Cape Verde: Wild, Fertile, Lunar

I recently went on a vacation to Cape Verde!  Why?  Because when else in my life would I ever get around to visiting this small chain of islands right off the coast of Senegal?  Plus, Cape Verde came with rave reviews from every visitor it’d ever had.  Called a mix of Africa, Europe, and Brazil, the islands were colonized by Portugal (and pirates), so everyone speaks Portugeuse and Creole.  The Peace Corps program in Cape Verde recently closed because... they achieved development (I mean, not really, but kind of really). Cape Verde sounded like a magical, magical place.  I almost expected to find fountains of chocolate and swans of gold.  (Side note: I did end up sitting at the bottom of a rainbow.  There was no gold though... unless you count beautiful memories as gold!)

But anyway, Cape Verde.  I went with three girls from my stage, Alana, Katie, and Sharon, and it was lovely.  Instead of taking you day by day through our trip, I’ll just share a few things I learned:

1. Cape Verde: the country where people approach you not to trick, rob, or harass you, but give unsolicited directions

 Cape Verde’s hospitality freaked me out.  In Senegal, I’ve become so accustomed to ignoring everyone who yells and approaches me in urban, public places that Cape Verdeans made me incredibly uncomfortable with their friendliness and lack of motive.  We were stopped in the street, unsolicited, and offered touristic advice... that had absolutely no benefit to the person giving it.  We were given names and numbers of helpful individuals by total strangers... who then happily went on their way, never proposing marriage or asking to be introduced to other potential American wives.  Not one person ever tried to charge us more than the local price.  It was frightening for me.  Mostly, I responded to these warm and engaging displays of kindness with discomfort, shifty eyes, and flight from the scene.  I have fully integrated into Senegal. 

My friends eat accurately priced street food.

2. Climbing a volcano requires appropriate footwear

We spent time on the capital’s island, Santiago, and Fogo, home of a destructive volcano.  Actually, the volcano isn’t super destructive, though it is active. No one perished during its last eruption (1995), and the lava was pretty contained to a specific part of the island.  In fact, as we drove the village at the base of the last crater, we got to see the shift between the lava-land and the untouched areas.  Most of our drive was lush, beautiful, and green!  

Beautiful Fogo!

Then, we turned a corner, and suddenly, in the immortal words of our guidebook, the landscape was “wild, lunar, and fertile.” 

WILD LUNAR FERTILE

The top edge of the lava crater, the highest point on all of the islands and basically a giant mountain, loomed in the distance.  Our Fogolese mission was to conquer its summit (and its heart).   Everyone who had done the climb before said it was super fun!

You will be conquered.

Scaling this peak turned into one of the most challenging experiences of my life. 

Island mountain climb, to me, conjures images of winding, grassy trails at a subtle but steady incline, possibly with playful goats leaping around me.  The Fogo climb turned out to be a three hour, near vertical, near-rock climbing experience through rain and clouds where one wrong step meant plummeting to my death.  I’m not even kidding. During the climb, I thought a lot about how people with life threatening illnesses do things like climb mountains, feel good about it, and star in yogurt ads.  I did not have any of these feelings as I climbed.  Also, I was wearing Chacos.  Without socks, which was a grave, grave error.  I also kept thinking about how we were the only living things on the mountain and how the mountain could easily kill us to keep a clean record.  Other than the occasional flower bursting through lava rock, it was just us and the ash. 

But I was very impressed when I got to the top.  It was pretty cool to look down at a volcanic crater and see the sulfur rising from the ash.  And I did have mild yogurt-ad adrenaline.

Yaayyyy!  No deaths!

Unfortunately, descending the mountain proved an even greater problem for my Chacos, as we had to wade through tiny rocks for most of the downhill.  At one point, the pain of tiny rocks cutting into my fragile, sacred feet led me to take off my shoes, sit down like a frustrated child, and tell everyone to go on without me. 

Luckily, my fortunes soon changed... because Sharon gave me her socks AND the descent opened up into a giant ski run that we practically slid, skid, and somesaulted down.  And THAT was awesome.  I think that’s exactly why no one had told us how hard the climb was: the descent completely wipes out memories of the ridiculously difficult journey up.

But I swore I would not forget. And that is why I dedicated so much space to Cape Verde lesson #2: No Chacos on the volcano.  But ultimate moral of the story:  You should still do it!  Wear sneakers.

3. Evangelicals all around the world use the same tricks to get you into their church

So while we were in the volcano town, Portela, we befriended a woman at the local “museum” (which was actually pretty informative, I shouldn’t knock it... it told all about volcanoes and the history of the island, focusing especially on a French duke who was “captivated” by about 9 different beautiful Fogo women and spawned the numerous blond haired and blue eyed anomalies who exist all over present day Fogo).  Anyway, we asked this museum lady to give us directions to a wine place, and she complied.  Later we found out that she invited some other tourists (our French bffs Jean “Farley” and Helene) to a traditional music ceremony.  Not inviting us must have been an honest mistake!  We’ll go anyway!

So that night, we head to the “traditional music performance.” The songs were lovely at first.  But then it turned into an epic Seventh Day Adventist church service.  In Portugeuse and Creole. For 90 minutes.  The woman made us sit in the front and there was no escape.  OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK!  She got us good with her promises of “traditional music.”  And obviously we weren’t originally invited because we were the heathens searching for alcohol.

Eating and drinking alcohol with our new friends not at a church

On the other hand, the church service was part of a 33 day celebration of marriage and family, which we scoffed at until seemed we learned that our volcano guide is one of 37 children and his Catholic father has three different, unmarried baby mamas.

