Senegal, Y'all.

Super Stage, Two Year Anniversary Today!

2012-03-10T05:12:00.007-08:00

Hi everyone! So, I have been here in Senegal for TWO years today, and it has flown by. I dont even know where the past year has gone. Ive started clearing out my hut, trying to figure out what to do with my cat (I want to take him to the US, but dont know where to keep him for the summer), and helping to set up two new sites near my village where volunteers will install (move in) this May. I have spent the past week in Dakar, using internet and getting work done. Most importantly, I found out that I have been accepted (provisionally for now, as I still need to turn in one form) at the University of Victoria! I am still waiting on a couple of other schools, but the program at Victoria is pretty much perfect, plus Ive already lived there and know its a beautiful, fun, and exciting place to be. So, my fingers are crossed that nothing goes wrong with the paperwork, and that I can become a student there soon!

Here's the website for the project I would be working with:

CIMTAN

I also just figured out how to write a bold hyperlink that opens in a separate window! I know a 6th grader could figure it out but I'm still proud of myself :-) Anyways, I am coming home to Michigan on April 14th, and will then head down to NC with my family for my sister's graduation from UNC Asheville on May 5th. After that, my plans are up in the air. I would like to go hiking for a couple of weeks at some point, and hopefully spend that time with people I have been missing for the past two years! Ive also started applying for some summer jobs, though the thought of hanging out in Ann Arbor or Novi for the summer, and traveling to visit people throughout, sounds pretty wonderful as well. Mostly, Im just excited to see everyone, buy new clothes and electronics, get back in shape, and feel helthy and good again.

I still have a month here, though, which is perfect. I have work to wrap up and a lot of goodbyes to get started on. I know its going to be hard, and I will keep you all updated! I thought I would leave you with a glimpse of my daily life. This Baobab tree is about a 30min walk from my village. I head out there most evenings with a nalgene full of hot tea. I sit in the tree, watch the sun setting, listen to podcasts or music, and then walk home before it gets dark. Its really nice :-)

On another note, one of my friends here, who I spend a lot of time with and visit in her village whenever I need a vacation, is working on a health hut. Her projet is up on the website for donations, so if you are feeling generous, she still needs funding. The village is awesome, and its a great project! Here's the link:

Health Hut!

One last thing, my mom is getting surgery on Thursday, and Im not sure how serious it is. Please keep her in your prayers!

Elections and Camels.

2012-02-22T02:20:00.006-08:00

As you may have heard, the national elections are coming up this weekend. The current president is running again, which is illegal according to the constitution, and many people are strongly against it. There have been riots in Dakar, as well as other regional capitols. I'll be hiding out in my village where nothing will happen : ) We might all have to go to designated points in our regions if things get bad so that the Peace Corps administration can keep track of every single volunteer, but luckily mine is at a campement with a nice pool. So, Im kind of hoping we get consolidated, as it is called. On another note, whenever people are unhappy about something in Senegal, they show their malcontent by burning tires. I will never understand why. Here's a photo I took offline:

Burning Tires. Effective.

I just got a bunch of pictures from other volunteers as well, so here are a few of the things Ive been doing lately, with more to come! Over the past week, three other volunteers and I have been painting murals ALL over the training center in Thies, so that it looks nice for the new group of trainees who arrive in a couple of weeks. Photos to come!

These are two of my favorite kids in my family, they are SO cute:

Djibbi (another favorite):

CAMEL! There is a campement of tents out in the desert where you can ride camels and eat moroccan cous cous in a tent. Its beautiful : )

Charlene beginning a logistically difficult mural. I helped finish it yesterday. It eventually reads "Bismillah," and is followed by the Peace Corps logo. Im still sore from trying not to fall off that roof:

Oh Well.

2012-02-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

TWO YEARS. Two Years!!! Well, almost. I *almost* made it two whole years without dropping a bucket into the well. I dropped a t-shirt in there once, a month or so after arriving in my village, but that was it until last week.

In order to get water for showering, drinking, washing clothes, etc. I have to walk to the well, where families leave ropes tied to water bags, buckets, jugs, etc. I toss one down into the well, fill it with water (depending on the container this can require some finesse) pull it up, fill my bucket, and walk home with the bucket on my head. Families are really protective about their water-pulling contraptions because plastic and rope dont exactly come cheap.

Last week I went to the well, and mid-bucket toss I got distracted by thoughts of all the sushi Im going to eat in America and completely forgot to hold on to the rope, thus throwing the entire thing out into open air. I watched in horror as the bucket started to fill while the rope snaked 30ft down to the water table...of course two women walked up right as it started to sink. They immediately went into action mode and started tossing other buckets down to try and catch the sinking rope/bucket, but could only get it halfway up before the water weight pulled it back down. One of the women is my mute neighbor, and while holding the rope about 15ft above the water, she started shouting incomprehensibly at me while gesturing to a nearby field. I ran off in that direction having literally no idea what was expected of me, but came hopefully back lugging a 15ft long thorny branch that I saw on the ground. She gave me a thumbs up, and I lowered the branch (more of a log, really) down into the well, snagged the rope by flailing it around in the air, and slowly raised it (praying the branch wouldnt break) until the third women could reach it with a rake she had found somewhere.

Yeesh. The village women havent been letting me pull water since then, they take my bucket from me and fill it themselves...and I can't say I mind too much : )

Trials and Troubles. Sort of...

2012-01-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

New Year's was a LOT of fun. I was sitting in my hut reading when two other volunteers randomly showed up outside of my hut, thus concluding an 18 day bike trip. It was a nice surprise : ) We went to Mbour and stocked up on snacks, came back to my village, and tried to stay up until midnight. I was the only one who made it, and just barely. Also, I found out today that my watch has been at least 45 minutes slow for the past week, but it has made absolutely no difference to my life in the village.

The excitement is over now, though, and I am back to the battle in which I have been engaged for the past week. Call it the Great Fence Standoff. The fence next to my shower area (cement slab with a hole in the middle) is completely destroyed, and my family offered to get me new fence and put it up. But they wanted me to pay for it (only like...two dollars) but the rest of my fence is totally fine. That part broke because my younger mom sneaks branches out of it at like 6am to use for firewood, and the horses and donkeys both eat and scratch their entire bodies on it. So, I refused to pay on principle. I bought a whole new fence last year. This is just how things go in Senegal. I cant tell them to buy me a new one, so its been a week of passive aggressive endeavors on the part of me and my family. They steal part of my fence, I steal some of theirs, they dry leaves for food in my backyard, I dont tell them that their goats are eating the leaves after getting in through my broken fence, etc.

You may be thinking I need to get a life. I agree. But, for now, Im content to sit around reading Game of Thrones and showing my family that I have been here long enough to outmanouvre them in a typical Senegalese Standoff. I will let you know who wins.

Oh, and on January First, first action of the New Year, was to have the fence fall on my head while I was squatting over the cement slab. Of course.

Hapy New Year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2011-12-25T04:10:00.000-08:00

Its my favorite holiday! This marks my third Christmas ever away from home, and while I am pretty much ready to get back to the states in a few months, its been a nice vacation here! Even now, at the Peace Corps office in Dakar, Im looking out the window at palm trees waving around in the sunshine, with the Atlantic spanning endless blue in the background...and I can hear Christmas carols wafting up from the Christian center next door. Last night, a few other volunteers came to the office where Im staying (nice air conditioned rooms and TV) and I cooked up a bunch of french onion soup with plenty of Gruyere cheese on top. I also made scones, and we drank champagne while watching the extended Lord of the Rings movies : )

After the second movie, we got dressed up and set off in a cab to downtown Dakar, where there is a massive cathedral. Fireworks were being set off all night throughout the entire city, which tends to happen on every holiday. There was a mass at 10pm in French, which was an interesting and moving experience. The Senegalese drums were, of course, broken out at one point during a carol. After two and a half hours of mass, we decided to head out early. We were some of the last non-senegalese people left. I have no idea how long the mass went on for, but all ceremonies here tend to go on FOREVER.

Anyways, today we're watching Christmas movies, eating a Bouche de Noel, and having peppermint hot chocolate. I have a box of gifts from home, including Cheez-its, which are almost gone already : D Plus the Game of Thrones books which is all I plan on doing for the next week or so.

Im really excited for the new year. I will have officially completed one full year living in Africa, and will go into 2012 knowing I get to come home as an RPCV! This has been an amazing year, and an amazing experience overall (and will continue to be probably). I have no idea where the next year will take me. Im hoping grad school, but who knows? Fingers crossed. Since I probably wont be posting again before New Years, Ill put up my resolutions here. Merry Christmas everyone! I'll be calling America soon. Happy New Year as well, and if you are reading this, I hope to see you in 2012!!

Resolutions:

1. Get home in one piece.
2. Get my cat home in one piece.
3. Get into grad school or find an exciting job.
4. Set up two new sites here in Senegal.
5. Bake a LOT of good food once Im back in America.

Should be do-able : ) Back to the Christmas movies!

Drunk Baby is Powered by Cheese.

2011-12-02T02:24:00.000-08:00

In Senegal, this hot and dry land of infinite frustration, PC volunteers are sometimes driven to rely on the small things for emotional relief. For example, I brought my cat into Mbour today to be fixed, and couldnt get them to start the surgery until I had been hit on relentlessly by the 4 male employees. Infinite Frustration. At times like that..I miss America. But, luckily, a lot of other things make up for it.

My younger mom had a baby last week, and they named it Buree. I didnt even know that was a name. In French, Buree is one way of saying Drunk. They call it Baby Buree. Drunk Baby. I came into the city and when I left, my family asked for a gift of baby clothes (they always ask for something or other, with about a 25 percent success rate) and I hadnt really planed on getting anything. Until I saw a baby shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Powered By Cheese." I would have bought that at any cost. So, watching the baby buree being carted around in a powered by cheese t shirt should provide some comic relief over the next few months : )

When I told my Senegalese family I was taking my cat in to get an operation, my older mom completely lost it. I havent heard her laugh that loudly and uncontrollably since the great "toubab tries to do laundry by hand" incident of 2010. People in Senegal dont get operations unless theyre deathly ill. So...the fact that I was getting an unessecary operation for my CAT was totally incomprehensible.

Oh well. Time to go get the cat and hope he survived, and hope I dont have to get hit on AGAIN. Also, my dad filled out a customs form for a care package valuing the contents at 25 dollars. So when the post office charged me an extra 2500 cfa for the package, which is ridiculous, I asked why, and they pointed at the customs form. Logic there? Zero. I still had to pay for it. This country, sometimes...

Pippin Came Home!!

2011-11-27T12:03:00.000-08:00

My cat in village ran away last week. He is now, apparently, back. Im in Dakar, but have been calling my host family every day to ask. All of the cats in Senegal kind of look like they came from the same litter, so I have my fingers crossed that my family isn't feeding a random different cat every day by accident.

After everything that has happened here, the cat, my flip-flops, and my ipod are the only things I still own. I like the cat the most, and Im so glad he's back : )

Oh. My. God.

2011-11-10T03:33:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldnt be posting right now because I havent slept in like four days and am feeling pretty anti Senegal right now, but luckily I handwrote a post about a week ago when I was in a better mood, so Ill try and type that up, hoping the electricity doesnt cut out! For the record, I havent slept because these past four days have been Tabaski, Senegals biggest holiday, where tons of people Ive never met come to the village, and the amount of laughing at the white person speaking sereer, and being hit on by strangers, that ensues is bothersome. It is nice to see people that work elsewhere and come back to the village though, like my sisters who are pretty cool. The reason Ive been so stressed out, though, is that this year they rented out a generator to BLAST terrible music from a spot about twenty feet from my room, thus the not sleeping, and we eat nothing but sheep, oil, and pasta for four days. I didnt plan ahead and stock up on snacks, which was obviously a huge oversight on my part. Trust me. You dont want to know what day four of leftover sheep parts in a country where refrigerators dont exist might include. My cat wouldnt even touch it. I took a video on my ipod of what can only be referred to as a meat clothesline. You can probably imagine it, but if youve ever seen viscera hanging next to laundry out to dry and realized how similar they look...you would understand why I have sworn never to eat sheep again. Not knowingly at least. I have been surviving on white bread and lollipops. Oh, and my phone was dead the whole time so I didnt have my usual channel of sanity to tap into. Everything is back to normal now, though, so I am looking forward to a nice, long, nap followed by like twelve hours of sleep. Then tomorrow I will try and get back to work on grad school apps. OK, heres the happier blog post! Fair warning, I cant find the apostrophe, quotation marks, or parentheses, on this keyboard.

And, with my hands poised to write, real life just hit me in the face. I just found out that my Papaw had a stroke this morning, Ill try to find a way to call home, apparently he is resting comfortably. I dont know details, so I wont write anymore. Ill still go on with this other post, though, more as a distraction than anything else. Then Im biking home and going straight to sleep before I can hope to deal with anything.

K, here goes: On my evening walk today, I was listening to the latest This American Life which was about middle school. One 7th grader who had just moved to a new town was explaining how hard it was because in middle school, people care too much about who is cool and who isnt, and its difficult to make friends in that environment. He mentioned that in kindergarten, however, you can basically just walk up to anyone and say hi, want to be my friend?

I remember being in that same situation when we moved from California to Michigan when I was going into 6th grade, and I think my family was worried, or, well, concerned, about how I would do with it. However, I loved 6th grade. I vividly remember standing in Mrs. Levys math classroom straight through lunch while she graded papers, just to watch the snow falling through the window. In Santa Cruz, we used to drive out to Tahoe to ski every year, but Id never lived somewhere where snow could be a daily occurance. Everyone else trooped off through the hallways to the cafeteria and I was rooted to the spot, thinking it was like magic, standing in a snow globe. Beanie babies were cool then, I used to have friends over to trade, discuss our collections, and gossip about how attractive Leo DiCaprio was in Titanic, which came out that year. I also used to disappear for entire afternoons with my Nature Notebook, sitting in the wetland behind our condo watching Canada Geese arrive, build nests, and raise little goslings. Id never seen a Canada Goose before. I also used to watch and draw frogs laying eggs, tadpoles sprouting arms and legs, crawling out of the water and hopping around, and then disappearing when ice started forming on the pond.

Then, however, seventh grade arrived. They shuffled us around, and I didnt really know anyone in my group of classes anymore. Luckily, yearbook and art class came along, and I learned to use Photoshop and my Moms ancient Pentax SLR camera which I still have. I wanted to be Cool, though, so unfortunately, instead of hanging out with the people I really ended up liking, the ones who got into computer games and programming, the unabashedly smart kids, basically, I decided I needed cooler friends, and wore the same rotation of tommy hilfiger and bebe shirts pretty much every week. I wasnt cool, but was happily in denial anyways. I also decided, at some point in there, that it was necessary for me to become a cheerleader. Anyways, crushes on real life, non movie star, boys began, and awkward dances started occuring every month. The first time I danced with a boy, I didnt know how, and remember in excruciating detail as I, in my Gap shirt with a rhinestone cat on the front, put my arms around his waist. His arms were also around mine, and as we awkwardly moved in small circles, I would periodically come around to see my friends furiously gesturing for me to move my arms up to his neck, which I mistakenly took as encouragement, and Im pretty sure I even gave them a thumbs up at one point. I dont think I ever talked to him again after that...haha.

Then came 8th grade. In CA, at the small private catholic school I had attended, the 8th graders were Kings and Queens. They had been there since pre school and reigned over the student body kingdom for a year before entering a mysterious thing called High School. In Novi, MI, though...it was terrible. Gossiping, judgement, what clothes everyone wore, ie. hormones, all hit their boiling point. At that point, I really should have just gone with it and just hung out with the uncool people I actually liked, but hung on stubbornly to some nebulous idea of how to be popular. I got bangs, terrible idea, got a highlighter yellow puffy ski jacket, and wore fluorescent white eyeshadow every day, which looks GREAT on redheads.... : P

Luckily, my family sent me off to the Pacific Northwest for Outdoor Adventure camp that summer, where I learned that there was a lot more to life than worrying about which lunch table to sit at, and that I love hiking camping etc. I still wanted to be a cheerleader, though, since my fixations run pretty deep. I mean, Ive wanted to be a PCV since that summer and here I am. I got on the team, entered high school, continued running track, hurdles at that point, and realiwed that nobody really cared about what everyone else was doing anymore. I quickly fell into place, eventually quit the cheer team, started the outdoor adventure club, worked backstage on plays, was in french club, worked for the newspaper, and ran track all four years. I got a 4.0, got into University of Michigan, and have basically had fun nerding out ever since.

What I want to express, though, is that one of the best things about Senegalese culture, as well as volunteer culture, is that its just like kindergarten. You can walk up to anyone and they are automatically your friend. Senegalese people love talking and just hanging out, and volunteers understand each other and support each other in a way that is unparalleled in the US. Not to undermine friendships at home, I just wanted to say that the ability to be open and supportive towards anyone is something we could all use a little more of in our lives, and something I think Ive learned to do well here. This is where I would insert a smiley face but I have no idea where it is on this computer. Oh well, thanks as always for reading!

Longest post ever, whew. Love you all, wish me luck with the grad school apps and say a prayer for my Papaw! Oh, and ignore spelling errors. Im not editing this, Im going home and going to bed. At one in the afternoon, hehe.

Dear Admissions Committees, Please Forgive Me.

2011-10-30T05:11:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, you havent heard from me in a long time. Not for any particular reason, except that things just seem pretty normal here, and you probably don't want to hear about what Ive been having for lunch every day (oily rice and fish, in case you are actually curious). On a daily basis my emotions can be found somewhere along the spectrum of overwhelming love for this country, apathetic contentment, and an almost manic desire to run to the airport and hop on the first plane home. I wont lie, Im excited to have about 5 months left, but am not looking forward to that end date too anxiously. Currently, Im trying to figure out what to do with my life when I get back to the US, besides the obvious: kiss the ground the second I get off the plane (dont worry, I've spent the past two years building up an immunity against all germs), eating everything in sight, drinking a lot of good draft beer and coffee, fishing for real fish in real rivers, and wearing sweaters. Big, soft, comfy, sweaters.

Anyways, what prompted me to finally update this here blog is the fact that Im actually supposed to be writing a statement of purpose for grad school. I have a vague idea of what I will write, and am slowly working on an outline. However, I wish there were some way I could express to the admissions committees who will eventually see me as one more black and white piece of paper in the pile, just how animated of a situation is necessary for me to wrangle that sheet of paper into existence in the first place.

I am currently sitting in a regional house, one day before halloween. All of the appliances somehow managed to break around the same time, so three of us are all squashed together at the one desk in the house where we are trying to get stuff done with the few machines we do have. I am attempting to type up a professional and convincing essay for potential grad schools, while the monitor flicks on and off due to the volunteer to my left who is messing with electrical wires in an attempt to get the phone to work, while he shouts out the window in Wolof (a local language). The volunteer to my right is working on her halloween costume, and trying to coax a very stubborn printer into printing out a picture of a handgun. The gun has thus far deigned only to come out as either the size of a paperclip, or too large to fit on the paper. Another volunteer behind us is trying to get a fan to work so we wont all die of heat stroke, but the already heavily duct-taped blades and electrical cord are making that difficult. I am drinking coffee that someone made using salty sink water instead of filtered freshwater (which is delivered weekly to the house by a man on a donkey drawn cart) so my coffee tastes like a vaguely hazelnut flavored ocean. Another volunteer just entered the picture looking for a permanent marker, which means a lot of drawer wrenching and slamming, thus rocking the computer monitor back and forth.

