Today Tabaski preparations were all about beauty! Over the past few days everyone has gotten rid of their weaves and let their braids go...all to get ready for NEW WEAVES! The fun actually started a few days ago: Miss and Aisha (Khady's mom) got their hair done a few days ago; yesterday my host mom had her braids taken out. Today's day of beauty started with Adji (the 12 year old) getting her new braids trimmed (the loose hairs had to be cut off). Then it was Khady's turn...her braids had been taken out yesterday so she had an adorable little fro. Miriam is the expert braider in our household so she sat in a plastic chair with Khady on a stool. The second a comb touched Khady's hair she started SCREAMING. She was writhing and Miriam had to hold her in place with her legs but it all finally stopped when Miriam gave up. During lunch everyone told Khady that she should get her hair braided and that she would be really pretty. Eventually Miriam was able to braid Khady's hair this afternoon. This evening Miriam and Ndeye went to get their hair relaxed before getting their weaves tomorrow or the next day.
More Tabaski preparations tomorrow I'm sure!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Are you preparing for the holiday?
I've been asked a LOT recently if I'm preparing for the holiday so eventually I asked what that entailed and no one could give me a direct answer. I've noticed, though, that there is a real festive mood that I didn't notice last year (possibly because last year, Tabaski was the day after Thanksgiving so I was a little distracted). Mor hasn't bought our Tabaski ram yet - I thought he had but it was just another sheep not the special one. He did explain the important things to consider when buying a Tabaski ram. According to him:
-God didn't set a price range, just that you spend what you can
-The sheep must be a male and must be at least 1 year old (so it's not a lamb)
-1 and 2 year old sheep are preferred because their meat is more tender
-A ram loses 2 teeth a year so you check how many teeth a ram has before buying it to make sure you're paying for the right aged ram
-Color and horns don't really matter - size is a way to show off your wealth
So there's a short guide for buying a Tabaski ram for those of you who still need to! The holiday this year will be Wednesday and school is out for the break. The students get a full week of classes off and only went on strike for one extra day off. I'm impressed they only demanded one extra day - usually they take another week or so off on strike.
More about holiday preparations tomorrow!
-God didn't set a price range, just that you spend what you can
-The sheep must be a male and must be at least 1 year old (so it's not a lamb)
-1 and 2 year old sheep are preferred because their meat is more tender
-A ram loses 2 teeth a year so you check how many teeth a ram has before buying it to make sure you're paying for the right aged ram
-Color and horns don't really matter - size is a way to show off your wealth
So there's a short guide for buying a Tabaski ram for those of you who still need to! The holiday this year will be Wednesday and school is out for the break. The students get a full week of classes off and only went on strike for one extra day off. I'm impressed they only demanded one extra day - usually they take another week or so off on strike.
More about holiday preparations tomorrow!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
It's beginning to look a lot like Tabaski!
Tabaski and the meat overload it brings is around the corner! Our Tabaski sheep have arrived and are happily living in the pen behind out our house. Tonight we had a huge sack of onions delivered to make enough onion sauce to feed the entire town. The holiday is the 17th and everyone is getting ready!
In other news, I received approval from the Department of Education to start teaching business classes again - this time at all 3 middle schools. Though I'd like the classes to start ASAP, which in Senegalese terms means January after the holidays.
And a little story for you:
Today we were eating lunch (ceeb u jen like normal) and I was sitting next to the three year old. While everyone either eats with their hand or a spoon (and doesn't change between their preferred method), Khady switches on a daily basis. Sometimes she eats with her hand and sometimes she eats with a baby spoon. Regardless of how she's eating she normally only eats hoyn which is the crunch rice scrapped off of the bottom of the pot. Like normal, my host mom was dividing up everyone fish and vegetables (she rips off pieces for us while we eat the rice). About halfway through my meal of fish, rice, and some carrot, Khady reached into my section and grabbed a piece of carrot. Everyone was silent waiting to see how I would react. Khady immediately realized that she had committed a HUGE faux pas and put the carrot back in my section. I thought it was pretty funny so I started chuckling and everyone else relaxed and saw the humor. I gave Khady the carrot back but she was still too afraid to eat it. Everyone around the bowl told her she could eat it and that I, as her friend, had given it to her. After finishing what I wanted to eat, I left the bowl. When I looked back the first thing Khady did was eat the carrot.
KO
In other news, I received approval from the Department of Education to start teaching business classes again - this time at all 3 middle schools. Though I'd like the classes to start ASAP, which in Senegalese terms means January after the holidays.
