. You live in a large spread out city with no city directory or signs anywhere. And they say get to work....

Well that is my situation. I have felt helpless at times, and also useless. It is a hard path to find how you fit into a foreign culture and what you can do to be of help when you have nothing but yourself, no money or anything.

Anyways, I am starting to figure it out. I have technically been in the work field (not training or community integration period) for 4 months. I have done all kinds of random things but nothing has stuck. So, now some things are starting to make sense and I am realizing my possible strengths.

I am planning for an upcoming leadership camp with the girls at the middle school we did a scholarship camp with. Its so great because Awa, the Cross Cultural Director of PC Senegal is into and experienced in doing these camps, will talk to girls about being a strong woman, a career woman, and talks about health and assertiveness and all sorts of things. It is so much better if she is the leader, I am the host and behind the scenes. So I am really looking forward to that.

Also today I went and visited The Hunger Project which is an American NGO (Non Governmental Organization) and I met a man who works there and spent a few hours talking with him (things go so slow here- gotta stick around for the second round of tea!) and realized his project is similar to other ones I have gone to, mostly working with older woman, which as much as I try to be into, I am not. I want the full potential of kids.

So, he told me about an orphanage nearby where he has a director friend. So we went there and I kind of love it. The kids there are just that, orphans. And while there are a lot of those in Senegal, many who end up becoming talibes and begging for money, these ones live here and go to school. But they dont know love of parents, of family, of all of these things. They lack wordly knowledge, self esteem, etc. And I went there and talked with them for a bit and felt a really strong feeling in my stomach the whole time. Obviously some of it is sadness but also a feeling of really wanting to spend time with them and hopefully help them in some way. Moral education, general education, things like this.

Anyways Thursday I am going back, I told em Id be there for the whole morning. I am really looking forward to it. And hopefully after that we can do some little trainings and activities. In challah.

There are other possibilities such as a school garden, which we are trying to get a propsal and interested school going. The goal is to expand that to nutrition education, science, and basic business lessons.
Anyways, it is so easy to feel intimidated in said situation, but I have had to find myself all over again, in almost every aspect and I am proud to say, I think I am starting to see it. Alxumdidilay.

Read more, Learn more, CHANGE THE GLOBE!..the kids will do that, that is

Lets have a water fight!

I had a thought with a few other Volunteers recently and it has come back into my thoughts a few times since.

We were talking about how much fun the kids would have with a water fight here. And a few of us mentioned how we had thought of asking for water balloons from america to do said activity. And then we were like ... Obviously not!! It is always a water conservation game here, even in a house with running water.

Americans have sooo much water we have water fights!! We all laughed. Its so true. All of the efforts gone to conserve here make these people such small wasters of anything.

And then i thought about taking the kids here to a water park. A FREAKING WATER PARK. I chuckle right now thinking how preposterous that is here. what an insane concept here. they would love the crap out of it though, oh my gosh.

The other day I bought 3 talibe kids some new jelly sandals and they looked SO adorable. all in their fresh white jellies. I saw one of em the next day and he had the BIGGEST smile.

How can you say no to a little dirty child who begs for money every day when he asks for a pair of shoes? How? I can't. Jer and I had been hanging out with them for over an hour before they asked too, and only one of em did. I was like damn it you dont have any shoes, of course we will get you some. You and your lil buddies.

One thing I have learned here is sharing. At a time when I have the least money-wise, I have indeed picked up the Senegalese trait of sharing what I do have. I am proud of that at least.

I am also a little nervous to come back for vacation so broke!

Nonetheless, I am so excited to come back. September :)

Even more reason i NEED this vacation

Just sittin here, adding pictures on facebook when i smacked my elbow and back a few times to remove the flies (having only 10 around in my screened in room is like nothing). I was like gosh, glad its a fly, kinda gross it could be ANYTHING. and then i put my hand firmly on this lingering fly...or so i thought. a cockroach was creeping on my neck. i flung it across the room and surely enough, it was a medium sized roach.

Gross.

im taking a cleansing bucket bath.

I dont know if you know how the fact that my parents said they would fly me home in September has literally changed my life. Life is difficult here. Looking forward to a much needed vacation. Until then, I wanna get some good projects set up. Things are finally looking up in said department.

