I promised...

Well its Sunday. Today I did some laundry and worked on this for the most part. Its love.



Well hey there. So it’s been going well, some ups and downs for sure, but at the end of each day I am pretty much always satisfied and happy. From the last post you can tell that my schedule will consist of much less poop scooping, which I am pretty dang excited about, as it involves a bit more intellectual work and tact. The time I spent at the village was useful though, no matter how menial it was at times. I came to see exactly how it worked, what things are going wrong and right, and found out that I am definitely not satisfied with what it gave me-which is why I worked with Rachel to figure out what else I could do. So last Saturday we had a weekly meeting about all of those things that I’m about to start, which should have been amazing right? But then Sunday came, and I was in the oddest apathetic mood. I felt like all the things I was scheduled to do were good in their own right, but that if you took them away I wouldn’t care that much. This thought spread to my host family and the friends I have made here-true, I really do enjoy some of the people, but I know that at this moment if you took them away, I wouldn’t be to terribly torn up. I pretty good now though, the apathy stopped around Wednesday. I guess it was just one of those moods/day(s). It really bothered me though, I mean there was no reason for me not to be extremely excited about everything, but I was just indifferent. Not caring about what I do in life is definitely a fear; dispassion is really not my thing.
So:

-I think we get to go on a day trip to the Gambia because ACI messed up something with our visas. I think we only get to have lunch while we are there, but hey, it’ll be a fun ride at least. Don’t worry no deporting or anything.

-I got a package from Mrs. Angell, and I am slowly enjoying gummy bears. Can we all just take a second and think about how absolutely Harabo Gummy bears are? Oh my gosh, they are made in Turkey too!!! Just like the cookies. Turkey has taken over all tasty things. We better not get in a war with them, that would be horrible.

-I taught my host father how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he loved it. (We always eat breakfast together in the mornings (miss you dad, don’t worry, it’s definitely not the same)). Whenever he has an egg sandwich with ketchup on it he says he is eating like an American. I stand by the fact that salsa is way better on scrambled eggs… and that eggs should not be deep fried.

-I may have already said this, but time is a very odd thing here. Each day, it’s very slow, up until after lunch. Then it all goes really fast, and I tend to learn more after 6pm. That day as a whole seems to fly when it’s over, and the weeks go even faster. It seems like every time I actually think about the date a half a month has gone by. I almost only have four months left, which is crazy to think about. Four months seems really really short, but also really long.

-Family update: I don’t completely hate the devil/gremlin child Muhammad anymore. I can actually find him cute sometimes… when he’s not punching me in the eye with a fist covered in milky millet. Yuck. Tomas and I are chill, except for when he was obsessed with trying to get me to buy him things, like pens. I told him that he can have my pens when I leave if they still work (don’t worry, Ill actually get him a pen if they run out). It took a good half an hour of him saying, but it’s only a pen, and me explaining that I’m not a bank to work that one out... Bali and Awa, while I can barely talk to them, are probably the people I most enjoy, simply because they have fun personalities and always joke around. Abdoulaye is slightly crazy at times (he loves to do the military marches), but kind of adorable as well. I hailed a diagne diage on the way back from my first visit to Lamine’s Library, and he was in the front seat coming back from school ( very low odds of that every happening as there are about a billion diagne diages), and he leaned out the window screaming and waving, pretty adorbs. I like Lamine in that he is smart, really nice to me, and can carry on intelligent conversations. But he always bad talks Beniot (my boss) to me, and really talks so much, even about how all the Senegalese do is talk, and then does about half of what he talks about. Sometimes during breakfast I do just not want to talk about how he thinks benoit is a stingy jerk (he really isn’t), I just want to have happy conversation, I mean it’s my favorite meal here! Penda just doesn’t really talk, and either does school work, or plays with Muhammed. I feel a bit bad for her that she has to help parent Muhammad so much. Okay, Aida. So she does have good qualities, as she can be nice to me mostlyish. But really, she’s off her rocker, even Rachel (professor) agrees with me (Rachel said that I could switch families if I wanted to, i.e. if Aida was too much to handle/to stressful, but I don’t want to because that I’m really not that stressed, just annoyed with her, and it would basically be like giving up, and hey, it’s just a good old Senegalese lesson in patience. Can I just restate the fact that I will definitely be one of the most patient people in America when I return?). Anyways, the money that is given to the families is supposed to cover the expenses of the student-the food, laundry, and board. Laundry has presented a difficulty in that it took two talking’s to by Rachel for her to get it (she said she thought I wanted to do my laundry for three hours at a time when I should have been at work), and I finally asked her when the family would be doing laundry this week (its Awa, the maid, not even the family), and she said whenever I want. So I said Wednesday, and she said Thursday, and I was like okay. Then it turned into Thursday night, and she finally took it on Friday to some lady… and she made me buy the soap, which I’m not supposed to do. And it’s just supposed to be done with the family. I just talked to Penda about what I was doing for Christmas (church on Christmas Eve, family stuff (crepes I think) in the morning, a partyish thing Christmas day at night in Sangalkam with Marcel (neighbor, Christian, don’t worry, Lamine and him are buddies, and he’s 25. He grows lettuce and tomatoes and sells chickens. Also, they have basil here, but it’s like, hybrid and tastes a bit like mint somehow. Not bad, but not completely basily either). Anyways, I asked her what she was doing, and she said eating and sleeping, like they do for most holidays (tabaski much?). Lamine says she can go out, but Aida doesn’t like it. So my plan is to spring her for New Years Eve when I hope to be going to Dakar with Awa and Fatim (Awa’s sister, not Awa the maid person, Awa the hilarious friend). Maybe if I ask she will actually get to go? So basically Aida is just a bit manipulative and selfish. I was going to Awa’s and she tried to guilt trip me and say that I’m always over there (not true, not even half the time, I’ve made sure that I don’t make my family feel that I don’t like them), and she tried to make me sit and stay. I laughed it off… and left. So overall, good family, jerky mother, but it’s all good.

