Belated Birthday Wishes

Ngar Gueye September 2013

 Last September the fields surrounding my village were looking lush - millet stalks were waist high, peanut plants covered the ground, and the baobab trees finally had leaves. Rainy Season 2013 sprinkled in June, rained sporadically in July, and was pouring regularly by August. After a few months of hot dry hot season in early 2014 I was ready once again to embrace the humidity and the insects of rainy season. But after one crazy rain in early June, I saw a whole lot of nothing coming from the sky. By the time August rolled around, everyone in my village was seriously worried.

Ngar Gueye August 2014

Every household relies on their crops to fill their lunch bowls and their harvest to fill their wallets for the entire year. No rain means no peanuts, no millet, no beans, no baobab fruit, no bissap flowers, no corn. I asked my mother Ndeye Kante if there had been previous years of drought and what happened. "Metti na, xiif na," was her response. "It was hard, we were hungry." Men in my village have been having emergency prayer sessions at the mosque and women have been organizing outlandish rain dances.


To do my part, I'm requesting help from my fellow Americans - to do whatever y'all feel is appropriate. Envision green fields, pray to an appropriate power, listen to Toto a few times, dance for rain, anything you want. I turned 25 years old last week and all I want for my birthday this year is a real rainy season. Thank you!

Also this: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/west-africa-outbreak-infographic.pdf

So far, so good in Senegal. 

Mom in Senegal!

just two little ladies in the big city

Did you know that John F. Kennedy created three goals to explain the purpose of the Peace Corps, back in the day? The first goal is to help the people of interested countries in meeting their needs for skilled workers. The second goal is to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of peoples served. The third goal is to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. At the end of June my mother graciously assisted me in my second and third goal work with a two week trip to Senegal!

a lion named tiger

It was an exciting adventure starting in Dakar, where we had a joyous reunion at the airport after fifteen months apart! We went to the beach and climbed the African Renaissance Monument and eased ourselves into Senegalese cuisine at our super trendy hotel. From Dakar we went south to a roadside town called Toubacouta. Toubacouta is possibly my favorite place in all of Senegal because it is beautiful yet quiet, attracts very few tourists, and has gorgeous waterfront vistas on the Sine-Saloum delta, where the Senegal River meets the Atlantic Ocean.

part of the family

We swam in the salty delta water around the mangrove forests, took a boat ride to Shell Island, watched the sun set over the water, and drove out to Fathala Wildlife Reserve. At the reserve we saw tortoises and walked with two lions! The lions were born in South Africa and brought to Senegal as cubs. We walked with a brother and sister pair who are currently two years old. They were nice enough to allow us to pet their backs, feel their paws, and take lots of photos. My mother's school mascot is the Flying Lions, so I hope her students aren't disappointed at the lack of wings on these guys.

salty delta water and mangrove forests

After a relaxing few days on the coast, we traveled inland towards my village in the Kaolack region. I got maybe a little too much enjoyment from introducing my mother to the rough roads of Senegal, the excitement of traveling in a car that could literally just fall to pieces at any second, and sitting her and her fancy rolling luggage atop a horse drawn cart to get to my home. Everyone in my village was overjoyed to welcome my mother and we spent five days greeting my friends and family. In between never-ending greeting sessions, we took walks, did some health work, visited French and Arabic schools, and got first row seats at our local polling station!

can you spot the toubab?

On June 29th there were nationwide elections throughout Senegal and we had a polling station set up for the 114 registered voters of my village. I was so excited to see democracy in action in my little village! The ballots are color coded and outfitted with visual aides because a lot of the voting population is illiterate. But that did not slow the process at all - political debates were held in every house and almost every single person with a voter identification card showed up to vote. My mom and I showed up when the polls closed and were given seats in the room where the ballots were counted. In a ridiculously close race, the party I was backing lost. All in all, I had great fun participating.

three ferocious felines

I had hoped that we could stick around for the beginning of Ramadan, but Allah did not will it this trip. I think Allah was sympathizing with my mother for being such an incredible guest for her two week stay. I can't exaggerate how many times I was impressed by her energy and enthusiasm in the face of heat, sickness, confusion, overstimulation, and exhaustion. (Not to say that Senegal isn't a lovely place to visit!) She was such a trooper and she impressed everyone she met with her Wolof, her energy, her dance moves, and the list goes on. I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful woman in my life and doubly lucky to introduce her to my three host mothers here in Senegal. Thanks for taking the time, energy, money, and patience to come visit, mom!

