June 13, 2007
Subject: Nature vs. Nurturing
I walked out of my hut last evening just before sunset when it has finally cooled off and I know dinner is not far off. I began to go around and greet the family members who were milling around in the fading light; the women preparing dinner over the fires, the kids chasing the animals with sticks, and the babies banging on bowls. The typical chaos of my front yard.
I walked over to where little baby Demba was busily banging away. He seemed happy enough but as I looked at his hands I realized they were covered in blood. I wasn’t sure what to do other than look for an obvious source, but couldn’t really find any and as I looked he began to wander off out of the compound. We passed his aunt on the way out and I tried to bring the blood covered hands of her nephew to her attention but she was uninterested so I just kept following him out into the village.
He toddled past sheep and goats, past small brush fires and rusty tools, and picked up decomposing D batteries. He went from one compound to another simply exploring; occasionally looking up at me with a two toothed smile pointing at something with his gore and now sand covered hands with a questioning “humm” sound.
We walked like that for about ten minutes until his older sisters and cousins came to find us. I showed them his hands and they picked him up and carried him back halfway home when his dad rode up on the family bicycle. The bike being way more interesting than walking the baby back home quickly distracted them all as they fought to climb on the back of the moving bicycle. Why ensure your little brother’s safety when you can risk your own?
We all went back and took up our habitual places, the kids running and screaming, the adults walking around and yelling, and me quietly lying on the thin plastic mat on the ground.
Zack
July 4, 2007
Subject: 4th of July in Senegal
Happy fourth of July everyone!
We went to Kedegou which is in the southeast corner of Senegal and was one of the few places here I really wanted to see!
It was beautiful out there! Its at the same latitude as Kolda but its more mountainous and gets the rains a little sooner than we do so it was very green, lots of trees and lots of little villages tucked away in the valleys. The mountains aren’t very big, it reminded me of West Virginia, but the road goes through the Nikolakoba which is the huge game park in that area so we saw some great wildlife!
We saw a bunch of warthogs and guinea fowl on the ride down and the road is pretty well maintained so it was an all in all enjoyable ride. Kedegou gets a lot of tourists because of its flora and fauna so there were several nicer hotels and stores in town. We went to the hotel where my friends had made reservations and it was beautiful. They had enclosures with Impalas, crocodiles, and parrots on the walk to the hotel restaurant which was an open air hut with a great view over looking the river and the fields in the distance. We ate massive warthog sandwiches which were so tender and delicious, had cocktails, and then sat around and watched the view.
Afterwards we walked to the Kedegou regional “house” which is actually a smallish compound with some huts and a couple of small batiments (out buildings). Everything was set up for the fourth, tents and decorations and lots of Americans milling about. We quickly realized that there were no beds to be found so we went back into town to find a campement (hostel) but ended up running into a RPCV (returned pcv) who was in town working on health aid work for med school credit and he and his friend were renting half of a small house on the far side of town and he offered to let us sleep on his floor for free so thats what we did. He was a really nice guy and so it wasn’t the most comfortable couple nights he went out of his way to help us out (gave us flashlights, bought new soap and gave us food) and was really encouraging about Peace Corps and life after Peace Corps.
The night of the fourth we partied at the regional house and had a really good time. The pcv’s in the region cooked a massive lunch with pasta and potato salads and beans for bean sandwiches, and then they cooked a massive dinner with two huge pigs and tons of salad and pies and cakes. It was amazing to eat real food! I stuffed myself!
We swam in the river near by which was surprisingly clean and deep and in the evening we danced all night long. It was really nice (and exhausting) just to be able to American style things with other Americans. I met a ton of the people from the new stage and all the pcv’s who are getting close to COSing (close of service) sat around and told stories and reminisced.
The ride back to Kolda was long and fairly miserable but definitely not the worst I’ve had here, so it was a pretty good fourth!
Zack
September 3, 2007
Hey folks it’s been a while,
The reason being that for a long time now I haven’t really had anything nice to say. It seemed like every time I sat down to write all that came out was a thesis on why I dislike the Senegalese. I’ve seen how one person’s negativity can affect the people around him demonstrated very clearly among the volunteer community here and I decided no one really needs to be exposed to mine.
Things have gotten a lot better. Its the rainy season now and as you would expect its been raining a lot. The river bed is once again a river complete with the vivid green of new rice and rumors of a family of crocodiles that is slowly but surely reducing the number of stray dogs in the surrounding villages. Adam, my closest PCV neighbor and I have gone looking for them a few times but no luck so far. For some reason he and I have an unexplainable urge to wrestle one, probably about the dumbest thing I could do in a thrid world country but what a great story it would make!
I’ve been planting a lot of trees. On the last site visit my bosses did about three months ago they were not too impressed with the 200 trees in my tree nursery and the lack of farmers interested in doing tree work they also decided was my fault, so they told me I was on probation and if I didn’t have 500 mango trees in my backyard by the next site visit they would send me home. Well, I was embarrassed and pretty angry, had they said that 500 was the magic number from the start I would have had that many ready and waiting, plus if the farmers don’t want to do the work thats their problem, I thought I was here to give opportunities, knowledge, and skills not hand out a bunch of trees that I did all the work to grow.
Well, I sucked up my indignation and have planted tons of trees, when I told my counterpart that PC would send me home if I didn’t have anyone to work with he magically found two groups of people for me to plant orchards with ( a.k.a. his job) And so now with the next site visit coming up on the 8th I feel pretty confident that I won’t get fired from this volunteer position.
I have been trying to focus my time and attention on the few folks I enjoy being around here and thats been helping. My main contact for the orchard in Sintian Coursiba (12k away) is a guy who lived and worked in Spain for 7 years. He is a lot more worldly than your average villager as a result and just more interesting to talk to. There are also a couple families in Kolda who have been very genuinely friendly to me and I’ve been able to do a few nice things for them (a little extra food here and there) without being too afraid that they will try to take advantage of me.
So things are going ok. I’m really trying to work on my attitude. So much here brings out the absolute worst in me, there is so much anger and guilt especially, but I’m aware of it and I think I’m getting a handle on it.
I’m looking forward to the dry season. It gets relatively cool at night and the stars are gorgeous. The trees will start putting out seeds for me to collect which is always fun. I’ll have the knowledge and experience now to set up some more tree planting projects, and I may just continue to avoid getting fired! 😉
Oh well, I’ll try to be better about writing, I’ll keep trying to be more realistic if I can’t get all the way to full blown positivity, and if anyone would like my thesis on Senegal I’m sure I could send you a hundred pages or so on the topic.
Take care, I hope everything is going well back home, enjoy that oncoming Ohio winter for me!
Zack