There is also a random full sheet of paper lying next to the computer that says, in angry red letters, "PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!" I have no idea why. The halloween preparations mean that a few lady gagas are wandering around the house, there is wig sewing, shoe coloring, and glow-painting going on. Last night I turned a corner to face a fully masked Storm Trooper. I do have a mario costume put together, but have decided not to travel the 5 hours to get to the halloween party in the interest of having some peace and quiet. As much as that can be achieved in Senegal, at least.

I know I will be an excellent grad school student, and that I am ready to work hard for the right program. I have extensive experience, speak a few languages, love aquatic science and fish almost to the point of obsession, and would be happy to move anywhere to attend a good program (as long as its not in africa, though, sorry). Compared to the people in america, though, or in research stations around the world, with air conditioning, fast internet, career advising services, and coffee shops where one can liesurely write a stellar essay while drinking espresso and eating a chocolate muffin...how can I possibly put together a successful application???

But I will. Somehow. So, I'll stop blog posting now and get back to the somewhat functional madness. Wish me luck : /

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire.

2011-08-25T06:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got back to my village, ready for a solid week of just hanging out, spending time with my family, and reading until the end of Ramadan, when I will get back to work. Sadly, it was not meant to be.

Apparently, while I was gone, there was a massive rainstorm, and my entire room flooded. My mom and brothers went in there and piled everything on top of my bed, and my mom moved some of the stuff to her room in big rice sacks. If youve ever experienced constant muggy/rainy weather, then you know how quickly things mold. A lot of my books, bags, and clothing literally disintegrated. There was also a large moldy dead thing in the corner that I made my brother remove for me. As I found out last rainy season, Im allergic to the mold, so the rash spreading up both of my arms has pretty much taken over my entire body in the last 24 hours. Luckily, my family is amazing, and they told me to just sit, relax, and deal with it tomorrow. So, since they had taken off my mattress and sheets, and everything I own was piled on my bed, I just slept in my moms room. I would have started cleaning out my hut today, but I had to come into Mbour to get a new phone, which was much easier than I expected! I was also able to find some medicine for the rash, so hopefully that will be taken care of soon.

I do have good news, though! In a random burst of intelligence, I hung up my bag of electronics, checkbook, letters from friends and family, and passport right before leaving my village, so none of it was affected! Also, Pippin is fine, which is way more important to me than all the stuff that got ruined.

Anyways, I thought Id write a quick note on one of the many strange things they do here in Senegal. This morning I had to withdraw money from the bank (where I have been going for the last year and a half, btw)and the woman behind the counter was adamant that the signature in their computer did not match the one I had signed on my check, and thus refused to give me money. The same signature was also on my passport, bank ID card, and the back of the check...ridiculous. So, after I made it crystal clear that I would not be leaving without my money, and was glad to wait all day holding up the line, she gave me a post it note and made me sign it over and over again while I looked at the one in their computer system until it was exactly the same.

When I studied abroad in Switzerland, a similar thing happened. I walked into the post office, and went up to a counter to pay for a package. The teller looked at me like I was crazy, and just pointed to a machine that dispenses numbers for waiting in line, about 50 yards away. She and I were literally the only people in the building. I walked over, got my number, she hit the button to officially call me over, and I went right back to the same counter where she was perfectly friendly and happy to help me.

Yeesh.

Life Explosion.

2011-08-20T01:58:00.000-07:00

During training, they advise us not to write blog posts when we are not in a good mood, or are in the middle of a frustrating situation. Lately, I've been waiting for the clouds to roll back and reveal a shining happy Senegal so that I might write an optimistic and charmingly clever blog post, but no such luck. So! Im just going to dump all of my problems onto this here blog because that's obviously the most logical and responsible thing to do.

First off, my journal was stolen, so I will be cataloging events on here in hopes of remembering them in the future. To begin, I went to the regional house for a live radio show that another volunteer and I do monthly. For some reason we now have to do it at 8pm, which meant walking around a residential area of Kaolack at night in a rainstorm hoping to find a cab. And when you think rainstorm...don't you dare imagine a lovely dark sky, the smell of spring, and the sound of rain falling on a tin roof,all being enjoyed from a porch with a mountain view where you are wrapped up in a soft blanket sipping hot chocolate with a dog by your side and perhaps an attractive man who is baking you a pie at the moment, but will come sit with you in a minute when it's done. No. Think, river of trash and mud that has just reunited with its best friend, the city-wide flooding sewer. Add in the fact that there's no electricity, so I could have literally been stepping in anything. I may not have actually seen any rats using trash as lifeboats, but I wouldn't have been surprised.

The next morning, I got a ride to Tamba, our neighboring region, because I have little work to do at my site during Ramadan, and am interested in seeing a project that other volunteers have been doing on Malaria prevention. Along the trip I managed to blow out a bike tire, for which I had no replacement, and had to beg another volunteer for her bike for the rest of the trip. Later, I was biking with another volunteer when we got separated, and some guys approached me and stole my backpack. Camera, phone, external hard drive, clothing, chess set (ok, I guess that makes sense, they probably get bored watching cows all day), and my journal which obviously they are now going to read, and post all of my deepest darkest secrets on facebook.

It was not an enjoyable experience to say the least, but, things happen, and at least Im fine! Luckily I had my glasses on my face, and my ipod in my pocket. Those are the two things I care about the most. And my shoes...which were on my feet. To be clear, this was a freak occurrence. I've never felt unsafe in this country, and everyone has been super helpful about getting me to the right authorities, lending me money, etc. The best part is that we have boxes of clothes in the regional houses where people put stuff they don't want anymore, and we can buy them back to raise money for SeneGAD (gender and development). By some freak chance, ALL of the clothes in all of the senegad boxes fit me. I now have cuter and way more clothes than I did before the incident.

Anyways, in the middle of this whole ordeal, the cutest puppy in the world wandered into the regional house and started following me around. I fed him and gave him a name and a collar. When I left to take him back to my village, though, we put him in the back of a peace corps car in a big basket that was tied and duct taped shut. We got to another volunteer's site to drop her off, and I went to check on the puppy...gone. It somehow managed to get out of the basket and jump out of the moving vehicle. Id say Im sad, but it must have been a pretty dumb dog for that to happen. So, puppy, I miss you, and love you, wish you all the best, and hope you are still alive somewhere. Oh, and I'm mad at you for abandoning me. Jerk.

Now, I am in Tamba, trying to decide how to manage my time this week. My family is worried about why I have been gone so long. I tried to explain, but mostly my dad was just mad that I am not there (not sure why?) but I could really use some time to relax for a day now that this is all taken care of, and I will no longer have easy internet/etc. near my site (no computer anymore). I have started looking at grad schools and am really excited! Its time to start getting organized, and officially apply in a few months. I also offered to help install new volunteers this week, which is two hours closer to where I am now, than my site is. I miss my family and my cat, though. Either I will go back to site tomorrow, or be gone for even another week trying to get my stuff back in order and help install the newbies.

Lastly, and yes I know this is TMI, I must have amoebas or something because Im running to the bathroom like every ten minutes. I don't know how I'm supposed to travel like this. Yeesh. So, most ridiculous week ever, I still need to get it all sorted out, but I did get to see a lot of people I hadn't seen in a long time, which was amazing! And, the Tamba house is quiet, clean, has a functional house computer, projector for movies, and super cute house cats. I think Im staying here for the day at least. THANK YOU all for reading! Life is insane here right now, but, as always, everything is fine overall : ) Have a good day!

I know this is random, but I am including a picture of my own personal Happy Place. North Carolina in the fall. This is the type of image that pops into my head when I need a mental escape (like when my puppy falls out of a friggin truck). The Happy Place also frequently involves waterfalls, fresh blueberries, coffee, and/or warm raspberry scones.

Didn't it Rain.

2011-07-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Rainy season is officially here! While my memories of last rainy season (July-September) are one big blur of long, muggy, hot, itchy, mosquito-ey days, I am super excited for it this time around. I had forgotten about the cold thunderstorms, the beautiful sky before and after a rain, the tadpole puddles, and the drastic transformation of the landscape from a sandy wasteland, to an all-out awesome jungle. There are gorgeous birds everywhere, I don't have to go to the well for water as often, and I can now plant beans, corn, okra, bissap, and moringa in my yard with little to no maintenance required!

Anyways, I've spent the past couple of weeks helping with nutritional gardening seminars in the Kaolack region. I also spent a week visiting another volunteer at her site, which was really fun : ) But, once again, I'll let photos do my talking. Enjoy!

Clouds before a storm:

Weeding the yard with a hand hoe:

The Seereer Delta, amazing saltwater/mangrove swimming spot:

Morgan's hut, and dog, Tiya (which means Peanut):

Gardening tournee:

My closest neighbors, and the awesome French ppl who own a pizza place in Mbour:

BEST VACATION EVER.

2011-07-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

Recipe for having the most fun humanly possible:
1. Spend a year and a half in a small african village where you are perma hot and bereft of any and all lucrative dining options.

2. Take two weeks of vacation, fly to Rome, and meet your grandma, sister, uncle, brother, dad, and stepmom, all of whom you're super excited to spend time with.

3. Spend three days in Rome eating, walking like 12 miles a day, feeling like a real human in real clothes and makeup again, getting a haircut, buying nice things, and wearing yourself out seeing as much as possible in a short amount of time.

4. Travel to a GIGANTIC cruise ship with aforementioned family, get on, and go straight to the buffet that will be running 24/7 for the next week of your life.

5. Eat and drink everything you want all week with total abandon.

6. Somehow end up losing a pound for all of your gluttony, as a result of being back in civilized places where you are not forced to eat oily rice and fish all day long, and where there are fun activities available!

We had an amazing trip, and spent a ton of time just hanging out, playing chess, playing card games, going to events on the boat like bingo/trivia/concerts/ice skating shows, going ice skating and rock climbing, playing putt putt, going out dancing or to the casino at night, and sitting by the pool or visiting ports all day. We traveled from Rome to Sicily (which looked like Hawaii up around the volcano!), then Malta, Turkey, Crete, and spent a few days just sailing and looking out at gorgeous islands.

We were supposed to go to Athens, but went to Malta instead because of riots. I took one look at Malta, decided it looked too much like Africa, and spent the day at the pool/buffet with my little brother who was also more interested in expanding his waistline than his cultural horizons. There was sushi on the buffet one day, and I made myself a sushimountain. But, in general, every minute of the trip was a lot of fun, and we saw all kinds of amazing things, so I wont even try to recap all of it! I'll just put up some photos instead!

One last story, though, I was in the Rome airport ready to head back to Senegal, and looked around for the check in counter. Among all of the orderly lines, people quietly leaving each other enough personal space to go about their business, and stylishly dressed stick thin women/gorgeous men...one particular check in counter stood out like a sore thumb. Mine. It was an all out shouting shoving Clusterf*** I knew I was headed back to Africa the second I entered the fray. Home sweet home : )

It was hard to say goodbye and head home to Senegal, but things are back to normal now that Im safely in Dakar. When I came back here after going home for Christmas it was hard because I had been at home for a while, but the cruise just felt like vacation since it wasn't home for any of us there. Nobody was ready to go back to work, but thats the way it is! It's nice being back, I have a lot of work in front of me, and a busy couple of months coming up. Im really excited for this "Home Stretch," of nine months, where I dont plan on leaving country, and hope it will be enough time to get my projects all wrapped up. I know from experience that the time is going to fly by (well. Except for August, which is Ramadan, which is hot and muggy and sans-food) so I'll need to stay on task to get everything taken care of here, as well as start planning life when i get back. This fall I will be applying for grad schools, looking for a summer job, and planning a trip for the end of my service!

That's all for now, enjoy the photos!
(in no particular order)

After traveling for 24 hours to get back here, I sat down and took a picture to express exactly how I felt at the moment. Exhausted, hungry, and none too excited to be back in the oven that is senegal. After some sleep I jumped up, energized, in a good mood, and ready to go, but I thought I would document the moment anyways : )

Thanks for reading!!

A Day in the Life, and Sappy Reflections.

2011-06-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

If you read this whole thing you get a prize!!

People often ask what a typical day here is like, which is hard to answer because, while things dont exactly change much around here, so many random things are always waiting to jump out at you that every day is unique in its own obscure way. Since yesterday was a nice relaxing Sunday, I'll just recap it in order to give you a quick glimpse into the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal.

The sun came up around 6:30am, waking me up since Ive been sleeping outside for the past 6 months or so (though I got rained on at 3am the other morning and had to make a mad dash into the hut, so that might be coming to an end soon). Normally I would have stayed in bed to read for another hour or so, but in a random surge of motivation, I decided to get up and take advantage of the cool morning air by going on a run. I got dressed and ready to go, but couldn't find my socks anywhere. I only have one pair, because who wears socks in Africa? I tore apart the room, and then eventually went out in the compound and asked my mom if she'd seen them. She went into her room and pulled my bright green socks out of her dresser, along with a random other sock I'd never seen before. For the record I dont think I've ever seen a Senegalese person in socks. They were all freshly cleaned from the last time she did laundry (an all-day-long process which involves washing clothes by hand in big plastic buckets). She was keeping them until I brought her my "other sock" because she was too embarassed to bring me three socks because that obviously wouldn't make any sense. That whole ordeal took about an hour, so I finally put on my two socks and went on a half hr run through the baobabs, which was beautiful! After getting back I pulled water (walk w a bucket to the well, drop a different bucket on a rope about 10m down to the water, then carry the bucket back on my head Jungle Book style), bucket bathed, and got back in bed.

My brother re-woke me up around 10 by shouting for me to come to the door of my hut, and offered me fresh Beignets (fried doughnut holes, SO GOOD) that my mom had just made for a wedding. I dragged my mat out into the backyard, french pressed some coffee, and had a banana/beignet breakfast, then read for an hour or so.

Around 11 I finally got up and went out to the field to work on a tree peppiniere (nursery) in our family's garden. Rainy season will be here in about a month, so the trees will need to be big enough by then to outplant around the village/schools.

After coming home to hide from the 1pm sun, I sat with my family under a tree and broke out my new Chess Practice book, and basically played chess against myself for a couple of hours (dont judge me) while trying to keep the kids from eating/otherwise destroying the chess pieces. We ate lunch, rice and fish out of a huge communal bowl on the ground, around 3pm, after which I retreated to my hut to watch 30 Rock for about an hour. My laptop holds about 4hrs of battery, so I have to ration out TV time : )

Around 4 I walked over to another village I'm working to set up as a new site for a future volunteer, and got some forms signed/sat through a couple of LONG meetings in Wolof which I didnt understand at all. Luckily, when I left, they gave me a huge bag of freshly picked Mangoes, so it was totally worth it. I then went on a bike ride until the sun went down, took another bucket bath, and sat with my family until we had dinner around 9pm.

I went back to my hut, shut the door, made a cup of hot chocolate, and sat on my mat in the backyard looking up at the stars. The moon set early so the night sky was gorgeous. I called another volunteer (because its free!) and we talked until my hot chocolate was done and I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I got into bed, saw a shooting star, and was passed out asleep by 11pm. Fin of journee.

A couple of years ago in Hawaii, I went on a backpacking trip w a friend that landed us down at the beach. I remember one moonless night we sat looking over the ink black water, where the stars were seamlessly reflected right across the horizon. A shooting star flashed across the night sky, a perfect mirror image blazing in the water below, and we both made wishes. Even though it's bad luck to say your wish out loud, he asked what mine was, and I said "I wished that no matter what I do or where I end up, that I can always find a way to be as happy as I am right now." After a minute or two of silence, he put his arm around me and said with total confidence, "I know you will."

I know this is crossing the cheesy/sappy/annoying line, but, I see shooting stars all the time and they always fill me with warm fuzzies, because they remind me that no matter where you are, or what's going on in your life, it's easy to find happiness if you carry your joy around with you. Not to say that things don't go wrong all the time, or that it's bad to feel sad, angry, upset, etc. but knowing that overall a sense of humor and some unshake-able self love can float you through just about anything, makes all of those difficult experiences roll right on through. Either that, or I'm just horribly naive and/or stupid.

One of the best ways I have of gauging my mood in this country is how I feel about butterflies when I see them flying around (bear with me, where I'm going with this is slightly less gag-inducing than it sounds). If I'm in a bad mood, I look at them and immediately think, "How can anything so delicate possibly survive in this country of sandstorms, car crashes, kids who delight in killing kittens, and just overall natural tendency toward destroying...everything?" If Im in a good mood, though, I see them flying around and think, "Hey, Senegal really is kind of pretty..."

OKAY. Thats my sapfest for the day! All Im trying to say is that after a year I've figured out how to be easily happy here, and I think it's something that will stick with me for the rest of my life (inchallah). Next time I write I'll come up with something more entertaining, or perhaps even responsible and work related, to write about, I promise.

Hope youre all enjoying some warm weather in other parts of the world! Because we sure are here, ha...ha... : /

Oh! And 3 last pieces of news:

1. My sitemate just got a fancy new telescope for her roof, along with a star book!

2. Steve and I found a conveniently located amazing burger place that has PUNCH CARDS. As in...you buy 10 goat cheese or camembert hamburgers for about $4 each, and you get an 11th one free!!!

3. This morning I got like a million more ant bites, I still dont know why this happens to me, and am going straight home now to take benadryl/ibuprofen and pass out. Im definitely not in a good mood, and writing this post kind of made me cringe a little bit, but whatever. I wrote it in my notebook yesterday when my mind was in a much better place.

Anyways, thank you for reading, as always! There's not actually a prize, but, if you read this whole thing, then you must be as bored as I am, and we're clearly soulmates : ) And maybe you'll get lucky and I'll send you a little plastic army guy, 3-D glasses, or a "changes color when you put it in milk" spoon from the bottom of a cereal box.

The Wedding is Over!

2011-05-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

While living without electricity can often be...inconvenient, I do constantly thank my lucky stars that my village doesnt have it. The Senegalese tend to use electricity for a few specific purposes, including blasting arabic "singing" from megaphones, running Wolof TV programs which, as far as I can tell, just consist of more yelling but complete with awkward visuals, blasting Akon until 5am, and for lighting up things that really dont need to be lit up. Sadly, though, somebody rented a solar panel for their wedding, which took place about 5 feet from my backyard, and blasted, "Allo, ALLO, Allo, allo, ALLOALLOALLOALLO!!!!!" for three days straight. Im not sure why they do that, but give someone a microphone in this country, and they will "sound test" allllllll day long. I was relieved when, on the third day, they randomly decided to switch to Phil Collins music. The hysteria of not sleeping for a few nights, compounded by the sight of people dancing their traditional dances to Easy Lover, left me in a fit of giggles. But, thankfully, the wedding finally ended and now we are back to peace and quiet. Alhamdoulilahi.

Ive been quite busy lately and am working on three big projects as the school year is winding down. Classes end June 10th. On the 12th Im helping out with a bed net distribution, doing a radio show on the 13th, and then muraling a campement with some of my neighbors in exchange for a free pirogue ride through the mangroves, and then heading up to Dakar for the CRUISE. Im so excited.

Thats about it for news! I saw a chicken running around the compound the other day with a bra trailing after it, after somehow getting tangled in the laundry. Yesterday another chicken had an entire headful of weave stuck to its foot while it ran around. I find these things entertaining.

Ta ta for now!

Becoming Sexist.