Supporting Girls' Education !!!

primary school kids and their headmaster

The end of the school year is coming up next week, which means it is exam time for the oldest class at the primary school in my village. After passing the exam with flying colors, the kids will move to our closest secondary school, which is about five kilometers away on a sandy path. They’ll find friends or relatives to live with for the school year because there is no regular transportation on that road. Last week I accompanied the students to the secondary school for a practice exam and got a glimpse of just how hard they each work to pursue their education. 

view from a charette

Maymouna, a girl who’s around 10 years old, had to get up extra early the morning of the exam to eat an early breakfast and walk a kilometer to arrive at the primary school in my village by 7:30. She hopped on a charette, a flat wooden cart pulled by a horse, along with 9 other students and 2 teachers. After bumping along the sandy road for fifteen minutes, the charette got a flat tire and the passengers got the boot. Weighed down by the knowledge that she would be late for the practice exam, Maymouna was now traveling by foot and walking through deep sand in the hot sun. One kilometer later, they arrived in a small village and borrowed a new charette to finish the trip. The new charette was in disrepair and Maymouna’s pens and notebooks fell through its holes while the dirt from field work clung to her white complet, a nice outfit she had worn for her first trip to her soon-to-be new school.

primary school kids telling stories

Finally the group arrived at the secondary school - tired because of the walk and hungry because most kids only had a cup of coffee for breakfast. Maymouna then sat through an entire day of testing capped by an evening charette ride back to her primary school followed by the walk back to her village. And then the next day she woke up and did it all again.

girls at school!

What I realized about Maymouna and the other students in her class is the incredible level of dedication they uphold in their studies. Education is no easy feat when your home lacks electricity for you to read at night and when, at 10 years old, you are expected to help run a household and work in your father’s fields on your time ‘off.’ Of course the students do not recognize this awe-inspiring work ethic in themselves because they know no other method of living. But hopefully by staying in school, they will get to learn about people and places outside of their corner of Senegal. Girls will learn that they can aspire to have goals outside of the home. Or they can choose to be full-time mothers, but knowledgeable ones that can read to their children and encourage education in the next generation. 

primary school fundrasier

Education, for me, is about giving girls a voice and empowering them to live intentionally, making conscious decisions about their futures. In that vein, I am working with my two neighboring volunteers to facilitate a scholarship program for female students in that secondary school that services my village. The program pairs a monetary contribution with a series of discussions about education with the girls and their families. We are fundraising to pay the annual school fees for 10 students, a total of 200,000 CFA or 100 USD, to ensure these girls stay in school for at least one more year and foster in them a desire to dream big and with confidence. Any donation is welcome – 20 cents can buy a ballpoint pen and 1 dollar can buy a notebook.

TO DONATE: follow the link provided and note in the comments section, This donation is to support MSS scholarships in PCV Kaitlin Hammersley’s village of Ndiago.

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-CFD

THANK YOU, JEREJEF, MERCI BEAUCOUP

Girls, Women, Ladies, Mademoiselles

Ndeye Soda, 13

In honor of Mother’s Day weekend, I am writing a blog post about girls and women in Senegal.

The girl with the deadpan expression and the disembodied lizard tail is my sister, Ndeye Soda. She is approximately thirteen years old, by her mother’s best guess, and is a playful and curious staple of my family. My host mom wakes Ndeye Soda up around 7 am every day so she can rouse and clothe her four younger siblings for breakfast (she’s child number 4 of 8). For half the week Ndeye Soda spends the morning cooking lunch for all twelve members of our family, a process that begins with gathering firewood and ends with scraping rice from the pot. In the afternoon she’ll wash dishes from lunch and start dinner, pausing to bathe and re-clothe all the young kids, pull water, and shell peanuts to seed our father’s field. 

Mbene, 6

Once dinner has been served, eaten, and cleaned up she plays referee for her siblings jostling to get a comfortable spot in their shared bed. When it’s not her turn to cook, Ndeye Soda often spends her time washing the family’s laundry, sweeping the house, working in the fields, and babysitting. On the rare occasion that she has a free hour or two, she will play at our neighbor’s house, take a nap, or steal mangos from our trees. Ndeye Soda went to school to learn to read and write Arabic but never attended the French language public school to learn math, history, science, geography, etc. Instead her mother kept her at home to learn to run a household to prepare for her eventual marriage, which will likely take place in about five years. 

