A Three Hour Tour: the English Teacher, the Gynecologist, the General Practitioner, and Me!

Some nights, it is so hot here that I just lay in pools of my own sweat, trapped inside my mosquito net, waiting for breezes that never come through the window, and want to die. There seems to be no escape, especially as I live these moments. As of now, I can find no position that combines the comfort of being able to sleep with the most effective way for sweat to drip and evaporate off of my body. Every time I move, my body seems to think I’m switching into “exercise-mode,” and turns on the cooling system. For this reason, I lay on my back a lot and take great care to contemplate any movements, lest I ruin any progress I may have made in the previous five minutes towards being not sweaty.

Thies isn’t known as being the hottest place in Senegal. Heck, Thies isn't known as being very hot at all. But, compared to America, it is still pretty hot here. And my room is especially hot, due to unfortunately placed windows and my current cheap refusal to invest in a fan. Usually there comes some point in the night where the heat breaks – the temperature in my room finally dips, or a large breeze really shakes things up, or maybe I just sweat out my fevers, I don’t know. This usually happens between 11pm-1am. And then I sleep.

But the other night, the lapse never came. So I just layed in my bed, hoping and waiting and sweating and chugging oral rehydration solution, until 4:30am. This was unfortunate, because I was scheduled to meet my tutor and his bike club for a big ride at 6:30am. I was a little intimidated by the biking club, mostly because I had no idea what was going to happen and whether my body was capable of riding a bike farther than 5 miles. When my alarm went off at 5:45am, I thought about my options.

- lay in bed and enjoy sweet, sweet sleep for maybe one more hour before my family started making noise, but remain intimidated of the biking club forever

- go on the bike ride and finally know if I have what it takes to be a member of the biking club. Also, become so exhausted that insomnia won’t be a problem the next night!

So I made my choice! I decided to drag my weary body to the biking club in the twilight of the morning on one hour of sleep in a state of delirious dehydration and go on a 34km recreational ride in hopes that I would emerge from the experience a stronger person with the ability to sleep at normal hours.

And biking club actually ended up being really fun! Picture this: an English teacher, a doctor, a gynecologist, and me, all riding our mountain bikes around the Senegalese countryside. Actually here, I have a picture:

Occasionally they chatted and gossiped, and when they started talking about some crazy guy they know with three wives, I chimed in that I have three husbands in America: Lil Wayne, Obama, and Akon. The first half of the ride was directly into the wind and mostly uphill, which is the best way to do an out and back ride. Our destination turned out to be a water retention basin in a town called Mont Rolland. So we got the basin, looked at it, and then turned around. I was told that the basin has fish in it.

The return trip was extremely pleasant – mostly downhill with the wind at our back. I felt good. And I was so proud of myself when we made it back to Thies! It was my longest bike ride to date IN LIFE and I did it under less than ideal circumstances.

Then I returned home, took a shower, made some oatmeal, and proceeded to fade in and out of delirium for the rest of the day. I wanted to die because I couldn’t stop sweating and I couldn’t form sentences and my family told me I was pale and bloodshot and I should go to bed but I couldn’t sleep because I was too hot and sweat was just dripping off of me. And in these hours, which lasted until dark, I wondered if the biking club had been the best decision, because I am pretty sure I was suffering from self-imposed heat exhaustion.

So I don’t know if I’ll go on another biking club excursion. Maybe if it’s after a night that involves sleep or general good health. Maybe I’ll wait until the hot season is over. Anyway, hopefully the English teacher, the general practitioner, the gynecologist, and I will be best friends forever!

Until next time!

To Flute or not to Flute

When my host sister Maimuna told me that she played the flute and would be performing on June 18, I of course said COUNT ME IN I WILL BE THERE! The opportunity seemed too great to pass up: good times with the family, Senegalese children playing flutes... what is not to love?! However, as the date of the concert grew nearer, my image of this “flute performance” began to change. It seemed like each day, my family would throw another unexpected random fact about it at me.

For instance, Monday: “It’s not a show, it’s a party.”

Tuesday: “There will be a lot of dancing and music.”

Wednesday: “No one else in the family is going.”

