Becoming an Outdoor Girl

ADVENTURE!!!!!

I recently went on another adventure, which was a lovely little respite from the intense (but good!) work schedule I’ve committed myself to lately.  I’ll write about my work here sometime, I promise.  It’s just such a constant thing that I always feel like I can do it in the next entry.  So for today, TAMBACOUNDA-KEDOUGOU ADVENTURE!

Last year, I went to Kedougou for the 4^th of July, and it was a rollicking good time.  Obviously, I wanted to return this year, not only to catch up with my far-flung friends again, but also to do a few things I missed last time, like hiking to the glorious waterfalls or doing something exciting, like sleeping in a tent.  I resolved to go to Kedougou and DO THOSE THINGS. 

On my way to DOING THOSE THINGS, I stopped by Maleme Niani, a roadside village in Tambacounda that my good friend Nicky calls home (NICKY'S BLOG HERE!).  While I live in a house with ten other people, Nicky lives with 80.  While my family doesn’t seem to care if I even say hi to them in the morning and often shuts my door for me, Nicky routinely talks to all 4,000 people in her village, and I’m pretty sure they all legitmately know her.  I realized how adapted I’ve become to my fancy city life when I found the level of social interaction required of her slightly overwhelming.

But on the plus side, I got to have a few memorable encounters.  For one, a handful of women on Nicky’s compound started fighting over whose husband would get me as a second wife.  We also got repeated, alternating confidence boosts and defeats as everyone, seeing two toubabs together to compare, would call one of us prettier than the other, but then follow that by saying the pretty one was pretty because she was so fat.  We were both pretty and fat during those two days.  I got a taste of village superstition when Nicky’s little siblings warned me in horror that “two crazy women are wandering around the village... they will ask you to hold their sheep... DO NOT DO IT! If you hold their sheep, YOU WILL DIE!”  It was just like a spam email, but it was real-life and delivered by Senegalese children!  And at night, Nicky’s room was invaded by rats the size of small dogs who, in a bizarre yet hospitable gesture, always poop in the same pile in the corner of her hut.

Nicky, on the left, was my host.  She has a great positive attitude despite living in a rat settlement and being friends with me.

Perhaps my favorite encounter came with one of Nicky’s most surly neighbors.  Upon arrival, the woman seemed to take a liking to me.  Through the course of conversation, she asked me, “Where’s my present?”, which is a typical (although occasional annoying) demand of any visitor or returning friend.  I tossed her the line I’d been using all day, which made most people laugh: “Present?  I’m your present!  Look at this face!  I’m a beautiful present!  And I’m your new friend!”  But this lady didn’t laugh.  She stared at me.  Then she told me that she hated my present.  I said, in the sassy way that usually makes a Senegalese person laugh, “Well, if you don’t like this present, it will leave Maleme Niani and never come back!”  The woman stared at me.  “Go then,” she said.  “Leave.  Leave my house.  I hate you.  I never want to see you again.  I hope you never come back.”  Nicky later told me that that woman has made her cry more than once.

In our effort to get to Kedougou, a city that lies roughly 4 hours southwest of Tambacounda, Nicky and I proceeded to make some of the worst travel decisions of our lives.  I still really do want to devote a blog to transportation in Senegal, and when I do that, this story will be explored in more detail.  But suffice to say, instead of being the first two people in a seven person 7-place, we decided to commit to the cheaper, 18-25 person car that seemed to only have four spots later.  Fast forward a bit – after sitting in the hot sun, being charged to pee, skipping lunch, and watching numerous 7-places happily head off to our destination, our car finally left 6 hours later.  It then promptly broke down about 15km outside of Tamba.  We reached our destination 8 hours later, which means our car averaged about 30km and hour for the 260km drive.  It was the kind of experience that people justify by saying, “Now you are so much stronger for it!”  No.  In no way did I ever need to know that I could survive on a Senegalese car from hell for 11 hours.  I was fine living without that knowledge.  It did not change my live at all.  I in no way needed that experience.

The impossible dream that fed our hope during the worst ride of our lives: KEDOUGOU.

But luckily, Nicky and I remained friends during it!  And then we made it down to beautiful Kedougou, where we had the privilege of...

• -       Hiking numerous hours to waterfalls!  During this hike I got discover how outdoorsy my friends are and how prone I am to slipping on rocks and falling into creeks.  But I felt like I really used my whole body on this hike.  It felt human.
• -       Camping in the great outdoors! I did it.  I slept in a tent, one night even by myself, which is a huge accomplishment given my past of being afraid of crickets in my room.  The downside of camping was that I spent about five days sleeping on damp clothes and blankets, and despite washing my stuff, all of my clothes still smell like mildew.
• -       Stalked by monkeys! There were a few baboon fights in my midst.  A lot of my really progressive friends tried to have encounters with monkeys, which usually failed, but often resulted in a Jurassic Park-loaded silence that included all of the humans looking at each other and quietly whispering, “They’re watching us.”  And they were, from the trees.  And then we’d hear them run away from us.  Monkeys.  98.something percent human.  A + humans.
• -       Seeing old friends!  Everyone who’s anyone was in Kedougou, and I got to see them all, and we ate pizza and danced in the rain and the mud and went swimming and it was GREAT.  In many ways, our lives imitated Rihanna’s “We Found Love” music video, especially the sparklers and mud part.  The soundtrack to our party had a lot of Hall and Oates and Robyn though, which meant I could never leave the dance floor.
• -       Celebrating America! No one does the 4^th of July better than a bunch of ragtag ex-pat hippies!  NO ONE.  And check out this picture of the girls in my stage.  SO PATRIOTIC.  So patriotic that this makes me feel like we’re in a DAR sorority.

