Photos, finally!

Hey y'all,
I added some new photos. If you've seen the pics on FB then you've probably already seen most of these. I know there's a handful of people without FB so here ya go! I don't know it scattered the new pics throughout the older ones. Silly technology. Hope all is well.

Ramadan, eh...

Ok, lets get the heart wrenching stuff out of the way first...

I went to the hospital in my village a few days ago to greet the doctor and others that work there. (The bulk of my day is spent “greeting” people. I think in America we call it “visiting.”) I talked to the doctor for a few minutes and he tells me to meet him in one of the examining rooms. He’s already in there when I arrive. I walk in while he’s putting gloves on, standing in front of a young woman sitting on the examining table, feet in stirrups, nothing covering the baby-maker. WHOA!!! Not what I was expecting! She doesn’t look pregnant, but he is telling her to push. He hands me a pair of gloves and tells me I can assist him. I can’t remember the last time that I felt this awkward. Obviously my job title involving the word “health” has led him to believe that I know something about something. I told him that I’m not trained or prepared for this kind of thing and that I feel pretty out of place. We all hear stories about how volunteers have seen women give labor here because a lot of times it takes place at home. All I kept thinking was, “Oh man, is this going to be the time I have to see this??? Ahhhhh!” She didn’t even seem like she was in labor. I had just decided I would walk out when the doctor took his gloves off and walked outside. I followed and once outside asked him what was going on. If she’s in labor shouldn’t he be in there? Why wasn’t he in there when I arrived at the hospital in the first place? That being said, he then explains to me in French, Pulaar and broken English that she is 5 months pregnant with twins that have died because her husband beat her. WHAT?!?! There was so much going through my head. Who is she? Does she live in my village? I’ve never seen her. Why is the doctor laughing? Is he messing with me (because they would totally joke about things like that)? I had no idea what to do. I mean, there’s really nothing I can do. Women are basically property of their husbands and its not like I know her or her husband OR enough Pulaar to bust up in a man’s compound and try to change his mind about the negative effects of beating his pregnant wife. So I just went home. Later my family told me that it was true, that she lives in a town about 60 km from us and that some men went to beat up her husband. Well that’s a relief, because violence solves violence, right??? (Sense the sarcasm) Welcome to my life.

So Ramadan is making it damn near impossible to get any work done. Its fallen on one of the busiest months for farmers so pretty much everyone in my village is in the fields all day and into the evening and by time they get home they are deliriously dehydrated and angry. This is not conducive for data collection. I wish it were, because normally going around questioning people would entail having to sit around drinking tea or them insisting that I stay for lunch. During Ramadan that isn’t a problem, but them being in the field all day is. So I came to Tamba 3 days earlier than I needed to. I tried to bike here and made it about 27 of the 35 miles before the doctor from my village stopped and insisted he drive me the rest of the way. He couldn’t fathom why I would be riding my bike for exercise when I could have taken a car straight from my village. Luckily there was some work I was able to help out with in a friend’s garden. After the first day of being in the PC house, the internet and cold drinks aren’t all that exciting anymore and its much better to have something to do. The garden was fun, but my skin quickly turned to bacon. I planted a few trees though, giving me a generic sense of giving life to something or another. Saturday we had a going away party for Austin, who when asked what he would like to do for his shindig requested that we start drinking before 7am. We did. I was back asleep by noon, hung over by 2pm.

I don’t really have anything too exciting to write about right now. I need to get this baseline survey done in the next month or two. I’ve decided that perhaps I shouldn’t work for myself in the long run. We don’t have anyone breathing down our necks or strict deadlines to meet. We start, maintain and finish everything on our own. I don’t know, well see. I think if I can find my niche, a project I’m super passionate about then I’ll be okay.

I’m going to visit a friend in the south of Senegal in the beginning of Sept. He’s one of the students I worked with when I was here in 2007 and we kept in touch ever since. When I left then I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be back and be able to see him so its super exciting to get to see him again. He’s an English teacher. Oh, I started my garden in my backyard. When I got home last time my backyard was completely covered in weeds, up past my hips. I hadn't even thought of that possibly happening but since it had been raining a little they sprung up. My dad and brother cut them all down for me. I haven’t started planting yet, but I’ve prepared the beds. I needed something to outline the beds, rock or sticks seeming like the best idea. When I started looking around the village for them I realized there’s so much trash everywhere and decided to outline the beds with broken plates, dead flashlights, broken buckets, broken shoes, etc. My centerpiece being a decent size animal shoulder bone. Yeah! My family thinks I’m crazy for always toting trash into my hut. I think it will look pretty cool. It’s the closest thing to recycling that my village has ever seen.

