The magic of poultry

I like to take advantage of everyone being in school or doing housework in the morning by studying for the LSAT. Today I decided to study outside because it's starting to heat up and we don't get wind in our courtyard. About 10 minutes after sitting down a little boy approached me and greeted me. He then proceeded to sit next to me and watch me take my practice test. Two other little kids joined him so I asked them if they wanted to color. A family friend had sent me crayons so I brought down some paper and the crayons and told them to color. Eventually we attracted 3 more kids and I had about 6 kids coloring houses and people (their choosing). I gave paper to the youngest one (maybe 3? 4?) the other kids said to me, "he can't color, he can't do anything," but this was American-color time so everyone got to color. Eventually, I needed to go upstairs and get some real work done so coloring time was done, but I plan on continuing it.

I didn't do much this afternoon but Thomas came to visit and I went for a run after he left. I'm so glad I have a neighbor who likes riding his bike 50km a few times every week. It's nice to chat with another volunteer even if only for 30 minutes. After Thomas left I went for a run. There's a group of women I pass a lot and today I invited them to join on the run, one of them even pretended to get up... we settled on they would join me tomorrow. It's always nice to joke with Senegalese people (which is so different than the usual being laughed at).

Apparently the stars are aligned tonight because after a month of rice, beans, and dried fish for dinner we had salad, fries, and poultry. I say poultry because my hfdad's been hunting and returning with small birds (having never seen them Jackie's decided they're grouse) so it might have been that... or a chicken - who knows ... it was amazing.

KO

In Senegal, birthdays come with good food!

Today's Alyssa's birthday so to celebrate, the volunteers around Thies came in for lunch. My Thies day started when I met Jackie at the garage and we ventured out to go to the bank and buy fabric before meeting up with everyone. About an hour later (and after purchasing some excellent fabric) we met up with everyone at a bar the volunteers in Thies found. Because of the amenities and hospitality in Bambey, I wasn't really stir crazy to get out, but it's always great to see other volunteers. Sure, our conversation usually revolves around the same topics (who's asked to date/marry you? sickness? peace corps gossip, etc.) but it's so nice to speak English and just have a break, for a few hours, from Senegal. After about an hour at the bar we headed to Chicken Dibi!

I don't think I can accurately convey the amazingness that is Chicken Dibi (try as I have and will) but what was even better about today's Dibi was that it was open for lunch! (They usually open around 6pm which is too late for those of us who have to travel back to site.) Alyssa and Emily had asked them to open special for Alyssa's birthday and they were more than happy to (not to mention we consumed almost 5 whole chickens). After sticking some birthday candles into Alyssa's chicken, the meal itself was a blur of amazing food (and probably more protein than I've eaten the rest of the month combined). But that wasn't the end of it! Alyssa, Emily, and a USAID worker in Thies had made a cake! But, this is Senegal and it isn't that easy to bake a cake (to perfection) when there aren't ovens, instead these ladies created a double boil on a stove and then cooked it in that. The cake was perfectly moist and taught us all that you don't need an oven to make a cake!

The trip back to Bambey was a little long, but I was full and thus happy. I'm back to the pre-school tomorrow!

KO

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

Bambey, every day

So the last few days have been productive but mostly uneventful. My counterpart has been taking me to meet people and everyone seems really excited to do work. I know that doesn't mean they're actually excited to do the work but it's nice to have a whole wide range of possibilities.

A few days ago my hfdad told me that his sister's husband had died and then didn't bring it up again so I let it slide to the back of my mind. Then last night I saw my hfsisters plucking chickens and I got really excited, chicken for dinner! Awesome! Then people started arriving at my house. By the time dinner (two chickens) was served there were 14 of us - not that I'm complaining most volunteers never get chicken. I was starting to realize it probably had something to do with the death so I made sure I got up early this morning, put on Senegalese clothes, and went downstairs. I found my hfmom and asked, quite bluntly and very un-Senegalese (but there are somethings you just can't beat around the bush) "what's going on? why is everyone here?" She explained how 3 days after a death everyone gets together to offer prayers but that wouldn't be happening at our house! They would be going to the sisters house! They would just be eating lunch here.