4. Cape Verdeans take shots at 10am (shot o’clock)

One of the most confusing aspects of our trip was trying to discover when Cape Verdeans eat.  It seemed that every time we went to a restaurant, we were the only ones there.  Furthermore, we never saw any of our Cape Verdean hosts actively eating food.  During our trip, we eventually ate in restaurants at every hour of the day but never solved this mystery.  On the other hand, we did make one discovery at 10am.  While we dined on our breakfast in an obviously empty place, a man came in.  Life!  He promptly bought a shot and then left.  Immediately, two different men came in.  They downed shots and left.  The stream continued... all in all, about 12 men came in, took shots, and left.  All of them were public transportation drivers.  It was 10am.  We had been warned that most Cape Verdeans enjoy imbibing to excess, but didn’t quite believe it until this moment.  After this point, we started realizing that yes, most people around us were drunk all the time.  So it goes in Catholic countries!  Luckily, the intoxicated Cape Verdeans seemed to be, uniformly, happy drunks.  The alcohol never seemed to bring out tears or anger, as it does at so many American college parties.

5. Senegal holds a surprising, subtle advantage over Cape Verde on one singular aspect of transportation

Initially, we were awed by Cape Verde’s public transportation fleet.  Instead of old Peugeots, Cape Verdeans hail down shiny Toyota vans, and instead of taxis that continue to run even when the keys fall out of the ignition, Cape Verdeans drive brand new Corolla taxis.  It was all very fancy.  But when we tried to cross Santiago, traveling between two of the island’s biggest cities, we found Cape Verde’s weakness: getting people into their cars.  In Senegal, cars are filled one at a time.  Sometimes they fill fast, sometimes they fill slow; this system frustrates us Americans used to transport leaving at a set hour, full or not.  But Cape Verde... seems to fill multiple cars halfway... then have them drive in very, very, very small circles, fighting over passengers who never seem to appear. 

We got in our car thinking it would pick up a few more people and soon head out, but instead, it started driving in circles.  The first rodeo ride around the block was fun.  The second wasn’t so bad either.  But the fourteenth and fifteenth turns around the tiny town square started to make us car sick.  At one point, I saw a man with a bag and yelled at our driver, “THERE’S ONE!”, trying to enjoy the fun game of winning passengers.  I nearly killed us all.  Our driver burned rubber turning around, took corners on two wheels, and raced two other vans who had spotted the same guy.  When we got to him, the man on the street threw his hands up in defense.  “I’m not going anywhere!  I’m a doctor!  I’m walking to the hospital for my shift!”  Fail.

Eventually we asked to be dropped off at a restaurant until the car filled up enough to leave.  No problem, said the easygoing Cape Verdeans.  And they did let us off, then came and got us 30 minutes later.  Which would never happen in Senegal, so add that point in the column about shiny vans and Corollas.  Cape Verde still ends up ahead in this race.

6. Only Germans on cruise ships come to Cape Verde in November

For a semi-tourist destination, Cape Verde was eerily empty.  True, it is not the high tourist season, but we hardly expected to be the only young backpackers... anywhere.  On our first day in Praia, the capital, the only tourists we saw were retirees on a day trip from their cruise.  Furthermore, we ended up on the same vacation as a large group of older German couples, but they managed to beat us by just a few minutes to every destination and somehow always take the last hotel rooms.  Even as we reached the top of the volcanic crater, the Germans were already there to “cheer” us on (and criticize my footwear choice... thank you, Fraulein, I AM AWARE THESE CHACOS WERE A POOR SELECTION).

Ready for an exciting night on the town!  With elderly tourists.

 We did manage to make two tourist friends, the aforementioned Jean “Farley” and Helene.  In a twist that could be poignant and beautiful (but was actually just lazy), we never even learned their last names.  They were a French brother and sister dynamic duo, not much unlike Katie and Charlie Pollak.  They came to represent all of our hopes and dreams, and we will hold them in our hearts forever.

We also met two travel writers from Lonely Planet.  Their first words to us were, “Where are all of the other young people?”  Then they wrote down some of our tips and observations, because we were young people.  They also gave us an excellent recommendation for a fancy, tucked away dinner hideaway where we (along with Farley and Helene, obviously) had one of the best dinners of our trip. 

7. Cape Verde shows the best stuff on TV

 Cape Verdean television... is amazing.  We were treated to Brazil’s Funniest Home Videos, a strange movie featuring Rob Schneider as a prisoner teaching his fellow inmates that rape is wrong but true love between two men can be beautiful, Glee, music videos from 1996, inspiring documentaries about men without limbs, news clips entirely about the success of Gangnam Style, and Schindler’s List.

Moreover, on International AIDS Day, we were treated to a local parade and a nighttime concert.  I thought the concert was jammin’ yo.  Until Sharon whispered in my ear, “Maybe we should leave... I think this is offensive.”  I was shocked.  “What?!  Why?  Why would this be offensive?!”  She stared at me, then motioned toward the stage.  “Lisa. They’re all... midgets.”  And then I looked harder.  And my God, I had thought the stage was sunken.  But indeed, all of the rappers on stage were little people.  So... that was weird.  And maybe offensive.  But they were good rappers!

In all seriousness though, Cape Verde was a lovely place – beautiful with lush green mountains, beaches, wild lunar and fertile volcanoes, delicious food, and incredibly hospitable people.  But at the end of the day, I still wanted to come back to Senegal, because at this point, it is the country (other than America), that I know best: I can speak the language, communicate with the people, know what to anticipate and expect – and that is comfort. 

Plus, this guy running out to meet me when I came home didn’t hurt either. 

BEST FRIENDS!!!!

The Ghost of Tabaski

My relationship with animals in this country has been well-documented.  From the nightly terror of strange sounds in my bedroom to the ram who tried to kill me, from the microscopic bugs who invaded every surface of my house to the cockroach who furrows into my blanket each night as though he is my puppy – I think it’s safe to say I pretty much hate them all.  Some of my friends have semi-cute domesticated puppies and kittens, but honestly, I can’t look at them without thinking about opportunistic infections.  Any inkling of pet companionship is safely eclipsed by my desire to sleep through the night, not get rabies, and live another year.  Boo to animals.

