Back in Bambey

A very delayed Happy New Year everyone! I had a wonderful trip home and got to spend a quality time with my family, friends, and boyfriend. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season!
The adventure (which I say with neither a positive or negative connotation) began on the plane: it was 3 seats per row I was seat F the window seat. When I got to my row there was a guy in the aisle seat and one in the window seat who I made switch (no way I'm giving up my window seat for an 8 hour flight). A few minutes later another girl came along and said she was in the aisle seat... whoops... 4 people for 3 seats. The flight attendant quickly saw the problem and came over to discover that both of those men had been issued tickets with the same seat. The flight attendant put the woman who was supposed to be in the aisle in another seat and left. He came back a few minutes later and explained that the two men had bought their ticket at the same agency and, because they have the same name (which happens all the time in Senegal), the agency sold them the same seat. He explained that they would both have to get a refund from their ticket agency and buy new tickets but that they would have to get a new ticket immediately if they wanted to be on that flight. It blows my mind that two people were able to get ALL THE WAY ON A PLANE with the same ticket.

Anyway - once I was back in Dakar I went to the office and got some stuff taken care of. I wasn't feeling very well so I went to med and stayed for a day. I'm better now and back at site!

Yesterday morning I gave my host mom the 6 pounds of candy and 3 pounds of oreos I brought back for the family (she said "this is too much!!"). Then I gave her the gift I brought back for her which she really liked and seemed really touched by (she kept saying "but we didn't give you anything to give your parents!"). I was waiting to give everyone else their gifts until Mor got his but he was gone all day and in the evening I finally decided that, though I'm normally quite culturally respectful - they were my gifts and I would hand them out as I wanted to. While everyone was sitting in the dark (we haven't been having power between 7:30-10:30pm so we sit in the dark outside), I grabbed presents. Everyone was really appreciative when I handed them out and they took turns looking at each others gifts. Youssou kept using his new pump to pump and deflate the soccer ball. Khady was the best though, she danced around with the cabbage patch doll she got saying "Fatou gave this to me!"

I'm still trying to motivate myself to go see other people and get work started. I had a class I was supposed to teach yesterday but the principal forgot to remind people (I had asked him to right before I left) so no one showed up. The most frustrating part isn't that I spent all morning prepping or that I walked to the high school to do this but it's the principal's nonchalant attitude regarding wasting my time and delaying the start of these classes. He doesn't seem to care if the classes actually ever happen which doesn't help my motivation problems.

Today right before lunch, Ndeye (one of the high school girls) asked Khady if her baby was hungry and Khady said "yes!" ran into her room, brought out her doll, and then strapped it to her back (like all Senegalese women). Last I saw her she was still carrying the baby doll on her back.

KO

My new host brother

I might have mentioned it before but I have a new host brother! Imagine my shck when I came home after the English camp and found a 20something year old boy living in my house (and imagine his when I came home). He's been in Algeria at his first year of school (studying civil engineering) and is home only for vacation before starting his second year in October (I think).
Lamin (that's his name) is quickly becoming awesome in my mind. He's absolutely what I imagine Senegalese university students to be. During the day he always wears a Lakers jersey and Puma athletic shorts. At night he wears a button up shirt (which is usually only has 3 buttons buttoned - tonight he didn't even bother buttoning any) and either black jeans or stylishly ripped jeans - not to mention a silver chain. He has a really high tech phone (compared to my Nokia) and a laptop. I don't think he's a player though because he seems really quiet (apparently engineers world wide are almost always nerdy).
Today the mason came to fix my ant hole/wall and Lamin and Youssou played the role of protective brothers. Lamin actually direct the mason and made him fi parts he had done shoddily while Youssou pointed at things in my room and asked me about them.
I also found out, as we were breaking fast, that Lamin gave Youssou 100cfa with which he bought a mayonnaise sandwich. Not that I'm counting (my host mom is) but Youssou broke fast with: 6 inches of bread slathered in butter, 6 inches of bread slathered in mayonnaise, and a giant cup of coffee that had at least half a cup of sugar in it. He is obviously my favorite host brother but it's fun to have another too.