-So I’ve slowly trying to figure out how educated everyone is about nutrition and such, in my family and with the community in general attached to that. So it seems that no one really cares about all the oil. And everyone eats rice more than couscous (even though it’s cheaper and way healthier); because if you eat couscous more than once in a week people will think that you are poor. As I now eat my tegga degga (peanut butter, just ground peanuts with their own oil, no additives, party) every morning with my bread, it’s shown as a healthy alternative to eating chocolate spread every day. I’ve got Mamour (boutique guy who sells bread, tegga degga, chocolate spread, everything) laughing at me because he thinks its nasty in comparison with the chocolate, but I even found Aida eating bread with tegga one night… and she likes it! So that is a step forward in the health department. And they probably think I’m a freak in that half the time when I say I like something, one of the reasons that I like it always includes “its good for the health.”

-I started a recipe page in my notebook for all the things that I think of while I’m here. As I think about food a freaking lot, I have come up with what will definitely be some promising recipes. Yeah, now I’m one of those food freak people. But hey, it’s gonna make for some great dinners people.

-the monthly meeting in Dakar was pretty much amazing. It was good food, really fun and interesting conversation (either we were all joking, or we would be in session with Rachel talking about different topics like poverty), everyone got along better that we had before, and I got to Skype even if it was for only a wee bit of time. I have videos from gore and such, but the internet always cuts off in the middle of the upload when I try and use the computer at the Village des Tortues, so maybe it will work eventually or I will have to wait till our next monthly meeting. Every morning (excluding the last because I was dead tired), Gaya and I woke up around 6:45 to go get the bread for breakfast from an actual bakery (which smelt like heaven, I have also decided that I want to work in a pastry shop/store, I think it would be fabulous, and a great skill.), so the baguettes we had actually had a real crust to them. We really don’t give crust enough credit, it’s basically half the bread in the goodness factor (in artisanal breads at least). I made apple pie and mashed potatoes for our thanksgiving dinner (a week or two late of course). Gaya made the crust for the pie. Of course it wasn’t the most amazing thing, but in the context of Senegal, it was pretty dang good. But the whole menu was basically fabulousness: chicken... And a representative turkey leg, mashed potatoes, green beans with garlic sautéed in olive oil, carrots with ginger and sugar (to sweet for me), sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon sugar, bok choi like vegetable sautéed with salt and garlic, cornbread/cake like thing, and then the pie with vanilla ice cream. Oh, and a gravy that was a complete failure, but still tasted good. Not exactly the typical thanksgiving meal, but it was pretty amazing. Basically throughout the whole weekend everyone gorged themselves unconsciously (and consciously) because it was like food! Variety! Not oil? What is this? YUMMMM. Oh gosh, and I ate fish…. And I liked it. It was the first night we were at Rachel’s and she had made this vegetable curry fish dish, and I was mad hungry, and it smelled absolutely delicious, and I was like, hey, why not try it if I’ve already tried all the Senegalese fish dishes, it can’t be worse. It was just as tasty as the vegetables, and the best part was that it was only a small bit fishy, unlike the Senegalese fish which is like… concentrated fishsplosion all over all day every day. So yep, that’s a big step for me. Our sessions usually ended going until 1 or 2 in the morning, and we were always going going during the day (it was pretty fun I have to say, in the learning manner that is), so when we got back to our home stays everyone basically slept for a day or two.