Mame Diarra, 6

Ndeye Soda does not have any qualms about her life; it's the life her mother lived and her mother before that. But I worry about her. What happens when she or her future children get sick and she can't read the instructions on the medication she needs? Will she ever have the opportunity to travel to see the capital of her small country, a mere 100 miles away? Won't she ever be able to understand the nightly news broadcast in French or read her contact list, should she get a cell phone? It makes me sad that Ndeye Soda won't ever read for pleasure or be able to write me a letter. And I know that these are usually the least serious problems that undereducated young women face.  A girl at my local school who is Ndeye Soda's age dropped out last month to be married - two months shy of earning her elementary diploma. 

Sinbacke 2, Mago 5, Mbene 6

Stories like this surround every volunteer in Senegal and often break our hearts. We see little girls with so much curiosity and enthusiasm for the world grow into hard working teenagers that become mothers and hardly get a moment of rest their whole lives. What I'd love to see is girls who go to school and stay in school long enough to learn about themselves and their world. I'd love to see as many girls as boys in high school and at university. 

Peace Corps Senegal is doing two really great things to encourage girls' education. One is a girls' camp that pulls together girls from a wide geographic area for five days of intense education and fun. Each day has a theme (gender, identity, health, environment, and future) to encourage the girls think critically about their futures. At the end of the week they come away with new friends and ideas and we facilitate discussions between the girls and their parents to talk about education and marriage. 

my mother, timeless

The other is a scholarship program that I'll explain next month, when I'll get a visit from my favorite teacher - my mother! I am so excited to show her off as a role model of a successful and educated professional woman who makes a huge difference in the lives of her students. I love you, mom! Happy Mother's Day to you and all other mothers out there.

PS. My mother is also the one who shared with me a video clip of Michelle Obama saying that "education is truly a girls' best chance for a bright future, not just for herself but for her family and her nation." I find this statement particularly applicable to my life now as I work for my nation abroad encouraging women and girls to feel empowered to seek opportunity and education. I can't wait to update y'all on girls camp and scholarships and other gender development work as it unfolds!

Brian Becomes Ibrahima

Ndeye, Ibrahima, Fama, Ngon, xale yi

I have now logged one year in Peace Corps Senegal and what do I get for my troubles? A visit from my American dad! What a wonderful experience! He spent just over a week in sandy Senegal reveling in the first dry winds of hot season. And what a trooper he was despite all that Senegal had to throw at him: car breakdowns, lost hotel reservations, and temperatures over 100 degrees in a small hut - no fan, no air conditioning, no ice, no shade.

geography lesson at school

We spent our first two days together in Dakar, where I introduced my father to his new name: Ibrahima Ndiaye. It only took him about a week to start turning his head when he was called! In Dakar Baay Ibra was lulled into a false sense of security about the food and climate of Senegal, so I quickly hustled us along to Kaolack - city of dreams! We toured the legendary market, saw the lights on the Kaolack river, and ate our first traditional Senegalese meal together.

a master at work

After minor car trouble, we finally arrived in Ngar Gueye laden with gifts and half-memorized Wolof greeting phrases. To start things off with a bang, we attended a baptism, a wedding, a baby weighing, and a school function within the first 36 hours in village. Whew! Then came the village tour, social calls, field tour, cat bathing, and mural work. Ibrahima stuck it out for 4.5 days in village learning Wolof and charming everyone with his charades when that didn't cut it. By the time we got on the horse-drawn cart back to the city, he could almost correctly identify all of my family members by name! Joking aside, I was very impressed by the effort, the time, the money, everything that my dad invested in this trip. One of the greatest challenges of my Peace Corps service has been isolation. It's not the geographic isolation that really gets me, but rather the distance between the actuality of my life here and what can be understood by my American friends and family.

child photographers: perspective problems

Before I came to Senegal a woman warned me that life here and at home are as different as night and day. I relish that fact but hate knowing that I can't really share my experiences with people from the states, that you have to live it to truly understand. My dad now knows what it's like here - in my hut, with my family, in the heat, at the garage, etc.