Happy Ramadan everyone!
KO

Back in Bambey

When I've been gone from site for more than a few days it feels like years. Yesterday I came home to a mostly empty house - all of the girls are gone on vacation and Miss was sick. There was one new addition... a new host brother who just finished his first year of university in Algeria. He's home for the "summer" and we chatted briefly (I'm guessing it's weird for him that in the year he's been gone a toubab moved in).

I was supposed to teach an accounting class this morning at the Mayor's office but it was closed and the guard's phone was turned off so I had no room to teach in... no students showed up anyway so the class was cancelled. I decided to not let the whole day be a waste so I sat outside of my house to work on my personal statement a little. About 10 minutes into outlining a group of neighborhood boys saw me and started sprinting towards me. "Tata Fatou! Tata Fatou! Menanunu dessiner???" My coloring group hadn't seen me for a week and they were eager to color. I brought down my crayons and some paper and made them all say "please" before they got paper. I finished my work while approving of all of their drawings. Eventually Youssou came out and made them all go home so they wouldn't miss lunch.

This afternoon I organized things for the camp and read a little - not much to do during the hot part of the day. This evening Youssou and I watched lutte (Senegalese wrestling). He explained the two wrestlers, who was mean, who was smart, and who he supported. Just as the pre-match fanfare ended my host mom came out and we all cheered on the smart one (who ended up winning). Youssou and I also talked about how he might want to go into the army (which I encouraged because it's a stable, good income and the Senegalese army does mostly peace keeping missions in other countries) or go to Italy to work (which I discouraged).

The rest of this week I am doing more camp work - we're almost a month away! Also Ramadan starts Wednesday or Thursday (depending on when we see the moon).

Ba suba,
KO

Power Outages

Senegal's having huge power problems. The power outages were in a nice pattern of being on from about 9pm-7am then off all day but recently it changed to be completely sporadic. Sure not having power's a pain but the real problem is when the water cuts (because the pumping stations/water towers can't work) which we've somehow avoided mostly.
When we don't have power during the day my host family sits in front of the house chatting or playing scrabble. Youssou goes out during the day and comes back for lunch then leaves again (I have no idea what he does). When power's out at night we sit on the mat outside and very occasionally talk. Tonight Youssou, who has a cell phone but no credit (everything here is a pay as you go), spent the entire night recording himself singing then playing it back. First he was singing Koranic songs and would play them back and re-record. Then he started beat-boxing. It was so awesome.

In work news, today I finished my second training at the health center (like a mini-hospital). I've taught 40 health workers from the villages how to make a bug repellent using things that are easily found here (the actually repellent comes from the leaves of the neem tree which is ALL OVER).

Off to Thies tomorrow for some errands!

KO

KO

Certificates

Today I handed out certificates for the class and we took a class picture:


I also had a meeting with my scholarship girls and tried to arrange things for the summer. I asked a few of them what types of programing or things they would like me to try and organize over the summer. They all agreed on basketball and when I asked if they had anymore suggestions one said, "you mean we can do more than one thing?!" Things like that make my job easier. Two of the girls stayed after the meeting to help me grid the mural and one of them (the rest have class) is coming tomorrow morning to help me paint.

Other than things at the middle school today was more getting ready for leaving, some cleaning, laundry, and studying. Oh! The sheep now only bleat when someone walks by their area. If they start bleating when Youssou walks by he bleats back at them. These evening after the sheep and Youssou exchanged several rounds of bleating he yelled, "hahaha your mom is dinner somewhere!"

KO

Another "pet"

Yesterday I went to Thies and had lunch with Alyssa and Jackie. Of course we did the the always delicious greek salad/lasagna split. I ran some other errands while in Thies including getting from Alyssa (grocery stores are closed on Sundays) cake pans to try and make Miriam a cake for her birthday (May 29th). I told everyone if I could make it (using the Alyssa method) I'd make one for everyone's birthday.

Today wasn't too exciting EXCEPT I learned that there are hedgehogs in Africa... more specifically in my compound. We had a hedgehog walk around lost for most of the news tonight. Who knew?