Yeah girls.  Too bad we posed in front of a cornhole board that read "I love nuts on my face." (because the beanbags here are full of nuts... get it?)  Classy ladies.  Ignorant, classy ladies.

I returned home incredibly content.  It’s super fun to travel around Senegal, because I almost feel like I’m working while I’m on vacation, especially when I return to site and have the opportunity to enlighten my Senegalese friends and family about these crazy, wondrous parts of their country that they’ve never seen.  They tend to stereotype regions with one word, I guess not so differently than we do in America. Tamba – hot!  Kedougou – waterfall! Georgia – peaches!  Oregon – drugs!  But yeah.  Vacation success.  And until the next adventure, I will continue grappling with LIFE SKILLS, GIRLS CAMP, and transportation in Senegal.  

And here's a picture of Mohammad, because EVERYBODY LOVES A CUTE BABY

My Favorite Week in Senegal

My favorite week in Senegal?  Easy: the week that I go to our Thies Girls' Camp.  Last year's camp was the best week of my service, and I fully anticipate this year's camp (September 9-14) to be the same if not better.  I’ve mentioned the Michele Sylvester Scholarship program a few times on this blog already, and thanks to everyone’s support, I think I’ve met my fundraising goals for that.  But there is still a way to contribute to that group of amazing girls: 

Support our Thies Girls' Camp!

When I visited my scholarship winners over the past month, they were all grateful to hear that their school registration fees would be paid next year.  But they were all ECSTATIC to hear that they’d also be invited to their first-ever camp in September, which is the second thing they win when they're chosen.  These are all girls who spend their days cooking and cleaning to “make up for the fact that a family is letting them live in their house.”  The idea of having a fun week with other girls away from home kind of blows everything else out of the water.  Moreover, the Senegalese love camps - but few outside of a select group, typically those with money, ever have the chance to actually experience one.

Our camp is a mix of everything, dedicating different days to health, the environment, money management, and the FUTURE (their future, not the singularity).  Peace Corps volunteers lead sessions in our particular areas of expertise – I’ll be doing things like making spring rolls to talk about healthy eating and building hula hoops to emphasize the importance of exercise.  I'll also be helping with yoga, quietly, in the corner, just like last year.

  

Last year we surveyed the girls about yoga.  Almost all of them loved it.  One girl said that "cadaver pose" was her favorite activity from the entire camp... ha.

But our Senegalese friends and co-workers also facilitate a lot of activities.  For instance, we invite women to speak on a career panel about living and working in Senegal, and on another day, a local nurse comes in to answer their anonymously submitted health questions (it’s hard for them to know much about the body when science classes don’t even start until high school).  Ultimately, the girls learn a lot, but in true American education style, we make sure they have a lot of fun too: camp games, craft activities, variety shows, and movies are all part of the curriculum. 

Everyone responds to oatmeal masks in different ways, but dancing seems to bring out pretty universal emotions among Senegalese teenagers. 

But for me, the best part about camp is getting to know the girls.  It sounds crazy, but it’s hard to form good relationships with girls this age in everyday life, precisely for the reasons I’ve mentioned before: they are simply too busy, all the time.  It’s a Catch-22 – they’re the ones who need the most encouragement and support, the ones who constantly get the short end of the stick, but because they’re always sweeping, studying, cooking, or running around town doing errands, it’s hard to catch them for a minute and simply talk to them, get to know them.  

I'm especially excited to share camp with the girls I'll personally be inviting this year, aka my Michele Sylvester winners.  Almost all of them have lost at least one parent, and many are orphans living with extended family members... which, if you read the story of my "host sister" Fatamata, means that they miss out on a lot of perks and must work like crazy for their room and board.  Here's a little more about a few of them:

Mame

Mame is basically blind -- she has to read and do her homework with her face nearly pressed up against her books. She's that student who must always sit in the very, very, very front because her family can't afford the eye surgery she needs. But despite this, she was the most outgoing, excited, and talkative girls among my winners. She wants to be an engineer. 

Absa and Soda 

Absa and Soda are twins whose parents died within six months of each other in 2009. They have some of the best grades in the entire school and lofty ambitions: Absa wants to be a CEO and Soda wants to be a maternity nurse. Both girls have very strong opinions about the necessity of education in creating more powerful women in Senegal, but moreover, they are two of the humblest, loveliest, well-spoken teenagers I've ever met. When I visited their home, their great-aunt knelt down in front of me and thanked me for the opportunity I'm giving her nieces. 

Awa  

Awa is clearly one of the most popular girls in school, with good reason: she's quick, smart, and beautiful. But when I visited her home, it was obvious that she overcomes a lot each and every day... her family definitely struggles much more than others in the community, and they didn't seem very supportive of her achievements or plans. Awa told me she thinks all of the winners should start a girls' group after camp.

Khady 

Khady lives the farthest away of all the girls, making a 20 minute trek to and from school both in the morning and after lunch (the exercise wouldn't be so bad if it weren't 120 degrees a lot of days...). She is quick to help, has an endlessly positive outlook, and laughs at the drop of a hat. When I visited her family though, they made her work the whole time, and she didn't even get a chance to sit down with me. That was kind of depressing. 