But all of the preceding moments of animal disgust, trauma, and fright were nothing compared to what happened to me on the morning of October 29.  I had just wrapped up a lovely Tabaski weekend with my family.  Tabaski, you may remember, is the holiday commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and God’s subsequent pardon to replace the boy with a sheep instead.  Last year, my family killed three sheep for 11 people.  This year, because as my host mom says, “EVERY YEAR WE MUST GET BETTER AND DO MORE!”, we killed four sheep for 11 people.  I had given my host mom some money for Tabaski, not realizing that I was signing myself up to split a sheep with her.  This was our sheep:

Maimouna poses with my goat.  Handsome thing.

Tabaski came and went with the usual fanfare.  The men sharpened their swords with glee, the women pulled up lawn chairs to watch the slaughter.  If you imagine Tabaski as a solemn ritual sacrifice, you shouldn’t come to my house.  It was like a spectator sport, in a good way, and actually kind of brought to mind the hog roasts of my childhood, minus the beer.  The only exception was my little host brother Mohammad who spent most of the day staring off into space.  Luckily, my host mom had a simple explanation: “Oh, he’s just reflecting on the murders.”  She insisted that this year, Mohammad grasped that he watched four goats die a bloody death.  She may have been right. 

Mohammad, traumatized.  Bigue, age 5, is clearly used to this whole Tabaski thing by now. Also, I hope everyone likes my "working Senegalese woman's outfit" and blood-smeared forehead.

Anyway, so Tabaski was great.  I woke up Monday morning, three days after Tabaski, crawled out of my mosquito net, and pushed open to the door to my bathroom.  And that -- that’s when I saw them.

Maggots.  Hundreds and hundreds of maggots. 

Covering the floor of my shower.  Crawling down the walls.  Squirming and shaking all over my shampoo bottles, my toothbrush, my toothpaste.  Inside my soap.  Around my razor.  Collectively, all of their movements were so spastic that I thought I might just be experiencing a rush of blood to the head, like seeing stars, maggot-shaped stars.  Over the past year and a half, I have seen three cockroaches in that bathroom.  I had never seen one maggot. 

But no, this was real.  And they were actually physically everywhere.  Everywhere.  It was like a Hitchcock movie. 

Obviously, I took no photos of the maggots because I was frozen in the clutches of insanity.  If you want some good comparisons, I’m sure you could google “maggot images” and begin to imagine my life. 

I backed away from the bathroom and practically fell down trying to escape my house.  I grabbed the first host sister I saw and managed to express my wish for her to follow me.  She was skeptical, as the entire family is, of my fears.  A few weeks earlier, I had stepped on what I still contend was a snake, though they said “It was just a really huge fast moving black worm that must have crawled out of the toilet, we have them in our house all the time.”  That incident had involved me screaming a lot, and them making fun of me a lot.  So reluctantly, Mame followed me into my bathroom.

Inside, she took a look, and the expression on her face stayed steady.  “Oh,” she said.  “Insects.” 

I stared at her.  “Insects?”  I repeated.  “Insects?  I KNOW they are insects!  What are they doing here?  WHY?  I have never seen this insect before!  WHAT ARE THESE?” 

She started sweeping them up with her broom, vainly trying to get them into the dustpan before they’d, literally, worm their way out.  “Hmm,” she mused.  “Maybe because of the sheep we are drying on your roof?”

Hmm.  Maybe because of the DEAD SHEEP SITTING ON THE ROOF OF MY BATHROOM?  You think?  YOU THINK??? 

“Oh.  Yes.  That makes sense,” I replied, trying to match her level of calm.  Not understanding why all of the dead sheep were ON THE ROOF OF MY BATHROOM. 

“Yes, the dead sheep,” she replied.  “Well, just keep sweeping them out.”

And then, taking a great deal of maggots in her dustpan, Mame left me to my bathroom, and the maggots that were continuing to creep through the walls, down my drain, and congregate under any solitary object.  Every time I lifted up anything, I’d find a new club of maggots had already formed beneath.  Over the course of the day, I swept about six or seven times until my host mom finally told me that they’d removed the dead animals from my roof.  Eventually, I poured an entire jar of bleach all over my bathroom. I did feel lucky that the maggots had favored that locale instead of my bedroom. 

But even after the bleaching, something was still off.  For one, dead maggots kept appearing in the bathroom.  Did you know that when a white maggot dies, it turns black and resembles lizard poop?  I learned a lot of things.  But worse than the sight of dead maggots was the smell that permeated my room for days.  I didn’t know if the smell was dead maggots in my drains or weird pieces of sheep meat lingering in secret places or, in my worst nightmares, beagle-sized rats rotting in unrelated incidents under my bookcase.  Sometimes it was hard to breathe.  I tried to ignore it.

And then, when I awoke on Friday morning and started my usual routine of laying in my bed for awhile, I look outside of my mosquito net to see it covered in gigantic bot flies.  Thanks to Emily Kraus, a former PCV and bug expert, I had learned all about the different kinds of flies a few months ago.  And these were the giant, nasty flies that feed on rotting carcasses.  My room was full of them.  Apparently, the maggots who had survived the sweeping-bleaching-angry Lisa epidemic had finally hatched.  And clearly, they were the most reproductively fit, which translated into grotesquely big bodies, wings, eyes, and a penchant for blood.  Again, boo to animals.

Flies are hard to kill.  But luckily, I was headed out for the weekend, so I only had to deal with them for a few hours.  When I left, my little house was in quite a sorry state, smelling like a combination of poop, dead animals, and rotting cheese while also covered in flies.  I figured that when I returned in two days, one of two things would happen: everything would be miraculously dead and better, or everything would be miraculously alive and worse.  One of my friends added a third possibility that involved Jeff Goldblum crouched on my toilet, waiting for me to come home.