neighbors at the window

He knows the rustle of wearing Senegalese clothing, the rush of dancing in front of a crowd of 100 women, and the bitterness of village coffee. I can tell the story of the birth I attended last month knowing that he has a clear picture of the facilities at hand and I can complain about public transportation in Senegal and get a real empathetic response. I am so grateful for the opportunity to share my life here with those I care about back home. And it meant the world to my host family and my friends in village to shake hands with someone from my American life. On our last night in village, my Senegalese dad called me to sit between him and my American dad and translate his gratitude. It was a pretty cool moment for me to bridge the language gap between my two dads and bask in their respective happiness. I am proud to have two incredibly wonderful sets of family members on either side of the Atlantic and was so glad to have them in the same home for a few days. So, thanks for visiting dad! And my hut is always open for anyone willing to learn a little Wolof and have an adventure.

Work and Play

sama muus - ki moo ma sonnal

The first month of 2014 brought me successes and failures in my working life, an all-night party in my village, and a lovable hellion of a kitten. I had no intention of adopting a pet, but after this guy showed up right my door and mewled for a solid 12 hours I broke down. The Wolof word for milk is "meew," so my host mother ordered me to buy some powdered milk to appease the kitten's cry of "meow, meow, meow." He is a joy and a terror. In terms of work, I started a series of hygiene and nutrition lessons at my elementary school. The highlight so far was covering kids hands in glitter and oil to teach them about handwashing. Now when I see kids around town they always say, "Arame, my hands have microbes on them. I need soap to clean them!" Success.

Idrissa seeding lettuce and tomatoes

I also had the brilliant idea to start a home garden to demonstrate how easy and affordable it can be to grow your own nutritious lunch ingredients. Hah! Failure. I invited my three favorite agricultural volunteers over to create garden beds with amended soil and seed lettuce, tomatoes, moringa, sunflowers, and marigolds. Currently the moringa is (cautiously) growing while all the others fell victim to heat, bad seeds, chickens, birds, crickets, squirrels, and/or cat attacks. I complained to my host mom that I watered and watered until I wanted to die (transporting 200 liters/day is no joke) and all I cultivated was a sore back. All in all, I learned a lot about gardening, patience, and humility and am excited to try again in late February.

breastfeed exclusively for six months: no food, no water

At my health hut, I decided to paint a series of murals inside the maternity ward to educate new mothers. Women in my village are incredibly responsive to visual aides and since most of them are illiterate, murals are a great teaching tool. New mothers usually hang around the health hut with their mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. for four or five hours after giving birth and basically they all just sit around and stare at each other and the walls and the new baby. Now they will be forced to stare at my murals! My first mural encourages exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of the child's life and has been very well received. Success. Next mural: young children's nutritional needs.

my host sister and myself: matchy matchy

But enough work, let's play! In January we had Gamou, the celebration of Prophet Muhammed's birthday. There was a celebration mid-month that was pretty low-key in my village, then we re-celebrated at the end of the month in a big way. The event was referred to as a "jangi," like a study session, and I think even now that I might have hallucinated parts of it. Here's how it all went down. During the day a car rolled in and unpacked and installed a gigantic tent, speaker system, christmas lights, a laptop, and a bunch of plastic chairs. We ate a particularly delicious dinner (spaghetti and chicken) around ten pm, donned our matching outfits, and convened in the tent around midnight. For the next seven hours (!) we sat in our chairs and listened to a group of men in the middle scream and sing and chant prayers and make speeches. The sitting was punctuated by demure dancing around the men and throwing money in a collective pile in the middle. It was strangely thrilling to be wearing the same outfit as two hundred other women and up all night in an environment that usually sees me in bed at nine pm.

prayers in the front, matching outfits in the back

Of course the night had its ups and downs. My mood peaked from about three am to six am, dancing and taking pictures. Then I was consumed by feeling annoyed at the hearing loss I was no doubt sustaining and angry at the men who came around to hassle me when I fell asleep in my chair. Luckily around seven they passed out coffee and we had one final dance circle and prayer recitation before everyone scattered to go home for breakfast and all day naps. Most people slept until five pm and I felt like I was participating in an 800 person hangover. And it was great.

he strikes this pose pretty frequently

 Overall, I've been enjoying the so-called cool season - high temperatures only in the low nineties! - and living happily with my family and friends in village. How could I not be enjoying life when my little brother shows up like this at my door in the mornings? He's been cranky lately, so I taught his mom the phrase "terrible twos" and she uses it daily. It's been almost a year since I touched down in Senegal and somehow I'm still filled with excitement about future work and play here. Right now I'm on my way to a country-wide conference followed by a country-wide party. We're hosting the West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST), which is sure to be an unparalleled experience. I'm excited for some big city life after a month in Ngar and to bring new ideas back with me.