Arame 

Arame confesses that her favorite pastime is reading, a hobby confirmed by her family: “Arame is always sitting with her books!” She lives on a huge compound of people, but seems especially close to her youngest cousin, who follows her around like a little duckling. Arame would like to be a lawyer someday, focusing on early marriage and the mistreatment of young girls by aunts and uncles. 

And, in a stroke of amazingness...

Fatamata 

Fatamata is the sister I wrote about in my previous blog post. I talked to my host mother, and after a little prodding, she'll get to attend our camp! There is absolutely no chance that the car will be too full to bring her at the last minute this time.

Here I am, sometime before I started making hats and eyeglasses out of paper last year during an art project.  If we're lucky, the past will recreate itself this September...

I hope all of you can help me in making this project a success.  It’s the LAST PROJECT I need funding for, so this is your last chance to work with me before I come back to AMERICA!  We’re hoping to get funded before July 31.  But without funding, the camp simply will not happen.  Which would be awful because I’ve already told the girls about it.  Not to guilt-trip anyone into donating.  But really, that would be awful.

I’ve seen firsthand how this camp can really enlighten and inspire these girls.  It’s only a week, but the girls keep in touch with each other, their counselors, and the Peace Corps volunteers long after camp ends.  One counselor has even used the knowledge he gained to start his own camp in his hometown.  All of these things make me really believe in this project.   

Please consider donating -- your money will be used to transport the girls, feed them, lodge them, and fund the weeks' activities, because other expenses, like paying our Senegalese counselors, have no fee -- they're volunteering for the week.  I've felt extremely fortunate for all of the support I've personally gotten over the past 15 months: emails, letters, packages, good thoughts, encouragement.  But here's your chance to help some other young ladies who need it more than me.  And if you can't personally help, maybe pass on the word to someone who can.

Donate to the Thies Girls Camp 2012

If you want more information about the camp, you can also check out the website we've put together here (http://campsenegirl.com).

Thanks for all of your time, support, and love :)

Love,

Lisa (and the other volunteers in my region and our future campers)

Thies Girls' Camp 2011 

Germany! (and a little Portugal)

So before my life gets too ahead of itself, I need to dedicate a little bit of space to Germany, one of the loveliest places I’ve ever visited.  Rather than boring you with a chronological account of my adventure, I will instead bore you with some of my favorite moments, what prompted them, and what their downfalls were.  Special thanks to Elizabeth Ruhl for holding my hand through all of them, either physically or spiritually... and for being a fabulous host to a lady exhausted, physically and spiritually, by her first year in the Peace Corps.

FAVORITE VACATION MOMENTS 

1. Realizing I was lost in a magical forest: One day, Elizabeth was kind enough to let me borrow her bike and explore her town, Erlangen.  I studied maps for about an hour and left the house thinking I had a good handle on the area.  I was lost within two blocks.  But I decided to just keep on riding!  At one point, I rode my bike onto a soccer field only to be chased off by a man in a truck.  When I asked him why I couldn’t be on the field, he looked at me and then said, “Because this is Germany.”  But being lost in a city isn’t nearly as fun as being lost in a magical forest, which happened after following what appeared to be “well-marked trails.”  They weren’t.  I ended up getting out with the help of a jolly old gentleman who then invited me to coffee and donuts. He told me he wanted to learn about Senegal.  Halfway into my donut, however, he had made one too many cryptic comments about marrying me, so I left.  And made it back to Elizabeth’s apartment!  All who wander are not lost.

2. Making myself lunch: It sounds so simple, but one of my first days in Germany, I went to the supermarket, bought a boatload of berries, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes, and proceeded to make myself a feast and cover it with feta cheese.  I then read The Hunger Games and listened to Neon Indian, the kind of music that seldom sounds right in Senegal.  And it was lovely.

3. Dancing on a table at Frulingsfest: Frulingsfest was everything I wanted it to be and more.  The festival itself was a glorified county fair, which as many people know, means I loved the shit out of it.  Gross carnival rides decorated with inappropriate old-timey paintings, operated by creepy men, meant to make you throw up as you breathe in the smells of fried food (or in Germany’s case, sausage).... it doesn’t get any better.  And the beer tent we hung out in was even better.  It was full of German people embracing their heritage, despite it only being noon, drinking pints of beer and singing along to a live band.  I spent the day making new friends and stuffing my face with chicken.  Before the day was over, I had thrusted my pint in the air numerous times to songs that I did not understand and danced on tables in my Senegalese dirndl.  I also rode a rollercoaster twice and did not vomit.  I am a winner.

4. The view from the top of Bamberg’s hill: One day, Sean and I decided to visit quaint, quaint Bamberg.  The jewel of Bamberg is a giant church nestled atop a hill, and we set out to see it.  As we walked through Bamburg, we slowly but steadily worked our way up, becoming (as is typical for me) lost in the process.  But we were rewarded with one of the prettiest views I’ve seen in Germany and one of the most beautiful churches I’ve seen in Europe.  As a Notre Dame gal, I like to consider myself a connosseiur of churches.  This one was fabulous.  The day ended with us eating fat kebabs at a fountain, getting directions from a friendly vacationing Indian man, and me getting mild pneumonia.  Germany!