Luckily, I returned from my weekend to find all of the flies not only dead, but gone (surely a testament to my gecko population), and the smell mysteriously dissipated.  A Tabaski miracle! 

So now, the maggots and their adult selves are a thing of the past, but I still do live in fear.   On the other hand, this elevated experience of terror really has made other things pale in comparison.  For instance, the cockroach that creeps into my bed every night really does seem like a harmless puppy compared to a cult of maggots watching me bathe.  For this, I am thankful.  Ultimately, I’m looking forward to erasing these memories with new, upcoming holidays, like Tamharit and Thanksgiving and Christmas and President’s Day, and hoping that they don’t inspire lingering ghosts of dead animals to come and take vengeance on me days later.

America's Careless Whispers

When I first came to Senegal, I remember being acutely aware of how much I was missing in any given moment.  Words flew by in conversation, people laughed, people screamed, and I grew accustomed to never knowing what was going on.  Eventually, I learned to listen for key phrases, smile, and nod, but at the end of the day, I’m still just trudging through, picking up scraps of knowledge like a starving dog.

I’ve noticed this pattern most with television.  At my house, the TV gets turned on before dinner and keeps us all company for the next few hours.  If I don’t have anything else to do, I sit with my family under the semblance of “watching,” but really, I usually end up staring at the TV with my mind everywhere else.  Lately this has backfired in a number of ways.  For instance, the other day it took me a good five minutes before I even realized that the soccer commentary I was watching was in English.  Even then, I found I was so used to blocking out the TV’s words that I could barely follow what was being said.  

Anyway, I give you all this background to illustrate how hard it is to come by news here.  Sure, I’m on the internet a few times a week, but reading all of the headlines at such sporadic intervals isn’t something I’ve gotten used to.  And I would love to know not only the news, but how Senegalese people see it: unfortunately, French and Wolof snippets can only get me so far.   So, ashamedly, I admit that I've mostly given up on keeping up.

Until.  A miracle happened.  And I stumbled upon a Saturday afternoon program called “E-Mag: English Language Magazine.”  THE NEWS, VIA SENEGALESE JOURNALISTS, IN ENGLISH. 

This picture has nothing to do with anything, but I realized I don't put a lot of pictures on my blog anymore.  I guess it does show Bigue, the child I taught about term limits.  This is us at Korite 2012.

Finally!  Finally, for the first time in my service, I had the chance to hear the nuances, biases, jokes, opinions, confusions, and perception of the Senegalese media in my mother tongue!  I fully admit that I’m a connotation nerd.  But after 19 months of prying for simple facts, understanding every single word would fascinate you too.

E-Mag started off by covering local events, such as President Macky Sall’s replacement of numerous cabinet ministers.  I knew it happened, but suddenly, in English, I understood WHY and HOW.  Amazing!  But E-Mag only got better from there.  The second segment was a commentary about Hurricane Sandy coverage.  Basically, the narrator criticized African journalists for dedicating so many days and so much airspace to an event so far removed from African lives.  And I have to say, I somewhat agree with him.  He spoke of the numerous floods and famines that had rocked the African continent all year, questioning why those events didn’t deserve as much, if not more, media coverage.  It was quite a passionate and convincing plea for local journalism.  It also made me wonder if sometimes when I passingly hear references to the “United States of America” on the news, if I’m not hearing a factual story, but a vitriolic cry of anger.  Hmm.

More unrelated pictures.  Tabaski 2012!  I don't know who took this picture or why it turned out this way... like all Senegalese parties with my family, no alcohol was involved.

The next segment moved into International News, and the only story was Hurricane Sandy.  So apparently the editors were willing to give Mr. Commentary a platform, but not indulge his ideas.  So it goes.

Hurricane coverage, from a Senegalese perspective, was pretty interesting too.  They approached it with the utmost seriousness, despite the fact that flooding in Dakar over a 6 week period this past rainy season was probably far more disease-ridden and destructive than Sandy’s aftermath.  No one on the Senegalese news mentioned that fact though.  Instead, they sympathized and surveyed Sandy’s damage and interviewed her disenfranchised just as any American network would.  It’s strange—personal catastrophe is just so much different in America than here: yet no one brought up the comparison, and no one presented a pertinent point of reference.  I watched the reporter interview a New Jersey man who lost all of his independent construction business supplies to neighborhood looters.  It was incredibly sad, and I felt for him.  But highlighting it and showing it on Senegalese TV did feel weird, I’m not going to lie.  Despite the concern my family and friends here have voiced about the hurricane, I can’t help but wonder what they’re thinking, secretly, as they watch.  Here, losing everything you own to looters is a slow Tuesday, natural disasters rip apart neighborhoods yearly, and no one has any carpet to replace, because they realize it would only get ruined anyway.  Consequently, I can’t figure out what they make of American problems.

But the last segment of the show was my favorite: American election coverage!  To discuss the elections, the show invited a University Cheikh Anta Diop professor of American Politics and English to answer some questions. 

First, they asked him, “Why is this election important?”  He responded, and I’ve tried to make this verbatim, “Well, first of all, this is the first time, you see, that a black American president is running for a second term.  Second of all, the world is in an economic crisis and recession.  Third of all, Hurricane Sandy.”  All of these are true facts.  But I love the fact that for all of the months and years of election mumbo-jumbo we are bombarded with in America, all of the analyses and criticisms and commentaries, this man sums up how Senegal sees all of it in one, plain sentence. 

Not done with pictures that have no basis.  This year for Halloween, I made a Rice Krispie treat ghost!  But the store only had Cocoa Krispies... so it was a Senegalese ghost.  My family ate that up.  Literally and figuratively.