Thursday: “It is a middle school dance and you are now a chaperone and maybe there will be a song with a flute.”

Armed with this knowledge, I bravely counted down the hours to the flute performance –turned middle school dance. I made plans to meet my sister at our house at 4pm so that we could go to her school together before the party started at 4:30. So when I roll up to the house at 3:30 and then at 4pm my host mom goes, “Mame Diowma? Did you talk to Maimuna?” and it turns out my host sister had left at like 3 because the party started at 4, I was not pleased. Again, plans, failing, always. After a moment of silent anger, I decided to swallow my pride and try to find the school on my own. Because I just really wanted to see what was going to happen.

What happened is that I found the school at 4:15 and no one was there, save for my sister and one of her sassy friends. When I walked up, my sister said, “Oh yeah, and I forgot my flute, so oh well!” I asked where everyone was and she said the party started at 4:30. I went and sat down to watch the scene unfold. What unfolded was… a whole bunch of French ladies started arriving … and it turns out that my sister’s French private school has about half Senegalese students and half French ex-pats. But these women… were carrying platters of pastries. Homebaked pastries! Like homebaked cookies, and cakes! Note: I had resigned myself to the possibility of never having a homebaked cookie during my two years in Senegal. Ovens are hard to come by here, and while there are ways to make haphazard baked goods over a gas stove or buy packaged cookies in a boutique, I know better than to set my sights high. UNTIL NOW! So once I saw the baked goods, I knew that no matter what happened, I was not leaving this party, ever.

Eventually this random judge sat next to me and explained that I was about to watch an end-of-the-year pageant with an environmental theme, which is strangely what I had expected three weeks ago, before the whole middle school dance idea was introduced. AND PAGEANT DID I SEE!

The program opened with the lower classes wandering around the stage, then forming a circle and clapping along to an English version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” The second performance involved children covered in newspaper with scrawled messages like “PROTECT TREES!” and “WE LOVE THE AIR!” singing French songs. But the show was mostly centered around an elaborate skit that involved dream sequences/hallucinations with Indian dances (for those of you who understand these references, the dances were a cross between my Ariel dances in The Tempest and Teresa’s zombie walk), human trees being chopped down, human birds experiencing dramatic Shakespearean deaths after breathing dirty air, and the sassiest sun in the UNIVERSE chasing airplanes and cars and telling them how much she hated them. There was also a moment when all of the kids formed a giant improvised machine and stared blankly into the audience, which I think was meant to say something about technological doom. In a word, it was fantastic, and the perfect mix of avant-garde French art with sassy, theatrical Senegalese performance.

There was no flute component.

But in the end, I got to eat so much cake, and it was awesome. The French aspect of the party ended up being hilarious, as all of the French teachers/parents busted out beers and cigarettes and just wandered around, smoking and drinking. In a strange way, it was like an American tailgate? I danced in a corner to Kanye and Rihanna with 13 year old girls while people kept coming over and asking if I was from Canada.

But I think my favorite part of the night was the ride home. Night had fallen, so my sister and I stood outside and tried to hail a cab. When we finally found one, the driver kept trying to overcharge us. And hilariously, I could see that me and my sister were both drawing strength from the other: she was high off of the excitement of a middle school party, needing to take taxi after dark, and showing off for me. I was riding the wave of good dancing and being adamant about not being ripped off since I had a Senegalese person with me. Consequently, we were quite the fighting pair, and we just berated our driver into submission for a good price. My Wolof had never been better, and my little sister had never been so confident. When we got home, I heard my sister retelling the story of the cab over and over for our whole family, like it was already a legend.

Also, it should be noted that my sister had told all of her friends at school about my Lil Wayne poster, which prompted all of them to ask me if I knew Lil Wayne. I tried explaining how I ended up with the poster to no avail. And so the population in Senegal that believes I am in love with Lil Wayne continues to grow.

Musical Obsessions

I will now discuss music in Senegal.

1. Rihanna

2. Bob Marley

3. Tracy Chapman

The end.

