My Destiny and A Baptism.

Oh and here are some pictures I stole from my friend Jenn! At the top is a map we painted of Senegal at a school. Yay! And above is our garden, before things started growing in it. I'm on the left, by the intense door that my language teacher built with his bare hands to ward off the goats.

Anyway!

In the words of my host mother, it’s time for all of you to adjust your vision of me in Africa. Last week, with great fanfare and a Senegalese television station documenting us (particularly me, at least if what my language teacher says is true), our sites were announced! The Peace Corps blindfolds us and then arranges us on a giant map of Senegal. We rip off our blindfolds and discover our destinies! When I was blindly led to my spot, I stood there for awhile and didn’t really hear anyone near me. I was like, what is going on. Where am I. Am I in the middle of the ocean? Am I in The Gambia? Am I being sent back to America? I could hear lots of people whispering to people around them, touching them. I stuck both of my arms straight out and spun around in a circle trying to see if anyone was within some sort of radius. I TOUCHED NO ONE. When we finally ripped off our blindfolds… I was in the city I am currently in. The Senegalese Paradise city of Thies! And I was all alone. Needless to say, I was confused and shocked… I had prepared myself for all sorts of scenarios and corners of the country, but hadn’t really considered the possibility that I wouldn’t be leaving where I was.

But this is my destiny! Thies! And after a healthy session mourning the visions I had for rural village life, I actually got really excited about my site. The Peace Corps guidebook describes my area as a place where people appreciate the finer things of life… so I can get used to that. I mean, this is the place where I’ve been indulging in margaritas and cheese. And it’s pretty awesome that I’m going to be working with an NGO. I’m going to be visiting my job site this week to learn more about it, but from what I can gather, I’m working with a life skills/health/economic empowerment program aimed at teenagers and young adults at Plan International. I’m about an hour and a half from Dakar, a hop skip and a jump from the ocean, and my area is the most temperate and full of vegetables in the whole country. So yeah, I started by feeling spoiled with my ritzy homestay family, and it looks like I may continue to be spoiled for the next few years. I wish my fellow volunteers the best of luck as they go on their 5-12 hour bus rides to their sites tomorrow… I’ll be here J

In other news, I went to a baptism this weekend! It was bizarre because no one really seemed to pay attention or talk to me, and yet they made me hold the baby for TWO HOURS. I’m not even kidding. I was just sitting in a corner, everyone was pretending not to look at me, and then they brought the guest of honor over and had me hold her. Baby Fatou, 2 weeks old. Then they all just went and chatted some more. At one point, I tried to pass the baby along… they just brought it back to me and said, “NO. Hold the baby.” And then walked away. No pictures of me with the baby. No fuss over how funny it was for me to hold the baby. No asking what my name even was. Just… baby. Here. Here’s the baby. There were like a good 300 people at this party. On our way home from the party, my host mom drove the car into a giant sand dune and we got stuck for awhile. It was kind of like when we get cars stuck in the snow – she was mildly annoyed, but luckily an entire village emerged to help us get the car out. But not before five more kids had smacked me upside the head through the open car window and then escaped into the darkness. I’m telling you, one day I will get my revenge on these little rascals. ONE DAY.

Alright well I’m going to get back to laying around for a few more hours until the heat dies down. This past Saturday, the heat started. It was like someone opened a door at noon: a huge, hot gust of wind ripped through the whole country, and everyone I’ve talked to felt it. HOT SEASON BEGINS! I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I’m not going to fight it. I’m just going to evade it. Ciao!

Village Notes, A Whirlwind

So first things first: it turns out that my name has multiple spellings. So sometimes it is Khady, but sometimes… it is XADI. I’m sorry, but that is awesome. My name starts with an X. Like Xena.

I just finished up a long two week stint with my host family. I’ve slowly learned more about them, but a lot of information I thought I understood at first is now under scrutiny. For instance, the other day my host mother urged me to read a letter she found in her living room. It was dated from 1997, addressed to my host father, and the writer said a lot of unsavory things about who I assume is my host mother? I could not for the life of me figure out…

a) if this letter was about my host mother

b) if my father secretly has a second wife somewhere else and the letter was about her

c) if my host mother can read French and even knows what this letter said

d) why I was being so happily encouraged to read the letter, despite my repeated asking of, “Prive? Prive? Is this private?”

But I can’t imagine a world where my host father has a second wife. My host parents flirt with each other all the time and they cuddle together on the couch, which is shocking for a culture where men and women often don't even eat dinner in the same room. My host mother, Yacine, as is usual with my African host family experiences, is a trip. She loves watching the popular “Indian” soap opera – I use quotes because this show is actually made in Italy with Italians dressed up as Indians, dubbed in French, and probably only shown in Senegal. A lot of the Indian culture seems to be lost in this design, not to mention the fact that they stretch five minutes of storyline into an hour by using the same shots from seven different angles in a row. But my host mom – yeah, she is the only lady I’ve seen in town who drives a car. And drive she does! The other day, she decided to take me to visit my grandmother, despite my reminders that I had to be home to catch a bus in an hour. So Yacine took control of the situation. We were FLYING down roads, back and forth across the width of the road as is the Senegalese way in order to avoid pot holes, skidding through gravel, and, of course, screeching to a stop every 4 minutes when she saw someone she knew. Because it’s rude to keep driving when you should be greeting your friends and second cousins of your father's uncle on the side of the road. But bless Yacine, we made it to grandma’s house and back in record time, and I even had time to eat my fabulous lunch of fried chicken, rice, and vegetables before the bus came. Granted, this was the one day that I was not given a spoon, but forced to eat in the traditional way, with my hand. But I did it! And it was delicious, licking every last bit from my fingertips when I finished. It’s not rude to do that here. BOOM!

