luckily Miss can sense my future mood...

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

Timing...

Today started out pretty uneventful, I had things I wanted to get done but nothing set. My hostdad, however, has decided it's time for me to start working (something I'm mostly fine with) and planned a busy morning. I had a really long, great conversation about the importance of theater and its role in Senegalese culture. The friend who we were talking to, an inspector at the school and someone who has his own theater troupe (we'll see as far as that goes this Saturday), explained because Senegalese history is an oral history, retelling history is really important to keep it alive. Even more so because when the French came they reorganized and rewrote (mostly just ignored) Senegalese history. There are still remnants in some pretty recent texts on African history, a discipline that is kind of being re-discovered because so much of it had been ignored before. All of this got me really excited to get something going, not that I wasn't before, but I had no idea what the potential benefit would be and now it's starting to form. I have a friend from freshman year who gave me some great advice on community theater, they have to put on a show about what they care about, which is kind of how I feel about all of my work - it could be the best project there is but I can't be the only one invested in it. The friend said he'd call the troupe together for a meeting this Saturday.... which is when I was brought back to reality:
Friend: What time Saturday works for you? 3pm?
KO: Um, whatever time works best for you... I'm always here.
Friend: So 3pm? 4pm?
KO: (thinking if we say 3 it won't start until 4) Yeah. 3pm.
Friend: oooohhhhhhh I don't think the Senegalese (he's Senegalese) will come, it's hot then.
KO: Ok.... 4pm?
Friend: It's still really hot. What about 5pm?
KO: yeah. that's works.

So that kicked off what today's theme seemed to be "timing."

Next my hostdad took me to the high school because I'm trying to set up correspondence with a sociology class at my old high school and a teacher I'm paired with through the Peace Corps World Wide Schools system (basically I was given a penpal class and they want to talk to Senegalese people too). So my hostdad and I walk into the principal's office (walking ahead of the huge line of students of course).
Secretary: He's really busy.
hfdad: hmmmmmmm....
Sct: Look at all the students.
hfdad: hmmmmmm
Sct: can you come back this afternoon?
hfdad: hmmmmmm we're here now.
Sct: ok after these two girls you can go in.

Obviously if it was just me I would have believed him when he said "come back this afternoon" (a habit I need to break) so thankfully my hfdad was there to get me in to see the Principal. A quick note on that, if my ancienne (the girl who was here before me) is reading, thank you SO SO SO SO MUCH. Not only do I have patron living conditions but Mor (my hfdad) is really invested in helping me and he's taken me around to meet people and summoned people to our house. You are amazing, you have an outstanding reputation here (which is why I don't mind when people call me by your name). Thank you.

The rest of my day followed pretty normally: lunch, some internet time, talked with Matar about what he's selling at the upcoming Artisan Expo, hung out with the family that runs the boutique that sells killer bean sandwiches (unfortunately I'm not a morning person and usually miss out), came home, sat with the family, watched some Mexican soap opera, ate dinner, and came to my room.

Overall, a good day in Bambey (that could be because I also ate some donuts aka fried millet balls but they're really good)! Tomorrow I start wolof tutoring we'll see how it goes!

Ba suba,
KO