Miss is the woman who cooks every meal in our house and she seems to have the ability of knowing (even before I do) when I'm going to have a crappy day and cooking an amazing meal, but let's start at the beginning:
Before going to bed last night I checked with my hfdad that the mayor would be there tomorrow morning.. no she wouldn't be but her 2nd in command gets there at 10am! This morning I woke up, drank my coffee, ate my oatmeal, and read the news like normal. Around 10:30am I left to go to the mayor's office... to both my surprise and not, it was closed and the door was locked. When I got home and said to my hfmom (in Wolof) "I went but it was closed" she responded "well of course, the mayor's office isn't open on the weekend, try again Monday." For those of you familiar with the book Catch-22 there's a character, I forget the details, but he doesn't want to meet with anyone so he tells his secretary to tell people he's not there when he's there and to wait for him when he's not there so the people get frustrated and leave... I'm starting to feel like that about the Mayor but I will not be foiled... I am going to meet with her if it takes me 2 years (but only 2 years)!
I hung around the house for most of the afternoon, I looked at some artisan stuff, read a little, did some sudoku, practiced my Wolof, and I prepped for my second meeting of the afternoon. Convinced to not lose another meeting to Senegal I prepared extensively. I knew that for the most part what was on my agenda wouldn't happen but I wanted to be ready. Today's second meeting was with the theater guy, someone my hfdad put me in touch who wants to do community theater. He and I had a long conversation about how theater is important for the youth and for telling the history - I was really jazzed about this second meeting today. I'd consulted with a friend from NYU, I'd written and introduction in French, I'd translated 2 theater games in French... I was ready to go.
Around 4:45 I left for the meeting and I ran into the theater guy on the way. We got to the meeting and he said "oh, I told everyone to come at 5:30" (even though he and I had discussed the meeting starting at 5) not a problem, we're making lemonade! People start showing up and I'm noticing that everyone looks ... older... I'm not talking retirement home old, but let's say at least above 26... not what I would consider "youth". Then almost everyone disappears around 5:30... where have they gone? Why! To find speakers so we can dance. Okay, that's fine. At this point I've already gotten rid of the games off of my agenda so dancing is a good way to get everyone pumped up and excited. Eventually the search of speakers ends and the meeting starts without speakers. We talk about what I want to do and I continually insist that I'm just there to help them and it's their stories to tell. They decide to put on a cultural variety show with acting, dancing, singing, rap, drums, you name it, if it's Senegalese cultural performance - it's there! I'm getting back to being excited, yeah, this is what I'm talking about, get the youth excited in culture and theater! Get everyone proud!
Oh and it's going to cost 200,000 CFA (about $450)(100,000 of it was going to their group). Oh. Then it hit... ohhh.... so I asked "where are you going to get the money from? do you usually charge an entrance fee?" "no" "do you have that money?" and they said "no," and looked at me. "Well, I don't have the money." And boy did that sure shock them all! "What are you here for? What's your job?" asked someone, so I tried to explain but was too flustered to speak in French, I couldn't even form the words in English. "Speak English. I translate," said the (supposed) English teacher who'd been speaking to me in English all night and making HUGE grammar and vocab errors. Well, that was what broke the dam, shall we say, and the French came pouring out. I'm not exactly sure what I said but I'm pretty sure I said something like: I'm a volunteer, I'm not a bank. I'm here to help and to teach and to consult. I'm here to give advice, and to give classes, to help organize, I don't have money to give. The Peace Corps isn't a NGO, we're not World Vision of USAID, we don't give money, we teach and we help in other ways. I can work with you to get the money, I can help you with that but I'm not a bank."
The meeting was wrapped up pretty quickly and even though we decided to "work together to find the money" I have a feeling this project isn't getting very far off the ground which I'm fine with because it wasn't the type of theater I was looking to do.
I got home frustrated because, even though I know this is going to happen a lot, I never led them on at all that I had any money and I HATE being asked for money like that, it's not polite. Senegalese kids don't walk up to Senegalese people and ask them for money (I'm not talking about beggars, I'm talking about regular kids). Today was just a magnification of what's wrong with all of this. Anyway, I got home and just wanted to go to my room (my appetite was kind of ruined and I'm not that hungry ever anyway, it's too hot). Miss apparently knew I was going to be frustrated and down because we had Moroccan couscous with raisins, onion sauce, and a TON of chicken! It was awesome. Now I have a full (of delicious food) stomach and I'm in a much better mood.
I also made a new friend today. You can guess her name.
Ba suba,
KO
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