I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Mine was great, I spent it in Ndioum, I was accompanied by Amber, Paul and Maddy for our Christmas in the Futa. It was a good way to celebrate the holidays, Christmas Eve we made our feast, Christmas day we relied on desserts and for dinner we made a pizza. It was surprisingly delicious! I returned to site just to stay for a few days mainly to check up on the garden at the school, I noticed a kid was watering it every day; he’s amazing! I asked him if he signed up for the group and he said No but he wanted to be in it, but he pretty much got conned into watering the garden because all the other kids ran away from school once class was over (they’re on vacation), but this kid didn’t run fast enough I guess. I felt really bad for the kid, he doesn’t have anything invested in this garden he just got told to take care of it for the other students. I invited him to join the group and he’ll ultimately be my favorite student I can see it now. This kid is awesome too, I went to his house to greet his family and he was so kind making sure his little brothers and sisters weren’t bothering me and that his mom and grandma didn’t embarrass him. It was hilarious, it was so… American, aka familiar.
I’ve been complaining about not having any work to do in village (this has been a long winded complaint) but then all of a sudden everyone’s having meetings (and someone invited me to their meeting so now everyone wants me at their meetings!! Even if I have no clue what’s happening, I’m a new hot item) and now I’m starting to con people into working with me, by telling them about my work then saying “So you’ll help me right cuz my Pulaar is horrible.” Now they have to help me. I’m amazing at being annoying. It sucks that work is finally starting yet it’s the holidays. I’m going to St. Louis for New Years, followed by a short trip to run some errands in Dakar.
I’m talking with a man in my village about starting an adult group about reforestation, I think it’d go really well especially because this man is really smart and seems really interested in working with me. I finally had a talk with the school director to stress our work together for projects in the village and I started an Environmental Club with the older kids of the primary school, it seems to be going pretty good- other than the fact that the kids are on vacation right now. I think this is going to be a really fun project, I hope everything works out! I received an email from PC saying I received all my funding for my grant and they’ll place the money in my account soon; incredibly exciting!! So I’ve got the Health Hut preparations, school garden, hopefully soon my own demo garden (once I get permission from the man who owns the land). I feel like I’m never in village for that long so starting projects for myself (like a garden) is hard because I need to make sure I'm there for a long period of time to maintain the seedling (metaphorically speaking and literally). Recently I was there for 3 weeks and no one wanted to work with me until a few days before I was leaving for Ndioum for Christmas, and then I went back for 3 days and people kept saying “I haven’t seen you in awhile where have you been?” I told them “I was here for 3 weeks, and you saw me, I was gone for 4 days and that’s a long time?” and they just said “…yeah, that’s a long time. Don’t leave. Or take me with you, we’ll go together.” Pfff, come on guys! You can obviously tell why this would be frustrating.
So I’ll be in St. Louis/Dakar until January 5th I believe hopefully I can get back to site sooner. I really want to. I hear Akon will be in St. Louis for a free concert on New Years, what up! Party central.
January 14th I’ve got Awa one of my bosses coming up to do a discussion with the female students about staying in school; which is great and I’m super excited. But after our discussion she’s going to do one at the school in Ndioum (where our regional house is) so some volunteers are going to come to Ndioum to help out with that; so we can have group discussions with the middle schools girls. It’ll be a lot of fun and this is the kind of work I really cherish, I know I’ll look back on this and be excited to share stories about the girls I met. I keep thinkin’ that’s more time out of site, then I’ve got a training for the teachers in Jan 26th and there will be preparation for that as well. Let’s just say it’s hard to keep a schedule in this country. Once things start rolling I’ve gotta pick up and leave elsewhere. But I’m really excited that my work is picking up right now and people seem really excited to work with me, I’ve made so many contacts with people just in the last 2 weeks it’s really promising that work will be starting up. And at this point I don’t even care if my Pulaar sucks if you want to work with me you’ll find a way to understand me and I’ll find a way to understand you cuz I do want to work with them! I also feel like when I leave village I miss out on a lot of important things that no one will update me on; so I'm now not only writing everyone's name down I'm making them show me their house and give me their phone number - that's right.