Then they asked the scholar how the American election system works.  In what may be the best thing I’ve heard all month, he answered, “The system... it is... very sick.  It is a sick system.  It is a complicated system, and it is a sick system.  The system is sick.”  He then delved into a slightly more detailed description of the electoral college and the travesties it can inspire, pointing specifically to the case of Al Gore.  I tried to explain the electoral college to my host mom tonight too.  She made a disgusted face.  It is a sick system.

So thanks to E-mag, my horizons were properly expanded last week.  But the election-inspired enlightenment was far from over.  On the following Tuesday, Kathleen, Jenna (a new embassy fellow), and our Senegalese co-teachers articulated the key points of Romney and Obama for our English class in order to have a mock election.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise that on the whole, Senegalese, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, are a little obsessed with Obama.  But, in an effort to talk about politics and making informed voting decisions, we decided to really articulate what each candidate stood for.  Immigration.  Economics.  Foreign Policy. Guns. Birth Control.  And perhaps most importantly...

Gay Marriage.

As much as I would love for all of Senegal to continue their unbridled love for Obama, I think a lot of them learned that he and American politics are far more complicated than they realized.  Senegal is a notoriously homophobic country, and homosexual acts can lead to imprisonment here.  Abortions are also illegal and hardly an issue for debate.  Kathleen and I did our best to articulate how most of these issues boil down to government involvement versus personal choice, and I told the class they needed to really consider which issues were most important to them: they probably wouldn’t agree with either candidate on every point.  When we tallied up our mini election after class, Obama was winning by merely one vote.   

Today my five year old host sister, Bigue, asked me if Obama’s next term would be for 20 years, not far off the crazy term of Senegal’s previous president.  I told her that American presidents get four and sometimes eight years at the most.  She didn’t believe me, but last April, the Senegalese people came out en masse to kick out their long-serving leader, 64% to 36%.  They understood what needed to be done.  They did it.  Eventually, and hopefully, they have started to ensure that Senegalese five year olds stop seeing 20 year terms as normal.

So in honor of Election Day, this is my contribution.  Here’s to everyone’s attempt to find out the real story, to hear the biases you may start to block out, to talk to people honestly, and to trust them to draw their own opinions.  Listen to different kinds of news.  Realize that no candidate is perfect.  Speak with five year olds and clarify misconceptions.  Perhaps most of all, accept the results of your democracy and your surroundings gracefully.  By the time I put this on the internet, the American election will most likely be tallied and decided.  If you voted, you did the best you could.  It’s all we can really do, but it’s actually quite a lot.

Sorry if this ended up sounding like a soapbox.  My next entry will probably be about how I found hundreds of maggots in my bathroom on Halloween, so don’t worry, my life is still weird.  Here, I'll also add some unrelated photos.  Until next time!

Final installment: Abby and I carved a watermelon in honor of American pumpkins.  This one was named SKY PUMPKIN.  Notice it's various sky images.  Moons.  Stars. Clouds.  Lightning Bolts.  SKY PUMPKIN!  Also notice how trashy my candy necklace choker makes me look.  Yay.

That Time I Got Robbed

The world is not a safe place – that much has been obvious to me ever since the day my mother and her impromptu neighborhood watch group discovered that our local bike thief was in cahoots with our ice cream lady.  It turns out that she didn’t have only ice cream sandwiches in the back of her trunk, but a delinquient son scoping out our sweet ten-speeds. Also, her garage was full of torn apart bikes, like a sad childhood graveyard.  That experience taught me to lock up my shit.  It also led me to do things like wear money belts, even when it leads people to assume I’m wearing a diaper, and occasionally sprint for blocks at a time in heels, just to keep my reflexes sharp.  I’m a safe girl.  I like safety.

Dramatic representation of my ice cream lady circa 1993

But as we all know, sometimes precautions and awareness aren’t enough.   Before coming to Senegal, I (safely and cautiously) looked over some crime statistics.  In some ways, they were striking, but once I compared them the rates of where I was living at the time (Logan Square), I relaxed a little bit.  On paper, Logan Square seemed pretty dangerous.  In reality, I left my car unlocked on the street for 9 months without a problem.  So you never know.

Now, after living in Senegal for about 19 months, I can admit to having seen my fair share of crime.  I would guess that almost all of my friends have experienced some sort of petty theft, purse snatching, pickpocketing, or phone hijacking by this point: though luckily, these are incidents that pass relatively harmlessly and silently, save for the incurred losses.  But I’ve also had a handful of friends deal with far more serious and violent situations.  As time went on, it became to seem more and more improbable that I could leave this country without a blemish on my security record.  Paranoia and money belts can only get us so far, or as Fiona Apple would say, the world is full of pits and crevices that will try to kill you.  Plus, especially in places like Dakar, I admit that my fancy hoop earrings from Claire’s and wedge sandals bought on the side of the road make me some sort of walking target.  The question became not if, but when, someone would try to pull one over on me.

September 14 was the night of reckoning.

I had just finished our Girls’ Camp.  I was flying high!  It had been an exhausting week, but I came to Dakar to recuperate for a few days and see some friends off to America.  After eating an entire pizza by myself, I headed downtown to meet some other volunteers with my friends Aimee and Kirstin.  We had a wonderful taxi ride.  In fact, it was so wonderful that when we arrived at our destination in downtown Dakar, I said as I unzipped my clutch, “Wow guys, that was just SUCH a great cab ride!”

At that moment, a hand reached in through the taxi window and snatched my clutch out of my hands.  Oh no!  My money!  My bank card!  My phone!  My chapstick!  Best cab ride ever RUINED!

OR WAS IT???

The answer, my friends, lies in a reaction I did not expect out of myself, though I must admit that in my elaborate crime anticipation scenarios, I always vowed to use the last remnants of fast-twitch muscle fibers that cross country had not destroyed to chase down an assalient.  I mean, you might as well, right?  Especially if you’re in a public place?  It’s worth a shot?  I think that’s where my head was.