5. Making it to the club in Berlin: After a public shaming because we used old student IDs to purchase movie tickets, Elizabeth and I tried to go clubbing.  We failed numerous times: trains stopped running, bus routes ended early, and even the random man to whom I offered a half-empty beer on the street seemed pissed off.  But after just deciding to stalk people who looked kind of cool, we found the cool Berlin scene.  And so we danced and danced and danced, which as anyone knows, is usually all I need for a good night.  When we stumbled out of that club at 6:30am, the sun was rising, so we had a graffiti photo shoot, ate chwarmas, and immediately started reminscing about the night’s already epic-ness.  I finally felt like a club kid, minus the MDMA.  This photo is not when I was drunkenly eating a chwarma, but it was taken in Berlin.  AT THE WALL!

6. Being trapped in a nudist field: One day in Munich, I decided to picnic in the city’s famed English Gardens.  I forgot that the English Gardens are famed for their nudist meadows.  I remembered when I found a nice area to set my blanket down in... and realized everyone in the near vicinity was naked.  Without trying to cause a scene, I gathered up my things and steadily headed toward the nearest escape, toward people in clothes.  But my stride was interrupted by a giant stream separated the nudists from the non-nudists.  So then I had to walk about 1km on the shore of the stream, where all of the naked people were, without trying to let them see how badly I wanted to escape.  A few of them flaunted their bodies at me.  They were all over the age of 50.  I eventually made it out, but unfortunately, I will always have the images of those human forms.  Forever.

Sorry, no nudie pics from this incident.  I was walking away too briskly.

7. Lunch with Linda: Another day in Germany, I made the controversial decision to go on a Third Reich Tour.  I worried that this tour would be full of Nazi enthusiasts, but I wanted to go for the historical aspect. When I showed up to the tour, I found myself surrounded by surly college students... and one brassy 63 year old woman named Linda!  Linda become my best friend for those 3 hours.  She had endless knowledge about Germany.  Her father had left Germany in 1926 and then returned to fight the Germans as a US Soldier in WWII.  She was on vacation visiting her East Germany cousins.  We went out to lunch together and she gave me inspirational advice about being a successful woman, such as, quit your corporate job if you don’t like it and open a Hallmark store!  No, but Linda was the shit.  And we had a traditional German lunch together... I hit all of the big Bavarian dishes. 

8. Napping in Lisbon: Lisbon was amazing. I love Portugal just as I love Spain – passionately, colorfully.  My love for Germany is just as strong, but different.  But Portugal made me feel alive, especially the view from the Lisbon Castle and the lovely seafood and red wine.  With a little time before my layover I ended, I wandered around some hilly areas of Lisbon, eventually settling on a non-dangerous ledge and falling asleep.  As I slept, a group of Portugeuse people spontaneously broke out into folk songs a few feet away.  I know travel is seldom authentic, but this felt real. 

9. Arriving at the Dakar Terminal in the Lisbon Airport:  And so then I got to the airport and rolled up to the Dakar Terminal.  A language I recognized, people I recognized, greetings I knew how to do.  My trip was over and I was headed back to one of my homes, and I felt ready.

So there you have it... my vacation in nine moments.  I recommend that everyone go to Germany!  It’s a fun, non-fussy place, and the only words you need to know are “fleisch,” “bier,” and “gannow.”  Then you’re set.

No, but really, thanks to everyone who helped me have a wonderful vacation there!  I’m sure I’ll be back someday.  But in the meantime... SENEGAL! 

And speaking of that, everyone should help make my region’s girls’ camp happen!  I think I met my goal for my scholarships, but you can still help ou that same group of girls here.  This is the last project I’ll need funding for, and you can donate here: 

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-211

A Cinderella Story

I recently went to Germany!  I will write about that wonderful vacation at a later time!  But I wanted to write about this now.

Last week, my host sister’s birthday passed by unannounced.  In a family where certain birthdays are celebrated with pizza deliveries, drinks, music, and store-bought cakes, this was less of a surprise than maybe it should have been.  Certain members of my family are certainly privileged more than others, and on some days, it’s still difficult for me to discern who gets what, and why. 

For example, most nights at dinner, we separate into two groups.  At one bowl, I sit with my host mother, host father, their grandchildren, and my cousin from France.  My other host sisters – girls who live at the house, somewhat distantly related to the main family – eat at the other bowl.  Sometimes our visitors eat at the first bowl, sometimes they eat at the second one.  And when my host mom’s daughter comes home on the weekends, she and her husband eat separately with their two children.  The daughter from her first marriage stays at the bowl with me, as usual.  The only method I can find to this madness is that maybe everyone invited to Bowl #1 contributes money to the house, while Bowl #2 is for those who give labor.  Because I certainly pay my share of rent, and the grandchildren and cousin have families that must pass on a lot of money to my host parents. 

But back to my forgotten host sister.  She eats at bowl #2.  Eating at bowl #2 also means you aren’t always invited to parties and family outings.  Or so I thought.  Until the other day, when everyone was preparing for a baptism party, and I saw that normally forgotten sister, Fatamata, getting her hair done alongside the grandkids.  “Are you going to the baptism?” I asked her, somewhat unable to hide my happy surprise.  She nodded, somewhat unable to hide her enthusiasm under her normally surly expression.  I watched her run around, giggling with the other girls going, dressing up in her fanciest clothes, trying on shoes, feeling important.