Also, Alyssa gave me two People magazines which I read and passed on the the girls in my family. Today Youssou was flipping through one of them and pointed out every ad for food and asked if I could make the food. Of the three (pizza, meatball sub, Jello's new chocolate mousse) he was disappointed I said maybe to only one (pizza) and no to the other two.

Tomorrow I'm going to start painting my mural (no worries, it's not freehand) at the middle school and write my lesson plan for Wednesday's "accounting class." Oh and don't forget study for the LSAT (tomorrow marks 3 weeks until the test!

KO

Youssou

I really like my host family; I think we're a really good fit for each other. The volunteer I visited this weekend (not Jackie, the other one) has 6 younger host brothers ranging from high school to about 2... I could not do that. I like that everyone in my host family is pretty independent and, though they care about me, don't bother me when I'm working or trying to get something done (the few times that happens). Miriam's birthday is later this month (I have to ask about the other 3 kids) and I plan on making an Alyssa-style double boiled/baked cake for her because she's always really nice to me (not to say that everyone isn't nice). But then there's Youssou... I'm sure I'll write about Youssou a million times while I'm here but he's just so great.

Today he saw me as I was walking back from a meeting and yelled his characteristic, "EHHH! FATOOOOOOUUU!" that I get every time he sees me. Then he waited for me to catch up to him before continuing home. Afterwards I sat out front with Ndiaye, Miss, and my hfmom while Youssou and his friends played a game, the rules of which seem to be:
The person with the tennis ball throws it at someone else
Everyone tries to not get hit/catch the ball
Repeat.

Today's lesson of the day: pre-teen boys are apparently the same everywhere... give them a sharp stick and they'll run with it, give them a tennis ball and they'll throw it at each other.

KO

Happy Earth Day!

Today, Youssou and I watched Meerkat Manor before lunch and cheered as the meerkats fought off the snake and were sad when the pack leader dies.

Obviously today was a lot better than yesterday, but nothing too exciting otherwise to report. I had a really good meeting with some of the girls' group girls and I think I earned some street cred with them when I told off a group of middle school boys. Work's coming along pretty quickly and I'm actually cutting this blog short to finish putting together my part of a grant proposal.

Ba suba,
KO

At least I tried...

The meeting at the middle school went really well but I'll save that for another day because it's all talk currently (we'll see Monday). Afterwards I went to the Pre-School armed with spirit, crayons, and stickers. There was the general TATA FATOUUUUUU rush when I got there and we played "touch the white person's hand" for about 5 minutes. Then break was over and we went to our own classes. They'd put up a fabric barrier between the 3 year olds and 4 year olds so I only had about 25 kids to wrangle. Of course someone else came in and got them rilled up by having them dance around then left me with no instructions. I sat them down at tables, gave them a piece of paper and a crayon each. There were about 5 beautiful minutes of calm... before the storm. I started giving stickers to kids who had finished and then I'm pretty sure a riot broke out. Kids wanted different crayons, wanted to break the crayons, wanted stickers, wanted to hit other kids, etc... It devolved into kids screaming GIVE ME GIVE ME GIVE ME GIVE ME and laughing at me when I said "what do you want?" or "why?" or "wait a minute." Then the started hitting me and that's when I gave up. I took the crayons away, everyone got one sticker (which they put on their foreheads), I gave them their backpacks, and I peaced out about 10 minutes early. There are pictures up that show a nice progress of this class from calm and coloring into chaos. I hate to admit it but I think I hit my breaking point with those kids today. I wish there was something I could do but the "bad" (hitting, etc) behavior is already ingrained in them at 4 years old (and I mean "bad" as in a cultural standard I'm not willing to work within). I'll probably keep going back because I hate the thought that I'm giving up on something but it just puts me in a bad mood the rest of the day and isn't worth it.

After preschool I went to the post and got a package from my parents full of food to make for my hfam... pictures will come when I make it, as well as one from Amy and Colleen who seem to know everything a girl needs in Africa (beef jerky, swedish fish, and plastic dinosaurs which are now creating a little diorama in my room). I also got a card from Rita that joined the wall of adorable dog cards she's sent me and a letter from my Grandma. Thanks for the love from America everyone!