So the next thing my friends knew, I was rolling around on the ground outside the cab yelling expletives BECAUSE I HAD DECIDED TO JUMP OUT THE CAB WINDOW and chase down the thief.  Was I sitting next to a door?  Yes.  Do I understand how door handles work?  Yes.  And yet... the window beckoned me.  The route to which my clutch had been lost beckoned me.  So I followed the clutch, through the open window, onto the street, and began running in the general direction of the purse-snatcher, screaming “SACCKAAT SACCKAAT SACCKAAT!” which is the Wolof word for thief.  Because WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT.

The inspiration for every moment of my life

Help arrived quickly and efficiently.  Brave and courageous Peace Corps volunteers jumped over fences, through shrubbery, and around gates to come to my aid: truly, a league of extraordinary gentlemen. The United States Marine Corps also came to my assistance.  But most importantly, about 25 loitering Senegalese men took on my cause, formed an angry mob, and set out to hunt down the man who took my beloved possessions.

But despite the group’s enthusiasm, it seemed like the culprit had escaped unscathed, probably during the moments I lost peeling myself from the pavement after rashly jumping out a window.  And so I gave up and gave in to Senegal, conceding defeat after an exhausting week of work and reporting my possessions (on another phone) as stolen. 

But then!  The mob returned, a scared man in a Senegalese soccer jersey in tow!  “Was this the man who stole your purse?” the mob cried, thrusting him toward me.  I didn’t want to respond because it had all happened so fast: he seemed to be wearing the right shirt, but I also had no idea what punishment awaited this man.  What if I sent an innocent man to Senegalese jail?  I tried to avoid categorically saying yes, instead saying, “I... think so?”  But everyone was sure, “This was the man, he is a known thief, this is the man, this is not the first time!”  As one impassioned volunteer chased after the mob yelling, “Bring him to justice!  WE MUST BRING HIM TO JUSTICE!”, I trailed after crying, “Wait!  Wait!  Pardon him!  He is pardoned by the goodness of the rest of you!  He is pardoned by the goodness of his countrymen!”  No one listened.  Also, no one would give me my wallet.  It took a few blocks of marching until I realized that the accused didn’t even HAVE my wallet.  This did not feel like justice to me.

Meanwhile, near the original scene of the crime, my cab mate Aimee was still combing the area like a good CSI agent.  Suddenly, she was approached by a kind gentleman: “Floran?  Are you Floran?”  Immediately realizing the significance of this coincidence, she took on my identity, rejoicing, “Yes!  That is me!”  The kind man extended his hand, which held my wallet.  “This was thrown at me about 15 minutes ago,” he said, handing it over to her.  “I think it’s yours.”  And indeed, so Aimee, using her Sereer language skills, recovered my wallet, money, bank card, cell phone, chapstick and all.  How the kind gentleman somehow missed connecting a fleeing man chucking a wallet at him, an angry mob passing his guard post numerous times, and a depressed, teary American girl moping by is beyond me, but he did.  But in the end, he did manage to maneuver the wallet back into my possession, and for that, I am extremely grateful.

Aimee has been elevated from gum shoe to detective (skipping the rookie phase)

I’m not sure what happened to the thief – after trying to pardon him and failing, I gave up and returned to our original destination.  I bought a beer for Aimee and a kebab for the bar bouncer who apparently hunted down the thief, and then we all went dancing.  I literally stuck my purse down my pants for the entire night, without shame, as a way of dealing with my stage 1 PTSD.

Ultimately, I felt pretty lucky that my first, and hopefully last, brush with Senegalese crime was so tame, and moreover, had a happy ending.  Sure, there was the bad seed who stole my purse, but so many good seeds had come to my aid and defended my honor.  I still like to believe this is how the world works  – not only in Senegal, but everywhere.  Seeing it in action was quite a wonderful way to end what had been a crazy, topsy-turvy week.  

So cheers to everyone who helped me out of that sticky situation, to everyone who had to listen to me retell it numerous times in the style of Tai from Clueless, and to Senegal, for always pulling through when I least expect it. 

Girls Camp 2012!

And with that, Thies Girls Camp 2012 is complete!  After a wonderful week of talking about nutrition and reproduction and the environment and gardening and possible careers and business and marketing and everything in between, camp came to a tearful close a few Fridays ago.  And yes, when I say tearful, that is what I mean.  The girls started thinking about departure a full 24 hours before it actually happened, which added a flair of drama to Thursday night’s talent show.  One moment, everyone was dancing to Rihanna and having the time of their lives!  In the next moment, Beyonce’s Halo had reduced all of the girls to blubbering messes as they clutched their new friends in a swaying dance circle.  Lesson?  You can put a girl in a week-long camp and help her escape a week’s worth of housework… but she can never escape her teenage hormones.  In the best way!

Kathleen, Rita, and I pose with Aissatou, one of our counselors, and my some of my Thies girls on the last day of camp.

No, but truly, camp was wonderful.  All of my fellow PCVs did a fantastic job with the sessions they’d prepared, forcing the girls into three-legged races, teaching them about dental hygiene, showing them the beauty of the environment, and awakening their quiet entrepreneurial spirits.  All of our Senegalese counterparts did a phenomenal job as well, inspiring the girls to try eggs instead of just chocolate for breakfast, clarifying mystifying concepts like the power of the moringa plant, and giving them honest, and thoughtful advice.  And the girls?  The girls were amazing: they jumped right into the spirit of camp from day 1, participating in every session, asking questions, taking notes, making fantastical artistic creations, never complaining, and as it appeared to me, never sleeping.  By the end of camp, they were all resolved to start their own clubs in order to teach other people what they’d learned, keep in touch, and maybe even take field trips to the other cities.  Win!

Somehow, I was put in charge of explaining the idea of dreamcatchers to the girls.  It went something like this: "You hang this net over your bed and nightmares get caught like fish and good dreams pass through!  It is a traditional object from the first Americans who lived among the environment!  Put yarn to kill nightmares!"  