2011-05-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

The following interaction exemplifies your typical Senegalese male:

Yesterday I rode my bike into town to buy snacks, and on the way out, I had to ride in a small margin on the side of the road because of traffic. There was a 20 something year old guy walking directly towards me, with all the space in the world to move out of my way. I would have had to ride into traffic, or off into the sandy shoulder to make way for him. Of course, being male, he decided he had superiority in this game of chicken, and since there was literally nothing I could do (and because Im basically done with trying to accomodate anyone of the Wolof persuasion) I ran straight into him. A head on bike/sai sai collision, which I won. Obviously he was angry, but what did he expect? Next time...try being respectful and move. I also got called Honk Nonk like 5 times, which literally translates to Red Ears, and is extremely offensive, think the N word in America or Mudblood in Harry Potter. I dont even get called Toubab anywhere near my village, so honk nonk so many times in one day was a LOT.

Anyways, about 10 minutes later, a kid was biking in front of me, when he made a split second decision to turn without looking. I didnt have time to stop, so I ended up jacknifing him and we both went flying off of our bikes. I looked at him and yelled, in Serere, "You dont know how to bike! You are not smart!" It wasnt exactly threatening, and hearing myself yell in Serere I started laughing, and so did he, and everyone was fine. I doubt he learned anything though. The only thing I learned...keep wearing my helmet, and just stay in Louly from now on. Ill give someone else money to go buy me snacks.

To conclude a year of being open to this culture, I can safely say that if someone offered me the option to only interact with females for the next year, I would accept in a heartbeat. Ive had enough of this male dominance thing, be it a casualty of Wolof culture, or byproduct of living in a primarily Muslim country. Someday someone is going to say (inchallah) "Sarah, I Love You," and my reaction will be to cringe and/or visibly shudder. Not to mention a marriage proposal...I might involuntary slap some poor future boyfriend in response.

Thats all for now! Things are going well, as usual, and its still hot : ) Cruise next month, woohoo!

Murals!

2011-04-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

I spent a few days last week visiting my friend David in his sereer village. In exchange for endless cookies, clif bars, coffee, oatmeal, chocolate, and beer (he has a bar IN his compound) I spent the time painting his hut as part of a major room makeover. He lives in the Sereer delta, which meant that to get to his site, we got to take a ferry : ) Much to our surprise there was a guy with an ice cream cart, so we got ice cream cones on the boat. We spent a few days painting, swimming, biking around, and it was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures of the murals:

On the way home, I got a ride with another David who was traveling around with a film crew from Dakar, working on a documentary about the life of a volunteer. On the ferry ride home, we got to wear some sweet lifejackets. Senegalese people in lifejackets...best thing ever.

That’s the extent of my news for now! I wrote a grant for funds to build a school garden, as well as take my EE club on a field trip to Botanical Gardens in Mbour. The money came in yesterday, which means lots of work over the next couple of months. But, for now, I am in Dakar for my year-in medical checkup, so if you need me, I will be sitting at the pool waiting to see if I have tuberculosis.

How to Stay Entertained for Two Years in a Village.

2011-04-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

One question many volunteers must face at some point during their service sounds a lot like this: 'No electricity, no internet, no tv, no homework, no beer, no kitchen, no wide avenues to stroll along, and no other individuals around who speak english...how the eff am I going to stay entertained for TWO years???' Some of us take up a new hobby or skill such as juggling, playing an instrument, reading technical manuals to become an expert on some random thing, or biking aimlessly for 5 hours straight. Some may invent games, like the 'describe your ideal sandwich and build it in your head' game, some people read romance novels, some draw cartoons, some fill up water balloons and sit in the middle of their village throwing them at people, and some make lists upon lists during the hours of the day when it is just too hot to get up and do anything.

Everyone eventually develops their own strategies, but my particular one finds its origins back in the 1980's. In 1987 to be exact, when a man named Alex from Vancouver, BC, apparently took too many drugs and decided it was high time he sat down and made a coloring book titled 'Whimsical.' After passing hands for a good 20 some years, it finally reached the one person bored enough to actually color the whole entire thing. Me. I spend many content hours listening to music and idly coloring the book. Here are some example of his fine, and somewhat terrifying, work.

Along with the coloring book, another important thing I inadvertently came by is a 5 year old beat up solar charger that the volunteer in 2006 brought with him to Louly Ngogom. It wont charge my cell phone or my laptop, but it WILL charge my ipod, which means that I can listen to podcasts whenever I want. If it werent for that, I would have no idea whats happening in the rest of the world, though I could tell you exactly who burnt their rice for lunch today in the village, and who wore what last night at Fatou's baptism. While listening to podcasts, I am free to wander around in the bush, searching for interesting specimens for my rock collection. I didnt mean to start it, but, well, here it is:

Readymade craft kits, my favorite so far being a Pirate Ship in a Bottle making kit, are especially fun. I also have some puzzles, lots of crosswords, paint by number kit, and a day to day logic puzzle calendar. Here's a small sample : )

Books are often the only entertainment option after the sun sets, since the bugs come out and its time to hide with my headlamp under a mosquito net. It doesnt even matter if there are any mosquitoes or not, because all bugs will divebomb your headlamp, and thus your face, which necessitates a protective net. I have been reading a LOT since getting here, which is really nice because I more or less gave up reading for fun all throughout university. I had so much academic reading to do, it was the last thing I wanted to spend free time on as well. I also spend a good amount of time fantasizing about life back in the US, often not intentionally, and have begun a fantasy cookbook of things that I will make when I get back. Its cathartic, since I come across recipes in Magazines which I cant actually cook right now, so at least cutting them out and putting them in a book feels semi productive :)

Having a pet is often more entertaining than having a TV back in the US, and its almost embarassing how much time I spend sitting in my yard, drinking coffee, and watching my cat. He's just so cute, and senegalese cats are strange. A lot of them sleep like this:

As far as staying motivated and in a good mood throughout the work day goes, quick ipod dance parties in our huts are a pretty important part of every Peace Corps Volunteer's service. Theyre a good way to get energized before another day of speaking another language, and navigating this crazy culture. Here's my current playlist:

Love Me Like You, The Magic Numbers
Get it Right Today, Joe Purdy
Lets Dance, David Bowie
Starstruck, Lady Gaga
Sway, Michael Buble
Beautiful, Akon
Psycho Killer, Talking Heads
Jessie's Girl, Rick Springfield

Of course, the best way to stay entertained is to get out in the community, hang out with people, do whatever theyre doing, and just generally be available. There's also work every day during the not so hot hours, to take up most of our time. I can honestly say that though I have spent many hours not particularly doing anything, I accepted long ago that this would get boring, and have therefore never felt especially bored. Boredom implies frustration and a desire to be doing something else, but Im pretty much at peace with the fact that there will always be very little going on here, and thats totally fine : )

Oh! And one last thing, I just finished working with two other volunteers to set up a website (im trying to learn some computer programming in my free time) for the kaolack girls camp. There are still some errors, but im excited about it. Here's the address, and Im pretty proud of myself for successfully making a link to it...like I said, Im learning:

Girls' Camp!

Ill leave you with this semi sarcastic list to further illustrate activities that 2 years in a hut could potentially drive you to:

1. Take advantage of free calling to phone up other volunteers and tell them about what the donkey in your compound did today...for an hour.
2. Time how long you can hold your breath for every so often. Chart all progress.
3. Consider what might happen if you were to use that epi pen Med gave you.
4. Paint nails. Wipe off. Repeat.
5. Daydream so completely that you forget where you are.
6. Sweep your yard.
7. Take a nap...again.

As always, thanks for reading!

The Perfect Weekend.

2011-04-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

Us volunteers spend the vast majority of our time living in villages with no electricity, running water, or entertainment outside of shelling peanuts and making fun of how fat someone's mom is...again. So, when we leave site, we need to make the most of it, which is exactly what I did this past weekend! Some of my favorite things in life are biking, fishing, cooking, hanging out at the beach, listening to music, and just sitting around with good people. I got to do all of that : )

On Friday morning I woke up early and went to Mbour. I picked up my bike and set off on a ride to Popenguine, a veritable beach paradise. It took me about an hour and a half, and along the way I picked up mangoes, peanuts, guava juice, frozen yogurt, and other amazing snacks. Im reading "Grapes of Wrath," and spent a good hour or two during the hottest time of the day sitting under a tree, snacking, reading, and drinking lots of water. This country is perfect for biking because you can buy water everywhere, there are sandwich stands and snack stands every kilometer or so, and if you get too tired and just cant keep going, you can stop right where you are and hop in the next bus that comes along.

Anyways, I arrived in Popenguine, and rode straight to a gorgeous restaurant on a cliff that looks over the ocean and serves cold beer. Between the flowering vines, steep streets leading down to the water, donkeys, and white buildings, it looks just like a greek island. Grapefruits are in season right now, so I sat down with one and did some crossword puzzles.

I hung out there with the Popenguine volunteer as other people slowly started showing up. Volunteers from Kolda, Kaolack, Dakar region, etc. all came up for a fishing weekend! We spent the night on Kelsey's (the popenguine volunteer) roof, wrapped up in burritoes of sheets and all huddled together because it was, surprisingly, freezing cold. So, like...70 degrees. Brr. We all ended up moving down to her room which, by the next morning, looked like this:

We got up early and got bean sandwiches, which is always fun. You walk around asking the random sandwich women what they have in their bowls. It ranges from beans, chick peas, onion sauce, oily macaroni, spicy tuna mush, and all costs about...50 cents.
After sandwiches we headed down to the beach and hung out waiting for the boat to leave! Here's the crew:

Once in the boat we motored out to a calm spot and dropped our lines in. Here in Senegal you fish with a line attached to a wooden paddle. No rod, bobber, etc. In a fit of over excitement to catch a fish, I pulled the line too hard and cut my finger. We decided to have a competition to see who could catch the most fish. I caught the first fish, which was the strangest looking creature ever, but that was the extent of my victories for the day : )

Last time I went fishing, I caught a lot of bright pink and orange fish. I called them lisa frank fish. I have no idea what kind they were, but they were tasty. Its a lot like Hawaii, where there is virtually no limit to which fish you can catch and eat. In Hawaii we used to catch and fry up fish that people pay hundreds of dollars to buy for their saltwater aquariums. I dont know what we were catching all day, but in the end we got about 20 some fish of three different species. Every time someone got a fish, it was really exciting. Here are some photos : )

After getting back to shore, we headed to the beach house we rented for the night, and started cleaning the fish. I made tortillas while someone else made salsa. I spent the afternoon in my bathing suit, listening to music, cooking, hanging out, and looking out over the ocean. It was pretty much perfect. We ended the evening with games on the porch, and fish quesadillas. We had way more fish than we could finish, though, so the next morning we got up and I threw all of our leftover ingredients together and made fish chowder. It was surprisingly good. More pictures!

Eventually we all got our stuff together and headed out. Steve and I had a nice lazy bike ride back to Mbour, about 30 kilometers, and met up with the new group of trainees that just arrived. We recovered from our 1pm bike ride by eating ice cream.

They were having beach day, so we sat around and talked with them about peace corps, went swimming, and had a really fun time. I like meeting all of the new people because theyre excited about being here and have so many questions and ideas. Ive ben here for long enough that it doesnt feel like Im in Africa, or a volunteer, or any of that. It just feels normal, and its nice to be reminded that this is an adventure, in a way, and that its not the norm to sleep on a cot in your backyard, speak a random language, and eat fish and rice every day : )

After beach day, I turned on my ipod, biked home, about 15k, and was happy to see my family. My cat was sitting at the door to my hut waiting for me and it was super cute. I turned on Wait Wait Dont Tell Me, laid down on my cot, and fell asleep looking up at the stars. It was such a great weekend, and now Im at the training center helping with sessions for the new group of trainees, and will be back in village soon! Im excited for the projects I have underway, and as soon as school gets out for the year in June, I am flying to Rome, meeting up with my family, and going on a mediterranean cruise. Woohoo! If you need me...Ill be at the buffet.

So Cute.

2011-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

More updates soon, but just wanted to put this up : )
Im going fishing this weekend, I'll add pictures if I catch anything good!

Project, "Sarah Owns Poultry" is Epic Fail.

2011-03-03T07:12:00.000-08:00

In grade school when everyone went around sharing their favorite animals, I was that kid interjecting "Cuttlefish, Marten, or Genet," among all of the cats, horses, dolphins, dogs, etc. Thank you, Wildlife Fact Files. I have always wanted to see two animals in my life, one being the Hellbender Salamander, which Rachel and I saw in Summer 2008 in Pisgah National Forest. The other is a Genet Cat. That goal may or may not have been met last night around 3am.

The reason we all keep chickens in coops here is that something the Sereres in my area call a "Mbafall" will come around and slit the chickens throats. I half believed them, half thought they were talking about the ever present vampires/genies/random malicious spirits out to get us all. Well, this time they were right (Senegal 1, Yama 0). I was awoken around 3am by a bone chilling noise and subsequent struggling sounds. By this point I only had one guinea fowl because the other one escaped, which has been a source of entertainment for everyone all week. Every time we saw it, the entire village turned into a football team, chasing one birdlike ball, sprinting side to side with their arms held up in the air, running in formation...but we never caught it. So, anyways, Im in bed, jolted out of a dream, and start scrambling around for my glasses, headlamp, and cell phone w/flashlight. By the time I get it all together and get myself untangled from the mosquito net, everything is ominously still.

I saw a mound in the corner of my yard (after checking to make sure my kitten was a ok) and approached it, knowing that I was not going to like whatever I saw. It was one of the guinea fowl lying still, and I couldnt see its head, so I grabbed a rake, half shielded my eyes, my imagination running all over the place from vampires to hyenas, and slowly flipped the bird over. Throat slit, empty eyes, lolling neck. I was not going back to sleep any time soon. If ever. So I barricaded myself in the hut, turned on a podcast, and colored in my coloring book. Eventually I peeked outside again and saw two points of light shining back at me. I would have been scared out of my mind, I mean thats always creepy even if its your housecat, but a lightbulb went on in my head...its some kind of cat! A cool African cat. The options...Genet or Civet. Totally harmless for people, and it was obviously pretty small. Also, the fact that it didnt just go around indiscriminantly slitting chicken throats and not returning to eat them was somehow comforting. Something preying upon fowl I understand, something just killing them for no reason...GENIES.

So, I was kind of sad, but mostly think its cool we have a random kind of noctural cat here. I had planned on bringing the guinea to Marys wedding next weekend as a gift anyways, which would have been cooked up for us, so I wasnt emotionally attached. I still havent told my family, though...I am never going to live this down. Here is what a Genet looks like btw:

OK, secondly, THANK YOU Rachel and Ms. Bertolini for the amazing care packages!!! So much fun stuff, and it was really really nice. Getting anyting in the mail reminds me that the real world exists, and fills me with warm fuzzies : ) Thanks again!

Lastly, today the teachers are on strike, which I was (irresponsibly) happy to realize, because I woke up this morning, had my coffee, read the Silmarillion for a while, and it was so nice all I wanted to do was go on a walk. I never want to work here, all I want to do is wander around, talk to people, listen to music and podcasts, and just hang out. According the my ipod pedometer, I am averaging about 16,000 steps a day. Ive been working a lot in other villages, and walk around in my free time, so it adds up to like 6 or 7 miles.

Most people go on COS (Close of Service)trips after their two years. Like Ive mentioned, Im planning on living in Boston w Morgan for the summer, and well see if I get grad school/job after that, but, before going to Boston, I want to spend a month doing one of the following:

1. Hiking the Appalachian Trail. One month of straight up walking around in the gorgeous appalachian forest.
2. Biking down Hwy 1.
3. Going back to Switzerland for a couple of weeks and backpacking around there.

I know its not for a long time, but for now, Im pretty sure Ill end up doing some of the AT unless people are enthusiastic about going as a group elsewhere : ) We'll see! All 40 of us finish at the same time, so there will probably be a lot of ideas. The AT just sounds so awesome, though.

Ladies and Gentlemen...Meet My Baby Dinosaurs!

2011-02-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

Spoiler Alert: Here's the end of my story before it even begins, I have my camera back, I have a healthy kitten in my hut, and I have two lovely Guinea Fowl safely in a coop in my backyard. But all of that was in doubt this week.

First of all, I returned from WAIST with no hope for the camera or my ID, when another volunteer called and said the bartender at the party found it. No idea what happened, but consider my faith in humanity officially restored.

After getting back to site, I decided to finally get some Guinea Fowl, which I have been meaning to do for about a year now. Im planning on staying at site for a good chunk of time, and so figured this was a good opportunity. I could have gotten chickens, but, well, Guinea Fowl make cooler noises, and they look like dinosaurs. Some people think theyre ugly...but I find them charming. Amanda came to visit during all of this, and we named them Priscilla and Quincey. See what I mean about the dinosaur thing?

So, I went into Mbour and spent an hour or so with a random guy who translated everything to Serere for me while I negotiated prices and navigated the bird market which is an overwhelming place to say the least. They have everything from lovebirds to ducks, to, well, Guinea Fowl. I finally settled on two, a male and female, and was handed them tied together by the feet. I walked down the street with my upside down birds on a string when I came across a guy pushing a cart covered in giant clippings of a plant Ive been meaning to collect for the school garden. He was doing trimmings for a hotel, and very nicely offered to cut up a bunch for me to plant. He even took all of the thorns off! I also had to buy groceries, so by the time I took a taxi to the garage, I was juggling two flapping birds, an armfull of wet clippings, two bags of groceries, and was covered in dirt from all of this.

I got home to find that my kitten was missing. Totally disappeared. I felt so bad!! Everyone kept saying he would come back, but my mind was teeming with horrible scenarios, so acting on Amanda's brilliant idea, I offered the kids two hundred cfa, like fifty cents, to anyone who found him. We ran all over the village, flushing out under people's beds, asking about cats, and I barely escaped being beaten with a stick by an old blind woman who thought I was a little kid looking under her bed. Eventually I went home and left the kids to it. I was brought random kittens all day, and turned them all down which was heartbreaking, but finally a terrified child showed up holding a squirming Pippin upside down by the tail at arm's length. Kids are terrified of cats here. I gave him the 200cfa, and sent him on his way. Im the worst pet owner ever, but Pippin seems to be recovering just fine...

I later clipped the guinea fowl's wings, and no I dont have any idea how this should be done, but did it anyways and it seems to be working. I also rigged up the most jankety chicken coop ever, which also seems to be working out fine.

However! Last night I went on a long walk and came back to find that the guineas has gone MIA. My entire family mobilized in a parade of flashlights to search my yard, hut, village... they were literally jumping over fences to get into locked fields, including my mom who was wearing a wrap skirt and a baby tied to her back. We couldnt find them anywhere. We went back for dinner and everyone was making fun of me, as people are wont to do here, about not being able to keep track of anything. I was sitting there explaining that I should never be allowed to have children because I would just lose them, when pippin chose that exact moment to wander away right under my nose. I didnt even notice. Finally someone was like...hey...Yama...your cat's escaping. Oops.

I decided to just call it a day and went into my room, sat down on my bed, and was scared half to death by a flurry of wings and squawking. The guinea fowl were on my bed, blended in with all the various crap I keep on there. I sleep outside so its just my storage space. Nobody in my family even noticed them! Needless to say, I started giggling uncontrollably before putting them back in their coop. Which, btw, is made out of a trunk covered in advertisements for canned tuna, and held together with duct tape..