When it came time to leave, the whole family moved the car into the street and started piling in.  It was going to be a circus event for sure – nine people in a small five-seater.  I wondered how they were going to manage it.  And then my host parents found a solution: “Get out of the car, Fatamata.”  And with that, they drove away, literally leaving her in a cloud of dust.

I stared in disbelief.  They had literally just kicked her to the curb, without a thought.  Fatamata slowly slinked back to the house, her chin high, her usual stony expression back on her face.  She’s used to being treated this way by the family.  She hardly looked surprised, but I could tell she was disappointed.

I love my host family – I do.  And I know that they don’t think that how they treat Fatamata is anything but wonderful.  In Senegalese culture, when people open their homes to extended family members, simply giving them a roof and meals is seen as the highest form of generosity.  And to make up for that generosity, these kids – almost always girls – are expected to cook, to clean, to do the laundry, to do all of the manual labor, to do everything and watch the immediate family members get all sorts of things that they don’t.  It reminds me of Cinderella.

In the world I grew up in, children are told the Cinderella story and expected to learn empathy.  “The way the stepmother favors her own children over her stepdaughter Cinderella isn’t fair!” they say.  “She does all of the work and still has to live in a shoddy room with ratty clothes, while her stepsisters lounge all day in new things, forcing her to do their chores.”  But unlike how those kids react, I haven’t found many people who think this set-up is something worthy of changing in Senegal.  Cinderella used to be a typical, unchallenged way of life in our part of the world too.  I don’t know when the general opinion shifted it into fairytale territory.  But in Senegal, this is just the way it is.  Everybody knows and accepts it, especially Fatamata.

Almost all of the girls who won my Michele Sylvester Scholarships live with aunts, uncles, and extended family members.  I don’t know them well enough to know whether their lives are like Fatamata’s or not.  But I do know that one girl told me she wants to be a lawyer in the future so that she “can work to end the mistreatment of girls by their aunts.”  I’m pretty sure she, and most of the girls in my program, live that kind of life.  It also makes me think that some girls are starting to be angry about it, and rightfully so, in my opinion.

I know it’s far from my place to tell my family to treat all of the girls equally.  I know that even if I said something, they’d probably just laugh at me and think I was crazy.  But I can’t help the desire to make my other host sisters feel just as important as everyone at bowl #1, even if they don’t think they deserve the difference.

How Did I Get to 25?

Next week, I turn 25. It’s subtly shocking, at least to me: 25 years is a milestone, a measurable number that means diamonds and reunions.  Often, it’s the kind of milestone that prompts people to re-remember the existence of things or remaster and reissue classic rock albums.  I am now basically a VH1 special.

But I feel good about 25.  It could be worse.  I could be turning 26.  Or turning 24, like Benjamin Button.  On each birthday, I like going back through my old ones and reminiscing.  For instance, I’ve spent birthdays on beaches with gallons of Coldstone and birthdays crying as friends forced tequila worms down my throat.  I’ve had limo rides and bowling alleys and basketball tournaments and brunches and garage fiestas and luaus and parties that ended with neighbor children somehow slamming their faces into our mini-trampoline.  I turned 21 touring the European Parliament, which is never how I expected to spend that milestone, but hey, I remember all of it!  And of course, last year, I turned 24 wearing a pair of Senegalese princess pajamas and eating chicken with my hands. 

Through it all, on birthdays and in life, I find myself consistently asking the question “How the hell did I get here?” For example, “How did I end up in Ugandan prison after watching Wyclef Jean cry on a forklift last night?” or “How did I end up climbing across this roof at 6am in my favorite party dress?” or “Why is this woman yelling Spanish at me and thrusting a communist flag into my arms?”  Some questions have no answers.  This year, I’ll be on my way to Germany, stopping to have a Mexican celebration with my American friends in Senegal.  What? How?  I don’t know.

But then again, I do know.  I do know how I’ve managed to fall – happily – into most of these experiences.  It’s a combination of opportunities, luck, privilege, and geographic location, not to mention the continuous support of loving and inspirational  people every step of the way.  With that kind of wind at my back, anything less than adventure would be abnormal.  Moreover, in my life, I’ve been allowed – and encouraged – to find my own way. For that, I am thankful.

Lately, I’ve been stopping by the middle school more to work with the English Club.  Their latest project is an English-language theater piece, “Creating a Better Senegal.”  In the skit, everyone comes late to work, steals money from the company, and sleeps with the boss.  They wrote the skit themselves, and the moral comes at the end, when one character exclaims, “It is time to change these habits!”  As for my role, I merely gave them suggestions like, “Maybe the secretary should call the boss ‘my chocolate baby’ when she’s bribing him for money.  That’s a fun English phrase!”

But truth be told, I love the kids I work with there.  The middle school students in Senegal range from about 12-16 years old.  For many of them, finishing middle school is an extraordinary achievement in and of itself, and when they receive their completion certificate, their education ends. When I think back to my life and how a college degree was more an inevitability than vague hope, I find myself unable to imagine a world where life ends and begins with 8^th grade. What would my life would be like if I had grown up here?  Certainly, it’d be different, and maybe not different in a bad way, but without a doubt, different.  I start thinking that if I had grown up in Senegal as a Senegalese girl, maybe I too would be content and proud to finish middle school at 16 and follow it with marriage and a family.  Sure, I’d be missing all of those years and birthdays that American Lisa had – the learning, the living, the leaving – but such is the give and take between cultures.  Maybe Senegalese 16 would be enough for me.