-When I met with the director of the Sangalkam school his first questions were: are you married, how old are you, when are you coming to have lunch at my house. I know Senegal is super into its hospitality, but I do not know if I will ever get used to people regularly asking that line of questions. I think the unsettling part is knowing that polygamy is quite accepted here (as long as it’s less than 4 wives), and that everyone is on the lookout for a western wife. Then, about half way through the conversation after showing me math booklets that USAID had given the school; he said that Americans knew nothing about culture. For in comparison, the Senegalese know all 50 states of America. I said that that might possibly be a generalization based off a few people he has met or heard of. Benoit says that I handled it well (he was there too), but I definitely talked the fastest French of my whole life, which was actually pretty surprising. So I have minor anger management issues, not after Senegal (jokes, please don’t sent me to anger management counseling).

-People back home, letters I get, and songs/things that make me remember them take up probably about half of the space in my diary, bunches of letter writing times, and a large majority of my day/night dreams. For a while I was worried that I was preoccupied with missing things too much, but really I’m not, and that’s part of the experience anyways.

-I finished Brave New World-pretty great book, and really, Shakespeare & Hamlet now keep randomly going through my head. To sleep, but to dream…..rank as an un-weeded garden. Thank you senior year English class.

-Skype is amazing. Really, it is. Either people can call me on my Senegalese phone through it… or I can call them when I have it, or see them when we are both online (in Dakar obviously for the latter). Also, I got to talk to Laura Keaton, one of the Guatemalan fellows yesterday on face book chat. How crazy is that? Among many more important and intellectual things, we talked about how where we’re going to be eating till we can’t move when we get back… Lily’s lattes (okay that’s not eating, so what), delicious life in general. I also can’t believe that I don’t get to make my peppermint bark chocolate this Christmas, sad life.

-For awhile I thought that I had lost all the muscles on my shoulders and around my neck…. Then I realized that I just didn’t have the inches of knots that usually exist there. You know senior year was stressful when you begin to think that the extreme knottiness was normal, and that when it’s gone you worry.

-As for health issues, I’m good in general. Lots of hair falling out (which happens to Rachel too), but either way she’s going to pick me up some calcium when she goes back to the states this week (returning on New Year’s, it’s mostly because of the visa thing, and the holidays). Don’t worry, I take my multivitamin every night, alarm at 8 o clock (way before dinner).The doctor lady also said it could be due to stress, and I don’t think I’m stressed really, but it could be unconscious, so I’m supposed to look out for that. Also had a minor freak out when I was thinking how doxycyline makes the skin sensitive to the sun and how that might last forever (scary), but the doctor also said that that’s not something to worry about and that doxy doesn’t cause long term sensitivity. So I figure I’ll wait it out a bit before deciding to switch medications or not. Depends on if the tiredness I’m feeling is actually one of the side effects of doxy, or if I’m just doing more than I think I am. Also, I started doing yoga before lunch. I like running here; it’s just really quite dangerous with the crazy roads/drivers/potholes and such. Also, I’ve decided that I’m running in the Turkey Trot next thanksgiving, oh yeah its gonna be sweet.

-Started to read Harry Potter in French, which is fun.

-The clothes that I have here will definitely be at least a size larger by the time I get back due to the hand washing. On the upside, I am definitely going to have a couple amazingly soft shirts… and the rest of the clothes will probably either be left here, or given away due to their not rightness.

-I’ve started playing hacky sack in my room, because juggling with a ball would probably be too destructive. I miss green grass fields a wholeeeee lot. There will definitely be some major time being spent at SAS and WRAL upon my return.

Well I gota go, but I’ll try to at least get another blog up after Christmas/New Years. Missing you all,

With Love,

Ananda