Today I woke up with three healthy happy pets. I will write about work stuff later, because a LOT of exciting things are happening and deserve their own post. Also, Im at a cyber cafe and cant believe electricity hasnt cut out yet. Im writing stream of consciousness, so ignore the typos I dont have time to edit!

So. In summation:

1. Everything is going wonderfully and I have three lovely pets.
2. Guinea fowl look like both dinosaurs and random bed objects.
3. I must never, ever, be allowed to have children.
4. If I do ever have children, they will all have to be tattooed with an, "if found, please return to..." message.

Dakar is trying to destroy me.

2011-02-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

I am pretty much constantly walking a tightrope of tolerance for Senegal. Sometimes I find myself strolling happily along, downright loving this country. But other times I fall off into "what the eff am I doing here?" territory.

I will write a more thorough post later, but for now, here's a quick WAIST recap! All volunteers were set up with homestays, ie people nice enough to take us in for a few days, and I hit the jackpot along with three other volunteers. We are staying with a USAID worker named Meg who is amazing. She has her own apartment, a pool, a wii, nice tv, wireless, and an amazing kitchen. I woke up this morning to chocolate chip french toast with whipped cream, and a hot cup of freshly french pressed coffee : )

WAIST was an amazing couple days of wearing my enormous tutu, playing softball, seeing friends, going out at night, and just generally having the best weekend imaginable. Here is a Kaolack team photo : ) We were ballerinas.

However, when it comes to being in Dakar, its like being in an entirely different world. Not always in a good way. Far from my comfort zone and "safe place" in the village, I am just another white person as far as all Senegalese people here are concerned. So, in the span of three days, I managed to be subjected to all of the following things:

1. Guys doing maintenance on a telephone pole who decided to lift up a cable right as I walked past. I wiped out completely and it really hurt.

2. After wiping out I was solicited for sex no less than 10 times, and was shouted at by every senegalese guy for the next 100 yards. By the time we got to the bar where everyone was going out...I was pretty much in tears and convinced the girls I am staying with to just go home with me.

3. During a mid day swim in the ocean, I forgot my lessons learned living in Hawaii, and didn't pay enough attention to the rocks. I stepped on a sea urchin, and brushed a couple with my legs. The spines come right off and are currently, painfully, still stuck in my body. I got the accessible ones out, but the rest are too far in there. The guy I was swimming with got a thousand times more than I did. It looked like the most painful thing ever.

4. Last night was the biggest party of the year for peace corps senegal. I was being responsible and had my money/ID/camera all in one pocket. There was basically nobody there but other volunteers (like...200 of us) and when I went to take a picture, I realized that it had all disappeared. My brand new camera. Sometimes it can be so disheartening to live and work here, and realize that no matter how much you become a part of your own community, the minute you leave, you still have things stolen, you still get marriage proposals, and nobody takes you seriously. As a woman at least. Im really really sad that all of my pictures are gone. From home, and all weekend. I cant imagine another volunteer took it, so I assume it was someone on staff at the venue. From now on, I wont even bother owning nice things in Africa.

5. If stepping on a sea urchin wasn't enough, I was in turn stepped on by one of my friends (accidentally) and have a nasty gash on my toe from it. There is also a crater of skin missing from my pinkie toe where I slipped down the most uneven narrow dirt stairwell to ever exist. But, it wasn't just me. Everyone is sore and injured from 3 days of softball and partying. We were a rough looking crew sitting around the pool today. I think bedraggled is a good adjective for...everyone here at the moment. There are multiple pairs of crutches being passed around. Luckily Im not at that point yet...

OK, but, good news should be shared as well. I am currently wearing a fleece, comfy stretchy pants, and drinking a cup of mint tea. Instead of going out to yet another party tonight, I had dinner with some friends at a restaurant which overlooked the ocean. We watched the sun set, drank white wine, and had fresh mussels, clams, and shrimp. Best seafood ever. It was really nice : ) Dakar has been fun and exciting, and great to see everyone, but I cant wait to just get back to my family in Louly, sleep in my backyard, hang out with the kitten, and do some good hard work gardening every day. ahh, village life. Plus, I have a lot of books Im excited to start reading.

Goodnight! And thank you for reading, as always. Its my family and friends at home (as well as here) that really keep me going/happy with what Im doing. I know life is hard wherever, and mostly I just feel lucky that even though this experience comes with a lot of random frustrations...its still a life changing, amazing, fulfilling, opportunity : )

Compost, Yassa, Gardens, and a Kitten.

2011-02-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

Random news:

1. I caught the French tourists in action with my new camera! This is a picture of how they save the world by giving the kindergarteners candy. It has become an almost daily occurrence.

2. On beach day a couple of weeks ago, Steve showed up with a kitten for me in his backpack. I named him Pippin, and he's SO cute. Here he is in Jen's lap.

3. School directors in other villages around Louly heard about the gardening project Im starting, and have begun calling/randomly showing up in my compound (totally socially acceptable behavior here)to get me to work with their schools. They don't even need funding, they just want me to help train/organize : ) Here's a picture of a garden we laid out, and the one bed I taught them how to "double dig," which is a soil improvement technique. If all goes to plan, the beds will all be dug by the time I get back to village, they will have put up a millet-stalk fence, and we'll be ready to plant veggies!

4. Steve and Jen (my two closest neighbors) came to spend the night on Friday. We did a composting lesson at the school, and then ate a TON of Yassa Poulet for dinner. And 6 bags of cookies for dessert! The kitten attacked the bowl after we finished.

5. Somebody bought the twins overalls. Its pretty much the cutest thing ever.

6. Yet another example of why Senegalese males are perhaps the most annoying species on the planet: I was walking to the market, and a 20 something year old guy was running around like a sheep dog simultaneously trying to herd a hysteric full grown bull to the market (im terrified of cows here) while hitting on me at the top of his lungs. I couldn't get away from either of them! Totally harmless, just obnoxious. Jeez.

Thats about all for now. Things are going really well, and I am working on a more entertaining blog post for later when I have better internet : )

I found internet! Read my blog.

2011-01-31T03:53:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone! Exciting news all around. This is a long post, but probably the only one for a while, so read at your leisure. First of all, I made it safely back to Senegal and suffered only the mildest of cultural traumatization while transitioning back to village life. Ive been spending pretty much every afternoon wandering around and listening to episodes of “This American Life,” which is actually really fun.

While on one of my walks, two random guys around my age decided that I needed to pay attention to them and started walking with me, being obnoxious, telling me to “be at peace, we don’t want to interrupt, how are you enjoying your walk, do you have a husband? Really we don’t want to interrupt, but how are you, do you love me? etc,” the usual. Not being in the mood to deal with it I stopped, shot them the most disdainful look that I could muster, turned around, and walked purposefully into the closest building...a school compound that I’ve never visited before. I’ve been meaning to, really, but have just been lazy. Turns out, that moment may have changed my entire service! I have been trying to set up a school garden in my village, but we don’t have a wall, or a convenient water source, or motivated teachers... but the new school (1k away from me) is a magical wonderland just waiting for me to start a garden and Environmental Club. They have a fenced in area, a school wall, a robinet, a basin to hold water, motivated and french speaking teachers, and even a cement chicken coop. All they need is someone to organize it! I cant wait.

In other news, I wrote a couple of articles for our volunteer newsletter. Ill put in the first one on here. I also decided to run for a coordinating position for SeneGAD, which is the country wide gender and development program. Elections are in a couple of weeks, I’ll let you know what happens! And speaking of things coming up soon, it is time to tell you about WAIST. The West African Invitational Softball Tournament. It is basically a huge get together for all volunteers in Senegal and neighboring countries. We are split up into softball teams based on region, and each team has a theme complete with costumes. This year the Kaolack team (mine) will be ballerinas. I will be sure to put up pictures afterward. There is also a talent show, photo contest, huge all night party, and we are all really excited! It’s an excuse to see people who live far away, other volunteers I only see every 3 or 4 months. I cant wait!

In other plans, I have Star Wars valentines that I will be handing out in a couple weeks, and am doing a radio show along with some of the other Sereer speakers on the 14th. Morgan and I will be having fancy sunset dinner and wine on the Kaolack house roof to celebrate our total lack of viable romance options here in Peace Corps Senegal. I think its going to be really fun, actually : )

OK, here some pictures from village, as well as the newsletter article I wrote. I hope youre all doing well, and am already getting excited for a family Mediterranean cruise this summer. Happy February, and since I wont talk to many of you until then, Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Random Photos:

Laundry Time

Steve's Birthday Burger

Sheep

Dakar Traffic Jam

Mantis of some kind

Flower of some kind

Kids at the Yekini parade, wearing Yekini crowns

Sabaar (article) and photos:

Out of Site, Out of Mind.

A phenomenon known as "Site Guilt," generally follows us PCV's around when we leave our villages to partake in the regional house or Dakar high life. It usually manifests itself as a nagging in the back of our hungover minds as we turn on a 5th consecutive episode of Glee, pop open a cold Flag, and thank Allah for elastic waistbands while starting in on that second bean/egg/mayonnaise/sauce soble/french fry sandwich. We tell ourselves, "Hey, I'll go back to site tomorrow, this time with the best sariche ever," right before we re enter the sloth cycle until the entire regional house clears itself out in a collective surge of motivation. We show up at our sites a week later toting a 150cfa bag of beignets, compliments of that guy shouting at our alham window.

However, I've been out of site for a few weeks now, and am happy to report that site guilt does NOT follow you to America. It doesn't have a passport and probably gets cut off somewhere around Bermuda as you down that second bottle of free champagne. Sorry, sparkling wine. However, some vestiges of Peace Corps life have definitely crossed the pond with me over this holiday vacation. A total lack of self restraint, for example. It's hard to convince yourself that you don’t, in fact, need that gigantic piece of cake because, hey, you won’t have the option of cake for the next year and a half. Better to eat it now while you can. I want two years of America concentrated into a one month span, and I'd say it's going quite well so far. Embracing gluttony is a lovely thing, but is definitely best reserved for the holiday season. It would be hard to maintain as a lifelong thing (financially and physically) and really....what other choice do you have when surrounded by Christmas buffets? I know we've been out of the US for a while, but it was still shocking when I came home to find out that cookies have, in fact, learned to talk! I look at them and all I hear is, "you live in Africa...eeeeat meeeee..."

So, in a few weeks when they roll me onto that plane and heft me back to Senegal...sure it will be hard to say goodbye again, so I’m doing my best to enjoy every possible moment of US time while I can, which, let's face it, isn't difficult. Because really, when will we ever have the chance to just sit around all day, cook whatever we want, hang out with our favorite people, and enjoy a total lack of responsibility ever again? Unless you count being unemployed. I would tell myself that when I get back I'll do more work, be a better volunteer, and make up for all of this time at home. But, again, there is no site guilt in the US of A. Unjustified vacation can truly be a wonderful thing. So, enjoy that time at home, love your vacations for all they’re worth, and trust that you will be just as good of a volunteer when you get back…maybe just slightly more rotund. Which will only make you that much more popular in the village.

Oh, and you can't forget Goal Three of Peace Corps. Fine wine and the joy that comes from a plate loaded down with holiday goodies can really improve your conversational skills. People actually want to hear about Peace Corps, and the longer you tell them about Senegal, the longer they keep serving you food. I rest my case. Happy Holidays.

Break's Over.

2011-01-05T08:19:00.001-08:00

Well my vacation is ending in about 45 minutes. After that it's back to the grind...sitting on the beach, swimming at the American Club, planting gardens, painting murals, and playing with kids. Such a hard life. Anyways, I am terrified of flying over the ocean (for no real reason, I guess it's no different than flying over land) but after Im done with Peace Corps Im moving back to North America and staying put. Maybe there will be some good movies at least...

Anyways, here's a Christmas morning picture to say goodbye! I'll talk to you all in Senegal, when I have a chance to get online. ttfn.

Alright Senegal. Im coming back.

2011-01-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's time to leave the land of luxury, and go back to showering out of a bucket and eating with my hand.

A couple random things, I am all packed and trying to sleep, but it's not happening. I decided to watch Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa to prepare for my journey tomorrow. I also watched Sound of Music before studying abroad in Switzerland. Typical : ) Im wondering, though, why they felt the need to call it Escape to Africa, when Madagascar is in Africa already. Escape to Continental Africa just doesnt have the same ring I guess.

Anyways, I find myself in exactly the same position I was in 10 months ago, thinking: What in the world shall I pack to leave for Senegal?

Luckily, this time it’s not as big of a deal since most of my stuff is already over there. However, there is limited bag space and Im determined to make the most of it. When I first left for Peace Corps, I threw whatever seemed useful into my bag, not very intentionally. The result? I showed up without a single skirt or tanktop, and a lot of useless crap, basically. So, I thought Id share my lessons with the new people who are preparing to leave in a couple months, as well as give the rest of you a glimpse into my suitcase. You know, in case you ever decide to spend two years in a West African village...
Useful/wonderful things:
*Extra money. Like one hundred dolla billzzz. You aren’t used to living at village standards yet, and will probably have forgotten a lot of stuff. You absolutely don’t need extra money, but having some was awesome. That way you can buy things in Thies to bring to your site.

*Craft supplies. Lots of them. They will come in handy. At some point.

*A French press if you like coffee. I have a cheap glass one from target, but I think REI makes unbreakable ones for camping. Which is pretty much what you’ll be doing for the next two years.

*A netbook and a hard drive.

*A digital camera. Duh.

*Good Liquor. Even if you don’t like drinking that much, its not available in Senegal, and is nice to have at the regional house. Over two years, somebody will surely appreciate it.

*A pocketknife and duct tape.

*Toiletries! Like, nice smelling body lotion and shower stuff for when you want to feel like a real person.

*A sewing kit. Just a little one.

*A light saber. Anyone could be a sith lord in disguise. Especially the Wolofs.

*A heavy blanket or sleeping bag. It does get cold at night. Sometimes.

*A bathing suit, or two.

*A quick dry towel. They are lovely.

*Costumes. ALL costumes. Wigs, petticoats, sparkly jumpsuits, whatever.

*Entertainment. For example, paint by number kits, crosswords, puzzles, books, etc.

*Settlers of Catan. I would really like you to bring that. With an extension pack. And then make sure you're placed in the Kaolack region.

Things you really don’t need:
*Too many clothes. You will acquire a ton of them here, and you can get pretty much anything made.

*Instant coffee, a la nescafe. There is plenty of it here, trust me.

*Vitamins. Med will give you enough Prenatals to grow a baby the wholesome way.

*A blowdryer. Africa is a blowdryer.

*Socks. Unless you are Chris Peterson.

*Enough pens for an army. I came laden with enough pens to last me two years. I don’t know why I thought Senegal wouldn’t have pens. They do, they most certainly do.

*Candy for kids. Just don’t do it...all they eat is sugar anyways.

*You can leave your palm oil, your dried fish, and your plain white rice at home.

*Peanuts.

*Toilet Paper. I mean...come on.

Ok thats all I can think of right now! Im not sure Im a good person to take advice from, though, since I am heading back with half my backpack taken up by a gigantic pink petticoat (WAIST here I come!) which my sister decided to buy for me in lieu of depositing the money into my bank account a few years ago, thank you, lindsey...and a piece of Zingerman's Hummingbird Cake for my site mate. mmmmm. That may not survive. I might eat it en route.

Ohh, Im going to miss you America!! Goodbye! See you in 2012.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight, my grandma and I are getting dressed to the nines, drinking mimosas, and watching movies to ring in the New Year. Its not the exciting going out dancing all night of last year, but I really can't imagine a better way to spend the evening : )

I am heading back to Senegal in a few days. Im not exactly ready, but a day or two at the American Club is probably all I need to get back into Peace Corps mode.

Being back in AMERIK for a month has helped me realize what it is exactly that I miss the most about home. I thought it would be the food, the weather, my family, etc. But, the result was something I didnt expect. While I do miss all of that, the thing I miss the most, and what I look forward to the most when I get back here (you know, in 2012) is having a life. Seriously. In Senegal, work is life. Im not saying I have a ton of work to do, but I live and work in the same place. My personal and professional life are one and the same. I am ON 24/7. Sarah time vs. job time literally does not exist. I am my alias, Yama, pretty much day in and day out. It's like being in a play...all the time. Where no one speaks english. Bienvenue.

I loved living in Victoria because I could take yoga classes, play ultimate frisbee, go to salsa lessons, volunteer at a gorgeous ocean discovery center, go to midnight swims at the community center, and just generally have a good time. Even work was pretty fun.

Baltimore was exciting because I could take yoga, contra dancing, sing sea shanties at a pub on Thursdays, play boggle with people from work every Tuesday, take a rigging workshop, go to trivia night, and take long walks on the water.

In Peace Corps, though, it's like being transported back to middle school in terms of freedom and options of things to do. Except...in Africa with a bunch of random Senegalese people. I spend my time with the family, eat when they do, eat whatever they're eating, always tell them where Im going and when I'll be back, have limited internet and TV time(ie. none) and never leave the compound after dark. My alone time these days is a long walk to a baobab tree where I sit and do crosswords.

I dont mean to complain, compared to all of the issues available to worry about in real life, like paying bills, worrying about health care, not living on the beach, schedules, supervision, etc. It's not so bad ; ) Peace Corps is a whole new world of costs and benefits. I like my work in Senegal and knew it would be like this before leaving. We have regional houses to take breaks when we need it, and get non-village work done. It's just a much slower and different pace of life. I am enjoying it for the time I have, but when I get back to the US...Im going to boycott sitting and reading. Im going to do as much as humanly possible. Pottery classes, a computer programming class, ultimate frisbee, a fun job, long walks, yoga, swing dancing, hiking on weekends. Hopefully in Boston. For Summer of Fun! After summer of fun...Im thinking graduate school. Or a job. We'll see. Anything could happen in the next 15 months. Who knows, I might even become fluent in Serere. And I know that makes you jealous.

Eerie.

2010-12-23T19:33:00.001-08:00

There have been two previous volunteers at my site, two years each. One of them wrote a blog, and it's like someone took my diary and posted it online. Same experiences, same frustrations, same everything. It's kind of awesome, and also really weird to think how we have lived pretty much the exact same life, just two years removed. He even had just as many mouse problems as I did. Go back to earlier entries and take a look. I assume his more recent ones are glimpses into my future as a volunteer in Louly : ) Here's the link:

http://czcarpenter.blogspot.com

And, lastly, MERRY CHRISTMAS in a couple of days! Im looking forward to christmas breakfast, my stocking, family, and of course, presents! Yay!

Thats not Senegal...

2010-12-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

...cause im not in Senegal! Im at home, and America is *literally* the best. I have been sitting around in my giant fuzzy bathrobe and sweatpants all day every day : ) This evening, Connor and I made paper airplanes before we all sat down in front of the fireplace to watch a Christmas movie. Last night I baked three pies (blackberry raspberry, blueberry coconut, apple sweet potato strawberry) and trays upon trays of sweet potato fries at a friend's house for a big dinner party. I also went to curves with Sheila, spent a day making crab cakes with cousin Ken, and am generally just having the best vacation ever.

Nana and Lindsey get here next week, Connor is off from school, and It's COLD which is fantastic. I love my family, I love snow, I love the US, and I love Christmas! Here's to one month of doing nothing but relaxing, eating, and spending time with everyone! I'll put the hot sandy Senegal picture back up on my title when I go back. For now....SNOW. !!!