But then I think back to conversations I’ve had, with everyone from teachers to students to friends and neighbors here.  The girls who want to be stewardesses, the girls who want to be doctors.  The teachers who want to go back to university just to learn more, the students who want to study abroad just because.  The unmarried women I know who aren’t ready to settle down, and the ones who are but still insist on completing high school and college first. As anywhere, there are plenty of people in Senegal, some out in the open and some hidden in crevices, who want more, who want something different, and who are willing to work for it.

Bigue wants to be the Senegalese Minister of Health.  She's starting by staying hydrated at preschool, clearly

Some families pull their girls out of school because it just becomes too expensive.  Some stop girls early so that they can help around the house -- watching children, washing clothes, cooking, or working at the family business.  I don’t criticize those reasons in the least.  But when those reasons stop the education of a motivated girl who wants to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a nurse, who wants to keep learning – well, maybe that should be changed.  Senegal has a lot of girls like that.  But at the moment, Senegal also has a 56% literacy rate for girls between 15-24 years old.

Anyway, with all that in mind, I’m currently working with that same middle school to select nine girls for Peace Corps Senegal’s Michele Sylvester Scholarship program.  The scholarship covers school fees -- $10 for a year – for all nine girls.  Three girls are chosen as overall winner for their grade, after writing essays, submitting teacher recommendations, and passing an interview, and they get an extra $30 to buy school supplies. Eventually, the nine selected girls will be invited to the camp I’m helping to organize in my region, and I’m also hoping to form a girls’ health group with them (by disguising it as a prize... muuahahaha).    This program has been going on in Peace Corps Senegal for almost 20 years now, which means it’s almost as old as me, but I still win.

Coming in as an American representing an organization of the American government and telling a family that their daughter is smart, capable, and deserving of praise makes a lot of families reconsider the education of their daughters, not to mention all their children.  Moreover, coming in as an American and telling a girl that she herself is smart, capable, and worth the investment motivates her even farther.  And at the end of the day, it’s crazy that supplementing a school fee of $10 can change someone’s life so drastically.  Maybe not all of these girls will go on to accomplish each and every one of their goals.  But they deserve to try and they deserve the chance to find themselves.

So you may have seen this coming, but yes, for my birthday this year, I call upon all of you to donate a little bit to this fantastic program.  Granted, your donation can be a little bit of constructive thinking about the state of education worldwide, but I’d especially appreciate it if you’d donate a few dollars to my middle school.  If you choose to make a donation, please write “Lisa Floran, Michele Sylvester Scholarship, Thies” in the comments box to ensure your funds go directly to my girls.  Also, keep in mind that any extra funds I receive will go to one of the other 50 scholarship sites around Senegal, so it's a win-win situation. 

Donate to the Michele Sylvester Scholarship via the Senegal Country Fund

I never imagined myself in this life I now lead at 25.  Who knows where Senegal’s girls will be at this age?  Who knows... but maybe, just maybe, they’ll end up in the last, perfect place they never expected.

This Time, I Didn't Miss a Thing

Back in America, I prided myself, and maybe even defined myself, by the things I enjoyed. I was a classy girl: I liked arty movies and indie music, fancy dinners and good wine, ballets and picnics in the park. True, I’ve always had a soft spot for self-indulgent mainstream pieces of trash as well, but these things stayed on the list of “things I find it hilarious to like” rather than “things I am proud to like.” They included Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA,” Dominoes, and watching ‘The Bachelor.’

Furthermore, there were many things I hated with a deep, unexplained passion in America. Musicals, for instance. Everyone always assumes that I’m the kind of girl who would be “into” musicals. They start Newsies singalongs at parties and expect me to join, but I never do, because something in me hates the culture of musical theatre, on the whole. I hate big-budget movies that have no plot, despite their visual accomplishments. I hate Avatar and everything it stands for. I have a deep aversion to children’s films. I hate white bread. I hate processed cheese.

But for some reason, in Senegal, I find myself inexplicably loving a lot of these things. I started noticing it when I started getting into Glee. I hated Glee in America, but here, the song and dance routines set to top 40 songs, nostaligizing the high school experience I never had, became a constant craving. Then I started watching ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’ another show I hated in America, but here... I can’t get enough! I can’t stop and I can’t get enough! Senegal Lisa dreams of cheetos and white bread by the bushel. She drinks pop constantly and falls asleep five minutes into Best Picture nominees. It’s all very confusing. And the confusion hit a boiling point when I decided to watch Armageddon.

GAME. CHANGER.

Armageddon is the kind of movie I used to mock. But suddenly, this time around, watching it unleashed a torrent of emotions and a backlog of cultural criticism normally reserved for far worthier outlets. So, you see, I am writing this post with two objectives. The first is to address the fact that living in a foreign place brings out strange and surprising emotions, obsessions, and urges! And the second and more important reason is for me to expound upon my feelings regarding Armageddon.

1. OIL SAVES THE WORLD: An asteroid is hurtling toward Earth! Oh no! We’re all going to die! Wait – Michael Bay knows who can save us. Is it green energy? Electric cars? Organic farms? NO. Of course not. OIL RIGS ARE THE ANSWER. In Armageddon, NASA scientists absolutely know that the only technology necessary to protect humankind is a combination of nuclear weapons and deep sea drilling. And you thought oil was going to be the death of us all! You were wrong. Dead wrong.