By the time I got my bean sandwich and came back everyone was up and starting to get moving for the day... then more people started showing up. I'm not really sure what was happening at our house and what was happening at the other house, but around lunch (we had chicken again) there were about 30-50 people here. But backing up a little...
I'm a big fan of helping in the kitchen, not only because I enjoy cooking and grew up helping in the kitchen, but I feel like it also earns me points with the women in the family as well as helps me with my Wolof a little. Almost every Senegalese dish involves onions which is a task that I had previously been forbidden from because (mom and all the mom's out there reading this blog don't freak out) the Senegalese way to cut an onion goes against everything I was ever taught about kitchen safety. You basically let the peeled onions sit in water when you're not dicing them (so they're slippery and wet when you pick them up) then you hold the onion in your left hand and, with a horribly dull, flimsy knife, you slice towards your other hand to make cuts across the onion, then you slice through the onion, again towards your hand. Obviously, the first time I tried I cut my finger and have since been forbidden from helping. I was given easier tasks like pounding spices until today when I was DETERMINED to actually help. I explained (mostly through gestures) that if I could use a flat surface, I could cut the onions and they let me! A small step for cooking but a large step for me gaining respect, or at least not seeming like a total idiot, with the women!

Other than that I've been a bad family member and I've been kind of hiding in my room for most of the day. My language skills still aren't good enough to even follow a conversation and there isn't really much to do. I've started studying for the LSAT, we'll see how that progresses. Oh, speaking of language skills, I was able to say "I'm tired so I'm going to go drink coffee" that was really awesome.

And in one last bit of news, I think I made my hfmom amazingly happy today because I was hungry. Yep. I didn't even do anything, just be hungry, but she was so happy she was telling everyone. I'm guessing it's because I rarely eat a ton ever and the fact that today, I was hungry, made her overjoyed. So excited she walked up next to me and said "she's hungry!" and patted my butt/side.

That's it for Bambey, tomorrow I'm supposed to see the schools. Oh, one more thing, I REALLY can't wait until I can speak Wolof because I think my hfmom's pissed she has to cook dinner for everyone, I think that's what she was muttering about to some of the other women, but I'm not sure and I wish I knew!

KO

Chicken Dinner!!!!

Tonight we had chicken dinner part two and it was AMAZING. The same 5 girls went to the chicken place (same from before), ordered our half chickens, and waited. About halfway through the meal a few other PCTs showed up - some guys that were doing the "Chicken Challenge" aka eating a whole chicken and fries and everything... intense. A few minutes after they got there, the power cut out, luckily, like any good Senegalese restaurant they were ready with candles and we finished our dinner by candlelight - romantic, no?

Today was full of LOOONNNGGG sessions but only one more day until swear in! Also, I had an issue with the pictures but they're actually up now!

Oh and thanks to everyone who's sending me mail!

More to come after swear in probably.

Food, glorious food!

I feel like this is a kind of long overdue post but I’m finally in the right place to write it. Food in Senegal… something I could talk about for days and days on end – I’ll try to keep it short for your sake. Let me start with why tonight’s an awesome night for writing this entry: dinner was epic. I’ve heard about this chicken place from a few volunteers and because dinner was supposed to be beef and peas, a few of us decided to skip out on Center dinner and try the chicken place. I wish I could give a better name but it really was just a chicken place. The room was dingy and dirty, as one of my friends described it “the type of place you think you’re going to get tetanus just from sitting there.” Nervous at first, we had been warned about the nature of the “restaurant” so we ordered (a half chicken and fries for each person) and waited. Food in Senegal, for some reason, takes SO LONG to cook (probably because they’re cooking over a fire, but it’s still hard to get used to) but about 45 minutes later we were presented with maybe the most glorious meal I’ve seen (at least that I’ve seen in a while). Just asking to be devoured was half a roasted chicken, a salad covered in tahini sauce, and a mound of French fries. The only thing untouched on my plate was the salad (I’m still very nervous about uncooked veggies) but I ate the sauce off of it so if the salad was going to make me sick, the sauce will probably take care of that. A short cab ride back to the Center and an apple left over from dinner, I’m here!