And a little story for you:
Today we were eating lunch (ceeb u jen like normal) and I was sitting next to the three year old. While everyone either eats with their hand or a spoon (and doesn't change between their preferred method), Khady switches on a daily basis. Sometimes she eats with her hand and sometimes she eats with a baby spoon. Regardless of how she's eating she normally only eats hoyn which is the crunch rice scrapped off of the bottom of the pot. Like normal, my host mom was dividing up everyone fish and vegetables (she rips off pieces for us while we eat the rice). About halfway through my meal of fish, rice, and some carrot, Khady reached into my section and grabbed a piece of carrot. Everyone was silent waiting to see how I would react. Khady immediately realized that she had committed a HUGE faux pas and put the carrot back in my section. I thought it was pretty funny so I started chuckling and everyone else relaxed and saw the humor. I gave Khady the carrot back but she was still too afraid to eat it. Everyone around the bowl told her she could eat it and that I, as her friend, had given it to her. After finishing what I wanted to eat, I left the bowl. When I looked back the first thing Khady did was eat the carrot.
KO
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Help!
I didn't have a girls' group meeting today because I promised a really exciting meeting next week.... and that's where there's a problem. I'm not really a crafty person and was obviously not a good girl scout so I am LACKING for ideas. Sure, I have a ton of development/discussion topics but I don't have any fun activities. So! If you have any ideas for any kind of activity/art/craft/project ANYTHING, please leave them in comments or email me! Send it even if it requires a lot of craft-like things.. Bambey doesn't have a craft store but I might be able to find substitutes!
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The Senegalese Locksmith: Part 3
Today I had what I thought would be the third part of making things right after losing my keys - I had to get a new key to my post box. Now, usually the post office is minimally helpful. If I need something done, they'll do it but only to the least extent they have to (as an aside, this isn't different than most businesses in Senegal). I went in this morning and explained the situation... and was told to come back at 3pm then I could have a new key - easy enough!
At 3pm I showed up at the post office and the guy who I had talked to earlier went to get his boss/the head of the post office (who apparently doesn't work mornings). The guy started yelling at me in Wolof for losing my key. I made him switch to French. He yelled some more about making me lose my key. As the good fake-Wolof I am, I started yelling at him about how I needed him to give me a key. Then he yelled that he couldn't give me a key. So I started yelling, "so it's done? forever? that box is closed forever? it can never be opened again?!" and he didn't disagree. So I told him I wanted to buy a new box and that really set him off. He COULDN'T have me pay for a new box because I would ABSOLUTELY lose the key again then I would come back and get another box and lose the key and keep doing all of that until I had lost all of the keys for all of their boxes.
Refusing to acknowledge his offensive, patronizing manor for losing a stupid key (which, fyi, I think those might have been the first set of keys I've ever misplaced in my life) AND refusing to get into a discussion of his poor business skills - JUST SELL ME ANOTHER BOX. I yelled at him for being ridiculous. While we'd been yelling back and forth like good Wolof people, we'd created quite a scene and everyone in the post office (all 5 people) were paying attention and laughing along. I finally told him that if he wasn't going to give me a new key or box, I was going to make the people at the post office check my box for me whenever I wanted to know if there was something. I gave him the ultimatum of, "I can do the work or you can do the work," and that drove him into the back office...
...only to come back with a spare key for my box! He patronized me for losing the key a little more and I told him I was going to make 5 copies of the key and give them all back to him. I paid my 1000cfa ($2) and strutted out with my new key. Bambey does not have a place to copy keys so this weekend I'm going to make a ton of copies of the key and put them all in my mailbox for the people at the post office to see!
KO
At 3pm I showed up at the post office and the guy who I had talked to earlier went to get his boss/the head of the post office (who apparently doesn't work mornings). The guy started yelling at me in Wolof for losing my key. I made him switch to French. He yelled some more about making me lose my key. As the good fake-Wolof I am, I started yelling at him about how I needed him to give me a key. Then he yelled that he couldn't give me a key. So I started yelling, "so it's done? forever? that box is closed forever? it can never be opened again?!" and he didn't disagree. So I told him I wanted to buy a new box and that really set him off. He COULDN'T have me pay for a new box because I would ABSOLUTELY lose the key again then I would come back and get another box and lose the key and keep doing all of that until I had lost all of the keys for all of their boxes.