I also got my new table delivered today (aka the carpenter two houses down carried it over) and it does make my room a lot cleaner.. so.. thanks parents (real ones, not Senegalese) for that suggestion.. as stubborn as I am, I'll admit.. you were right.

Two last things from today: 1. My host mom was prepping dinner (lekk which is the porridge and yogurt awfulness) and two people walked in and she muttered under her breath "right before dinner..." You have to understand hospitality is a HUGE thing in Senegalese culture to the point where it is ridiculous. If someone walks in, unannounced, surprisingly, right before dinner, you have to feed them even if it means someone in your house isn't going to eat that night. I hate to preach about what's "good" or "right" but with meals that take hours to prepare (because you're working over a fire or, at best, one burner) that's really hard and annoying. It was so awesome to actually hear my host mom say something about it, even if it was just to me.
2. I was chilling in the kitchen right before dinner and Youssou said, "hey Fatou, you know what's under the gas (burner that I was standing next to)?" "No, what?" Then he walked over, moved it, and a mouse ran out which scared me and he found hilarious. Turns out 12 year old boys are 12 year old boys no matter where you are in the world. Also, it's nice to know that he feels like he can joke with me, even though it wasn't really nice, it was a familiar thing to do.

Tomorrow might be an adventure as I try to get my residency card renewed (Tamar already had problems with this).

KO

Youssou

If I've told you about Youssou before I probably called him "my punk cousin," which is a description that fits him, but I'm coming to know the intricacies of Youssou. His background is a little hazy to me, to start with, he's somewhere between 8 and 12 (my ancienne said he was 12, the other day I thought he told me he was 8). The story I got from my ancienne, who didn't know him that well either, was that he's my hfdad's nephew (again, relations are really extended so who knows how far out) and he was just too wild for his mom (who I think she said lives in Dakar) to take care of so my hfdad took him in. Everyone in town likes to tell me what a bad kid he is and that he doesn't listen to anyone which is kind of true, kind of not. As the youngest member of the house and the only boy, it's his job to go get everything. If we need something from the boutique, he does it; if my hfdad needs someone to open the "garage" doors so his car can come out - Youssou, and everyday he fills up the water bottles we've used so they can be frozen for the next day. It should be noted, before I go on, that the other 3 "kids" (aka the high school girls) also have a series of chores, but back to Yousou.

At the beginning Youssou drove me crazy, he refused to speak to me in French and would resort to just yelling whatever he was saying that I wasn't understanding. I felt like he was always making fun of me or at least staring at what I was doing - he didn't understand me at all and wasn't cutting me slack. Now that I'm not so nervous about everything and my Wolof is coming along, I'm starting to realize that Youssou doesn't speak French. He's actually learning some basic phrases in school right now and I can tell because he walks around saying things like, "in the morning I get up. I shower. I go to school." When I ask him questions in Wolof he responds and gives me a long answer too. Whenever he sees me out for my runs he always calls out, but not in a mean way. He's also started asking me everyday that I don't see him while I'm running if I went for a run and then he tells me if he went for a run, played soccer, or did both (he wants to be a soccer player).

When Oliver, who has the same Senegalese name as a famous religious figure, came to visit Youssou FREAKED out and practically fell in love with Oliver. He was "helping" Oliver put air in his bike tires and trying to do everything he could for Oliver while ignoring Thomas and me.

Youssou is a little different than most Senegalese kids I've seen however, but I think he's just more independent than they are. He dances around the house all the time and is almost always yelling or dancing. I'm worried for him because I don't think he likes school which usually translates into him not doing well. (I could, and hopefully am, wrong - I've never seen his grades). Overall, I really like having Youssou around because the household is older and pretty quiet in terms of Senegalese, especially Wolof, houses and Youssou always brightens it up.

One final Youssou story: I got packages from my parents today and some Fruit by the Foot was included. I took down a roll for everyone that was here (hfmom, 3 hfsisters, and Youssou) and gave everyone their roll. Right after I gave Youssou his he had to go run some errands for my hfmom. When he got back he was really excited and told me, "Fatou, that was amazing! It was so good! Look (and held up half of it still rolled up) I saved some for tomorrow! It was so good!" Oh Youssou, you're a little punk sometimes, but nowhere near what I thought.

KO