September is the perfect time to take vacation because it is Ramadan, the Muslim 40 days of fasting. Yea, Im cool on that. People dont do anything as they are fasting (even from water!) in the freaking Sub Saharan. Also school comes back afterwards and I wanna be around for that.

I hope to visit my alma maters when in America and i dont know, get connections set up. or like money?

anyways, EWWWWWW on the roach. its sure to be eaten up by ants tonight. ew ew ew i still feel it on my back. bucket bath time.

peace.

weirdest bug

so im sittin in my room tonight and i heard a kind of tapping with a pen on the wall sound and then some other clicking sound i cant really describe. i figured maybe it was fatimita, my lizard friend. then the clicker shows itself scurrying across my floor. my first thought was its just another cockroach and glanced around for my chaco (sandal) to swiftly put an end to its life, leaving it for the ants to eat for dinner. but it was not a cockroach, though similar in size to a larger one. so i smack this mystery bug with the shoe and leave the shoe there, hoping ants eat this variety of bug. a few minutes later i hear the clicking, popping noise but like 5 times as loud. i lift up the shoe and the bug's body starts flipping up in the air, like 8 inches high over and over! clip pop flip clip pop flip! it was crazy. after i kind of backed away nervously, i approached it and went for the kill. and its fulll of white goo. i await to see if ants eat it tonight.

Tomorrow morning I am going with my counterpart, who I am supposed to work with a lot more than I have, into two villages he works in. I am going to check out some alphabetization classes, where women learn how to read in wolof and pulaar. I am interested to see how this ties into business here with their selling of things, etc.

I have little village exposure so I am interested to see the differences even though its just a few miles outside of Louga.

I am waking up earlier than normal so I am treating myself to a bean (spicy kidney beans on white baguette) sandwich and coffee (instant) at this one breakfast stand near my counterpart's office. A breakfast stand is a few rickety benches around a rickety table where a women has her pans of fixings for bread, including some, but usually not all of the following: beans (many volunteers choice), onions, hard boiled eggs, garlicy mayonaise, tuna. if im feeling insanely fancy slash hungry, beans with a hard boiled eggs is the way to go. now considering adding the mayo. genius.

there are a lot of foods i never ate before coming here, including mayo. and i certainly increased mustard intake, cuz its the only kind of dipping/sauce choice sold at your every day boutique (which are the overabundant convenience store here in senegal).

Things have been kind of heard here the last few weeks. A lot of build up kind of taking its toll. A lot of expectations are had of a lone American. But I am hanging in there and expect it to pass. Work is looking up, and I think that will help.

Buttt, I did have a nice birthday. Two days of fun with my PCV Senegal Family of Demba, Adama and Aminta. (not their real names). Food, drinks, dancing :) Balloons!! Birthday sign. Cake. So it was great. And Tayo, who shares my bday came in from Kaolack to celebrate Saturday night with us, so that was nice :)

Well, I want to come to America for vacation, like really bad. So.... 50 bucks from 50 peoply oughta cover it?? :)

Goodnight.

isnt anyone getting marrried??

I want(need) a vacatioooooooooon.

461st word forgotten in senegal

Last night, Friday, I was playing cards with a few PCVs here in Louga. And there was this piece of wood sitting around (no surprise) but on one end it was pointy. anyways i dont know how to explain it very well. it was a cubed rectangle thing with one end sharpened, i suppose you could say. haha and i was like 'this is like, im gonna stab you in the heart' and brenden was like ...
"a stake...". well, yea that would have been the right word! he was like "461st word forgotten here in Senegal". we laughed. Its so true. I have unusual amount of blanks when speaking in english,as we all do. Like.... whaaat... was...that word... ?

I cant imagine if I stay out traveling around not using english all of the time for a lot of years how that will be!

Interesting, i suppose. Just an insight I find telling.

hangin in there alright

Hello everyone,

I cannot believe June is coming to an end already. Seriously, it could just as easily be May in my life. Time is so different here. Yesterday night I was walking to the boutique and I ran into one of my students and I was like see you tomorrow morning. he was like, no, the day after tomorrow, today is wednesday. Students are pretty on top of days seeing as they have a regular schedulem but he made an error. And I definitely believed him. I was like, must be. So I asked when I got back to my room where my two volunteer friends were waiting. Adrian was like, yea today is Wednesday and jer was like no, its thursday. haha it was in fact thursday, but anyways, we really were not sure.