Now, on to the rest of Senegalese food (you’ll have to deal with some misspellings but I don’t really care about spelling dishes correctly). To start at the beginning, breakfast. If a Senegalese person eats breakfast, it is most likely a piece of French bread (very, very store made) and it possibly, but most likely not, has butter, chocolate, or processed cheese on it. If you were going to have an expensive breakfast (about 125 CFA so $0.30US) you can get beans (a kind of spicy, cooked beans) on your bread. If you’re REALLY going crazy and splurging they can add a sliced hardboiled egg for another 50-100CFA. For lunch you’re usually looking to get some cheb u jen or fish and rice in Wolof. It’s the national dish of Senegal and its cooked rice with fish in the center of the bowl. Aside from breakfast all meals are served in large communal bowls and, depending on the family, you eat with spoons or your right hand. With the fish in the center of the bowl is usually a carrot, cabbage, potato, manioc, and maybe some other vegetables that have been cooked down for HOURS. Cheb u jen can also be red (if it’s cooked with a tomato sauce). At the beginning of my time in Senegal I thought all cheb tasted like rotten fish, I’ve gotten used to it and only taste the fish if I’m eating it, not so much if I’m sticking to rice.

For dinner, usually, families can get more creative. I like to think of dinner as being broken down into 3 types: rice meals, couscous meals, and special meals. First, rice meals. In addition to cheb u jen there are a million other things you can do with rice to make a communal bowl. You can make a peanut sauce (maffe I think) or a vinegary onion sauce (yassa), you could cover it in okra and oil (something that starts with an S). As far as couscous goes, the most typical is with a sauce from the never-die tree. I used to HATE this meal because the couscous texture isn’t great and the sauce just tastes like salt… but I recently found out that this tree is AMAZINGLY FULL of vitamins and wonderful things (that my diet is otherwise lacking) so I’ve changed my perspective on it a little. You could also have couscous with bean sauce or tomato-y sauce (don’t think Italian food, think a can of condensed tomato sauce with a ton of water). Now for my favorite… special meals. These come, very, very, infrequently but they are amazing nights when they do happen. In the village it’s either a pasta night (we eat with forks not spoons) or peanut butter rice. The pasta is cooked with oil (not olive oil, think vegetable oil) and served possibly with onions. Peanut butter rice, however, is my favorite dish, and I’m still trying to figure out what it’s called and if ANYONE outside of my host family eats it. It’s basically rice mixed with Senegalese peanut butter (which isn’t as sweet as US peanut butter). It comes out looking like a risotto kind of and is AMAZING. Finally, in special meals, I’ll include whatever it is that PCVs make for themselves on their gas’ in their rooms. Scary, I know, but I’m sure I’ll have some good recipes by the end of two years.

In other, unrelated to food, news, I have only one more full day at the center then it’s back to the village for 10 days. I’m really not looking forward to this village time but will be happen when it’s over (because then I’ll have only 7 village days left ever). Other than that, tech sessions have been going well, we learned about feasibility studies today. I’m still not sure what I’m going to be doing in Bambey but the more I learn about composting the more it might be a possibility. My, brief, understanding of it now is that I wouldn’t be doing any composting, I would be working with the city to set up the business of composting in the town. Who knows… I have a while to figure it all out. Epic thanksgiving plans are already underway (I need a holiday to look forward to!) so I’m sure that will end well once I get to that point.

Expect one last blog tomorrow before I head to the village Saturday.

A prochain,
KO