Hard at work making moringa porridge for tomorrow's breakfast.  

Rita and Chelsea use our beautiful training center to show examples of plants and live fencing.

The girls painted tires to use as recycled plant containers.  My host sister Fatimata is in the neon!

Out of all the sessions, I think the one that really came to define camp, at least for me, was the presentation given by our gender and development advisor, Awa Traore.  I’ll give you a little snapshot of it (with words, because no one had a camera during this session):

Before Awa came, the girls watched a Peace Corps-produced movie following five working women in Senegal, Awa included.  Each of the women told her personal story, paying special attention to the challenges she’d faced over the course of her life.  The women talked about balancing work, family, and tradition, especially emphasizing the important and irrefutable role that Senegalese women play in society.  Then, at the end, they challenged the girls to continue their educations and find a way to improve life in Senegal.  I led a brief reflection after the movie, mostly quizzing the girls to see if they’d paid attention.  They had.  In fact, a few nights later my host sister called me into the living room to point excitedly at the news, where one of the film’s women was being interviewed on TV. 

But what made an even bigger impact was the appearance of Awa herself after the film, a living and breathing version of the figure they’d just watched on-screen.  Awa worked the crowd like nothing I’d ever seen.  In one instant, she riled them up with an improvised skit about how boys flirt in Senegal --  only to bring the girls to a hush moments later by asking them soul-jarring questions.  She found a way to make the room’s atmosphere both completely safe, completely honest, and completely empowering. 

The first point she talked about was ROMANCE, which obviously hooked the girls from the get-go.  In addition to that reenactment of flirting, she also talked about the difference between provocation and confidence.  Then, in one of my favorite moments of camp, she said, “Having a boyfriend isn’t a problem!” (dramatic pause)  “But when DOES a boyfriend become a problem?”, which led to shouts of “When he takes time from your studies!” “When he asks you for money!” and “When he gets you pregnant!”  From there, Awa segued into a frank discussion about sexual violence, incest, and the rape, but did it all with the effervescence of a sage.  The girls rose to the occasion, gravely absorbing each word with wide eyes and nodding heads.

Next, Awa asked the girls about their future plans.  Hands shot up.  “Doctor!” “Lawyer!” “Diplomat!” “Engineer!”  -- all of them had a chance to share with her exactly how they saw themselves.  Then she asked all of the girls to close their eyes and imagine a scene 10-15 years from now.  Where were they?  What were they doing?  Who were they with?  After a few moments, she asked a few girls to share, and I loved their answers:

•   “I was with my husband.  We were both studying in a library in America to be lawyers.  I was sending money that I earned there to help my family here.”
• “I was in Greece on a beautiful beach, living in a beautiful house with my family.  I had my degree on the wall.”
• “I was in my clinic that I owned as a doctor, in Senegal.  After work, I go home to my sincere, honest, faithful husband and our two children.”

After many girls had shared, Awa then asked, what would happen if you got pregnant right now?  What would happen if you stopped going to school right now?  Would these dreams still be possible?  The girls thought about what she said, and she then ended it with my favorite bit of advice:

“You all need to take responsibility, right now, for your choices.  Whatever those choices may be – you must deal with the consequences.  The consequences may be good or they may be bad.  But either way, you have a responsibility to yourself and your dreams to face them head on.  And you must decide how you will go forward.”

And to me, that kind of became my overarching theme for camp – not only that bit of advice, but Awa’s whole presentation: I wanted the girls to see how all of their choices do factor into their lives.  I wanted them to understand that they do have choices, even if that choice is only in how they react or voice their opinions.  And I wanted them to remember how capable Awa had made them feeI.  If they took anything from camp, I hope it was from this session.  And from the way I heard them continue talking about it, they did.

There were other amazing moments from camp, inevitably.  I’ll never forget the high-pitched squealing that accompanied each chastely romanctic scene from Bend It Like Beckham (such a good choice for Senegalese city girls!  The story about balancing the desire to be a soccer star with the disapproval of your highly traditional family resonated so well! Plus, they loved the Indian dance scenes, clothes, and really identified with the overly dramatic matriarchal figures!).  Throughout the week, I also adapted Valparaiso football cheers to various directions and moments.  A big favorite was the "Ooga ooga" chant, which we used to do things like "go to the back room" and "get ready for lunch."  I’ll also never forget how our talent show somehow became a comedic roast of me.  It’s not just at American camps that the camp director becomes the comic relief and buffoon!  I would have been offended if they hadn’t also done such great skits about how to not die from malaria or get knocked up.  Also, they kept serving me tea.

So, in essence, thank all of you for supporting me and my neighbors with this project!  It turned out far better than I expected, and I couldn’t have survived the process with so much encouragement from back home!  I’m excited to keep in touch not only with my girls over the next few months, but also a lot of the Senegalese counterparts who stopped by too.  Just yesterday, I stopped by the school to pay the registration fees for my scholarship winners.  So begins another year!  And so concludes this chapter of Thies Girls Camp: edition 2012.  All my love!

Campers, volunteers, and counselors, 2012 :)

And, for the blog cliffhanger, prepare yourselves for future entries about my recent brush with attempted robbery and a critical analysis of dancing in Senegal.  COMING SOON!