Becoming a Yes Person

So this past week, I decided to become a “yes” person. I had been considering becoming a yes person, after noticing that plans are often worthless here and most people make their decisions on the drop of a dime. Here is a large-scale example: often, Senegalese people will start building houses.... but they won’t bother to see if they have enough money to finish the house, and they usually don't. And then, over the next few years, every time they get a little extra money, they add a little more to the house. This isn’t a metaphor. Senegal is full of unfinished buildings because of habits like this. But anyway, a lot of Senegalese just aren’t super into “calendars,” “planning,” or “the future,” which is fine! Cultural differences! So given that, if I ever wanted to do anything exciting, worthwhile, or fun, I decided I needed to stop imagining I would do anything in the future, and pretend that my only chances were RIGHT NOW! So when a random driver came into my office the other day and asked if I wanted to go to a random village that I had never heard of, I said YES!

I didn’t understand why they asked me to go, or where we were going, or why we were going anywhere, but I just got in the car. I ended up going out to a rural community and seeing a meeting between PLAN and their local “animateurs,” or community workers. We also went to a really rural village and met with a completely random local family. But it was great because over the course of the day, I slowly started learning exactly what PLAN does. And what PLAN does is many community projects, like water sanitation and health initiatives and projects like mine -- economic empowerment and youth capacity building. These are all good things.

As for the rest of the week, I experienced success and failure.

Successes:

- I made popcorn on my little stove! It may surprise many of you to learn that the 1998 Popcorn Princess had never made popcorn on a stove, but yes, I have truly only ever made popcorn in the microwave. UNTIL NOW! Thanks, Africa!

- I also made an amazing sandwich using butter, bread, an egg, onions, and for its first Senegalese appearance, VELVEETA! Special shout-out to my friend Will for inspiring that concoction. I also made no-bake cookies using hot chocolate, milk, oatmeal, butter, and sugar. I am becoming quite the connoisseur.

- I correctly identified a current hit by Senegalese singer Vivienne as a total rip-off of Whitney Houston’s song “I Have Nothing” from one of my favorite movies, “The Bodyguard.” Consequently, this lowered the respect my Senegalese family has for Vivienne, whom they have now labled a SACCKAAT (a thief). No one steals from Whitney Houston on my watch! No one!

- Taught my family UNO. This is a positive and a negative, because now they are kind of obsessed and it’s all they want to do.

- Had an intense day where I did all my laundry and cleaned my little house. At the end, my host mom was the happiest I’d ever seen her and called me “a real woman.” It was kind of weird and goes against a lot of what I believe about gender roles, but I think ultimately good.

-Got a new bed, a table, two chairs, and a tutor! Boom!

Failures:

- - Set up a tea time with the local English teacher. I was very excited to learn about the local middle school and see if I could work with one of their clubs next year… but teacher didn’t show! Boo. And I had even bought tea. So now I try to find a new friend/work partner.

- - Went on a bike ride and felt amazing for the first 10k! Then turned around and realized I had been riding with a 50mph wind at my back and it took me like an hour to get home.

- -Got mobbed by a 5^th grade boys soccer team as I tried to ride my bike past them. They literally were running alongside me and hanging off of various parts of my bike as I rode. When I yelled at adults for help, saying things like, “WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS? THESE CHILDREN ARE RUDE! THIS IS NOT FUNNY!”, the people just laughed at me. It’s funny now. It wasn’t then.

- --- Accidentally ate a fish eye

- - Went to clean my water filter and discovered it was full of dirt, i.e. it was not filtering my water

- - Was attacked by a medium sized lizard as I watched 127 Hours alone in my room in the dark

- - Had very intense stomach issues one day. I won’t go into details except to say that when I told my host mom, she said, “Well, of course! Yesterday you ate rice, noodles, and bread! That’s what happens!” The issues I was having… I’m pretty sure rice, noodles, and bread are the best antidotes. But I will respect her strange Senegalese wisdom?

In the coming week, I’m also hoping to start my garden on Thursday and go to my little sister’s flute performance on Friday. Also, Thursday marks my 100^th day in Senegal… but I’m sure many of you have been counting the days and were already painfully aware. And then, as part of my YES PERSON project, I may or may not be joining a biking club with four middle-aged Senegalese men on Saturday.