Ok that’s all I have for now. I hope everyone is doing well. xoxo

7th anniversary of my 21st birthday!

Hey, I’m 28! Yeah! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me happen! I personally think it was a well-executed plan. =) I love you guys more than you know!

I was in Thies for 2 weeks for In-Service Training. It was nice to be back at the training center and back together with my stage. I absorbed about half of the content of training. Maybe a little less. I was expecting more hands-on training in more detail, but it was a lot of powerpoint presentations and brief explanations on broad categories. Planning these trainings must be such a process and they’re always trying to tweak it to suit us, but its impossible to plan 50+ sessions in which everyone is going to be interested. It was motivating nonetheless and I have a broad array of things I can choose to work on. I am about to start what is called a Baseline Survey which entails talking to the heads of the families in my village to find out what they need, what they want, what they have already, who gets sick and why, how many deaths from malaria, etc. It’s a lot of data collecting. I think it’s a valuable thing to do and have, however, Ramadan started yesterday and from what I’m told it’s difficult to get any work during while people are fasting. Ramadan lasts for 30 days. I’ll do my best, trying to catch people as early as possible while their bellies are still full from breaking fast, but we’ll see how it goes. I still need to work on my language a lot too, so maybe I’ll just focus on that if I can’t get responsive fasters. Many volunteers fast with their families as an integrative measure. I think I’ll try it but I imagine it’s pretty horrible. Everyone wakes up before the sun comes up to eat breakfast. Afterwards they go back to bed and get up a few hours later. Then they can’t eat again until the sun goes down. They don’t drink water either. I’m not too worried about the eating part because the crap they serve for lunch is less than appetizing anyway. But not drinking water will suck and I hear that by the end of the day you feel like you’re high… on “dope.” We’ll see how it goes. Not being Muslim and all, there’s no obligation for me to do this. However, if I’m successful, my family will think I’m a total badass!

After Thies, I went to Dakar for the night with a few of my friends. Dakar is so huge! It’s the polar opposite from village life. It’s nice, in a way, to be in a big city but I can’t decide if I would ever like to live there. Because there are so many westerners that live there, you don’t have everyone starring at you because you’re white and kids don’t yell “toubab” as much. That part is great! But it’s an overpopulated city with tons of traffic and trash and things are considerably more expensive. When I was in Dakar in 2007 we ate at this rooftop Ethiopian restaurant a lot. It was the first time I had Ethiopian food and I fell in love with it! Since then I always seek out an Ethiopian restaurant every time I’m in a big city. It’s hands-down my favorite type of food! Anyway, I took 3 of my friends to the same rooftop place. It was so nostalgic to be there. It’s at the end of the block from where I stayed in 07, so it was crazy to be back in that neighborhood. I fell in love with Senegal back then and would always wonder if I would ever make it back at some point in my life. It was nice to be there, having made it back in such a short time. Plus back then I thought that neighborhood wasn’t all that nice because I had nothing in which to compare. But now that I’ve seen other parts of Senegal and villages, that neighborhood is SO nice! Andrew and I left Dakar the next day, getting to Tamba 8 hours later. Those sept place rides are so long, hot and uncomfortable. When we got to Tamba all we wanted to do was shower the day’s worth of sweat off of us, but this didn’t happen because the water wasn’t working and they had already used the reserve water. Ugh! To try to go to sleep feeling that disgusting is quite the task. Gross! But it made the shower the next morning that much better.

We celebrated my birthday last night because today 30-40 volunteers are coming in to stay at the Tamba house for an Ag Summit. It worked out that many of my favorites were able to be here for the celebration. Some of the Tamba girls made chocolate chip cookies! The Kolda lovelies had matching dresses made for us! They were so pretty! The theme for the party was graffiti meaning everyone wears a white shirt and we decorate each other’s. It doesn’t take much to entertain us these days. We made French bread pizza (sauce and pepperoni courtesy of Mom, Mac and Donnie!) and Austin made his always-delicious potato salad. It was quite the birthday celebration and I’m fortunate to have such cool people in which to share it. I think this is only the third time that I haven’t been in Greenville for my birthday. I miss the fam…

So now I go back to village. Hopefully my family is the one family that doesn’t get temperamental during Ramadan. Ha! I don’t even care if they are; I just need to get work done so hopefully they are receptive to my data collecting. Heard Amy Winehouse died. Damn shame. Hope y’all are swell! xoxo