Harvest Time in Ngar

a monstrous peanut pile

First of all, Happy New Year to all! Second of all, if you're not interested in the process of peanut harvesting in Sub-Saharan Africa, I'm sorry to say that this blog post is not for you. 

In Ngar Gueye, the months of November and December were consumed by field work. Devoured by it. I'm talking ten hour days seven days a week. I'm talking about an entire village mobilizing to complete the harvest - ages five to sixty-five. I'm talking about no lunch breaks, no naps, no social visits, no nothing. My village is nestled right in the middle of the so-called peanut basin of Senegal and what a labor intensive crop they are! I thought the harvest process was fascinating, maybe just because I was living in the middle of it or because it provides enough cash to sustain my entire community until next harvest time. Whatever the reason, I was interested enough to participate and gather intimate knowledge about the harvest. What exactly are the steps that get peanuts from the ground to the market? I thought you'd never ask!

an even more monstrous peanut pile

 Previously I'd posted photos of peanut plants getting plowed by metal plows drawn by horses. (So many P's in that sentence!) After the plants are uprooted, women and children (and me) walk through the fields gathering the plants into small piles. After a few weeks in the sun, the plants get crusty and hard and men return to the fields to pile them on top of charettes, transporting them into even bigger piles. At this point, the peanuts are all still connected to the rest of the plant, hanging out in big monster piles. 

separating peanuts from the rest

Up until now, each family is more or less responsible for their own fields. But once the peanut piles have reached maximum size, men work together with whittled sticks to beat them until the peanuts are more or less separated from their stalks. Once the piles have been beaten to satisfaction, women return to the fields to separate the peanut pods from the rest. In my opinion, this is the most fun step of the process (fun for me because I could quit when my shoulders ached aka after thirty minutes or so). Women use the wind of cool season to blow the stalks away while the heavier peanuts fall straight down into a pile. After trying my hand at it, I quickly realized why every woman in my village has seriously defined arm and shoulder muscles. Once the peanuts are separated, they are bagged into ten kilo plastic sacks and transported to the nearest town to be sold.

final step: no peanut left behind

But the fun's not over! My family has a strict no peanut left behind policy when it comes to the harvest, resulting in the most tedious and least glamorous step of the process: peanut hunting. It's a task that I was encouraged to spend hours upon hours participating in, which I was somewhat willing to do until my host mother sustained a scorpion bite in the sand. Then I started a mural instead. Anyway, peanut hunting is just what it sounds like: sifting through every patch of sand in the field to gather runaway peanuts until they've all been collected. And voilà - harvest complete!

new fences for all

 There was a mad dash to finish the harvest by December 22nd, the date of a huuuuuuuuge holiday for the Mouride Brotherhood of Islam in Senegal. The holiday is called Maggal and entails a pilgrimage to the holy city of Touba. I was invited by my family, but wary of the crowds I headed to Dakar instead to celebrate the joint birthday of my friend Katie Curtis and my wonderful beautiful amazing mother! I stuck around for Christmas with my fellow volunteers and went north to St. Louis for a spectacular New Year's Eve. I am returning to village today, inchallah, to hear about how my family passed the holiday season and get back into the hang of things. 

baobab fruit 

The harvest was an exciting, exhausting, and educational time. I enjoyed the knowledge I gained but was challenged by the busyness of my fellow villagers. It made health work a fringe activity and my house a quiet and lonely place. Now that harvest season is over, we're flush with peanuts to sell, millet stalks to make new fences, bissap flowers for next Ramadan, and a huge pile of fruit from our baobab trees. The pods dangle in a Seussical way from the trees until boys knock them down. The fuzzy durable pods are filled with a white chalky substance with a faintly citrusy flavor. A great treat to have stored in my backyard! Well, back to village with me - hope y'all enjoyed your peanut harvest tutorial.