2. AMERICAN OIL SAVES THE WORLD: Moreover, it’s not just oil that will save the world, it’s AMERICAN OIL! At this point in the movie, the liberal media is choking on the false libel they have been spreading for years. So head straight to a down-home American oil rig, because that’s where the real heros are. And when I say real heros, I mostly mean Michael Clark Duncan. But for realz -- we don’t need no fancy schmancy rocket science to solve this problem! A little bit of common sense from some real Americans is plenty to avoid the end of days!

3. AMERICAN WILL JUST DIY THIS THING, DON’T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT: Oh, hey, Mr. President, the world is going to explode in a matter of moments. Do you want to brainstorm with Angela Merkel, maybe include some of our Asian allies, talk it over with David Cameron? Hell NO, Armageddon’s American President doesn’t want to talk about this to anyone. “They’re savages,” he basically says. “There will be madness in the streets if this information gets out.” What he’s really saying is, America’s got this one. Everyone else can continue going about their silly little lives while American tries to be the hero and gives overweight oil riggers with felon records near-coronaries. I think the idea for this decision in the film was to make America seem smart and strong. But don’t we all know the real answer is TEAMWORK? Surely the Russians must have a few solid insights about this asteroid! Ughhhhh!

4. NEVERMIND WE WILL TELL ONE DRUNKEN RUSSIAN: Oh wait my bad, I’ve been misrepresenting the film. The Americans DO tell some of the international community about their rag-tag plan: a drunken Russian in the space station. Honest to God, when this stereotype of the Russian man appeared in the movie, I thought his opening line in an overwrought accent as he spun in a gravity rainbow was going to be our only shout-out to international cooperation. I’ll admit that Armageddon pleasantly surprised me by giving the Russian some heroic moments, like kicking a faulty machine until it worked and then proclaiming “This how we fix thing on space station ho-HA!” But I still hold to the fact that the Russian was merely a pawn in the American plan, and his own president probably had no idea what the eff was going on near the satellites. That’s how American rolls. Hard. And secretive.

5. WE NEED SOME SHOTS OF OTHER UNFORTUNATE COUNTRIES: At least the cinematographer seemed to understand the global scope of this kind of film. While the script ignores any sense of the international, at least some of destruction shots include them. Then again, why is an unnamed Asian country represented as an idyllic opium den? And why is the only city we see destroyed none other than gay Paris? Oh right! BECAUSE AMERICA IS RUNNING THIS SHIT AND THIS MOVIE.

6. REMEMBER WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING FOR!: What are we fighting for? Well, obviously not the world (DUH!), but AMERICA. If you haven’t noticed, the theme of Armageddon is America. And the America that we are fighting for isn’t shown as she truly exists, McDonalds, bayou rats, freeways, and all, but as a Norman Rockwell interactive tableau. Look at the children in pigtails and overalls jumping into their cellar as the asteroid nears! Look at the families emerging from church and jumping into their 1948 Cadillac, ecstatic at their second chance at life! The American sequences are ultimately confusing and made me wonder if the real threat wasn’t an asteroid but an alternate dimension of 1952 trying to envelope Earth in 1998.

7. BRUCE WILLIS SHOOTS BEN AFFLECK WITH A GUN: This happens. This happens on an oil rig. This happens. He be crazy! They all crazy!

8. IN SPACE EVERYONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM: I thought the opening scene was a dream sequence because the guy who died looked like Bruce Willis and also, I could hear the astronauts screaming. Everyone knows that’s not how it works. We’ve all seen Aliens. In space NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM. So what was that opening about?! I spent the first 15 minutes waiting for Bruce Willis to wake up from his dream within a dream before finally conceding that I was smarter and knew more about space than Michael Bay.

9. BILLY BOB THORNTON IS RUNNING NASA: And it comes as a shock that ex-cons are given the green light to go into space? This blows my mind but clearly it shouldn’t.

10. BEST WAY TO MAKE SURE YOUR SON-IN-LAW NEVER SCREWS OVER YOUR DAUGHTER: Simple. Die for him. Trick him into thinking he’s going to save the world, then, at the last minute, punch him in the face and send him back to Earth, ensuring that your name will live forever in glory but you will never meet your grandchildren. And for the rest of his life, your daughter’s lover will be haunted by your selflessness, haunted so strongly that he never strays from her side lest Marley’s ghost descends from space to kill him with a meteor shower.

Love is the answer to every question.

So yes, I write this post not only to comment on Armageddon, but also to comment on the fact that my life has taken a turn where I feel compelled to comment on Armageddon. I do not know why I suddenly noticed so many fascinating things in this film. I also do not know why I started sobbing during two pivotal scenes. These things happen. All I know is that not only do I live differently here, and apparently I love differently here too.

I hope we can all still be friends when I get back. I just wanted to take this moment to be honest about the person I have become.

Paula Abdul for a Night

As I walked into the auditorium on Saturday night, wearing my brand-spanking new “American Corner American Music Contest 2012” T-shirt and headed for my place of honor in the front row, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was my destiny. I couldn’t help but notice that seldom have I felt so happy, excited, and powerful during my time in Senegal. For on this day, I was judging a music contest. A music contest of Senegalese contestants performing English-language songs. A music contest with the sole intention of impressing me, an American, by playing music in my language, that I would understand and like and want to dance to. On this night, everyone would be culturally adapting to ME. And the winner was going to get one of these trophies.