I originally had the impression that my father worked in the fabric industry in Italy. I have since learned that duh, “fabrique” means that he builds buildings… not textiles. But yes, on Monday, my host father left for 8 months in Italy. A lot of the men in my extended family all work in Italy and send money home to support everyone. I imagine it’s a pretty lucrative job because it must suck not seeing their families for such long periods of time. One of my host brothers has been in Italy for 10 years without being able to come back to Senegal, due to what I assume is a visa issue.

In other news, the baby likes me now! Yes!

And speaking of pleasant surprises, I am continuously astounded by my lack of stomach issues with the food here. My diet primarily consists of white bread (about 1 baguette a day), white rice, vegetables fried in excessive amounts of oil, and SUGAR. What does it say about my physical health if I have experienced no problems in adjusting to this? I can’t decide if my body is just really strong or just really used to this type of abuse. But whatever. I like bread and sugar and fried foods. So good times.

In Peace Corps news, we’ve embarked on a few trial projects over the past two weeks – small tastes of projects and the work we will eventually do once our stint as trainees ends and our 2 year volunteer part begins. So we painted a map of Senegal at a local school – I was the genius who misspelled a regional name and wrote things in English instead of the national language of French, but paint can always be reapplied to cover up mistakes! We also made a fabulous mural consisting of a bowl of water, a bar of soap, and a magical arm not connected to a body in order to encourage hand washing. We’ve continued working on our garden and built a fence around it. We also visited the local health post to help with baby weighings and polio vaccinations. The baby weighing session is one way they screen kids for malnutrition here. I was asked to debrief some of the mothers after the weighing about breastfeeding – due to my lack of language skills, this “talk” basically devolved into me pantomiming breastfeeding in front of a crowded room. I had a similarly humbling experience during the vaccination sessions when a group of unruly elementary school children decided to follow me for 45 minutes, repeatedly slapping my arms and running away. From what I can gather, children in Senegal suffer crippling levels of MOB MENTALITY. Over the course of the next two years, I hope to at least find a way to make them stop hitting me.

Another interesting aspect of Senegalese culture is their belief that everything should be shared. Our group first observed this concept when a mob of unruly children (I’m telling you, the mobs are everywhere) ran in front of our bus in the middle of the road until we stopped and our language teacher gave them money. To me, it was like an impromptu toll road by terrorists, and my language teacher let the terrorists win. He later explained that everyone just gives everyone else stuff. So yeah, people just ask for all of my stuff all the time. Most of the time I just roll with it. I mean, I don’t give them my stuff, but it doesn't really bother me. But sometimes my host brothers see me with bananas or oranges... and they’re like, “Give me that.” So I’ve taken to giving them whatever else is in my hand at the time, and running away before they can clarify what they wanted. Sharing! Integrating!

I also discovered a great way to deal with my occasional language frustrations: try to teach my host family how to say something in English. When they try to say "How is your family?" in English and still can't quite get it after 10 minutes, I think we all feel better about my language struggles, empathy on their part and pride on mine.

Currently, I’m back at the training center for a few days. On Thursday, we all find out where we’ll be living for two years, so it should be a pretty exciting day! I actually had the fabulous opportunity to go to dinner at a French-like restaurant last night and indulged in 4 courses of desserts and a margarita – things that I didn’t expect to see until 2013, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Hmm other things!

- Senegal won their first soccer match of the year, against the horrible, smelly, no good Cameroon! Yay! Dancing in the streets!

- My family’s favorite wrestler won his big match on Sunday! Yay! More dancing in the streets!

- My family gets a music video channel that plays excessive amounts of Justin Timberlake and Rhianna! Yay! Lisa teaching them American dance!

- The other night I couldn’t sleep because it sounded like someone was breathing in my room. I eventually deduced that a goat and/or human was sleeping outside in the courtyard under my window.

- One day we went to my grandmother’s house and she gave us mangos and rabbits. I just got in the car to leave and there were rabbits in the backseat. I still don’t know what the rabbits were for. We didn’t eat them… YET. I don’t feel like there is a big market for rabbit fur in Senegal?

- I visited a Catholic monastery last weekend! They sell goat cheese.

- Tomorrow night I am going to watch The Lion King! In Africa! It should be very poignant.

- I really enjoy using the phrase “the village people” to describe the people in my village

I hope everyone is doing well. Wish me luck as I head into these next few weeks… I’ll not only be finding out my SENEGALESE FUTURE, but also doing a brief visit to my future village for about 5 days. Let’s hope my sanity and stomach continue to serve me well. Ciao loves! Keep in touch!