Guys Love Girls with (Life) Skills (and vice-versa)

You may have noticed that I occasionally allude to a mysterious “Life Skills/NGO/Plan project” ... without ever really delving into what it is.  WELL.  Get excited everyone, because by reading this entry, you have unwittingly bought a ticket to the LIFE SKILLS EXPRESS.  And this train... no, I don’t want to use metaphors.  I’ll just try to give you the lowdown on what I’ve been up to.  But yes – the secret of Lisa’s Loch Ness monster will be no more!  Saskwatch will be revealed, and you will feel the wonder of Laura Dern when she realizes that it’s not just an island... IT’S AN ISLAND OF DINOSAURS!  Anyway:

So Plan, formally Plan International, is an NGO with a primary focus on children’s rights: the right to live in healthy environments, the right to economic security, the right to education, the right to citizenship, among others.  In Senegal, most of Plan’s work centers on the adoption of communities and the creation of advisory councils encompassing all ages and types of people to make decisions about community projects.  These projects often involve health initiatives (like improving hospitals and medical centers), water and sanitation initiatives (like supporting safe well projects), and economic empowerment activities.  Currently, one of Plan’s nationwide projects is the Youth Economic Empowerment program – and that’s the one I’ve been working on.

My favorite guard Fall poses in front of Plan's Thies Office

Since I’m technically a health volunteer (though not a technical one! Ha!), my participation in a “Youth Economic Empowerment” program may surprise and even frighten you.  It inspired those emotions in me, after all.  Lisa, who doesn’t really understand the interest rates on her student loans and still hasn’t grasped what the whole Bernie Madoff thing was about, was invited to play a pivotal role here?  Yes.  Just... yes.

More specifically, Plan wanted Peace Corps’ help in developing a Life Skills curriculum for their Youth Savings and Loans groups.  These groups were composed of young adults, mostly women, who had dropped out of school and were being taught basic financial literacy and savings methods.  To push the groups farther in hopes of having them USE their new financial knowledge, Plan wanted a program that would make them stronger, more confident community members and do things like become leaders, start their own businesses, and use their new money to fully benefit themselves and their families.  Life Skills, as an idea, usually means a curriculum that builds confidence, increases communication skills, fosters critical thinking and decision-making, and informs about health and gender concepts.  Life Skills lessons seemed like a great fit for these groups of young people.

Here's a picture of me doing important work with a flipchart!

So that’s where Peace Corps came in, or, more specifically, a Peace Corps Response volunteer named Bethany... and me!  Bethany had already finished her Peace Corps service and was on the cusp of starting her Masters in Public Health.  She started building our curriculum based on a similar program in Niger, and to find out what lessons were needed in Senegal, visited the Youth Savings and Loans groups to informally survey them.  Her results showed what lessons would benefit the groups most, among them communication, confidence, early marriage and pregnancy, resolving conflicts, and sexual violence.  In developing these lessons, she incorporated lots of small skits, stories, and discussion questions meant to make the lessons participatory – not only forcing everyone to think outside the box a little bit, but also encouraging young Senegalese girls, often notoriously terrified of public speaking, to become comfortable discussing and debating.

Bethany had most of the manual finished when she left for grad school, and my task was to finish the manual, organize teacher trainings, and monitor the program during its early stages.  It took awhile for all of the stars to align, but finally, this past May, after final edits and a training seminar and many confusing months in between, Senegalese field agents started teaching our program to the Youth Savings and Loans groups.  So this past summer, a lot of my work has involved observing their classes, meeting with the facilitators to clarify the lessons and get their feedback, and finding ways to improve the program overall.  

One of the Kaolack YSL groups after their Life Skills meeting

I have found this process incredibly fun in the nerdiest possible way.  I made documents to record all of my observations and “qualitative data” (THERE I GO AGAIN! Nerd.) and researched ways to easily monitor the program’s impact.  I visited urban classes and rural classes, endlessly impressed by the teachers I’d helped train months earlier and their ability to goad semi-sulky teenagers into talking about the consequences of marrying at age 13.  And I fell into endlessly fascinating and informative discussions with the teachers themselves on everything to the merits of birth control, the problem of domestic violence, and the pride Senegalese women derive from gender distinctions in work.  I had to swallow my own pride at times, realizing that parts of our program that I loved simply didn’t work for them – and this project wasn’t mine, but theirs.  And sometimes, when the teachers insisted that certain topics, like sex outside of marriage, couldn’t be addressed, we managed to find happy mediums that informed the groups sensitively.  So I didn’t lose every fight.

Ultimately, I changed our Holy Life Skills Grail, “THE MANUAL” as I call it, according to the suggestions I received and the experiences I had.  It now boasts an easier to follow format recommended to me by the teachers (who are used to strict parameters in lessons), a section in each lesson relating to specific community problems, explicit exercises in critical thinking to consider the causes, consequences, and choices of issues, and an economic connection for each subject.  I also added some evaluation measures that can check informational retention and skill ability by groups, if supervisors choose to use them.  I feel like I have given birth to a healthy baby after a long gestation.  And I have no post-partum.

SO.  That’s what I do a lot of the time!  And moreover, the lengthiness above is why I so often avoid trying to explain it.  Believe me, it took me long enough to figure out the ins and outs of this job myself.  But on the whole, I’ve come to really value the project, and I do believe that encouraging critical thinking and healthy decision-making is one of the best development endeavors to be done.  I can’t really change the day-to-day life of Senegalese people, but the Senegalese people can.  And I believe in this program’s ability to help people start thinking more creatively and pushing themselves farther than they might have before.  Maybe some of them will even go on to start their own businesses or become community leaders.  Personally, I’d be completely content if it merely shifted the expectations and parameters for even a few families.  

Aissatou is president of her YSL group and used a loan to buy a refrigerator and start her own ice selling business (quite the enterprise in the hot trenches of Senegal).  She wants to become a certified Life Skills trainer now too.  Yay success stories!

And even though the curriculum for the project is now set, the work is not done!  At the end of September, I’ll be leading a training with Plan to extend the program to two more regions of Senegal, Louga and St. Louis, and then in December, we’ll be training peer educators to be Life Skills trainers as well.  In between, I’m hoping to lead the program myself at the middle school near my house.  Wish me luck!

I hope everyone has enjoyed this second installment of “WHAT LISA DOES WHEN YOU THINK SHE’S JUST EATING CHEETOS IN AFRICA.” See you next time!