Also, not related, Im jealous of this guy....that's awesome. I hope I catch something ridiculous while fishing one day. Like when Steve caught a crazy looking triggerfish by the TAIL in Popenguine : ) Hehe.

Culture Shock

2010-12-08T02:17:00.000-08:00

I am going home for Christmas in less than 48 hours! Most of all, I can't wait to see family, see snow, be surrounded by Christmas decorations, eat good food, and just relax. Knowing that I am about to leave has changed my perspective on life in Senegal over the past few weeks. I've started noticing the things I love and appreciate here, and the thngs I will be happy to leave behind for a month : )

I wont mind leaving behind the bugs, the heat, the constant back and forth between overwhelming volunteer events and quiet village life, the language barrier, the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb no matter where I am, the monotonous food, the lack of activity between 12-3pm, and the constant requests for money.

I will miss (well. not miss exactly, but things that I will be happy to come back to) include: my open air shower, the warm palm tree covered beach, my incredibly cute siblings here, my projects that are just getting underway, other PCV's, wearing flip flops every day, never being concerned with what I look like, total independence and freedom, my lovely village, the kindergarten, and not having constant internet/tv/etc. stimulation (I know its inconvenient, but It's pretty nice : ).

Im excited to go home, will be happy to come back, and am just generally looking forward to these next few months!

On another note, I went into Kaolack for Thanksgiving, where we made a HUGE dinner with all of your typical American food, which was fantastic. Then, I headed to my friend Morgan's site to help her paint her hut. It sounds simple, but we somehow ended up with whitewash in pellet form, which we had to mix on our own. Life without google is interesting. So, we painted a wall with what looked like plain water...seriously, it wasn't white, it just looked wet. Then, sat and watched it turn white over the next hour. Throughout the day we both ended up with quick lyme in our eyes, and managed to get the hut covered in uneven shades of streaky whitewash. We celebrated by going swimming in the delta. We were walking home in the dark, when a beetle flew INTO my eye. I couldnt see it or get it out...it was crawling around in there while I freaked out. Morgan was kind enough to confront her fear of eye-touching, and saved me. She also pops out mango flies in my dreams. I would probably, literally, fall apart without her.

Anyways, when I headed back to site, I hopped in a crowded station wagon with a few Senegalese families. There is one main road that cuts through Senegal, and another volunteer who lives along that road owed me some money from Thanksgiving dinner. We decided to try a roadside handoff. 20k before we tried to meet, our car screeched to a halt and a random woman ran up to the window, handed someone in our car a baby and a suitcase, and we sped off. I asked them to stop at the white person, so everyone in the car sat with their eyes to the windows searching, until we saw her. We slammed on the breaks as she came sprinting up to the car, threw me money, and we continued on our way.

Back at site, things were just fine. I left in a rush to get to an all volunteer conference in Thies, afer which I came to Dakar, and have been playing the role of tourist ever since!

Ok, ttfn. See you in America!

Dear French People: Go Home.

2010-11-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

The more time I spend in village, the more entrenched I get in my routine of waking up, pulling water, sitting around talking to people all day, going to bed soon after the sun goes down, and showering out of a bucket. It becomes easy to forget the fact that I live on the national road, and am only a 30 minute car ride away from a major tourist destination.

Enter tourist season. And the subsequent bursting of my happy village bubble. I sensed that my quiet life was about to change drastically when I saw the first unnaturally tanned woman fly by my site on an ATV wearing platform sandals and short shorts (keep in mind, this is a predominately Muslim country. The only short shorts here come directly from France).

As the days pass, more and more white people (toubabs) are popping up all over the place. When I go to check my mail in Mbour, I see carfulls of them in their safari hats and sweat wicking fabric. The most recent development has been the daily tour groups who get carted straight to my village where they get to see the "real" Senegal. They come in groups of 10-20 to hang out at the kindergarten, walk around the village, and stare at me (random toubab) doing weird things and speaking the local language.

The latest incident...I was planting a papaya tree with my headphones on, and back turned to the Kindergarten. When I looked up, there were 4 French families (kids and all) staring at me. I was wearing my typical Peace Corps uniform of dirty capri pants and the same shirt I've had on for the past few days. Needless to say, I felt awkward. Then, yesterday, I was hanging out with the kindergarten teachers, when the tourists showed up. They all stood around, dispensing random health advice in French (there are only like 5 people in the village who speak French btw) in condescending tones to the women who I have come to know as my friends. I know the tourists just see them as...you know...uneducated African villagers. Anyways, I was holding a baby, when it started spitting up on me. No big deal, except two of the French guys started videotaping it. Really?? One of the women in my village then asked me, in Serere, if babies in the US spit up too. I told her that all babies in the world spit up. She had a fit of giggles over that comment. There are some parts of Senegalese humor that I will just never understand. Somewhere in the world, that interaction is recorded on videotape for a guy's family to watch as he narrates his trip to Africa.

The worst, though, is their incessant need to hand out candy. This is why we volunteers get harassed by kids for gifts, candy, money, etc. You know those signs that say, "please don't feed the birds?" Same thing. Candy is bad for kids, who are generally malnourished anyways, and it makes my life significantly less pleasant. So, if you are a French tourist reading this, and you want to do some real good in Africa...search for the random dirty white person in the rural village you are visiting and give them copious amounts of nice French wine and cheese. It will go a long way. And we thank you.

Just for the record, I have nothing against the French. Just tourists. Even in Hawaii, the aloha shirt wearing tourists insisted on getting in the way of any and all work projects. I know you're on vacation, but the world is not your personal Disneyland. It may be hard to believe, but when you see a coned off area on the edge of a volcanic crater, with rappelling gear set up over the side of a 500 ft. cliff...the person dangling in the air below is NOT going to appreciate your walking into the whole operation, grabbing the rope and asking, "So! What are you guys doing?"

Jeez. I wish I had a camera. I would dearly love to take pictures back at them.

IM GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!

2010-10-23T04:13:00.000-07:00

YAYAYAYAY. I hope this doesnt lead you to think that Im not enjoying it here, Im just really excited to spend Christmas at home. Last year I spent Chrismas out in Victoria, changing blackberry branches in a tank of giant stickbugs, before watching movies with my boyfriend's japanese room mate. It was actually pretty fun, but it will be nice to go home...and see SNOW. Also, I have a six hour layover in DC, ahem...CLAIRE, which means lots of time to drink Starbucks and contemplate life or something.

Ill be there on the tenth :) I have absolutely nothing planned. Its going to be wonderful.

Anyways, life here has been especially fun lately. Ive been spending time with my family, playing with the kids, harvesting peanuts along with the whole village, hanging out with Steve and Jen in Mbour, practicing french at the Poste de Sante, and actually getting work done. I dont know what happened, I think maybe hanging out with my family in the fields more, but I feel a lot more involved in life here now. Rainy season ended, and its really pretty right now. Kindergarten also started, and now that I know who all the kids are, its really fun to hang out there.

Not much else to report :) I accidentally made all of the new volunteers dip their carrot sticks in a pot of cookie dough because I thought it was hummus. They were too polite to say anything. Oops...welcome to Peace Corps. And I thought it was pretty good, anyways.

These next few months are going to be nice, I have some exciting projects planned. Then Thanksgiving, a week of causaries at the health post, All Volunteer conference, Dakar, and then....Home!

Im not a baby anymore!

2010-10-19T05:07:00.000-07:00

About 60 new volunteers just installed at their new sites all over Senegal, officially promoting my group from our position as the newest volunteers in country, to something more like...sophomores. It feels kind of nice.

On another note, I am going to be Ziggy Stardust for Halloween. Hopefully somebody with a camera will be around, and I can steal their pictures. Until then, I am going back to site to have a huge community meeting that will hopefully set the agenda for the next year and a half. Ive been here almost 8 months, which is hard to grasp. It often feels like I just arrived, but I have enough freckles these days to prove that's not the case. I spent this past week visiting some other volunteers at their sites, which has become one of my favorite things to do. I love hearing other languages, seeing how they interact with their families, helping out where I can, and seeing the projects everyone has been working on. Its a great way to see the country, and get ideas. And its fun.

Now that it's mid October, my absolute favorite time of the year back at home, all I can think about is wanting to drink hot apple cider on a cold day, go hiking in color changing woods, buy fresh apples at the farmers market, buy bulk candy, and eat pumpkin doughnuts from washtenaw dairy. mmmm.

Oh well. Pictures coming soon! Probably in November. Have a good Halloween!!

Somebody Pickpocketed My Hamburger.

2010-10-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

Im serious. Last week, during my BEST BIRTHDAY EVER (besides the fact that I missed family and friends at home) I was dancing around in a dress with large pockets. Somebody had bought me a hamburger, and I was saving it for later in one of those pockets. Then, as I left the restaurant where we had been dancing, I noticed it was no longer there. A sketchy senegalese man was sitting off to the side eating it and staring at me. I let it go. I pick my battles...but I really wanted that hamburger.

Anyways, last week all of the Health and Environmental Ed volunteers had a summit. We were staying in a huge house that didnt have water, was really hot, and had nowhere to hang mosquito nets. It was pretty miserable, so on my birthday our boss announced that we were being moved to an incredibly fancy beachfront hotel that was originally out of the price range, but had agreed to give us a deal if we promised to buy drinks with our increased daily allowance. OKAY. I was surrounded by all of my favorite people here, and wearing the flashing light up crown that Nana sent me in the mail, along with the plastic beads and stickers she sent (THANK YOU!). Everyone bought me whatever I wanted from the bar which means I had Baileys and Espresso all evening while swimming around in a pool on the beach underneath gorgeous palm trees. Then we went to a really good restaurant where some of the other volunteers had baked me a cake from scratch. it tasted more like a big doughnut than a cake, which was great : ) Then 50's music randomly began playing and we had a big swing dance party. Afterwards, I went back to my nice hotel room with a fan and running water, and peacefully slept my way into being 24 years old.

On another note, it is harvest season here in Senegal! Before coming here I never really understood how peanuts worked/grew, but I was imagining some kind of bush with peanuts hanging off of it. In reality, though, they are pretty amazing plants because they literally plant themselves. The flower is pollinated, then the soon-to-be-seed drops down to the root, and the seed (peanut) grows down there underground. Each plant has like 20 peanuts on it. So, for the past week or so everyone has been walking out into the fields, pulling up peanut plants, and popping the peanuts off to eat right there. I like walking the super cute 2 yr old twins at my house out into the field and collecting peanuts with them. I also taught them you can eat greenbeans raw (ie. not boiled in oil). Score one for nutrition.

Here is a stolen image of a peanut plant:

And one last thing, school was supposed to start the other day, but the houses that were built for the new teachers to come and live in are currently being occupied by a guy and his family. He refuses to move. School turned into a major shouting match between him and the rest of the village leaders (and a random french woman who showed up out of nowhere with a catholic nun, and disappeared after the meeting). I think they agreed to let his family stay in the houses (no idea why, or what that means for school ever starting) but they decided that he owes the village leaders 2 liters of wine and a cooler of beer for ruining their day. I love sereres. And am endlessly frustrated by them. Whatever.

What I Do Here.

2010-09-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that in my relentless praising of Dakar, I have neglected to write about my actual job/project/etc. So, first of all, my position is as an Environmental Education Volunteer. With that title, you would think that I have specific hours and work in a school, but that's not the case. I have zero structure to my job, meaning I am totally in charge of deciding what I want to do and when. In trainings, we are provided with language, a history of the area and natural environment, and tools to work with the community to meet environmental and health needs.

So, basically, I spend my time getting to know the language and the village. I hang out with eveyone, talk about what is important to them, what they want to see change, and what their ideas are. I take those ideas, hold meetings, identify needs and wants, along with what is feasible, and try and put it all into action. So far, that has basically been me just wandering around and helping people plant trees in their compounds, while taking the excuse to sit and get to know them. 500 people in a village sounds small, but when it comes to establishing personal connections...that's like my entire high school class. I didn't know them all. Im sure that had everything to do with sheer numbers, and not the fact that I had braces, bangs, enormous glasses, a puffy yellow jacket, loved biology, was some kind of french club officer and...enjoyed Star Wars more than your average person.

Anyways, thats my job! I plant trees, am turning into one big freckle, am getting ready for the school year when I will have an EE club, and probably a lot more to do. For now, though, here's an account of my last day in village before coming here to Dakar where I will enjoy a week of air conditioning, eating good food, and speaking english (sorry,I cant help it, Dakar is paradise. Tonight we are playing ultimate frisbee with ex-pats and then going to happy hour).

A few days ago I woke up and pulled water at the well, and then sat down to make coffee and read. By 10am it felt like an oven, so I just laid around in the shade with my family, picking apart leaves for leaf sauce that night. Luckily, around 1pm the sky split open and a massive storm ensued. It got cold enough to function, so after the deulge, I went over to a friend's house because she had offered to teach me how to cook bean sandwiches and make mayonnaise. I had bought the supplies days before, and was waiting to get the energy to actually go over there. So, we spent the evening in her little shack of a kitchen, cutting up onions, cooking the beans (that I had picked from my garden a few days before) and talking. By the time the sun was setting, she and her sister had wrapped up the finished beans and mayonnaise in bowls,and tied it with a cloth for me to carry home. All of the women were making comments about how im senegalese now, and can cook, and were being really fun and friendly. I have been at site for a while now and am starting to understand most of whats going on around me, and much to everyone's surprise, I wedged my way into a conversation and made a joke...and thought they were all gong to die from laughing so much. I was SO PROUD of myself. I would translate it, but its not funny in english.

Basically the point of the story is that as I walked home in the setting sun along the road, looking out over the baobab trees lit up in the evening light, carrying my little sandwich bundle in my arms...I couldn't stop smiling. I learned to cook my favorite food, I spent a whole day hanging out with the women and having fun, and even reached an understanding of the language enough to let my personality come through for a second. I am not here to make any environmental waves, or to "save the world" as it were, but to learn how to be happy no matter where I am, to relate to people across any barrier, and to generally try to make everyone around me's life a little bit better, or make them a little bit happier. That's not exactly a job, persay, or something you could put on a resume and get paid for...but thats why Im a volunteer : ) And thats why I think Peace Corps works. You have freedom to make it your own, and do the best you can, whether its through building personal reltionships, informal education, or developing large scale projects to help make everyone's life just a little bit better.

On a different note, Ive read 17 books so far. 10 of those were in the past 2 weeks. Its hot. I have been slacking off. Here are some really good ones I recommend!

The Help-Kathryn Stockett
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle-Barbara Kingsolver
Zorro-Isabel Allende
Snow Falling on Cedars-David Guterson
East of Eden-John Steinbeck

OK. Have a good day!

I have internet now!!

2010-09-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

Not at site, but im in Dakar : ) It has been miserably hot for the past month. Too hot to travel. Except for a 5 minute window of internet a few days ago at the cyber cafe...I havent checked email or left my village for three weeks. I'll do a real blog post tomorrow, but for now the laptop is dying so i will leave you with a quick anecdote. Last night my 2 year old sister was playing with a new "toy" that one of the other kids had scrounged up. It was a heavy duty chain with a padlock attached to the end. Someone has managed to attach a knife blade to the padlock...which my sister was happily sucking on. I didn't intervene. She was fine. But, I dont think Louly is ready for electricity...god knows what would happen if electric outlets were introduced into daily life.

I'll write soon! Things are going really well!

My darling sister and I will soon be the same age!

2010-09-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the bank to pick up a money order, and along with the cash the attendant pushed a box of fresh dates through the hole in the bulletproof window. She told me it was a gift from the bank, a promotion if you will, where customers get free dates for doing money orders with them. Sometimes....I really love Senegal. Between things like that, and people getting into heated debates about how many times is the correct number to chew a certain brand of candy before swallowing it...it's hard to imagine that this country could ever get into serious conflict or break out into any sort of mass violence. They would get stuck making fun of each other for looking ridiculous in their army uniforms. Or over what the uniforms should look like in the first place. Or what is the proper angle at which to hold a gun. Even the ethnic groups just jokingly make fun of each other and go on their way laughing.

Anyways, I have spent the past few days visiting another volunteer under the pretense of painting a mural. But, she has one of the few other Sereer sites, and it's been rainy and slow lately, so mostly we were just hanging out, practicing language, and swimming. However, at some point we realized we would get stuck there, because the rain was flooding the hour long walk to her road town, so we trudged our way out to a bus in water up to our knees, and came back to Kaolack (the regional house). I spent all day buying gifts in the marketplace, which is an all out jungle of bright fabrics, jewelry, people shouting and bargaining, and shoving random things you could never need into your face. It's fun when you're in the right mood.

Korite, the end of Ramadan (one month of fasting) is coming up and everybody is preparing for huge parties where countless sheep and goats will meet their untimely death. I however, am taking a day off with a couple of other volunteers before heading back to site, to watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy , projected on a wall. Extended editions. This is only possible when a few select people are in the house.

Once back at site, I have been given money by Associated projects (http://appropriateprojects.com/node/323) to start building well covers. Between that, planting all of the trees Ive grown, language learning, and compound gardens, this month will go by quickly bringing us to...my 24th birthday!! All Health and Environmental Education volunteers have a summit October 5th and 6th, followed by three days of birthdays. We're all headed to Dakar for Ice Cream and fun. I cant wait. Can you tell I love Dakar? I do.

I am allergic to this country.

2010-08-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

I know that, as a virtue of being a redhead, I have sensitive skin. However. I thought it was only relevant to sun exposure. But, Africa is full of surprises! I have not suffered any major sunburns, but have somehow managed to develop the amazing ability to be allergic to everything in this country. You may remember the ant incident.

I got back from English camp one week ago and hit the ground running as far as projects go. I was busy and had work to do, was waking up at 5am every day to eat breakfast and fast with my family, and was enjoying hanging out in the village. But, the day I got back a small itchy spot appeared on my waist, and has since puffed itself up and marched itself right across my entire body. I feel fine, just extremely itchy. I called Med and landed myself back here in Dakar. They confirmed...it is an allergy to SOMEthing. No idea what, here are some meds to reduce the swellng, and try to avoid that as-yet-unidentified thing from now on. So, now I am sitting somewhat uselessly in Dakar waiting for the swelling to at least start receding (rather than spreading as it is still doing) so I can go back to site. I also lost my camera/probably had it stolen : ( Im really sad about that, I had some good pictures on there. Oh! And random keys on my computer have stopped working. It is not a good week for technology. In all honesty, though, I knew from the get-go that anything I brought here was liable to be destroyed/lost/stolen, etc. Here's to trying not to get attached to material goods : )

Speaking of things being destroyed, one of my friends accidentally left a bag of bananas in my hut three weeks ago before we all went to training in Thies. I got back to find that the bag of bananas had been on top of all my language notebooks. Over those three weeks, the notebooks were slowly transformed into a sludgy puddle of glop crawling with maggots. Yuck. If you ever want to slowly destroy something, that is an especially interesting way to do so.

Okay! Sorry, most of that was bad news. The GOOD news is that I finally got the Chef du Village to have a meeting with me and I am going to start two projects soon! Im excited about them, and am writing grants for them now. We also got free calling to other volunteers on our cell phones, so my life got a LOT more fun and interesting : ) I also got some amazing care packages including FIVE POUNDS of starbucks coffee from Cory and a lot of pictures/fun stuff from Dad and Sheila. Thank you : D

Along the lines of good news, here are some random funny things that make me laugh. Some of them are stories from other volunteers:

1. I was sitting at a cafe this morning, reveling in the luxuries of fresh espresso and air conditioning, when the waitress walked up to me with a broom, pointed to the sand-covered area under my feet, and asked me to get up so she could sweep up after me. oops.