And sometimes when I think about what month it is, I am even wrong. Time is going really quickly for me. Days are really hard to distinguish from eachother. I guess I know its Friday if the boutique is cloesd longer than usual because its the holiest day here and they close to pray.

But anyways, work is finally starting to make sense. I sort of had a great day yesterday, a realization I can actually do something here. And that I think is organizational strengthening and computer literacy in schools. I have started teaching the teachers because it is easier and it makes more sense because they will be around in the schools a lot longer than one group of students.

I truly believe now there is no job more important than to be a teacher. I have seen the effects of a culture that doesnt value education and has a low literacy rate. A good teacher is what it takes. So if I can help a school run more efficiently, that leaves more time for mentoring of students by teachers. Yesterday I taught two teachers at a primary school how to run this program that was created by peace corps volunteers in Senegal before for doing grades on excel and all other kinds of documents that produce automatically for them with some entering of information. They really dug it. And I finally felt like I helped someone with something useful. They were really into the grades being automatically calculated.

We were sitting in a boiling hot teachers room around an ancient computer but it was the shiz. I am going to teach this all over in the schools here. Its so crucial and a great building block on which to take it further, learning internet, etc. I am going to do that for sure.

So these days I am doing IT, english classes (i could have been totally happy taking the other offer of being an english teacher fromt he peace corps), and youth work such as gender aawareness, leadership, career planning, motivation and plain old hope.

I really want to bump up work on IT. Its so key in this global world. If you cant connect to the internet or run an institution on a computer, it really sets you back. All they need is someone to take the time to teach em.

So I went camel riding a few weeks ago. It was so awesome. This campement is highly recommended by other volunteers for good reason. It was expensive for us, 35 bucks a person (including food, camel ride, first drink), but totally worth it. it was funny because on the crazy truck ride to the campement (after other crazy rides) one scene I saw reminded me ofthe lion king. And then when we got to the campement the only thing i could think of was aladdin.

If you come visit me, well be going here. youll love it.


So other than that everything is going pretty well. I say whatever I think to people like my family and neighbors, and after lack of vocabulary confinement in such an unfamiliar environment, that is so liberating. I am finally being myself really. And It seems most people are accepting that. The culture here is not condusive to my personality, but they are open to it and are pretty cool about my opinions. It seems a lot of them would actually dig such a free,progressive state of mind but its just not natural or accepted.

I have some cool friends here too. Reality is I hang out with men here mostly. They are more like we dont give a f*ck like me, rather than being uptight and trying to please other people (like the women).

I like to think by constantly breaking stereotypes, it helps something but who knows if that is reality.

My lil sister and I planted a flower and it grew and became a flower but i killed it. I have never kept one plant alive. ever. I have the perfect opportunity to learn how to garden by the other volunteer here but till this point I still havent gotten into it. Though I do go to the garden a few times a week and just chill. Its the most tranquil place in Louga. There arent any parks or anything and anything resemblant of that is also used as a landfill. sexy.

Ive had this really icky heat rash under my one armpit which has forced me to abandon deoderant. I see why so many people smell here, cuz i started to as well. Its so hot here. But I mean I have adjusted. Funny thing is you would think Africans were maybe used to the heat and so its no big deal, but they notice it just as much as I. Its one of the greetings here in the drawn out greetings of Senegal. See a typical greeting below:

How are you?
Im here
Where is your family?
They are there
Are they in peace?
Yes, all of them
Thanks be to God
Thanks be to God
How is the heat?
Its hot, painful
You are doing well?
yes, and you?
yes. thank you.
You are in peace?
yes, peace only, thanks be to god
how is your health?
health only
Are you having fun?
yes, fun senegalese only, thanks be to god
your ok?
im ok
And the affairs?
They go.
thanks be to god
thanks be to god

---

Seriously.
------

sometimes they ask about a whole bunch of specific people and its always they are there, yes in peace.

Anyways, hope all is well in america. go obama!