Yesterday I attended a meeting at our Federation du Lao it’s our micro lending bank, I’m not positive if it’s actually doing any large projects right now, but the meeting was just an seminar about the different roles and responsibilities of the members and leaders. Which was great for me to attend and meet the Presidents of each group; young adults, women, and men. The visiting men leading the seminar were hilarious, and of course we had the craziest conversation… About players, sex, condoms, etc… and how I think it’s not good to play games because that’s why HIV gets spread and they were talking about how playing games is fun and it keeps you young; I just have to say in my cultural training course they said people don’t talk about this stuff… I have to say people do. It’s a natural conversation, just catches you by surprise when everyone tells you you’ll never have these conversations and then you find yourself in the middle of a conversation about sex, boners,condoms, HIV tests, etc. Anyways, one of the teachers asked me what I was doing later in the week so I could go to another meeting he was holding in another town, mainly just to invite me to see this town (it's his home town and not far), and I told him I was planning on going to Ndioum this morning so I could spend the night there and leave from there to St. Louis for New Years. Well this man has a car, and 2 seconds later I had a free ride that evening to Ndioum. Took him up on the offer and now I’m in Ndioum :). The man also told me about a festival he'll be throwing in his village in March; so I got an invite to that with another free ride, and a promise that there will be meat (i honestly just go to meetings for the delicious food I understand nothing they say except, "lunch is ready, penda come eat" followed by "SHE DIDN'T EAT ENOUGH GET HER MORE FOOD" i love it. yum yum yum.) Anyways, it's a concert in a near by village and he told me his sister is a fortune teller (i've got 2 in my village and i've already visited them, they're awesome... actually they conned me into visiting them to get my fortune told, it was scary at first). This just goes to show the interesting people you meet in this country. I cherish these meetings, if there is no concert no fortune teller no music no festival i don't really care. This man showed such an act of kindness of course I'll go to his village and of course take a friend (i volunteer sarah to join me cuz her site is really close to this village)! I love these run ins with people.
The greatest feeling you can get is leaving site and coming back and having a pleasantville like return with people peeking out of their mud hut windows saying Penda!! A Artii?! Arr, wotto! A heydii? Arr, foofto ina wuli jooni! Eey Jam Holto charrette maa woni?! A wadii esport. Penda, you're back. come here eat lunch. are you hungry? come here rest, it's hot right now. oh peace, where is your charrette (i always say no my legs are good i walk.) You're doing sports. I'm very active because I walk...ahah they're funny. Not only is this a great welcome back having the kids run to greet you and everyone curious where you've been/noticing your presence isn't there, but it's a warm feeling to know all these people would love it if I just came to their house and ate their food. That's what they want, and if you tell them no I'm good you eat it, because they need this food so much more than I do- I still eat you guys, its just I have the means to supply my own food, or I eat with my family as well that I pay monthly for food/room/etc. Another one of my favorite things is the fact that my village will protect me.
This is a really dumb story, eating at the bowl at the meeting I have never eating with any of these people before and I barely know half of them I only know some of the younger guys who were there cause they're my charrette drivers. There is always someone who will make sure they throw me food, i feel more comfortable eating with the women because they take care of me in that sense, like when I eat at the women's lunch bowl at my house my neena is constantly throwing me food - my dad does too but my neena pushes all the food to my side and my dad is more realistic about how much to throw. So eating at this bowl with complete new people (who of course all know me, and I have no clue what any of their names are because I'm horrible at names- I'm working on it!) and this younger guy starts throwin' me the meat in the middle and everyone is yelling at me that I'm not eating as I'm eating all the food. Once the meat is all done in our bowl any meat found in the rice is then placed in front of me with men yelling EAT! I was also eating with my hands so mind you I've got rice all over my clothes with the oil spots so even if i throw the rice off you can see where it was....i'm 5 years old and I've got a group of men taking care of me. Just to be followed by me walking outside to wash my hands off and a man I don't even know who he was just goes Penda, you didn't eat lunch. WHAT!! You didn't even see my side of the bowl I ate all of it, but this is what the Senegalese do; they take care of you. They welcome you, they all just want to be a part of your life. It's the same in America, you're mean to someone you think doesn't like you because they don't give you the time of day or you have these conceptions built up about this person so you convince yourself their this way even if you don't know; then you get to know them and you realize shame on you you're judgment was wrong. I love that feeling in America, it reminds me people always surprise you and it's a humbling experience to put you back in your place. I feel like when I have bad run ins with people here in Senegal (and vise versa I'm no angel) it's surrounding this issue- I just need to let them know I do cherish them, and I'm no better than they are, we're all in this together, and we're all human- we all have weaknesses, but lets share our strengths. Mine is, my obnoxious laugh.
Today Paul and Maddy are coming to Ndioum to celebrate Paul’s birthday so I’m going to stay here for that, and then the 31st I’ll be headin’ to St. Louis for the first time to prepare myself for Akon’s special appearance/ he’s throwing quite the concert I’ve heard- best part- it’s free, oh and all my friends will be there. It’s kind of Peace Corps tradition to celebrate New Years in St. Louis, kind of like how it’s tradition to go to Kedegou for 4th of July, Thanksgiving up North, Halloween in Tamba, etc.
Akon in St. Louis, quite exciting! Well, I’m gonna get back to catchin’ up on some Glee. Yay!
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