2. Another volunteer went to take a shower in the dark, scooped up a cupfull of water, and splashed it onto her face. It wasn't the bucket of clean water. It was the family's dirty cooking water. Hello face-ful of fish scales.

3. One time a darling sister of mine back home in NC was shopping at the salvation army, when someone apparently got frustrated with her slow perusing, and literally started nudging her with their shopping cart so she would get out of the way.

4. One of the other volunteers was eating at the bowl with her family, where there were small fish strewn about on top of the rice. Her dad was eating them whole, and in total surrender to this experience, a switch clicked in her brain and told her to just go for it. So, she spooned up a fish and put it in her mouth. Whole. Eyes, bones, and everything. I believe she regrets that decision now.

5. The weather seems to have absolutely no influence on what people wear here. I saw a kid wearing a puffy down jacket, jeans, and a wool cap today. His friend was barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of ladies shorts. It looks like everyone woke up, picked their favorite kind of weather, and decided to dress for it regardless of what the rest of the world is doing. There are a lot of clashing prints, sequins, high heels, bling, and ironic cast-off T shirts. Such as "Brighton Cheerleading, Tiffany!" or "If you bug me, Im going back to Senegal." Gender also has little to no impact on clothing choice as well. If you are a guy and you like pink silk shirts...it's all fair game. It's entertaining, and fun because nobody expects me to look functional.

6. People wash their animals in the ocean. I can't tell you how many boys I have seen running joyously towards the water and swimming out into the waves, dragging one or two protesting sheep behind them. It is a huge spectacle to see them wash their sheep/horses/goats/dogs down while both tread water out in the open sea. It inevitably looks like one of them, person or the animal you pick, is being attacked by a strange sea monster.

I can't think of anything else right now! Hopefully I will get back to site soon, and get some work done! Thanks again for reading, as always : )

Ch ch ch ch changes....

2010-08-09T06:57:00.000-07:00

I have spent the past week teaching an English Camp in Dakar, which was incredibly refreshing as far as work goes. It can be frustrating in village to work with teachers who are not very motivated and are not from the community. The teaching system here is interesting. Some teachers go through training, but others just work for long enough to be considered a legitimate teacher. When they are hired, teachers are often sent to random places all over the country (hey...kind of like volunteers) where they do not speak the local language, or have any friends/family. In my training site, there was a teacher who had been living there for ten years and still had not learned sereer, had not made any friends in a community she did not consider "home" and basically just beat the kids all day long. However, the teachers at the english camp were amazing, They all spoke english very well, were funny, intelligent, motivated, and genuinely helpful. If there were more people like that, this country would be a very different place. Don't get me wrong, I love Senegal, but we can all surely agree there are problems. Hence why I am here.

Anyways, the kids were amazing as well. Super friendly, motivated, and a LOT of fun to be around. I definetly got more work done this week than I would have at site, and had a lot of fun doing it. I hope I can come back to the same school next year! We all gave our phone numbers to the kids in case they want to call and practice english, and here is an example text message that I got from one of my favorite girls yesterday:

"Hi Sarah how are you going? I am very happy to know you but love you very much. Ok I miss you a lot, I wish to spend the rest of my life by you, see you next year. kiss, aissatou."

On another note, today we drove past the airport and it was the first time I'd seen it since that morning 5 months ago when we stepped off the plane at 5am into a wall of humidity and salty ocean air. It's a surreal experience to see it now, especially knowing that in about forty-eight hours a whole new group of volunteers will be doing the exact same thing. We're getting sixty some new people on Wednesday, and a group of volunteers who have completed their service are heading out. Soon, I will no longer be one of the new kids in town, which is going to feel pretty nice. Anyways, in case anyone from the new stage is doing what I did before leaving, and reading blogs of people in country...I have two quick pieces of advice. One is to bring a Bedazzler if you can manage it. I can't say exactly why, except that you wont regret it and it will inevitably make everything that much better. And Two...good luck and safe travels. Thies is a magical sunny flowery place that you may or may not appreciate until after you have left for site.

That's all! I am going back to the land of no internet, electricity, etc. so I hope you all have a great month. It's kind of like camping, really. I miss and love everyone a WHOLE lot. Peace only, Jam Som, Jam Tan, Alhamdoulilahi.

Food Babies, Bees, and Aquaculture

2010-08-01T05:16:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen I am happy to announce that I have become the proud mother of a food baby, which I have named Beignet. I swear Ive gained at least 10 pounds in the past 2 weeks, and am even getting the characteristic Sprague Chin. But, I have to stock up while Im in cities. My village diet of rice and fish only is, by default, an effective weight loss plan of its own. For the past two weeks I have been in Thies where mass amounts of cheap fast food abound. The other night, we all went out in the pouring rain, and sat down at a restaurant. One of my friends and I, the other Sarah, actually, shared a giant Croque Madame, a Massive burger with fries ON it, along with eggs, mayonnaise, cheese, two hamburger patties, etc., two beers, and then finished it all off with an enormous cream filled doughnut. mmmmm. This has become a daily routine, and now I am in Dakar living on an additional, and quite generous, daily allowance, which means even more food. Just for "the glory of Dakar" reference, here is a picture from a Volunteer's balcony in Dakar (only 3rd year extension volunteers get nice apartments in Dakar).

Anyways, after gorging on the doughnut, we went swimming in the restaurant pool in the pouring rain. After swimming, we had to get to the tailor and then back to the center. Rain here means flooded streets, muddy rivers filled with horse and cow manure, as well as upwelling open sewers. Hello Schistosomiasis. While navigating our way through the flood, one of the other volunteers took a blind step into the muddy water, and literally fell up past her waist into a hole. Yuck.

On another note, the other afternoon was one of the best days of my life! I not only took a trip to get some beekeeping training, but also got a ride with another volunteer in the back of a strange little car that looked like a bread truck and did not shut all the way, to check out an aquaculture site. Here are some pictures from the whole day!

These are beehives tucked away in the forest:

And here is a big round of beeswax, which is left over after processing and used to attract bees to new hives. Also, you might notice that I have a haircut. One of the other volunteers cut it around midnight the other day with a pair of scissors in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. You can't tell here...but its possibly the best haircut Ive ever had!

Anyways, here is another picture from the beekeeping site. I have NO idea what this building actually is, but it looks like the imperial command center on Endor.

Lastly, the aquaculture site was made from an enhanced natural basin, and is used for both fish production and community agriculture.

One last thing, here is a thunderstorm on its way to my site : )

Work, and Work....

2010-07-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today I was torturing myself by watching Top Chef and fantasizing about all of the wonderful food...when I realized that my toe hurt a little bit. I looked down and saw that it was swollen with a small black spot in the middle. Thinking I had a splinter, I set in to digging it out. After some maneuvering, I pulled out a half inch long thorn that had been lodged completely into my toe. I didn't even feel it happen, and have no idea how long it was in there for. Thank you, Africa.

Once again, Im not sure what to write about. A quick logistic update: I am currently at the training center where we all have training sessions every day for the next two weeks. At night, we stay with host families in an hour radius. After two months of doing little to nothing…it’s kind of overwhelming, but also exciting. Training finishes on August 31st, when I will be traveling to Dakar to work at an English camp for one week.

I realized this week, through our technical sessions and talking with other volunteers as well as my supervisors, that it is time to get to work. I have spent the past 4 months focusing on having fun, appreciating the newness of this experience, arranging my environment so that I can be happy here, getting to know other volunteers, and getting familiar with my site. It has been fun, but Im starting to realize that Im here for a reason and will probably be a lot happier if I feel productive : ) Plus, being in village, there is just not enough else going on in my life to stay entertained. When I return to village on August 8th, I will have four days before Ramadan starts. Ramadan is a muslim holiday where people fast from sunup to sun down for one month. As you can probably imagine, its insanely hot here, and without any water or food…everyone will be too tired to do anything. My plan is to stay at site for at least the entirety of August, fasting along with my family (though I will be drinking water because I don’t want to die) hanging out, reading, and maybe applying for some grants. I hope that the time spent there will solidify my place in the community and help me to feel more comfortable there.

After Ramadan, I have quite a few project ideas. I am hoping to start a small micro financing project raising chickens. My village has attempted to do it before, but lacked a sense of economic planning. They sold off ALL of the chickens (thus shutting down the possibility of continuing the operation) when chickens were at their lowest market value.

I am also planning on working on a demo compound vegetable garden, so that families will use some of the extra space in their compounds to grow vegetables. Im going to see which families might be interested, and once it is established, will be able to lead training sessions.

Next week, I will start beekeeping training! It is only for one afternoon, but the training site is only an hour away from my village, so after I make contacts, I hope I will be able to go back and keep learning if I need to.

Once school starts up again in October, Im planning on working with some girls’ groups to start an environmental club, leadership sessions, and maybe a Harry Potter reading group just to help with literacy and imagination. And…because I like Harry Potter.

The last thing I know I want to try and do is to get my village connected to the water tower so that people can have robinets. That would mean safe drinking water and women will have more time to enjoy themselves, rather than pulling water from the well all day long. This is what I have been approached about the most, and what everyone is most excited about at the moment.

And, last thing, I know this isn’t professional, but since this is how I am keeping in touch with everyone…I would like you all to know that I am swearing off boys for at least three months. I think taking a break and focusing on other things would be a healthy idea.

Okay! I love you all. Hope things are going well! I need updates : )

I did better on my LPI.

2010-07-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

I spent this past week travelling around the country and getting the chance to see other regions, houses, and a LOT of amazing people who I have missed over the past month! The whole purpose of the trip was to work at a girls' leadership camp, have language training, and celebrate the 4th of July, which I did along with a small group of people on the roof of a house in Kolda. We opened bottles of champagne, played taboo, and made a fried chicken and mashed potatoes dinner with apple pie for dessert. It was a lot of fun, and Kolda is gorgeous!

I forgot my camera while traveling, though, so, I am just going to ignore that whole time and instead do a quick photo narrative of possibly the most ridiculous night of my entire life. It was about two weeks ago, when Morgan (another volunteer who is a sarcastic and hilarious rugby player from Harvard, grew up in Alaska, and has a cat named Toubab), Jenny (also another volunteer who used to be a night security guard in DC who lived out of her car, carries around toads to scare people, and weightlifted regularly back home) and I met up in Jenny’s village for language training with Assane, our teacher from the training center.

Morgan journals on her computer, and recorded the experience right after it happened. So. I am going to tell it in her words along with my pictures, ie third person, with some additions and deletions on my part. Please try to enjoy how ridiculous it is that this is my life:

OMG we just had the funniest night experience ever. Dinner was the first part. They gave us millet and fish and also millet and milk. But Sarah and I dont like the normal milk (the tuberculosis milk) so we made powdered milk that tasted like coconut milk. It was awesome. (quote from Sarah: “DO YOU WANT SOME OF THIS MILK BEFORE IT ALL SOAKS IN?? JESUS” - she was mad cause I was taking too long to make the hole in my millet to pour the milk into. We laugh now, but at the time she was legit going to kill me. She didn’t even realize she said it, she’s just obsessed with food. Then assane mixed the milk with the millet and fish. It was disgusting. Here is a photo. You eat it with your hands by the way.

So then, as we are eating our instant milk powder and millet on the floor by headlamp and flashlight, a camel spider runs across the mat. I had never seen one before getting here...they are basically a spider and scorpion smooshed together, but are completely harmless. So naturally we all shrieked and I spilled milk all over the floor and we all leaped to the nearest elevated surface that we could find. (in doing so I obviously broke jennies cot), while assane grabbed the “fly swatter” which is actually a flip flop duct-taped to a stick, and nonchalantly killed the thing before going right back to eating the nar-nar fish millet milk. Here’s a picture of it:

This is what happened to the bowl after we all freaked out. My spoon fell in >: (

At this point Jennie left for unknown reasons, and Sarah and I resumed our eating of the millet and milk but we were afraid to sit on the floor cause of spiders so I felt the need to squat over the bowl while dribbling milk all over the place:

After this, I was going to take a picture of sarah over the bowl to show what we eat here. But, right as she leaned her head in to pose, jennie’s family came in. So I didnt take the picture. Sarah's head was in the bowl, so she had no idea they were all staring at her. I sat there trying to find the words in english to warn Sarah that there were people looking, but I couldn’t, so she sat there totally oblivious with her headlamp on and her face approx 1 inch above the millet while laughing hysterically for a good minute. I was whisper shouting the only words that came to mind, “peeeeoople, sarah, there are peeeoooople...” which she obviously did not pick up on. After a moment or so, Jenny’s family slowly backed their way out of the hut. Here is the photo that resulted:

So, that happened and then Jennie burst back into the room, bright red and bawling her eyes out. Her ENTIRE family followed her in, obviously bewhildered and trying to figure out WHAT was wrong, and why their toubab was crying. Apparently Jenny is afraid of camel spiders. They had no idea what was going on, though. Here they are:

In the midst of the chaos they were like “OMG why is jennie crying??” to which I accidentally responded, in broken Sereer, “Jenny Died...” thinking that they had asked what happened to the spider and unaware that they hadnt yet figured out the situation or the existence (or.. former existence) of said spider. Which caused further confusion. At which point I escaped to pee and returned to find Sarah sitting on the bed taking pictures and looking completely non-plussed by and oblivious to the approximately 10 senegalese people all trying to figure out why Jennie was crying. Mostly, Sarah was sad that they had put the lid back on the bowl. (they did put the lid back on the bowl. I was very unhappy about that).

Finally we managed to get rid of the senegalese people (after they kept trying to get jennie to put her shoes on. Like that was going to make it better. Or flipflops were going to keep the spider off her feet. Sigh) briefly. And we resumed eating. Until, in a burst of laughter over jenny crying, assane disappearing, my squatting over the bowl, and the whole situation, sarah snotted in the millet (yes. Booger. DRIPPED out of her nose. Disgusting. +1 for sarah) and we gave up trying to eat. Forgetting, of course, that someone will later be eating this snotty bowl of millet. Oops. Then some of jennies family came back to take the bowl and we topped off an evening of miscommunication with the following exchange:

Sarah: what was that running thing?
Jennies mom: [something that sounded like “horse scorpion” in seereer]
Sarah: what does it eat? [at least thats what we thought she said]
Jennie's mom: WHAT?? assane ATE it?? the spider??
Sarah: uhhh.. no.... ummmm....

And once again...they slowly backed their way out of the hut, but this time did not come back.

At this point we realized the cot was broken, so we broke out a hammer and all struggled to fix it. Fail:

And. That was language training. Here is Jenny with a frog:

I understand if you’re terrified, the rest of the village is too! : )

Wrap-Up

2010-06-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

I will be putting up new photos soon! Im in the middle of traveling, but thought I would give a quick conclusion to the mouse trap debacle.

The trap was all set up and ready to go for the night, but, a very strange thing happened. I was awoken around 5am by a large PLOP and the sound of scurrying. I turned on my headlamp and peered through the mosquito net to see something flopping around on the floor. My first thought was that I had a confused toad on my hands, but I then realized that it was the mouse. It fell off the ceiling and landed, literally, right next to the mouse trap. It was injured from the fall, and understandably freaking out, and I had no idea what to do. I got up and basically just stared at it in shock for a good 10 minutes while my brain struggled to function. I didn't want to touch it, and had absolutely nothing to pick it up with/put it in (i mean, come on, its not like im in America where things are available). I eventually dumped out my hamper and swept the mouse into it. I tried to throw it over the fence, but...missed. It landed in my compost pile, and I gave up. I sluggishly made my way back to bed, hoping that something would eat it while I slept so I wouldnt have to deal with it in the morning. It was gone the next day. Problem solved.

: )

I am so excited for this week! I am traveling to another part of the country for the 4th of July. Last year I climbed up a volcano in Hawaii with a bunch of Canadians for the 4th. We'll see what this year brings!

Things that go bump in the night...

2010-06-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I am sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing (erm...i mean, working hard and saving the world) I come up with brilliant things to write here in the blog. However, once all of the magic ingredients have coalesced to make internet time possible, I am inevitably sitting somewhere cool, pleasant, possibly beachside, and with electricity. Add that to the fact that my bi-weekly beer is probably in one hand, causing me to slowly tap out one letter at a time due to my extreme reluctance to let go of it for even a second, and you have the perfect recipe for stream-of consciousness blog posts. My immersion in paradise generates a complete and utter indifference towards what seemed important one or two days ago : ) So, I uploaded pictures and will take this opportunity to tell you about my room mates. Just take it in confidence that I have lots of exciting projects and plans at site going full speed ahead.

So, as far as I can tell, my bug nerdiness began during summers in North Carolina which were defined by days spent staring at caddisfly larvae in mountain streams, catching june bugs by the dozen, and killing jarfulls of fireflies under the pretense of "making lanterns." As I mentioned earlier, though, my bug love is being put to the test here. However! Look who came flying into my hut the other night, causing me to bolt into the backyard yelping in fright. Eventually, I tiptoed my way back in to investigate. I poked and prodded the creature to asses the potential dangers, at which point I discovered...its a praying mantis!!! So, I picked it up and took photos:

Mantids eat obnoxious bugs like flies, mosquitoes, and beetles, so they are fine by me. Plus, they are fascinating creatures. I caught one a couple of weeks ago and named her Jaws, but she isn't an adult yet, so no idea what species she is. Here's a photo:

Now. I also have about 5 or 6 geckos living in the hut. In case you are picturing the cute little terrarium inhabiting creatures...that's not the case. Look at this monster:

He thinks he's hiding in this picture (?). Like mantids, Geckos also eat the obnoxious bugs, and are thus welcome in my humble abode. This fellow has also recently moved into my hut:

He, also, seems to think he is hiding in this picture (nobody ever said being cute=having brains). My attitude towards him was benevolent, up until about two days ago. Besides his affinity for eating my erasers, I didn't see the problem with having a mouse. That is, until I lay awake the other night pondering what I could do to get rid of the beetles who have recently taken to boring holes in the wooden beams holding up my roof (more geckos? more mantids? Insecticide?). I considered the finely balanced food web in this here hut. The beetles eat my hut, the Geckos eat the beetles. The mosquitoes eat me, the geckos eat the mosquitoes. I would like to get a cat for a pet, but then it would eat the geckos, and I need those for population control. But what about the mouse? Where does it fit in....really? Well! let me tell you...after some investigation I realized that the mouse is ALSO eating my hut!!! The thatch roofing. Apparently the all-eraser diet needs supplementing. My hut is under attack on two fronts, and I decided not to sit back and watch it crumble to the ground. I came up with a "roommate management plan." Here it is:

My very own mouse trap, baited with an eraser. The idea is simple, the evil hut-eating noise-making mouse walks up the ramp, steps onto the can to get the eraser, the can flips under the weight, and the mouse is dumped into a bucket of unfiltered well water. mwahaha. And then I can, inchallah, get a good night's sleep for once, while the hut eating shenanigans are put to a watery end. We'll see what happens. I would prefer a less violent method, but the thought of not only catching a live mouse, but then walking through the village with it and trying to explain what I'm doing just seems like too much of an ordeal.

In other, less morbid news, here are some family photos. There are two year old twins in my family who are super cute. They like to have me throw shirts over their heads so they can dance around like that. Again...being cute does not equal big brains. Also witnessed by my four year old brother who was, yesterday, dancing around with a plastic bag on his head and shoes on the wrong feet. I didn't take a picture of that. It seemed a bit...cruel. Im glad to report that he is perfectly fine, though.