Love love, and stay in touch!

Pimping Out My Room

And now for a little tour of my new home!

Here is my living room:

Things you may notice:

- the floor mat where I do my morning yoga and dance stretches

- my kitchen in the left corner... I cook on that gas tank, and most of my food is in the two plastic containers next to it... just in case critters attack in the night

- fancy schmancy bookshelf that I reluctantly invested in after a series of complicated events... but despite its price, I must admit, it is quite beautiful, and a great place for my books, notebooks, various Peace Corps training manuals, and dishes

- water filter and bucket beneath it because my water filter leaks

Eventually, I plan to finish out this room by adding a cot-couch thing for lounging and housing the numerous guests that I fully expect to host, both from America and other parts of Senegal. I also plan to PAINT! At the moment I'm thinking light green... or blue... and one wall covered in a giant mural, though I will miss having Sasha and Brandy to do most of the artistic work.

Anyway, on to the bedroom!

So on the left is my bed... recently upgraded from a simple cot mattress to a fatty foam one, courtesy of my co-worker Bethany. The bed came at the perfect time, because I ended up getting violently ill that same night! And it wasn't even that bad because I had a fabulously more comfortable bed than I was used to. You can't see it, but my bed is positioned under my window to allow for the occasional cool breeze to interrupt my endless sweating. You can also see my mosquito net hung up for the day in the top right corner -- I did some maneuvering with various ropes and nails to find a way to hang it, and I think it's been protecting me at night?

My suitcase doubles as my wardrobe, and on the right is a metal chest for my fancy clothes (i.e. Jasmine, Barbie, and my only pair of blue jeans) and electronics.

Not in the photo are my fancy decorations, which include a Beatles poster that I bought for $5, various mardi gras beads, and postcards from friends that keep falling down.

And, because I know you're curious, the bathroom!

I know you are probably all excited about the appearance of my Western toilet, but let's be serious: is it really a Western toilet if it's not hooked up to running water? Think about how that one works out for me. You may also notice a roll of toilet paper. That is not a common occurrence.... it's just an indulgence I allowed myself due to my aforementioned violent illness aka the 24 hours when I thought I was going to die. SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION. But cultural moment! The little kettle pot next to the toilet is the normal Senegalese alternative to toilet paper. You use it and your left hand. And then you don't use your left hand for anything else, ever. Anyway, that's usually what I do instead of toilet paper. SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH INFORMATION. But don't worry, there is soap there too!

And next to the toilet is my bucket and drain, aka my shower. I'm probably slightly dirty at all times in Senegal, even after dumping water on myself, because my showers amount to me just dumping water on myself.

But lest I leave you on a note that involved bathrooms and no humor, I will pass along my favorite story from my past week. I decided to show one of my friends the puppy poster I bought at Wal-Mart in America. I bought it, on a whim, the day before I left, because I thought, puppies! Ha, that will be hilarious to hang up in my my hut! Because that's how I think. So my friend says, "What is that?" And I go, "LET ME SHOW YOU." Then, when I open the poster...

I HAVE A GIANT POSTER OF LIL WAYNE.

I don't know how, but I accidentally bought a poster of Lil Wayne, NOT CUTE FUZZY ADORABLE PUPPIES, in America. And brought it all the way here. But it's just as hilarious. And soon it will be back on my wall, because unfortunately it keeps falling off, and it totally needs to be on the wall of my house all the time.

The Wedding

So yesterday, I attended my first Senegalese wedding. After numerous baptisms, I have to admit, I was prepared for the worst. Senegalese parties are strange -- everyone talks about them for weeks and weeks and I can't help but get caught up in the excitement! People have special outfits made and travel in from all parts of the country for the event -- but then, every single time, the "party" ends up being people just sitting, in plastic chairs, for hours. Literally. Hours and hours and hours. Much like the baptisms where I sat in a corner holding a baby for hours and hours. I mean, it's cool, it's just not the parties I grew up on. At American parties, we at least do things like snacks, so you have to get up and go refill your plate from time to time. We also sometimes do things like bacci ball or fireworks. In Senegal, you sit.