Kathleen poses with the guitar trophies and the life-size Obama that decorates the American Corner office

The music contest was the brainchild of my friend Cheikh, who runs the American Corner in Thies. The American Corner is an office in the Cultural Center sponsored by the American Embassy. They provide English-language resources and sponsor activities, such as the English class I co-lead once a week, as well as other spontaneous events, like Gospel Concerts that cover African American Spirituals and R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” Did I never talk about that? It was my favorite event in Senegal, at least until I judged the American Music Contest 2012. I’ll write about it at a different time. But yes, this past weekend, Cheikh hosted a music contest. I’m still not exactly sure why, and I’m never exactly sure how he gathers participants for these events, but they happen, and they are always great.

I had no idea what to expect when I showed up to judge the American Music Contest. Would it be covers of American songs with impersonations of American bands? Would it involve original compositions adapted from English-language poetry? Would it be Senegalese mbala music, translated into English? Anything was possible! As the anticipation built in the minutes before the competition started, our contestant list grew from 7 to 8 to 10 to 12 participants. Doing who knows what.

So after the esteemed judges – me and two of my fellow English teachers, Colin and Kathleen – took our seats, the program began to unfold. First, we were treated to the Senegalese anthem translated into English, fulfilling one of my expectations. After that, we had a transitory performance, meant to warm up the audience. The two people we would be seeing weren’t competing, but THEY SHOULD HAVE BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE PROBABLY HAD THEM WIN. Why? Because they used the stage names “J. Lo” and “Lil Wayne,” and J.Lo was wearing a pink, animal print jumpsuit over heels and they rapped top 40 hits. It was during this song that I knew it was going to be the perfect night and that there was absolutely nothing better I could possibly be doing with my Saturday night, not only now, but for the rest of my life.

The competitors ran the gamut. Among them were:

• Baye fall types – the dreadlocked men who know how to play guitar and make tourists love them, often seen on the beaches. The first was called “Doom u Dialaw,” which translates to “Child of Dialaw,” which is coincidentally where my friends and I were semi-attacked by less musical Rastas a week ago. One girl’s sand pile was destroyed, and another was bitten. But these guys were great. Some lyrics were hard to discern, but I think one song detailed a dead father and another talked about smiles fixing everything.
• Acapella ladies – the first of these contestants was in full-on modest Muslim gear: head to toe black with a black headscarf. Oh, but wait, what’s that? Oh yes, she also had a sequined gold bra sewn on top of her extremely modest sheath. BALLSY. BALLSY. She dedicated her song to the talibe. The other girl sang a song about being “exactly where she was supposed to be.” Things got heavy during acapella time.
• Rappers – the rappers. I loved them. So much. I was also just impressed that so many young men attempted to tackle English through rap. I mean, how many songs can you rap? I can sometimes do a few verses, if I’m lucky, and I’m channeling Nicki Minaj. One guy, who reminded me of Jay-Z and was coincidentally the son of a Peace Corps Trainer, pulled it off especially well. All of the rappers had the synonymous introduction of thanking the audience, maybe throwing out the n-word in a blissfully ignorant way, and then saying either, “Hit me, DJ” or “DJ. The song.”

Other contestants included a semi-professional mbala band, an adorable Moldy Peaches-esque brother and sister combo who did the happiest reggae version of "Happy Birthday" I’d ever seen, and a local reggae/rap artist, who waved his shirt around his head like it was a helicoptor and this one was for North Carolina and also graciously thanked Colin by calling him “his n-word.” No one should be an n-word, but Colin is especially far from the description.

Deliberation was difficult. All three judges had very different ideas about who should win and why. Our biggest dilemma concerned the participation of the two semi-professional entries: they already knew they were good, so should they win? And maybe more importantly, would we disrupt the social order of Senegal if we did our little American positivity dance and rewarded people for things like “trying really hard!” or “being untrained and still good!” or “having fun!” These are decisions every judge must make.

Eventually, we decided to base our selections on three categories: musical content and ability to display the chosen genre; lyrical content and English delivery; and stage presence. To even things out a little bit, we awarded two honorable mentions. But in a shocking twist to the audience, we gave the semi-professional band 3^rd place. They sounded great, but none of us could understand anything that they said, which knocked them down a bit in the standings. The one group that delivered every lyric with complete precision – the fake Moldy Peaches – earned 2^nd place, prompting them to shockingly take the stage in front of the band, whom they placated by innocently proclaiming as their idols. And our winner for the evening was the local reggae/rap artist, who had managed to rile up the crowd, speak fantastic English, execute his genre, and call Colin the n-word. When he came up to accept his award, he started crying, thrust the trophy to the sky like a Grammy, and launched into a speech. We felt confident in our choice after that display and its positive reception by the audience.

So the competition was a success! I loved the feeling of absolute, or at least 1/3, power I had during the evening. In fact, at one point, I took the stage and started an impromptu performance of the Sean Paul song “Got to Love You.” These things happen when too much power meets possibility, and when I say possibility, I mean a DJ, an empty stage, a microphone, and me. Nonetheless, I think the outburst gave the audience reason to respect us more as judges. At the end of my weird off-putting dance, I proclaimed, “Got to love YOU, Senegal! Got to love YOU, contestants tonight!” I felt like Bob Marley. I acted like Paula Abdul. I might have looked like the lovechild of Frank Zappa and a gazelle. But I was just being a Peace Corps volunteer, doing my civic duty and job, which on this night was judging an American Music Contest. In these moments, I love it.