OK! Have a good day.

Moving America to Senegal

2010-06-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

Throughout the country, each region has a house for volunteers to come hang out, relax, and get work done. You can probably imagine what it looks like when a bunch of college aged individuals get together after being separated from any and all american culture for weeks on end. Yesterday I immersed myself in a toubab/internet bubble where I made good food, watched movies, and chilled out. This morning I left toubab land the moment I stepped out onto the roof for a morning cup of coffee. I was hit by the ever-present wall of heat, while looking out over the city of palm trees, tiled walls, and imposing Mosques. Oh right, I thought...I am in Africa. It's impossible to ignore being in Africa, obviously, between the sand and the heat, but sometimes it is easy to forget. I often feel like I just took all of the best parts of my life back home (except family of course) and threw them together in a fun new environment. I caught an awesome praying mantis and have been catching bugs for it to eat, gardening, planning exciting projects, speaking french, playing with kids, and at the end of this month will be lifeguarding for an all-girls leadership camp that a bunch of volunteers are putting on!

Even things that seemed so novel and effort-requiring back home just fall into place here. But in some very odd ways. For example, in Ann Arbor we made a huge effort to eat local and organic food, sticking close to home when it came to our caloric needs. I've been plowing my way through some food culture and industry books, and it struck me as funny that here we eat local and fresh by default. However, that doesn't mean a booming local economy or healthy meals for everyone. It really doesn't matter where you got that gorgeous in-season bitter tomato, if you're just going to toss it into a pot of boiling oil and leave it in there until it's no more identifiable as a bitter tomato than a carrot. Also, the only way to get anywhere here is by way of public transportation. It is available even in the smallest of villages, whether in the form of a charette or a bus (Alham). This country-wide public transport availability isn't the result of some radical green movement, though, it's just the way things are. The buses are followed by clouds of black smoke, and the cars are all bounce their way along the fine line between working, and becoming a scrap metal pile on the side of the road.

Anyways, just a quick overview, this is what the next couple of months look like:

June3-6: Wrestling tournament at a friend's site
June6-? Hang out at site, get work done, get ready for rainy season!
June23-26th: Lifeguard/first aid at camp
June 27-29th: Language training at another volunteer's site
June 29-July 4ish: Bike to Kedougou for 4th of July visits and tour of country.
July 4-10ish: Travel back through Kolda, visit people's sites, learn to keep bees.
July 19-30th: Back to the training center in Thies for IST.

Somewhere in there I am determined to get beekeeping training so I can get it all set up and maybe attract my own hive of happy little honeybees by the end of the rainy season. We'll see!

There's Weave in my Millet....

2010-05-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well! 10 days down...only like 700+ left to go : ) I have spent almost two weeks at site, with absolutely no English or other white people or technology of any kind, and it went surprisingly well! I go back and forth between extreme excitement, total contentment, bewhilderment in regards to what I am doing here, and complete motivation to actually accomplish something. The other day as I set into hacking apart the rock hard ground in my backyard in order to make a garden, it occurred to me that I have absolutely no real-life worries, I can listen to music, make my own schedule, play in the dirt, and collect bugs whenever I please. I get to make mudstoves, read all day, eat infinite mangoes and play with kids. It’s….fantastic in a very uneventful way : )

But generally, I am just trying to get to know everyone in the village, start up some slow projects, and figure out how to get through daily life of greeting everyone, pulling water, surviving the heat, etc. Today is my first “day off.” I came into Mbour with another volunteer, and we’re having a “ten days at site” sleepover party in my backyard! There is absolutely nothing in the entire world that can make you appreciate a cold beer and day at the beach like spending a week in a very hot and very small West African village.

Anyways, I have pictures. These are before and after pictures of my hut (inside and outside). As you may notice…I painted it like Bag End. You know, Bilbo’s house. The funny thing is, everyone here just keeps saying how pretty is and how much they like it, and are asking me to paint their houses the same. So, I drew the same thing on my younger mom’s room, and my sisters went at it with the paints. Heh heh heh. I know it makes me a nerd…but nobody here knows that, so it’s fine : ) Just remember, if sometime in the future you are driving through Senegal and you come across a random village painted entirely like Middle Earth…that’s where I was!

Oh, also, one quick story, the other day I was hanging out with my favorite woman in the village (who, it turns out, is actually from Dakar and leaving soon, much to my chagrin) when I happened to look over right as a little kid picked up a half smoldering manure cake from the fire pit, shoved it into his mouth, and burst out crying. Nobody did anything about that...then moments later a chicken wandered into the same fire pit, and immediately flipped out and bolted away squawking. Then a goat did the same thing, also to no reaction from anyone. Who needs TV anyways?

My Hut, BEFORE:

And After!! : )

Hut Inside, Before:

Hut inside, After!

Mud Stove!

OOK. Thank you for reading, I send you all love and hugs and kisses from Senegal!

Install Today Hooray!!!!!

2010-05-18T01:34:00.001-07:00

I have a new address! It will be good for the next two years:
PCV Sarah Sprague
B.P. 2245
Mbour, Senegal
West Africa

What an overwhelming and fun day. Over the past few days, everyone has been driven away in station wagons to go hang out with current volunteers at regional houses all over the country. We will be installed at our sites for the next two years over the coming week. However, one other guy and I have sites that are so close to the training center, we are installing straight from here. So, as everyone slowly left I realized it was not going to be a fun time sitting around here missing all of them and not meeting anyone new. As the gas to the stove was shut down, internet turned off, the cushions taken out of the disco hut, and people disappearing…. I decided to exercise my newly acquired freedom that comes with being a volunteer, and hopped in a car with some other trainees to go hang out at their regional house a few hours away. It was a lot of fun, and I met a lot of volunteers who I will probably hang out with quite a bit over the next couple of years.

I had to get back to the training center this morning, though, so I navigated the wide world of public transportation in Senegal with the help of a volunteer. She took me to the garage and I bought a place in a car going back to Thies, then waited around until the car filled up. After getting dropped off, I had to start buying ALL of the stuff we need to get for install. I’m installing tomorrow, and needed to get things like seeds, paint, a shovel, food, art supplies for a coloring club, household items, etc. etc. That meant multiple trips into the market, which included getting boxed in on a downtown sidewalk by a huge herd of cows with giant horns. Luckily Steve was around to help, and we stumbled our way back into the training center laiden down with enough things to fill up a charette.

Between painting my hut like Bag End (pictures to come eventually), painting murals, setting up peppinieres and a school garden, as well as personal garden, cleaning and organizing my home for the two years, starting a coloring club at the school, getting comfortable in my village, and learning Seereer…it’s going to be a busy 5 weeks. The 5 weeks end in an epic bike trip out to Kedougou for a huge fourth of July party. One of the guys in our stage, who is 60, and I were eating cream filled doughnuts and trash talking each others eating abilities, and eventually decided that for fourth of july we will have a pie eating competition. Out of big metal bowls. With our right hands.

Anyways, so you can appreciate what I did all night pretty much, here is a before and after picture of packing to go to site:

One last thing, we swore in on Friday and are now officially volunteers! I put up photos (or will try at least) but here's a sample of our ridiculous outfits:

My Love for Bugs is Dwindling...

2010-05-07T14:43:00.001-07:00

As I wrote that last post, I was sitting on a tiled porch. All of a sudden, my entire body began to sting, and I couldn't make it stop. I stood up, shook out my clothes, slapped my back, and still didn't see anything. After a few minutes of this, I ran home, threw off my clothes, and realized that tiny tiny sugar ants has crawled inside of my shirt and my skirt. I had huge swollen welts all over my body, and my sisters helped me put on hydrocortizone cream before killing the ants that were left. One of the other trainees, Jenny, came in and gave me some benadryl.

Soon after, though, my entire face began to swell up, my body felt really hot, and I was having trouble breathing. I was freaking out because we don't have epi pens, and the Benadryl hadnt kicked in yet. After covering myself in cold cloths and ice (thank god I was in training and in a patron house with a freezer) Jenny called the med office to tell them what happened. I was swelling up more and more, so she ran and bought an inhaler as well as some steroid pills. They worked really well, and everything began to recede, but med still wanted to check in on me.

So, I was carted off to Dakar, and had to say goodbye to my family for the last time in a rush and med induced daze. I am spending the night in the Peace Corps office in Dakar, which I really can't complain about. I had the insight to grab my coffee, laptop, and a lot of money before leaving. So, I spent the evening at trivia night with a ton of current volunteers at the American Club, and am now watching the Office on DVD. It's really nice. Tomorrow I plan on having real coffee and mangoes for breakfast. mmmm mangoes. My body still kind of hurts, but the worst has passed
: )

Too Many Mangoes.

2010-05-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Here is an incredibly long blog post to make up for all of the non-posting I have been doing and probably will continue to do. Thank you for reading, though! There is only one week of training left, before we all become volunteers and officially start our two years of service. I am excited to actually start working and settle into my new life. However, I’m also apprehensive. So far, we have had activities planned out for us, and have been able to all spend time together and decompress every day. It’s all new and exciting, and I really like hanging out with everyone. I have made a few close friends so far, and we will all soon be spread out around the country. I don’t know if I’m ready to trade all of that in for a slow paced and self-imposed schedule. However, it really feels like I have been living out of a suitcase for the past year, and I can’t even describe how nice it will be to settle in to one place for the next two years. I feel like no matter what happens, I have automatic ET (early termination) insurance based solely on the fact that I have a TON of stuff that I will not be voluntarily moving again any time soon : )

Michigan’s graduation was this past weekend, and Obama spoke at it. It hit me that I graduated exactly one year ago, and I can’t believe it. It might as well have been yesterday. My time in Hawaii flew by, and my time in Victoria was marked by two moves, getting a visa, getting in to Grad School, and then finding out about Peace Corps. So much was going on that whole time, that it flew by as well. Going back to Michigan, visiting family in other states, and leaving for Senegal also went by quickly. I have been in Senegal for 8 weeks, and can’t say where the time has gone. So much has happened, and it has been amazing! We have had nonstop excitement, new experiences, fun hanging out as a big group, and learning how to make the most of the next two years. Last weekend we all rented a house on the beach in Popenguine, which was gorgeous, and just had a relaxing fun weekend. I ate sardines, we all swam in the ocean at night while someone shot of firecrackers, I did a crossword puzzle, climbed up a big rock in the ocean, and cut my feet up while swimming in the ocean (it’s like being in Hawaii all over again…). It was so much fun! All in all, this past year has been one big blur of new people, new places, exciting adventures, and overall amazing experiences. In two weeks I will put my stuff down, stop traveling, and accept a much more slow-paced and focused kind of life. I hope I can make the transition alright, and am sure that it will be fine! After all…even though I joined Peace Corps with the expectation of being way out in the African Bush for two years, I will never be more than a short bike ride away from a gorgeous beach and a cold beer.

Anyways! I thought I could give everyone an idea of what I am doing here by narrating just one day at training. Currently, I am at my homestay and one of my sisters (who is 17) is reading this out loud over my shoulder in broken english, while wearing one of my skirts on her head that she just washed for me by hand. I’m afraid she will understand what she’s saying….OK. To start at the beginning, I woke up around 7:30am to one of my sisters bringing me half a baguette and hot water for instant coffee (breakfast every day). I eat my breakfast on the roof, which is like a big cement patio overlooking the village. It’s my alone time for the day : ) After that, we all meet at the garden to water, which involves unrolling a huge hose, and then sitting for an hour while our oil drum fills with water. After that, I take the half of my breakfast baguette that I can never manage to finish over to a sheet metal shack with cloth doors (the country wide symbol for bean sandwich huts) where I get amazing chick pea bean mash and eggs put on my bread for the equivalent of 25 cents, and then eat it during language class.

Today after class, my sister and I went to the tailor to get a gorgeous dress of hers copied, which seems to be the only way you can buy clothes in this country. I have been working on making this happen for a few weeks now. Step one was getting the language down well enough to ask her how. Then I had to go on a fabric buying mission at the market in Thies, and negotiate prices. So, today I was excited to finally get to a tailor and have it started. However, he was charging more than my sister wanted me to pay (it was like…2 dollars more) so we stayed for half an hour negotiating the price. He wouldn’t give, so we decided to take that extreme financial hit, gave him the fabric, and left. But, on the way home, we ran into my mom, who was angry that he overcharged us, and marched back in there to yell at him for 10 minutes before grabbing the fabric and storming out. Apparently we are going to a different tailor tomorrow, inshallah. I’m leaving Sunday, so I have a feeling this wont be happening. It’s frightening that just getting a dress is such an ordeal. Wait until I try to change the world…that might take even longer.

So, after that, I came home to my language teacher asking if I could translate a 3 page French document into English for a group at the university. I said OK, even though I am currently trying to write a speech in Serere for the big swearing-in ceremony we have next week to become volunteers. Each language group has someone giving a speech to the rest of the volunteers. I started translating the documents, but then decided to call one of my friends here instead just to take a break from all of it. Hearing from people at home is always nice, and can be a huge comfort, but having people here to talk with and gossip with is a different kind of (very entertaining) release. After the phone call we had lunch. Usually, we sit on the ground and eat fish and rice out of a bowl with our hands. However, today I was introduced to the most wonderful food in the world. It is called Dahine and it is magic. It’s some kind of spicy rice/fish/peanut mush with pepper in the middle. I was the last one at the bowl and I ate until there was nothing left in it. That is an unprecedented event since my arrival in Senegal.

Post-lunch I had hoped to go get a coke at the boutique, but was instead called into my mom’s room where she had me read from what is possibly the only seereer book in existence other than the bible, so I could get “practice.” Then it was time for more language class. We have taken to watching movies after language class, like 300 and Casino Royale, but the power rarely works, so we were not able to watch anything today since my laptop died. To curb the disappointment, one of the other girls and I went to buy mangoes, (because it is mango season!) which was a complete disaster. I only wanted three, but I misunderstood the price, and somehow managed to ask for 300 mangoes. Then the woman selling them couldn’t understand when I tried to correct my mistake, so I found myself standing there with about 30 mangoes and a crowd of people staring at me while I blabbered on in my limited Serere. We eventually fixed it and walked away, three mangoes in hand. But, after turning a corner we both broke into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Eating the mangoes was equally difficult, and I almost always have to shower afterwards. They are amazing...but there are no plates or napkins or utensils to try and eat them with.

So, after that I went home, and hoped to take refuge in my room, but instead was recruited for English homework help. Then, at 7:30 we all went to the neighbor’s house to watch Marina (a portugese soap opera dubbed in French) which is one of the highlights of my day. Everyone crowds into a room and its fun. Plus, everyone is staring at the TV which means they are not focusing their undivided attention on me. And I don’t have to talk! After Marina, we had dinner, which is millet and bean sauce. I love it so much. Now I am writing this, translating the English papers, not writing my speech, and will hopefully get to bed at a reasonable hour. I have grown really attached to my family here at the homestay site, and love hanging out with them/being in this village. The food is good, the people are fun, the house is amazing…and I only have a few days left here. But, it is time to move on I suppose, and get ready to actually begin my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer once and for all.

I hope we actually get the dress made tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

I hope you’re all doing well : ) I think of home pretty much constantly. But, in a good, “this would never happen in the US…” kind of way.

Laugh? Cry? Punch Someone in the Face?

2010-04-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

My first instinct for beginning this post was to say that there is a fine line between frustration and hysteria. However, I feel like that line has turned into more of a big sludgy mess that I get to trudge my way trough on a daily basis. It’s not a bad thing-some of the best experiences come from situations that involve some mix of wanting to laugh cry and yell all at the same time. These situations also mean that our brains have the chance to reach their full adaptive potential. If a person is given glasses that flip their vision completely upside down, it only takes their mind a day or two to flip the images and compensate for it. Then if they take the glasses off, their world would be upside down for a time. I have only been here for a little over a month, and all of the things that seemed so foreign and exotic have become pretty normal. Im almost afraid of what will seem normal after two years here. Like eating spaghetti out of a bowl with my hands. Or hopping on a charette (a sketchy wooden platform on two wheels that is pulled by a horse) to go to the market. Or riding in a small car with a shattered windshield and 7 other people.

The rest of this week will be taken up by a workshop where everyone's counterparts from their future sites are coming to Thies so we can go over what to expect for the next two years (ha...ha...). There will be 83 people here at the center, all speaking different languages from all over Senegal. We were split up by language groups to plan and prepare training sessions. There are 5 groups, and my group (the Seereers) only has 3 people. So, they lumped us in with the Wolof group. We were supposed to translate some lessons into our local languages to present at the workshop. However, our language teacher is not here, and the only written material in Seereer that we could possibly use as a reference (in existence, as far as I know) is a Bible. Since there is nothing about Peace Corps goals and expectations in the Bible...there wasn’t much we could do. Not that it mattered since all of our workshops are going to be in Wolof anyways. I can say “good morning how are you?” in Wolof and that’s it. Oh well : ) This is going to be an interesting week.

But, we have next weekend off and get to go to the BEACH. Yessssss.

Dakar Day

2010-04-19T18:02:00.001-07:00

Dakar is like paradise on earth. With an abomination of a statue (its brand new. please look it up). But, it is 1am so this will be quick: So...I should post more, and trust that I will once training is over and I actually have time to hang out at my site and go use internet sometimes to get work done. But, I think its funny that the extent of my communication with family has been limited to this blog and blog posts thus far : ) I love you all and hope you had good trips to Florida and California and South Carolina!! Talk to you soon!

Oh, also, my hut is awesome. Pictures soon. I have been Soxna Ngome up until now (one of my many new names, one of which is Spraggles)but now I have an official Seereer name for the next two years! Yamma Diome. : ) Short for Mariamma. I like it a lot. Yay.

Site Placement!

2010-04-07T10:32:00.001-07:00

I just found out my site! The current volunteers and staff brought all of us trainees out to the basketball court where a huge map of Senegal is painted on the ground. We were all blindfolded and walked out to our sites, where we promptly started reaching for people around us and calling out to one another. When I pulled off my blindfold, I realized I was on the coast and started jumping up and down and yelling with happiness. I am taking over for a current volunteer, and talked with him about the site. It’s a short bike ride away from a gorgeous beach and touristy town called Mbour. The village is about 500 people, and I’ll be living in a compound with a family. Apparently my site dad is really active on the organic farming and agricultural scene. He has three WOOFers there right now! The only school is a kindergarten, which means I get to hang out and work with kids in FRENCH which is exciting! There is also a private school, so I’ll get to do some work with them as well. Apparently the site has upwards of 30 gardens, so I have some freedom to work on other things. There are bees there, and nobody currently beekeeping, so I’m going to find a way to start that up! I have always wanted to keep bees. Get ready for some honey and mead gifts from Africa. Also, the village is one 3rd christian, one 3rd muslim, and one 3rd animist. Which means people are laid back instead of crazy conservative! there's a church, too, which will be nice. Since its on the coast, it doesn't get too hot. Relatively, of course. Im still in Africa. Its still going to be hot.

Most of the other volunteers in the area are eco tourism volunteers, which means there are cool places to visit! There is a reserve where you can kayak through the mangroves, and also a big game reserve (ie giraffes, etc).

I just put up new photos, including some from the beach I will be near so you can all see it : ) A group of us navigated the sketchy world of public transportation in Senegal on Monday, in order to spend one of the best days at the beach to ever exist. I’ll write about it later!