So even though all of my Senegalese family was super excited about the wedding, I was trying to hold back a little bit. I packed a book.

(my host sister and her husband and kids... she is wearing my favorite dress in all of Senegal. It might not be apparent here, but her dress is covered in amazing peacock fabric cutout feathers. Also, her children are adorable, and the little girl, Bigue, had a dress that reminded me of Snow White)

But once we got to Dakar, I was pleasantly surprised to find a different kind of party in the city -- the seven people from my car joined the eight people living in the house for some cheese, bread, and coffee for breakfast, and then everyone just kind of hung out around the house. I eventually found myself in a fancy living room, in a fancy leather chair, watching dubbed Bruce Lee movies with a bunch of 9 year olds. As the party picked up, the laid-back vibe continued. I even got some henna done on my hand, along with my host sisters, which, cheesy at is, made me feel all integrated.

Then again, at 5pm, the actual ceremony started and the house descended into Senegalese madness. Crazy crowds, crazy sitting, me not knowing what was going on at all.

You may be wondering, what exactly is a Senegalese marriage ceremony? Well, from what I can gather, both through observation and explanations in broken Wolof, all of the men, including the groom, go to the mosque and pray. The women, including the bride, stay home and cook a giant dinner. When the men come back, the couple is married. When I asked numerous people whether it is forbidden for the women to go pray at the mosque, I always got the same answer: no, it's not forbidden, silly! There just isn't enough room at the mosque!

... Like a lot of things in Senegal, these kinds of answers must be taken with a grain of salt... the Senegalese, like a lot of cultures, sometimes give interesting explanations for things. For instance, they never say anything is bad, even if it is food that made 20 people sick. They also insist that children chasing me with rocks and calling me "red ears" is cute, not even a little impolite or racist. So yes, maybe there isn't a lot of room at the mosque. Or maybe women just never go. And maybe I will never know the truth.

The wedding was also a great opportunity for people to sack me continuously with my least favorite question: Are you married? Here in Senegal, this question is just as common as "What is your job?" or "Where are you from?" Actually, it's usually asked before either of those questions, and then my negative answer dominates the conversation for the next 20 minutes. I'm not the first single, American girl to complain about the Senegalese obsession with marriage, and I won't be the last. I also know that if I continue to be pissed off every time I have to fight my way through a "Why aren't you married?" conversation -- which, after three months, I realize has no acceptable answer for the Senegalese except for "You know, you're right! I want to get married and I want to get married NOW!" -- I am going to have a long two years here. But I can't help it. The little feminist in me gets all riled up, and I start sputtering in French-Wolof-English about all the traveling I want to do and how I'm never in one place and I have a lot of life to live and maybe I'll get married some day and these are all stupid reasons to them, and in America, even the most cynical person will usually give me some sort of begrudging, "yeah girl."

But it is interesting because a lot of reasons that my friends, and I guess Americans in general, have for waiting to get married are kind of ridiculous here. I mean, people I know don't want to get married now because we are constantly uprooting our lives, moving around -- our futures seem so indefinite that it seems silly to add another person to the mix. Distance seems to do a lot of couples in, or else it becomes the biggest determining factor and obstacle in their relationship: WE ARE A LONG-DISTANCE COUPLE! But in Senegal... husbands go work in other countries for years and years at a time. Spouses work all week in different cities and regions, seeing each other on the occasional weekend or few times a month. Distance is the norm here. To the Senegalese, the fact that I left America for two years is completely unrelated to my ability to be in a relationship. It's the most important thing to them -- why would I even want to work or do anything without a family, a husband first? In that sense, I get it.

But yeah, there's also the whole idea of "waiting to meet someone you want to marry." They talk about marriage as something that just happens at a certain point in time. "When are you getting married if you're not married? Next year? The year after?" I say, "I don't know, I want to find someone I like." And they just laugh and say, "Okay, so when will you get married?" Logic as I know it is irrelevant. Add this to the list of arguments that I will never win.

So yeah, MARRIAGE! I didn't get a chance to have a heart-to-heart with the bride at this wedding, though I wanted to. She was 25. I have no idea about the circumstances of her marriage. I did notice she was crying a lot, and when I asked my host sister why, she simply said, "THE EMOTIONS." So I guess that's universal.

(Me and my host sister, Nene Mariama... again, with the amazing dress)

RAM! Not the Wings Album.

Wherever you go in the world, you are destined to meet those with whom you might not get along. Everyone is different! We all have different temperments and personalities! Sometimes, certain characteristics of one being might react in very terrible and negative ways with another being. You might find yourself hating every single thing about someone. Or, in my case, as was the case this past Saturday, you might find yourself saying, "Wow. You really are the BIGGEST ASSHOLE IN ALL OF SENEGAL."

I am talking about the ram in my backyard.

He is literally the worst ram that has ever lived.

His crappiness is made even worse by the fact that he barely even acts like a ram. I thought he was a goat for my first two weeks. Scratch that -- I didn't know he existed for the first week, which is crazy given that my backyard is the size of a master bedroom. One day, out of the blue, after a week of living in my new place, I heard a strange noise out back, and when I went to take a gander -- bam. ANIMAL. I asked my host sister, "Where did that goat* come from?" and she responded, "That goat* has always been there!" It hadn't always been there. I would have noticed. I especially would have noticed because this animal is an asshole.

*note: I thought it was a goat and no one corrected me, ever. After a few weeks, I discovered the goat was a ram. Whatever.

So anyway, back to the slow disintegration of the relationship between me and the ram/goat. He didn't bother me much at first, though he had the very annoying habit of knocking over piles of dishes in the night and making weird noises at all hours. On Saturday, I woke up early to do my laundry amid the amused eyes of my family as I continuously spilled water all over myself and failed to clean anything. I was also watched by the goat-ram, but it was chained to a tree in the corner of the yard, so I mostly ignored it. When I finished my laundry, I climbed the backyard stairs and hung my things on the rooftop terrace.

And then.

At the end of the day, when I went to retrieve my laundry and make my way back down the stairs, I found my path blocked by the goat-ram. Because all of my previous interactions with goats have been that they wander but mostly leave you alone, I was not fazed.

"Hi, goat. Move. Here. Move. Over there. Go. You go." (How I speak English to a goat is strangely similar to how I speak Wolof to all people in Senegal)

But there was this moment -- I FELT it, because you can feel interpersonal connections between mammals if you look at their eyes-- this moment when I know the goat looked at my clothespins and thought they were food. I FELT IT. And I said, "NO. NO. NOT FOOD. NO." And I put the clothespins in my pocket.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the goat-ram attacked me.

You think I am joking, but this is not a joke. This is a warning, this is a lament, this a cautionary tale, this is a horror story: I WAS HEADBUTTED THREE TIMES IN THE STOMACH BY A RAM. A RAM STOMPED ITS HOOVES ALL OVER MY LEGS AND FEET. A RAM BACKED ME UP AGAINST A STONE WALL AND ATTACKED ME, VICIOUSLY, UNTIL I WAS COVERED IN BRUISES.

After yelling, crying, and wailing for a good 30 seconds as the goat-ram intensified assault, one of my host sisters finally appeared, LAUGHING MIND YOU, and beat the goat-ram with a broom. Did the goat-ram leave? Well, it did the whole thug thing of pretending to walk away and cool off... RIGHT BEFORE IT CAME AFTER ME AGAIN.

AND ATTACKED ME AGAIN. TWO TIMES. ONE DAY.

That is the end of the story. Or, rather, because I would prefer to have the last laugh, I consider the story not to be finished quite yet. No. I imagine the end of the story will come sometime near the end of August, or maybe the beginning of November, when my family has a large feast for the end of Ramadan or to celebrate Tabaski. And on this day, I imagine that we eat goat-ram.

So do not tell me that I don't have hardships in the city! Do not tell me that my living is easy! Every day, I have to pass by the goat-ram, withstanding its weird bleating as it hungers for my now-put away clothespins, and I have to continue to live with this family member who wants to kill me. All I can do, everyday, is look the goat-ram straight in the eye, from a healthy distance, and say, "Goat-ram, you are an asshole."