Refusing to acknowledge his offensive, patronizing manor for losing a stupid key (which, fyi, I think those might have been the first set of keys I've ever misplaced in my life) AND refusing to get into a discussion of his poor business skills - JUST SELL ME ANOTHER BOX. I yelled at him for being ridiculous. While we'd been yelling back and forth like good Wolof people, we'd created quite a scene and everyone in the post office (all 5 people) were paying attention and laughing along. I finally told him that if he wasn't going to give me a new key or box, I was going to make the people at the post office check my box for me whenever I wanted to know if there was something. I gave him the ultimatum of, "I can do the work or you can do the work," and that drove him into the back office...
...only to come back with a spare key for my box! He patronized me for losing the key a little more and I told him I was going to make 5 copies of the key and give them all back to him. I paid my 1000cfa ($2) and strutted out with my new key. Bambey does not have a place to copy keys so this weekend I'm going to make a ton of copies of the key and put them all in my mailbox for the people at the post office to see!
KO
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Senegalese Locksmith: Part 2
I woke up bright and early Saturday morning because I had a list of things to accomplish! Alyssa and I had a meeting in Dakar and I needed to leave by 10am to make it on time. I went to the hardware store and bought the best lock I could find aka the only lock she had. Next, I visited my good friend Babacar and gave him the lock. He was eating his bean sandwich so I told him to finish his breakfast then come over and repair my door. Eventually he reinstalled the new lock which involved gluing the pieces of door that had been chipped off the night before back to the larger door frame. By 9:15am I had a new lock and 3 new keys! I immediately grabbed my bag for Dakar, locked my fancy new lock, gave a key to Awa to give to my host mom (who was at the market), and hit the road!
Alyssa and I had a good meeting and things with the Artisan Exposition are moving along. It's kind of odd that a year ago I had no idea what was going on and now I'm one of the people planning it. After the meeting, we played some softball on the Peace Corps team (there's a league that runs until WAIST the big, costumed, tournament in Feb.). We both played the entire game (her as 2nd base, me as catcher) and had a few good hits. After softball we had a wonderful dinner (thai salad and a vegetable stir fry), then met up with other volunteers at a bar. After the bar we all headed to 'da club' which ended up being OUR club... because we were the only people in it. Eventually 4 middle aged Indian businessmen showed up and hit the dance floor when the theme song from Slumdog Millionaire came on. After a night of dancing - which was really fun because it was like we had a private party - we went back to the regional house which was gloriously empty.
The next morning we had breakfast and headed home. I had a meeting with my girls' group and fell asleep pretty early - travel always makes me tired. The key saga will hopefully end tomorrow: in addition to my room key, I lost the key to my mailbox and tomorrow I try to get a new one!
Wish me luck!
KO
Alyssa and I had a good meeting and things with the Artisan Exposition are moving along. It's kind of odd that a year ago I had no idea what was going on and now I'm one of the people planning it. After the meeting, we played some softball on the Peace Corps team (there's a league that runs until WAIST the big, costumed, tournament in Feb.). We both played the entire game (her as 2nd base, me as catcher) and had a few good hits. After softball we had a wonderful dinner (thai salad and a vegetable stir fry), then met up with other volunteers at a bar. After the bar we all headed to 'da club' which ended up being OUR club... because we were the only people in it. Eventually 4 middle aged Indian businessmen showed up and hit the dance floor when the theme song from Slumdog Millionaire came on. After a night of dancing - which was really fun because it was like we had a private party - we went back to the regional house which was gloriously empty.
The next morning we had breakfast and headed home. I had a meeting with my girls' group and fell asleep pretty early - travel always makes me tired. The key saga will hopefully end tomorrow: in addition to my room key, I lost the key to my mailbox and tomorrow I try to get a new one!
Wish me luck!
KO
Friday, October 22, 2010
A Senegalese Locksmith or Why Miriam is my Favorite Host Sister
Today I went for a really good long run. I ran about six miles and came home EXHAUSTED. Then I realized that my key had fallen out of my pocket during my run. Somewhere. Miriam volunteered to walk the whole way back and look for my key which was helpful because I run without my glasses and couldn't really see anything. After re-walking the 6 miles we came home without a key. My host dad offered to let me sleep in the extra bedroom but I was disgustingly sweaty from running and really wanted to get into my room. Eventually the carpenter came and broke into my room! It mostly involved him chipping away at the lock with a chisel and hammer but I got in my room! Tomorrow I'm getting a new lock and giving a spare key to my host mom immediately!
KO
KO
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