For now, my site is called Louly Ngogom and I’m really happy! Tomorrow we go back to the homestay villages for a few days, and then I get to spend a week in my village with the current volunteer. Hope you’re all doing well!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T05:37:00.001-07:00

Today we went to Easter mass at a cathedral in Thies, and it was an experience. The church was surprisingly nice inside, with its little stained glass windows and high blue ceilings. The stations of the cross were painted on the walls, with the first 6 stations depicting a black Jesus. However, at the 7th station he miraculously morphed into a toubab (white person). They forgot to teach us about that in catholic school. The music was by far the most inspiring of any catholic mass I have ever been to-Drumming, dancing, singing. I had no idea what they were saying, but it was awesome! In the past four years alone, I have been to mass in Canada, Greece, Switzerland, France, and Senegal. And America : ) The mass did last for two hours, though, and thats too long to be standing in any building in Africa. It's been hitting the 130's lately, so...Im sure you can imagine what that was like.

On another note, when I got to my homestay last week, it was freezing cold by Senegalese standards (so, like…70 degrees) and my family looked hilarious. Normally, the Senegalese take extreme pride in appearance since it is viewed as a sign of respect for others, rather than an expression of individuality. However, cold weather clothing is wholly exempt from this train of thought. Throughout the night, they broke out the most random bits and pieces of warm clothes I’ve ever seen, and I still have no idea where they came from. One of my little brothers was wearing the hood to a puffy ski jacket velcroed upside down on his head. One of my 15 yr. old brothers was wearing a matching pink jumpsuit which said Princess on the back. A lot of people were walking around in bathrobes. My family is really funny. They're nice, but Im still not used to how differently everyone acts here. Plus the fact that I understand about 1/10th of what they're saying at any given moment.

One of the hazards of learning a new language, is that people tend to think you are practicing all the time, and therefore don’t actually answer questions or tell you things-they just smile and say “that’s right” no matter how many times you ask. Or, worse, is when you are practicing and they think you’re serious. So, for example, if you say to yourself, “Im full” and your mom thinks you mean it and gets offended because she is currently making you lunch...that’s not good. And then you dig yourself even deeper into a hole by trying to correct it by saying, “no! I am hungry!” which she takes to mean youre hungry NOW and so she gives you a HUGE bowl of noodles and oil right before making you eat an equally ginormous lunch. Or if you ask what your mom is cooking, and suddenly you are handed half a fried fish to eat. That’s fun too.

OK, my laptop is dying so I must go! Ill write more later.

Back to the Homestay

2010-03-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

I used to be afraid of shots, but not anymore! We all have to get tons of immunizations, so I don't even flinch walking into the little clinic, getting some shots, and going back again a couple of days later.

We don't officially become volunteers until May 14th, assuming we each learn the language and pass some tests before then. Until then, we alternate between being in the training center as a big group, and breaking off into smaller language groups and living with a family in villages. I am living in a tiny village (ie, one store that sells coke, and a lot of sand and cement buildings) with two other girls. My family is really nice, but I cant communicate with them well yet : ) I take bucket baths, garden every morning, take naps, use a squat toilet, come home by dark every night, and hang out with the little kids. It's not exactly exciting, but it's a nice routine.

The training center, however, is like paradise. Real showers, internet, access to good food, tons of people...its wonderful! Yesterday we spent the afternoon learning to make mud stoves, which is messy and a lot of fun. Today we're heading out to our villages for 12 days, which will be kind of a stretch, but good for language practice. I'm also armed with a ton of books just in case. My family likes to dress me up and parade me around. They braided my hair, but I took it out a few days later because it was so itchy. We have tea every day, which is a huge deal here. It's a tiny teapot with 15-20 sugar cubes!! No wonder diabetes is a huge issue here : P We also garden a lot, and huge crowds of kids swarm around to watch us. Being white and doing anything at all is mesmerizing apparently.

One last thing, I bought a djembe from an artisanal market! I am going to start learning this week, and am really excited.

Anyways! That's all for now. I'm trying to upload pictures, so we'll see about that. Happy Easter everyone! I'll be back in touch in a couple of weeks.

Week One

2010-03-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

I’m posting this retroactively-it’s about a week old. I’ll put up real updates soon! But, in the meantime, I am out in a village as of Wednesday with no access to anything but my cell phone, so you should call or text me! I don’t have any phone numbers at all since my phone doesn’t turn on, and I forgot to write them down. Here is my number:

Dial +221771169967
Or if that doesn’t work 011221771169967

Here is the hut where we have most of our classes. It’s called the Disco Hut. After working at the Discovery (disco) Center in Colorado, I can’t help but think of it as the discovery hut : )

Each new group of volunteers here is called a stage, and each one develops their own reputation. Last night we all went out to a speakeasy where we sat on the roof. Some of the current volunteers christened our group by launching a firework over the rooftops of thies while shouting “SUPER STAGE!!!!” To understand the significance of this, it’s important to know that past stages have been known as the lame stage, the prude/ugly/drunk stage, etc. So….it’s exciting. However, tonight they informed us that we’re “kind of like summer camp which is a little frightening and a little awesome.” It’s true. We are almost entirely girls (37) and many of the 14 total guys are gay. Practically everyone has worked as a camp counselor before, and we all talk nonstop, play games, and maintain an exhausting but fun level of energy.

Today a few of us were standing next to a group of Senegalese staff, commiserating over our language inabilities, while trying to pick up any scraps of understanding from their conversation. After giving up totally, we ad libbed using their hand gestures as our sole guide. Here is how the conversation was interpreted:

“I lost my Car off the road”
“Your tire was flat? You had to change it?”
“Yes, while my car was in a ditch.”
“There was a goat?”
“Yes. It was dead. I hit it”
“Why would you hit the goat, it was dead. You did not need to.”
“It was weak, why would I not?
“I am going to bake a cake tonight”

We may never know what actually happened. Im guessing they were standing around making fun of us since they all speak English fluently.

Today we found out which languages we will be learning, since there are 5 (I think) different languages spoken in Senegal. About 80% speak Wolof, and the educated language is French. I was assigned Seereer, which has one of the smallest regions. There are only three of us, so it’s pretty limited where my site will be. It’s exciting because the two possible choices sound pretty incredible! We don’t find out about sites for a couple of months still. Speaking Seereer means that I’ll probably be in a wetland or mangrove area. Im hoping near the coast, but we’ll see. There are a lot of volunteers around Kaolack, with an awesome regional hose, so I don’t feel like I’ll be far from community. Anyways, speaking French again feels like reuniting with an old friend. Since the three of us learning Seereer all speak French, it’s what our classes are taught in. We learn on a chalkboard in a little cement hut : )

We also got bikes yesterday, and they are BRAND NEW. I am going to bike all over the place. Unless I live in a pit of sand, which is possible.

OK, new pictures are up! Check them out. There is a lot to say, but im not remembering anything right now. We played mafia until 1am or so last night, and were all gossiping about possible languages we could be assigned after someone discovered a “top secret” list. We’re like little kids. A bunch of us also just did laundry for the first time by hand, and im pretty sure my clothes have dried into a cake of soap. Oh well.

More to come on this, but I think my time at the Bug Zoo and love for all arthropods in general is going to be a HUGE part of my service here. My mind is already racing with ideas involving bees and praying mantids and….stuff : )

One last thing….there is another girl named Sarah here. She is also from Michigan. She also has a compass rose tattoo. She also brought Apples to Apples. She is also doing environmental education with Peace Corps here in Senegal.

Manure Pants

2010-03-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

I'll keep this short since my battery is running low and I have yet to navigate buying an adapter. The flight to Senegal was great, with lots of movies, free champagne, and talking with everyone. I didn't manage to sleep, though, so the first day here was pretty rough. We had language tests, met the staff, and had an amazing nap period followed by lunch. Meals are served in huge communal bowls and we sit on mats on the floor to eat them. The training center here in Thies is pretty much SenegAmerica. They're easing us in and its fantastic.

The weather has been gorgeous and I haven't had any sunburns yet, we've all been lying around playing games, playing volleyball, singing and dancing, and walking around in total awe of this place. There are birds, lizards, frogs, bats, beetles, etc. everywhere. It reminds me of the Big Island a little bit. Until we left the training center, that is : ) we followed current volunteers out to a restaurant, and on the way I saw many dead fish, a dead dog, and a squashed egret on the side of the road. One good reason not to wear flip flops! Besides that, though, everything is insanely exciting. I can't wait to learn the language and be able to navigate my way through this world. Everyone seems so happy and lively, and all sit around talking with one another.

Anyways, logisitically, this morning we got up at 6:30 for a yoga session, had breakfast, followed by a speech from the Country Director and an intro to our homestays (on Monday we move into a community with some other volunteers to learn the language for two months). After that we went straight to lunch, and then to a tree planting talk, followed by digging seed beds to plant tomorrow, and then we had about one second to wash hands and put on non-manure-covered clothes to go into town. Then it was dinner time, now I am writing my blog, and a bunch of people are going out and I may or may not have the energy. we'll see.

So! Pictures will come soon. I have NOO idea how often I will be on here in the near future. Send me emails or letters or anything and it would be amazing. I love and miss you all and am so excited for this whole experience!

PS-No toilet paper for two years, I just learned this. I guess I never thought about it before leaving the states : )

Staging in Washington DC

2010-03-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 4am this morning to get my stuff ready for the flight to DC. We all took a shuttle with the ridiculous amount of baggage to the hotel, rushed out for some food, and had a day of training. We talked about the Peace Corps and what we all expect. There are 42 of us going in all and Im REALLY EXCITED. Everyone is instantly close, and after months of saying goodbye...it feels so good to say hello to a huge group of new people who I will be going through this adventure with.

So, Peace Corps gave us more money than we could ever need which means I am going on a sushi binge along with the other addicts in the group. Again. Tomorrow we get all shot up with immunizations, and then it's off to Senegal at 5:40pm. We arrive at 6:55am.

Goodbye the US! See you in two years.

The Astounding Adventures of Oscar and Max.

2010-02-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

Some people say that the best way to train for hiking the Appalachian Trail is to just get up and start hiking the Appalachian Trail. Others maintain that months of conditioning, preparing the body for a modified diet, and taking gear out for test runs, is the only way to go. When it comes to Senegal, I definitely reside in the first camp of thought. Peace Corps will be my life for the next two years, so I figure I’ll learn it all as I go : ) I have cultivated a good attitude and a readiness to work hard, but I feel like I *should* be practicing French, packing logical things (ie. not Apples to Apples and 10 lbs. of sunscreen) reading books on Senegal, and researching...something relevant. Instead I have been relaxing and enjoying life here in blizzardy Michigan. Today I ate a Cinnabon for breakfast, three pieces of pizza for lunch, an ice cream sundae for dinner, and a glass of wine in the bathtub for dessert. This is all part of my attempt to fully absorb and store up the American lifestyle so I can ration the memories out over the next two years in Africa. I have also been eating as much sushi as my body can possibly sustain, but it will never be enough!

Anyways, throughout my travels I have met many people with “mascots,” and I have finally decided to join them. I usually bring along little sentimental things when I go places, like a pouch filled with pebbles from everywhere I’ve been, meaningful letters, pictures for my wall, etc. However, I have decided to move on to more charismatic things. Specifically: a snail named Oscar and a dinosaur named Max.

Here is Max poised majestically in the snow. He is a dinosaur that did not make it into Reid's chess set, but now gets to travel the world instead!

I would have preferred just one mascot, and maybe something smaller in Oscar’s case and less breakable in Max’s case. But you work with what you’ve got and by some twist of fate I happen to be attached to these two odd looking characters. So, I’ll take pictures of one or both of them when I find myself in new exciting places, and pictures of them with people who I meet along the way : ) My photos will be up in Picasa web albums, the links for which you can find over there --- > and I doubt I will be using Facebook for photo sharing anymore (score one for Google!).

Oscar and Max (with my sister and her boyfriend)

On a different note, I thought I might quickly list out where I have been/what I have done to land myself at this point in life. Think half life history, half resume (but not as desperately exaggerated):

10/07/1986: Born in Asheville, NC
1987: Family moved out to Santa Cruz, CA
1997: Family moved to Novi, MI
Summer 2004: Graduated from high school. Spent one month on an organic farm, and two months at U of Michigan’s geology field school in Wyoming, Camp Davis!
Fall, 2004: Started as a freshman in the Residential College at the University of Michigan, and began an intensive French language program
Summer, 2005: Marine Biology field school on a wilderness preserve in Big Sur, CA
Summer 2006: Naturalist Intern in Vail, CO
Academic Year 2006-2007: Study Abroad in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Fall 2007: Back at U of M, moved into the residential student co-op system
Winter 2008: spent 6 months in Baltimore, at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, as a Conservation Intern.
Summer 2008: Residential Nature Counselor at Keystone Camp in Brevard, NC.
Spring 2009: Graduate from the University of Michigan in May, with a degree in Environmental Science, minor in French.
Summer, 2009: SCA internship at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Fall, 2009: Meet nice Canadian boy in Hawaii, move to Victoria, BC and work at the Bug Zoo while researching Masters Degree programs which will not cost me money.
Winter, 2010: Get a phone call from the Peace Corps to go to Senegal as an Environmental Education Volunteer. Put my plans on pause for two years...and go : )

Two years is a long time, and who knows what things will be like when I get back. Maybe the economy will be booming once again, maybe people will have gotten married and had babies, maybe Hawaii will be just a little bit bigger, and Victoria a little more underwater. Right now my plan is to accomplish something meaningful as a Peace Corps Volunteer over the next two years, no matter how frustrating and meaningless it may feel at times, then come back, get a BIG friendly dog and go to Graduate School at the University of Victoria for aquatic sciences. After which, I will get a fish tank, a garden, and a wonderfully fulfilling/meaningful/well-paid job in a gorgeous place with great people. I’ll also keep bees and chickens. That sounds do-able…right? : ) But who knows, really. That is in quite a while. I will change…you will change…everything will change…and it will be great! I hope I’m a little bit smarter, a little more responsible, and a little bit more fluent in French + some other as yet unidentified language (it depends on which village I am placed in). I also hope I get to work on Mangrove restoration projects in Senegal. Mais…on verra, quoi.

Thanks for reading along! It’s great to think that I may be sharing this experience in some way with everyone “back home.” I’ll write again soon, from Africa : D Also, I am filling out my address book, so send me your info and I will write lots and lots of letters!

Oh, ps, I’m pretty sure my title photo is actually from Madagascar, but they have Baobab trees in Senegal, too, so its not cheating….really…

First Post. Pre-departure. January 2010.

2010-01-14T21:27:00.001-08:00

Ah! Where to begin...

I am currently living in Victoria, BC, where I work at the Bug Zoo. Every day I pick up cockroaches, tarantulas, millipedes, and various phasmids (look 'em up). By the time I get home at night, I am not coated in your typical work day grime. Instead, I may have a layer of cockroach poo (insect poo is called frass, in case you were interested) on my face, urticating hairs from a tarantula in my arm, a cricket head stuck under my nail, or any number of gross gross things happening on my body. Luckily, I have never been bitten or stung or attacked or pinched by anything especially dangerous, so I would say that all in all it is a very fun and satisfying kind of job. I get to hang out with kids all day and tell people about the truly incredible lives of this planet's most successful and fascinating creatures: bugs.

This is how I ended up in Victoria in a nutshell: I graduated from the University of Michigan in May, 2009 with a degree in Environmental Science. Not knowing what to do with myself, I applied to as many internships as possible. I found a position working at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park which paid for my airfare, so off I went. I spent the summer working alongside an amazing group of people from all over the world. My job consisted of backpacking around the park (from secluded Hawaiian beaches to barren volcanic worlds upwards of 14,000 ft.) and making sure people did not break any park rules. I saw maybe...one person per day. I spent most of my time hanging out with friends, eating Kraft macaroni and cheese, watching Friends with Cory, snorkelling, checking beaches for turtles with the sea turtle crew, and traveling all over the island. Perhaps most importantly, over the summer I met a nice Canadian physicist named Reid. Isn't he handsome? eh heh heh.

I fell very much in love with him, and was whisked off to Canada. Reid and I play chess, go rock climbing, salsa dance, hike, climb mountains, catch and fry fish, read to each other, look at stars, go on walks, make sushi, watch Chuck, eat pancakes, and spend many wonderful days together.

Plus, I found the best masters degree program in the world at the University of Victoria, where I would be working on sustainable aquaculture programs under an inspiring, funny, and incredibly friendly supervisor who offered me a place this fall. My celebration of this happy news was interrupted by a single voicemail. A Peace Corps placement officer in DC. "We have some questions for you, can you give us a call back?" Having not heard from the Peace Corps for the past 6 months since being medically cleared...I had more or less forgotten about it. But that one phone call was enough. My grad. school advisor said, "Come back in two years. I'll save you a spot." Even knowing that I can come back, it is still hard to actually get up, say goodbye to this wonderful life I am currently living, and leave for the complete unknown.

Many things in life seem permanent and steady. Family, for one thing, will always be there for me no matter how much everyone may change on a day-to-day or year-to-year basis. I am very lucky to be able to rely 100% on the people I love. Because of this, it has been easy to leave home and experience new things. I am not worried that things will be missing or different when I get back (besides the surprise that Connor is not still 3 years old every time I go home : ). It is the transient things, the aspects of my life which are so immediately relevant and important, that are impossible to let go of. So, for now, I am scared to leave Victoria. Scared to leave a westernized world where everyone speaks English. Scared to live in a hut in a rural village. Scared to leave behind the perception that I am a pretty redhead, as opposed to being just plain old white and foreign. Scared to leave Reid because no matter how wonderful I may think I am, I have learned the lesson that boys do not like being put on hold for any length of time, and will not wait around for you for two years. Though my relentless optimism says he will. I think it is this unconditional optimism about most things, especially the improbable ones, along with a sense of humor which will guide me through these next two years.

So, why am I doing Peace Corps? Because I can't imagine not doing it. I know it will be impossibly hard...but I'm okay with that. I know deep down it will be an absolutely incredible experience, and that I'm the kind of person who can do it. The pros are endless and so are the cons, but my greatest fear at this point (the fear that is making me cross my fingers while posting this) is that they will decide not to let me go. That my medical history will have an issue. That my passport wont come through in time. That Senegal has spontaneously combusted and there are no more Peace Corps programs available.

These next two years will be made from the most potent stuff that this life has to offer. Adventure, the joy of experiencing something new for the first time, the absolute misery of undertaking something huge, the accomplishment of minuscule tasks, the thrill that comes from stripping away the acts and the comforts of day-to-day life to learn over and over again who we truly are underneath it all. Here is the only way I can think of to describe my thoughts right now:

If I were a pilot, I feel like every time I pulled out of the gate I would not believe that the plane would take off. No matter how much I KNEW about flying a plane, or how much I had trained to make it happen, there would be an instant on the runway where I would stare up into the sky, wheels on the ground, and think, "please? oh please let this work". Then I would close my eyes and hope beyond hope that the plane's weight would magically disappear as it rose into the sky. More than anything, I just hope that the dead weight of this first post will thunder down the runway, gain momentum, and lift off into the air! Carrying me to Senegal where I will document the whirlwind of experiences that are soon to follow. I hope! *please* oh please oh please take off. There are two months left for things to go wrong. Two months for life to interfere. With an ache that reaches the very tips of my fingernails, I HOPE that in two months' time I will be a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa.