Off to Africa

Perchance to Dream

2010-04-26T15:40:00.000Z

That’s the phrase that keeps going through my head- it feels like a dream. When I actually say it out loud, I am referencing how surreal it is to be leaving my host family and Senegal- a fact that I have known, but something that was never quite manifest throughout this journey. When I think about my time here, it is just as much of a dream- weaved of those sublime tales that only comes from the caverns and crevices of one’s imagination, not the actualities of reality.
Where I am now- leaving my host family tomorrow, then all of Senegal, to reuniting with the other fellows and then my friends and family- is a whirlpool. There is quite a concoction of emotion in that one run-onish sentence. Sometimes I almost feel nothing- a void of waiting, leaving, and the unknown there as a blank gray slate for the colors of moments un-had to be painted on. Then there are those small blips when really nothing has happened. Perhaps a small phone call about dinner- nothing really, save a voice. In that instant, my mind is lost in my heart with my throat caught in between. It is a grace of gratitude for all of the moments that have fallen onto my path, full of the happy heartache that accompanies the past tense of each and every one.
Pardon me if you catch me in either state- I know it’s not exactly the description of a stable person. Dreams aren’t stabilizing things though. They throw you up into the clouds, roll you through the flowers, and let you fly. Many thanks. Many hopes. More dreams.

In dedication to the past seven months, the new people filling my life, and reunion with my ipod.

2010-04-26T15:39:00.000Z

It was all a dream, pages full of words, running through my head.
I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain
I’ve been hanging around this town corner, out to find the better part of me
I’ve got friends somewhere over the rainbow, a broken voice, and a twisted smile
When the sun goes down, we go dancing in the moonlight
Our dreams are the dreams of real things- that moment in life when you actually feel alive, walking on a dream, beauty in the breakdown.
If you could only see- metal heart- its gone, gone going,
Oh Africa

Fun Update, yayyy

2010-04-08T16:41:00.000Z

So the last monthly meeting in the Saloum was amazing. Day one was basically all travel and eating. Hilary thought that the power rangers weren’t people underneath the outfits. Power rangers are people too my dear Hilary. We all laughed a lot a this, slightly epic. Day two we were at Rachels hotel and talking about all the readings we had done, and then got to meet two local peace corps workers. One was from Bozeman, Montana- you know, about an hour and half from where I was born. Small world no? Day three we went into the mangroves- grilling fresh fish and oysters on shell island, harvested oysters off the roots of mangroves and ate them a minute later, saw a small island of birds, and we even got to climb some of the mangrove trees! Day four was just going back home, though we did have a good laugh in the taxi when Modu the driver jacked up Barbie Girl and started dancing to it.
Rachel gave us the beginning packet for our capstone project, which is due the 12th. It is going to take forrrrevvverrrr.
Less than a month left!!!!!!!!!!ahhhhhhhhhh
I got way to many clothes made at the tailor, but hey, its okay right?
Last week I got to go around with a doctor in my village for the last round of oral polio vaccinations. We visited one Quranic school that was even more isolated than Noflaye itself, and the Marabout denied us- and the vaccine to about twenty kids. No reason given whatsoever, just a shake of the head. A bit sad, especially because the talibes get zeroish healthcare and live a steady life of mal and under nutrition. The heads of the post de sante went to visit them the next day though to try and convince them. Ill get back to you on the results. I get to go to the final vaccinations as well, which happen around the 24th. After that in the afternoon I sat in on a meeting between the Case de Sante of Noflaye and USAID where Mansour (basically the only doctor in Noflaye) is trying to convince them to fund at least a maternity, if not a poste de sante. By the way, Sangalkam is actually one kilometer away, with their post de sante. Alec and I think it would be much smarter to just increase the size of the already existing poste, which means that a lot less is wasted on creating new management and infrastructure.
I met this brasilian ex-babptist missionary here, who currently works for a baptist NGO along with another NGO. Alec and I then visited the town she works with, called Mbissaou, where she does medical visits each Friday with a Brasilian baptist missionary med student. First we visited this school that was founded by Madame Wade’s NGO (presidents wife, shes French) in conjunction with funding from a Moroccan doner. It was ridiculous (an official blog is coming on it)- it was actually a beautiful school, they had an arboretum, a whole working and powered computer lab. There was even playsets and a mango tree!
From the school we went to the womens farming co-op (also started by the NGO above) which uses compost (that they make at a building on the school grounds )-so it’s a completely organic process. There are 125 plots of land, with one women residing over each plot, onions, potatoes, and peanuts are grown, and they use a drip watering system that is the best way to water in a dry climate. Pretty dang amazing I have to say.
Then went to the cas de sante and helped Salete (brasilian woman) and her friend out by prepping patients by doing things like blood pressure and weight. Salete also bring in medical supplies from the Baptist NGO. For a visit its 500 cfa, roughly a $1.10, and if you need medicine that they have, you get that too. Granted, there is only medicine there for a very limited amount of things, but still, kind of amazing right?
The last visit of the day was a lady who had leg surgery two years ago and Salete thinks that they did the stitches wrong- because there is still this awkward gap in the womans leg- almost like a mouth. With muscle and fat just sitting out there in the open with a little glaze like skin imposter over them. She got the surgery to help her walk, and obviously, shes still having to use crutches at the moment.
Salete gave Alec and I Wolof New Testaments- how freaking cool is that? I mean just the fact that it is the new testment, I don’t know, I think its amazing. Yeah, I can only read about one word per sentence though, no matter.
MANGO SEASON HAS BEGUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really cannot quite explain how absolutely amazing the mangos are here. Sweet and sour and delicious and like butter (in fruit form) and I just love them. And they are litterally everywhere. Even in Dakar where fruits are more expensive, I bought a whole mango for 150cfa, aka $0.31. And it was amazing. Just take a moment to appreciate a 31 cent mango. So my new resolution is to eat a least one mango a day until I leave. Im not even a mango person and Im obsessed with them. Do they have any bad health effects? Hope not, for I will be eating massive amounts of them in the coming days.
Yesterday I met with the representative from oceanium finally. Last week we had a meeting scheduled, but my not knowing that there is in fact, not an oceanium building in rufisque (only the one in Dakar I already knew about), hampered that effort. “Hi, wheres the oceanium building?” “ Its behind the presidents house by the ocean”, “ Oh, we have a problem, Im in Ruifisque”. I know, Im smooth like mango. (Is there such thing as mango butter? I St. Helens makes mango coco butter and its awesome lotion. For the record.) Well yesterday I got a good amount of speechness and dissilusionment with the whole development effort- he works with Oceanium and even he thinks that they talk to much and are corrupted (though not in comparison with the government of course).Great meeting though.
Hilary and Alec are coming to the VOT today, and Hilary is staying the night. Off to visit Matt and his Cow farm Friday.. Victoria comes Friday night, then Going to Thies (chess) this Saturday, which I think will be super. Then on Sunday Im going with Abdou, Awa, and our whole friend group to Abdous’s mother’s house which is on the beach.
Nicole, the new program director, is coming on the 15th. On the 13th we will all be in Dakar, looking at the museum and the archives, and then hopefully having dinner at Mousa’s house (director of Suffolk university’s Dakar program, bff of Rachel). If we do have dinner, everyone will stay the night in Dakar, if not, some will stay. Im already up for staying, so those of us that do will meet Nicole in the Thursday the 16th.. Throughout her stay then, different people will be going with her in public transport to meet Tons and Rachel at program sites (GCY needs to know the tranport budgets and timing for next year). I get to go up to Saint Louis again!!!(on Friday and Saturday) Woohooooo! Busy week right?
I introduced my family to american peanut butter today (tip of the hat to Kailee). My host father says he wants to make peanut butter like that here and sell it. (I guess he only needs a little bit of sugar and salt right?)
Even the power company laughs at Noflaye. Exhibit A: We had a power outage for almost the whole day and night last week. We called people in the surrounding villages of Sangalkam and Bambilor- they both had power. I guess they think that Noflaye is so tranquil that they really don’t need power that much. (Noflaye actually means tranquility or calmness.)
Mandarin peels kill cockroaches. Learnt that one there from Malang Gomis, director of La Sagesse.
There are a lot of gay penguins. They happen to raise orphan eggs whose parents have died.
The movie You Got Served was on TV last week
Be back later………………..
Swell, was just at a meeting representatives of Rufisque’s culture, fishing and agricultural industries, environmental groups, and womens groups. It was interesting, I just only got the gist of it all because of language stuff. I was there with Thioune (Chone) of Oceanium, and he introduced me to the leader of the Woman’s Organisation of Rufisque as an American representative who is interesting in having our two countries work together, and find out ways that we can help the women here. I laughed a bit, for it made me realize that I could basically make up a title for myself here, and if Im dressed nicely enough, I could totally pull it off. Heck, I’m already a representative for the US government for the development of women here, an English teacher, an expert on turtles, a representative of US funders, a rich spender, a marriage ticket to the new world, a doctor, and so on. Or at least that’s what I’ve been perceived as, arnt the possibilities just endless? Anywho, I just ended up writing the blog Mbissou for GCY.
My family and I had a moment of realisation yesterday that I only have 20 days left with them (including today). It was a bit shocking to say the least. They Aida started asking me if I like the drawstring pants they have here and the candy peanuts and so on… I tried to make it so that they don’t get me anything, but I don’t know how well I succeeded. A bit ridiculous though.
Looking forward to seeing everyone, but at the same time im almost scared of leaving. On one had I will miss more than a few things about being here, and on the other I just don’t really know what to expect when I come back. I know it will be the same and different, but that’s a bit vague now right? Oh well. Reverse culture shock will be interesting though. I many ways I expect it to be more of a shock than when I came here. For I had not real expectations upon my arrival other than what Rachel had told us. But I think I know my home country, so that’s a whole lifes worth of expectations and norms, that I just might not think are normal. But it’s a day by day thing.
I have to write a summary about myself in order to find a roommate. I’ve never really like the ‘tell me about yourself’ question, and this is basically that. I guess Ill start with my love of detergent and fresh green grass as always.
Speaking of which, that means detergent in less than a month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please, don’t get to overly excited over there, that would just be to much excitement for the world to handle.
My butt is 3cm small than the first month I was here, or so Fatim the tailor told me. I said I already miss Senegal, she followed up by saying she already misses all of us and our money. You know, political correctness just doesn’t exist here.
For example, Abdoulaye Wade made a statue for the African Renaissance that was a massive waste of money and a disgrace for so many reasons. He flew in Jesse Jackson for the inaugration ceremony, you know, a couple hundred thousand or million dollars here and there while kids don’t have schools and people don’t have water. He then said that he thinks he should get a third of the profits from people visiting the statue because it was his idea. Pardon me, but isn’t it kind of his job as President to do things for his country? But yes, you know theres no political correcteness when corruption isn’t even a hidden thing, it’s a public proposition.
Okay ranting over. April 4th was the 50th anniversary of Senegal, Easter, and the day of this masssssssssive wrestling match. For the 2nd,3rd, and 4th we ate Ngallah- which is peanut butter, chocolate, juice from the baobob tree, raisins, and millet couscous. Overall, on the tasiter side of things, and no oil, so I was a very happy camper for those three days. Everyone went crazy as usual for the wrestling match, I even got my families reaction on video (I promise, at least when I get home that the videos will eventually get put up). As usual, the schools have taken another break for another holiday, this time for two weeks. Its always a holiday in Senegal.

Got to get back to work now, with much love, and very little time until I get to see you all, Ananda

P.S. Kylie is going to UNC!!!!yesssss

Serdipitous Senegal

2010-04-08T16:40:00.001Z

I don’t really know why or how it happens, but I have the serendipitous fortune of meeting interesting people in the most random situations. For example, there was Marga of the sex trade at the restaurant, Diallo a courtier for development who works with USAID on the sidewalk, and this past week it was Salete, a Brazilian Baptist, ex-missionary current NGO worker, on a Ndiage Ndiaye. Getting into the car with Alec, we moved to fill up the seats, and somehow I ended up sitting next to the only other toubab on the buss. I would say there is about a 1% chance to find a toubab on a car, and even less a chance of actually being next to them. Out of pure curiosity, I struck up a conversation. Skip forward to Friday where Alec and I went along with Salete and her Brazilian -Baptist missionary-medical student friend Carmena to the Village of M’Bissou where she helps the local Case de Santé each and every Friday, has a football school with her husband, and aids the village by connecting them to different organizations. Upon arrival, we split up so that Alec and I could get a tour of the village from one of the citizens while Salete and Carmena went strait to work at the Case.

First we visited a school that was started by Madame Wade’s (the Presidents wife) NGO, and funded by a Moroccan donor. Out of twenty-three villages M’Bissaou won the golden ticket in the lottery for this school. I asked why M’Bissaou had been chosen, and as the story goes it might have been because they had ample land, but it was definitely because God said so. I really didn’t know schools like this existed here- I literally was walking around with my mouth open half o f the time. From the outside it was beautiful with each building domed in the Moroccan style and covered in a cream paint. Inside the gates were trees galore -manguiers, a garden, and even a rare tree arboretum where students are taught how to plant trees. To the side of the garden was a fenced in building being used to store the organically grown produce from the nearby fields and the compost that fertilized them- a perfect full circle if you may. Throughout the grounds brightly colored swing sets and play materials are scattered about. When we actually went into one of the softly glowing classrooms there was no let down- space enough for the nice desks, larger blackboards, air flowing, and sun shining in though the large windows. The biggest shock had to be the computer room though. Maybe thirty computers lined up all plugged in and available for use, early-age French DVD’s being used for language acquisition, a teacher that can fix the computers, enough power to turn them all on at the same time, and even a printer/scanner for the teachers use. In Senegal timeliness is a huge problem, especially in the school system. Teachers arrive on time rarely, late most of the time, and are absent often. To address this problem, rooms were build on school grounds for all of the teachers to stay in during the week (each with its own computer), cutting out transportation and food excuses that are often used. Once a week local women are taught how to read and write using the schools rooms. Forgive me if I seem incredulous, but after seeing public and private schools that are oppressing, beyond over crowded, run down, and lacking things as simple as chalk and toilets, this school was a bit of a shock. What would cutting out the regular concrete cases do to Senegal’s education system? More importantly, what could it do for the students?

We then made our way to the woman’s group faming co-op that lies to the side of the school. Here, Madame Wade’s NGO provided low-cost loans and information to the woman’s group. On six hectares of land there are 125 plots of land, with one woman individually cultivating each plot with a sense of ownership. Fertilized by compost made at the school, watered by a manageable drip system, crops of organic onions, potatoes, and peanuts are grown. This produce is used to feed local families, with surpluses being sold. In a region where capital and natural resources are hard to come by, this sustainable masterpiece has improved the life of everyone in the village.

Our last stop was the Case de Santé where Alec and I helped take blood pressure and weight of patients before they went to see the two Brazilians in the consultation room. Visits cost roughly a dollar, and if you need any medication that is available it is given generously and free. We witnessed one person really making a difference as Salete greeted each and ever patient in perfect Wolof like and old friend- and many were. In serious cases, such as the woman with fat visible through chewed up stitched skin, people are sent on up the health structure. More often than not though, patients leave with a treatment plan for their malady, and the information to keep them healthy within the context of their lives. For example, one grand-dame came in with headaches from high blood-pressure, and left with a couple ibuprofens, instructions for them, and how to cook her ceeb u jeen in a healthier manner. In contrast to Mr. Sahko of Valda, Salete is a foreigner who seamlessly fits into the village, rejoices in contact with the commonest of commoners, and gives to people who simply cannot buy things.

M’Bissaou and Salete’s existences in Senegal are equally improbable and hopeful. The village represents what can be attained with a smart and focused development effort, while Salete represents the type of aid worker that is so rare, yet impacts for the better with each step taken.

Wrestling With Rocks

2010-04-06T19:20:00.001Z

By the way, everyone is safe and sound, and happy and healthy. Just keep that in mind while reading this. lovessssssss, me

As the cameraman scanned the seats, Alec and I were the classic toubabs seen at any event wearing some Senegalese clothing, sitting in the good seats, and complete with our camera and flip video. It was a fact happily accepted by the both of us though, as we got ready to watch a giant Senegalese wrestling competition organized by Alec’s host brother El Hadj.
First there is the dancing. The griots drum, the griottes (female griots) sing, and some of the manliest men ever do synchronized dances, even at times dropping it like its hot. As the warm up rounds started, the griots came over singing praises to the important people around us, and collected the generous donations given to them in return. As for the wrestlers, they wear the equivalent of fabric diapers and leather gris-gris, which are used as handholds while battling. One contender got without a doubt the wickedest front wedgie I have ever seen, the poor soul. The matches are also quite short in comparison with how long the buildup is. Past times during these intervals include: rating boubous and hair cuts, seeing gris-gris and Quranic water preparations, and puzzling the relative leg skinniness to uperbody massiveness.
Now the referee was this massive guy, and Alec and I presumed him to be a wrestler who was just to good to be in this small tournament. Around the third match, things were getting a bit more heated. When the two wrestlers went down, there was a discrepancy over who won. The next thing we know, the referee has a six inch hunting knife out while with the whistle in his mouth. Eventually the knife was tucked away, though we still don’t know why he had it in the first place. While arguing his case with El Hadj, Mr. Ref felt the need to repeatedly lather his face with sand. Maybe he thinks it manly and touch, or even an extreme exfoliation, but personally I would say that hurt a whole lot. Watching this all from the sidelines in our chairs next to the Chiefs, we then got a frontline view of the mediation when the referee was brought up, they talked to him, and everyone ended up laughing and happy.
The last match comes up then, it’s a fair win, and everyone goes crazy, literally. There were happy supporters in one part, and then things started falling from the sky. Alec smiled and said “look, it’s a food fight!” for he thought bread was falling from the sky. I then promptly grabbed him and made him run away with Fanta (his host mother), me, and everyone else for they were in actuality slightly large bread colored rocks. First we headed to the house next to the compound, and then with a mass of grand-dames, we all flocked to Alec’s house. There which we set out mats for the grand dames to sit on, and they explained that this is actually a fairly regular occurrence. This took maybe five minutes. Four minutes later, all was good and well, people were happy, and I caught an ndiag-ndiaye home. Dancing manliness, great pomp and ceremony, traditions galore, all the new interesting situations made for a great night?

New Marriage à la Mode Blog

2010-03-19T18:43:00.000Z

Years ago when the French first arrived in Senegal on the Island of Saint Louis, male colonists would come, create transient marriages with local women while in country, and would return to France leaving everything, including any relationship title, behind. Going by the name of “marriage à la mode”, these relationships were used by locals to advance themselves through associative power transfer, in the very least gaining status by their connections with the white colonists, and at the most ‘escaping‘to western civilization. Though many details have changed, a modern day marriage à la mode can still be seen in existence in present day Senegal.

Last week I was eating breakfast at the family restaurant, and in walked Marga (or Margia while traveling). She is average height, mid thirties, not very sweet on the eyes in the kindest way possible, a Dutch philosophy teacher for first through twelfth graders, and happens to be in Senegal for sex. Specifically with Ibrahim, who is twenty two, intelligent, speaks seven different languages, and is perfectly beautiful. While Ibrahim was fetching her breakfast, we found common ground in the fact that we both speak English better than French, and then began to discuss our reasons for being here- me with my studies, and her with Ibrahim. It turns out that she had met him on the beach of Kumba Diallo after she had become sufficiently fed up with all of her Bifall flings. Our areas converged on the topic of development, for what does this burgeoning sex and escape trade mean for a country today?

Tourism, peanuts, and music are the current industries floating Senegal along the upper tier of developing countries. Tourist come here and spend their money, be it on trinkets, transportation, lodging, guides, food, flights, or “buying some love” (a direct quote from Ms. Margia). Economics says that when there is a market and demand, no doubt a supply will be found. With its developing status and constant search for new economies, it is no wonder that Senegal has caught onto this trade. Unemployment is rampant here, even for those with college degrees. With the uneducated and graduates sitting side by side on a bench drinking tea, and a constant need for money to supply and infinite list from school to food, most will do anything for even the scent of income. This is set in contrast to the excess of the west, where surplus everything is much more common.

With respect to relationships, Toubabs offer three options today. The first option is the quite clear cut prostitution. The locals make a profit, the foreigners get what they want, and its over in whatever amount of time. Option two is the in country relationship. While here, the local will essentially be have a liaison with the foreigner, traveling, and eating, experiencing, ensemble. They may get gifts or expenses taken care of, but the most that comes out of this is a status high that many hold in a possibly warped proportion. This is only a lead up to the third and final option, which is also the goal many, not just those involved in enticing tourists on a regular basis-a real relationship and escape. The thinking being that if you make a foreigner fall in love with you, they will take you back with them, and you will have a better life and more opportunities, and hopefully send aid back to family in Senegal. Talk to any local, and presenting a migratory option will be the number one impact they think westerners have here in Senegal. Etagieres have come to the Village des Tortues and swept up workers, my host father talks of western women who cannot find eligible bachelors in their home countries coming here for prospects, and that doesn’t begin to explain how readily people acknowledge this certain foreign effect.

In a culture that supports the export and exploitation of its own people as a means to a better end, what lies on the unfortunate side of the business? Obviously the spread of disease is an ever present roar, especially with beast of AIDS in much of Africa. Beyond that though, there is the future of the people involved in this undependable commerce. Once their youth is gone, there is no saying what they will do. Yet, that just leaves them in the same situation and hundreds of thousands of their countrymen. What is to say that this is a good or bad thing then? Does the government even address it as a problem? Essentially, who cares?

Westerners are still coming to Senegal and creating fleeting status propping relationships or taking some back with them, extending the marriage à la mode fad to the current day. When Marga was exiting with Ibrahim, she parted with wishes that I have a good life. Left with a feeling of moral confusion at her actions and the obvious good person she was, my feelings mirrored the issue at hand. From the outside I can say these marriages à la mode feel wrong, if only for the exploitation, but I’m not the one looking for a hope in passports either.

Classification : Touristus éstagierus

2010-03-11T18:37:00.001Z

When you step into the Village des Tortues, it is a different world from the rest of Senegal. Not only is it a haven for the endangered G. Sulcata turtle, but also for the ample toubabs that romp around Senegal. Of late, there has been a massive influx of what I like to call Touristus éstagierus- the eco-voluntiering tourist who comes for days, weeks, or even months. They come with good intentions- be it helping the Village, learning about the culture, or just a good old cheap vacation where learning and helping just happen to be on the agenda. Upon arrival, they bring their high expectations and good intentions where they try to do everything and all at once. They are then hit with the Sengalise bug, or one could say the turtle sickness of everything always going quite slowly, leading to discontent as they see much of their efforts being thwarted (unintentionally of course). This is usually the point when the Village turns into a sanctuary for them, a little escape from the culture shock and work style that rocks them out of their token gipsy pants. Whenever any fellow toubab arrives, you can see the relief spread across their features, as here surely is someone who understands what troubles they are going through at this moment, someone they can vent to about the tea-time obsession angst or how things never happen now. In the end, they tend to leave with dreads, trinkets, or diembés that stimulate the local economy, a list of things completed that has nothing to do with what they came for, and a new found patience for themselves and the ones surrounding them. It would be easy to say that these people have a real impact here at the Village des Tortues or even in Senegal as a whole, but the majority of that is through their spending sprees. The real brunt of the implications are loaded onto these people as they return home with knowledge and a perspective that makes them separate once again. They are no longer the common ignorant toubab, nor are they really part of the country, as the haven saved them from much of reality. Indeed, they are a species all to themselves.

A Different Kind of Breakfast

2010-03-02T18:42:00.002Z

Jaimé of Spain, and Marga of Holland. Both are around their late 30’s or early 40’s, have respectable jobs ( documentary film maker and high school philosophy teacher respectively), are not the finest looking things out there ( that may be a generous description); and both came to Senegal for the same thing: sex. While it is easy enough to hear about the prostitution trade and its problems in Africa, it is something else to see it and have conversations about how it affects the development of countries while it is playing out before your eyes. The easily targeted spot here is the beach of Kumba Diallo, with Bifalls, drum circles, tourists, and their traps galore. Locals look to foreigners as a source of money, and maybe even a way out of the country, while the tourists come in looking for a good time at any rate- all creating a parasitic positive feedback loop. Of course this is confined to those few small places… right? Nope, not at all. Those who work at the Village des Tortues talk of the added bonus and chances to find romance and a way out of Senegal, in Noflaye while almost no one knows or bothers to care about the Village des Tortues environmental impact; they always talk about how some tourist come in to Noflaye,; of these some fall in love with it, and then give things, and then maybe fall in love and whisk away a someone or other. Even my host father commented yesterday on how western men and women come to Senegal in order to find a spouse as it is “just to hard” to find a good match where they come from. Parting from my breakfast meeting with Marga, or Margia when she travels, she wished me a good life, and I could not help but feel that she was a good person as was Jaimé. But oh, what a sick world.

Dude, it was hilarious though ( and a bit sad). This beautiful african guy, and this awkward pudgy dutch lady. She said she fell for him because of his mind, and how he was different than all the other bifalls. She also had a penchant for beans and a hearty breakfast. Also said i spoke french well, scorrreeee.

currently there is a massive influx of french people here, so its kina wierd. but its okay, they bring tasty treats.

fun meetings coming up, ngos of SOS envronnement et possiblement oceanium et UNICEF. fabulous.

i also made my family mint mochas this week, and it made me happy to introduce them to it ( mostly loved it, save one kid and a maid), and because i got to drink the left overs the next day. mmm tasty.

also, alec gave me some fig newtons. for the record, strawberry fig newtons reign supreme. the end, with much love

A Little Ditty About Forgiveness

2010-02-25T19:15:00.000Z

A couple of weeks ago a lot of personally and monetarily valued things were stolen from me. Cameras, phone, favorite shirts, money, and so on. The roughest part by far being the loss of my notebook containing four months of notes and all of the studies that I had completed in Noflaye thus far. The first two days were a bit rough as thoughts of all the time and money that were lost and would have to be used in order to correct the situation played a loop in my head. I may well have been the person who was hit most directly, but what mattered more was the time lost that my friends put into helping me do interviews, or Rachel having to help me figure everything out. It really wasn’t about being angry at any person, or even the events. More than anything, it was a stretch to try to actually forgive myself for not thinking of all the “what if’s” in the world, of what I could have done better. Well, in all honesty, that wouldn’t have been possible before. If this had happened when I first arrived, I would have beaten myself up for days on end, and I can only hope that I wouldn’t have let it define my year. Somehow though, it turns out that I could, and did forgive myself. It’s a bit surreal to realize that a few short months have created such a shift in me. So I leave you with my friend John Mellancamp, for oh yes, life does, in fact, go on.

February Update

2010-02-22T17:41:00.001Z

So random events that have happened of late:
Got robbed at the beach. Don’t worry, im okay, just lost a ton of things- backpack, four months of notes, cameras, money, phone.etc. The adventure of getting back included: somehow explaining to a Pular herder/ charcoal creater that we (me and one guy and girl, French) had gotten robbed in Wolof, trekking through the forest following him, getting to the village of Kayak to ‘declare’ the theft, which magically happened at the exact same moment that university students studying the salinity of the waters around lac rose came by to check the well in the village, riding around doing their studies with them until 9ish at night, getting dropped off at the village des tortues, and then using the computer and skype to finally text Rachel and tell her what happened, for no one had credit to call her (or phones or money for that matter), so she had to call the village phone. And then Tons couldn’t even come out to visit me from Dakar because there was a gas shortage and literally no gas in Dakar. Epic.
Restarted all my studies in Noflaye because they were all lost in the Robbery
Finally have a lock on my door again after we had to break it open (because my keys were stolen). It was annoying because the door would open all the time when I wasn’t home, letting in more bugs, weave piecies, onion peels, ash, and other such things.
My host father gave me a jar of Nutella to make me happy after the fact. It helped, I wont lie.
Have now taught the games “down by the river” and “duck, duck, goose” to the kids in the English club in Rufisque. The latter was a result of only having 30 minutues left in class, and we were done with playing down by the river. The advantage of the game is that it only consists of two English words. They also weren’t familiar with the word for goose in French, so they just think that it’s a very large duck.
While walking into Noflaye to start my studies I saw six women, and one kid. Three of them were packing babies ( I mean they had them on, as in strapped to their backs. it’s the way that babies are ported around there- as if they were hugging your back, and then you tie a piece of cloth around them so they stay that way.). They all had passive packs of sticks ontop of their heads as well. For some reason I think of them as a baby toting, stick brandishing, mob.
I like to learn during breakfast. For example, last week I was talking to my friend Pap during breakfast the day after Valentines day. So: women who happen to have large butts and are older are supposed to have massive gris-gris (like, leather waist bracelets) that they wear all the time. Theyre supposed to be a sign of experience, and in his words “all the bosses like to have sex with them.” Another direct quote (that has been supported by many other people, cough, men) is that “ the way to do it is to have two girlfriends- one in each separate quaarter of the town, because then you can hit them both up” (in the context of Valentines day).
Its also taboo to talk about sex with your children, which is one of the reasons that there are so many preventable events- teen pregnancy, spread of disease, etc. For example, Victoria has a cousin in her host family who has a little 8 year old boy. He had sex with a 13 year old girl. They had a baby this year. The family showed her a picture of the “happy family”-8 year old boy, 13 year old mother, new born baby-and commented on how adorable it was. I personally associate adorable with things like baby pandas who sneeze, my cat, the kids I coach, or certain acts of kindness. I associate nausea and anger with situations like that.
Just had our monthly meeting in Saint Louis, and it was amazing. Side note: I was sick before the monthly meeting and was doing a lot better. Now, Im super sick again. But it was all worth it. don’t worry, Ill be good as new in no time.
Well Matt, Alec, and I had to go to Dakar on Wednesday so that we could sleep over at rachels- for we were to leave super early in the morning in a sept-place- a clando that fits seven passengers and the driver- up to SL. Alec and I went to this place called the Chinease mission where the chinease are teaching Senegalese people farming techniques (and who Alec is friends with because he speaks mandarin, and his parents are chinease), and got a massive amount.. 10poundsish, of green leafy vegetables for dinner. We only got two bok choi, one cabbage, and one leak, and it was all 10 pounds, meaning these were massive vegetables.
On the Diagne Diage up to Dakar Matt had to pee. The word for pee in wolof is sow. The word for milk is sou (like sew). So at a stop Matt talked to the driver and was like “bug na sou, bug na sou….. Bug na sow.” I want some milk, I want some milk…. I gotta pee.” The whole front laughed hysterically- especially as the driver was looking at him with the look of “I don’t care if you want milk and it wouldn’t matter because I don’t have any… Im a driver“. They also watched him when he got off to make sure that he was doing it right, even pointing out which part of the wall he should go to. Hilarious.
In Dakar- went to the first post office in fann- and once again they told me that my package had been moved to the main post office. I then went through an extensive search and calling journey to find out if there was actually a package, or if it was just another second delivery slip for the packages that I had already gotten. Turns out that I actually had a package. Raced downtown with a very nice taximan, got there in time, got my package from Kailee (!), and my taximan even waited for me (I asked him to because he actually gave me the right rate even though I was white), back to the baobob center. I plan to share one pack of oreo’s with my family so that they can taste them. With the other packs I will then savor them with secret delight. They also don’t believe me when I say that we have peanut butter in America, so now I have an example of american peanut butter to show them!!! Great success. I also feel like I have way to many goodies now, and so little time to eat them. I finally ate my first packet of oatmeal while I was sick, and it was magical. While waiting for Matt to get his deoderant, Alec and I ransacked the book sections of the Baobab center. I believe he got over twenty books. I got a couple, but that may be just because I know I can always steal his once he finishes. Don’t worry, we will bring at least most of them back before we leave.
Then we went to Rachels. The night consisted of planning how to cook all of the vegetables and eat her leftovers that wouldn’t keep throughout the trip. So our dinner consited of : scallion pancakes, bok choi and asian cabbage lightly sautéed with garlic and olive oil, a left over bolegnese sauce, chicken soup (which we forgot until we had finished eating sadly), and a potatoe and cheese baked dish which I cant believe I just forgot the name of (potatoe slices with the cheese/cream in between each of them, then baked, whatever, Ill remember one day). It was superb. The sad thing being that because I was sick I had absolutely no appetite. Its okay though, I still ate a ton just because I thought it would be a waste not to take the delicious opportunity.
The sept place ride in the morning was… tight. Alec, Matt, and I squished into the back of a hatchback on the seats that have negative leg room for 3 hours and then some. I got through two of the readings for the monthly meeting, complete with really illegible notes (other than hitting potholes, the car itself actually vibrated at all speed), and only a couple of head smashing potholes.
We actually stayed in a hotel. Rachel warned us that this would be like a mini vacation, and in all honesty it was. There was even hot water (okay, warm, but mainly not cold water), a pool (used once even though I knew it would make me a bit sicker), wi-fi (probably the surrealist thing), a ping pong table (not used because there was not enough time), and such hotel like things. We all felt a bit weird and out of place to be honest. Almost like we were cheating, even if there was nothing to be cheating in.
Day one was taken up travel up until 3, then lunch (Rachel and Tons had to pick up the Sebikotan girls, and Rachel had a doctors appointment in the morning that ran over, yes, I probably got sick from here. Oh well.), a bit of a break, and into Saint Louis as the sun was setting in order to see all the building and do historical walks and such, which was made a bit hard by Rachel having no voice. It was beautiful though, tons and tons of colonial architechture- much of which resembles the old buildings in New Orleans if you want a reference point. But many of which are crumbling down due to lack of funds to restore them. Then went to a Dijbeterie- basically a Senegalese meat restaurant where we all shared this massive plate of grilled lamb. Oh Senegal
Day two was talking about all of our readings. They were superbly interesting- underdevelopment theory, flaw in aid, colonial economic policy, and so on. We also talked about things that we have accomplished and things that still wait for it.
Day three was a visit to Diouje (sp) national park- over 365 species of birds. Tons of videos and pictures and such. Also visited the damn on the Senegal boarder. Rachel wouldn’t let us run across the Mauritania border or even get close to it because it supposedly has new Al Qaeda connections.
Got back yesterday. Smuggled two chocolate croissants. Am currently superbly sick again.
I read the Phantom tollbooth in less than six hours, and it was amazing. Havnt quite decided what I will read next. Probably will actually work on writing letters oh joy.
Looking to set up meetings with Oceanium and UNICEF. That is on the very optimistic side though.
Its absolutely crazy to think that there are only two months left. I feel like I have so much to do and so little time to do them. Yet two months is still pretty long if you think about it.
Now off to read more, or respond to letters. Probably the latter. or write official blgos

Pictures!!!!!!!!!

2010-01-29T19:01:00.002Z

epic failures on posting, I know, but on the bright side during my first chance to be online for what seems like forever, I have uploaded a ton of photos. Touba and Safari (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) enjoy.

Touba, home of the Mouride brotherhood

Safari.... SAFARIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shadows of Aid

2010-01-21T17:06:00.001Z

The morning is still dark as I sit in my Ndiaga Ndiaye on the way to Rufisque. The single light bulb hanging from a failing red wire illuminates me, casting a grand silhouette, maybe four times my size, on the passing scenery.

The past few weeks I have been getting a wealth of opinions on aid projects in Senegal from different people. Always associated with the white foreigner, the missions seems to be like my shadow-bloated, by inefficiencies and lack of follow up. There is plenty of money being thrown into the aid pot. For if you have a cause, there is likely to be someone supporting it, from environmental protection to helping school children to mental illness. The main difference seems to come from what creates the shadow. Is there something concrete behind it, or is it just the wind?

The first popular path is the politicians route where one procures the aid funding (from the government or an aid organization), creates a project that is usually focused around “sensiblisation” (informing part of the population), obtains volunteers, feeds and gives shirts to these volunteers with half of the funding, and finally keeps the last half of the funding to fill up the coffers. Corruption is rampant in almost all developing countries and on the rise in Senegal specifically. However, there are some projects where only the government can sufficiently address the problem. As private organizations who give to the campaigns though, NGOs have the opportunity to see exactly where their money is going and what it is doing. For their caused can be worthy, but if the money and effort do nothing but further a fraudulent system, what is the point?

The next path is a half support system, represented perfectly in my apprenticeship site of the Village des Tortues. It was created with the help of SOPTCOM, the European Union, the Senegalese government, and other donators. Currently my host father acts as the representative of SOPTCOM for the Village, working there around twice a week. The major issue within the Village itself is the structure that now exists. It was started, and can now subsist and function by itself, but there is no real room for improvement. Every now and then the government will give money if there is not enough to feed the turtles, or SOPTCOM will donate something or other to help update the Village, like a computer. Both resources give the Village a bigger safety net up to a certain point, allowing it to beg at both ends when there is some dire need, but never really let it progressively function independently. Just like this confused system, the actual impact of the Village des Tortues is buried underneath possibilities and dead ends.
Then there is the rare path of possible success, where there is a solid impact behind that wispy shadow of promotion. Hilary and I recently started working at L’Ecole la Sagesse, a private school helped along by a Canadian group that emphasizes teaching methods other than repetition. While their upper levels have not reached their potential yet, the lower schools have an unheard of near perfect success rate. Besides test scores, you can see the impact by just talking to a child and hearing something in return that is less of a parakeet, and more of an honest answer. Yet we still must wait and see what will happen in the future with the students, if they in fact will grow up to look outside of the “normal Senegalese box,” which is literally full of the same material it was when their grandparents were in school.

These routes of aid offer much hope, for in any case they show that people still care- that we have not settled into a normalcy alongside travesties. Though these Senegalese exhibits of aid do present a dire need, that being for the organizations and people to take a complete stake in the ownership and the impact of what they do. For the most part, there is no lack of ideas, just a lack in seeing that some things need the new dreams.

A couple Pictures

2010-01-11T10:07:00.001Z

Boarder Running

2010-01-11T10:03:00.001Z

Well Hello to all! Basic summary: the birthday was amazing. Not necessarily because I got to go to Gambia- but just everything went perfectly, and it seemed to go on for about three days. Its like those days where your just incredibly happy-and you really don’t need to justify it

-New Years- crepes with chocolate and banana and chocolate and lemon (because I was to lazy and enjoying myself to much to go and get the sugar). They were heavenly I have to say. Usually I win my battle when telling Aida that Im full and would like to stop eating. I gave and just let her feed me about three crepes and couldn’t fit the fourth one that she gave me for the walk over to Awa’s, so I just gave it to Awa. There definitely was contemplation of eating it throughout the walk, but it would have been physically impossible since I had eaten a lot at dinner (breaded fried chicken, the best type here, I just try to stop thinking about how much oil goes into everything, and I had already eaten melon)
-New Years is so much less here. I was doing a crossword puzzle and they flipped the channel to a view of Dakar and there were just a bunch of people in the streets and about three or four firworks in their midst (I guess you could say that is dangerous). A bit later I looked at my phone….. It was 12:15. Turns out that was the big scene that went off when the new year came in. I guess you could say I started the year on an intellectual note, looking on the bright side of it.
-Woke up a bit before 6am on my birthday to get ready to go. I made a sandwich with pain au lait, peanut butter and then chocolate on half and honey on the other. Quite a superb birthday breakfast I think. I would like to take a pause and talk about the deliciousness of the honey here. After I discovered that I could eat it and not throw up or get incredibly sick (SCORE), Ive been eating it ever since, with breakfast that is. It is better for you than jam, correct?
-I wore a dress for my birthday- the Senegalese one I got made. Yeah, see, the dress thing is real, who woulda thunk?
-Got to see Rachel for the first time since she came back from the states (she spend all of new years eve/day on a plane. That is real dedication). She said she liked my dress. She brought me calcium (now praying for the hair debacle to cease), quaker instant oatmeal (possible to make here; reminds me of the Lindquists, not that they eat huge amounts of it, but oh well), and gum. Alec and I rode in her car with Babacar driving-Alec fell asleep and was drooling. We all laughed a bit. Shout out for Paul Simon- that was the first cd we listened to. Overall, it definitely didn’t feel like a five hour drive
-Did some stuff……at the Gambia border we ate lunch-sandwiches. Another shout out for smoked turkey (delish) and Schweppes, which I know how to pronounce but never do it right. Got in trouble for taking a picture of the border post, supposobly its illegal or something. I was not arrested. It was super bizarre to have people crazy selling cashews and other very Senegalese things… in English (gambia was an English colony).
-There was this group of American (we think) tourist that were also crossing over the border. They all got completely mobbed and jipped by the cashew sellers. That is why you don’t wear fanny packs, visors, shorts or anything that shoes your knees, and big flashing signs that say ’ I didn’t bother to read up on the cultural notifications before I came, so Ill just give you some money to apologize.’

-Took taxies to the ferry which took us to the capital Banjul-so amazingly beautiful. It was like Dakar, but there were trees, the sellers were less belligerent, and the architecture was English colonial, not French. Got some sweeeeeet pictures. They were still celebrating the new year (tamxarit, not the western new year) which we found out by hitting a parade of people screaming ‘one love’ and ‘happy new year’. Some people had Halloween style masks on…… and then there was a person dressed as a fruit basket. I mean this with all seriousness… he was a fruit.

-We got to go up on this huge arch, kina like the L’arc de Triumph. The security guard was wearing a hat that said “uncle sams guard”. Beautiful view.

-Then recrossed the boarder and ate Madelines on the way to Babacar’s family’s house in Tambacouda. Rachel had interviened in the cooking and made them make rice without Maggi and very little oil. Newsflash: there is hope for Senegalese food, its just that no one knows it yet.

-Went to our ‘hotel thing’ which consisted of rooms and showers. On the bright side, there were showers and it was pretty clean in general. There was also a gazebo for some reason, but hey, I wasn’t going to argue. (this was around 11pm by the way).

-So Rachel told Hilary and I that Victoria had this massive bed and that we would be jealous, so don’t go look. Naturally we both sprinted to Victoria and Gaya’s room- I leaped onto the bed. Bad move, as I broke it. Rachel laughed a lot. It turns out your supposed to put as little pressure on Senegalise beds as possible because the boards are usually really really thin, or already broken. So I will now never be able to live down the fact that I broke the bed-and everyone says it was my jayfunday-they thinks its more fun to say that its that than the mere jumping action and weak boardness.

-Victoria and I were sitting on Gayas bed when everyone comes in with this super mini cake with two candles-the happy birthday song for the both of us. Gaya brought trick candles.

-I just didn’t really go to sleep. And Nic called me at 3am to wish me happy birthday! But I had to go because hilary was in my room. Probably fell asleep somewhere around 5.
-We had this amazing breakfast over at Rachel and Babacars hotel, which is basically a resort. There was even a swimming pool. It would take to long to describe how much I ate (at least four pastries, threeish pieces of break, fruit, coffee, juice, obeseness), but it was a lot. And delicious. I figure it still counted as my birthday so why not eat tastyness while I can?
-Babacar can eat a whole banana in around two bites- that is ridiculous. I would almost go as far to say as law defying. Newton would have a hiss fit with it.
-Senegalise people love me a disproportionate amount for absolutely no reason. One of the running jokes is about how Im Babacars favorite. And then his family loved me, asking me to sleep there after dinner, of course, just making it worse. I mean its not a bad thing, its more that we cannot figure out why it happens with everyone. Rachel said one possibility is that I laugh a lot-but who knows.
-Two days ago my host father said that he will miss me a lot when I go back to america. Aw shucks.
-I ate two bananas and an orange on top of breakfast and lunch today. Granted, lunch was at 4pm today because my host family made food for the towns people who are building a wall around the cemetery. Since it was my day off I read, did yoga, did laundry, and am now doing this…. And ate.
-Im sorry for talking about food all the time.
-I stayed in Dakar after the Gambia trip so that I could pick up my packages on Monday. Which would constitute the third day of my birthday because I got to open some of the most amazing presents and cards ever. Words don’t quite express how happy I was, and they really couldn’t ever do it justice. I put some of the wrapping paper up on my wall collage because Im that cool.
-On January 15th, I will be half way through my stay in Africa, which is ridiculous to think about. Coincidentally it coincides with our next monthly meeting-which is in Dakar, but for the middle day we will be in the Mourite capital, Touba (mourtides are a sect in the Islamic faith, led by Cheikh Amadou Bamba)
-Hopefully Ill get to start my study this week!!! And I had my first day in Rufisque with an English club at L’Ecole la Sagesse (school of wisdom). I think it will basically turn into me and Hilary teaching the kids things that they would actually use in a real conversation/ how to understand what they are saying, not just memorize it. Its really interesting because that’s actually the goal of the school (private)-to differentiate from the regular Senegalese school that just makes kids memorize everyyyything. The kids are seriously memorizing the same passages that their parents did 40 years ago. What a need for educational reform. So there is a lot of opportunity there. They brought me into the room-kids lining the wall- told me to introduce myself- and then the lady was like, this is my co-leader. Now can you do something for us? So much for having time to plan. It could have been a lot worse though. Also, I get to eat at the principals house (he is short, my heightish. I don’t know why I keep noticing short people), and he doesn’t like magi or oil either!!!! Probably because he’s really good friends with a Canadian-who put him in contact with GCY.
-Its amazing how talking to someone for even a few minutes, makes me so happy. There would be no asymptotes on my happiness curve, which is exponential. You know you went to Raleigh Charter when you even think things like that, much less arnt embarrassed enough to type it out and not delete it.
-Ive been ridiculously tired the whole week. Its possible that its from my epic battle with sleep on the gambia trip (being up for almost 24 hours, and then getting three hours of sleep, and then about 5 or 6 when I was in Dakar), or that the random awakenings have restarted ( the odd things is, Im really awake, as in I could go for a run…. At 4am), or who knows.
-Two French ecovoluntiers are here. They are quite pleasant. One is named eddie- he kina looks like a dwarf, not in the short way, but in the very stocky big nosed jolly way. He also had a rattail which is bothersome. The other is named Camille- she is pleasantly plump, but doesn’t seem to eat a lot. Or maybe she just eats lots of delicious cookies-they gave me one. They are called pepitos and they have a little animal with a sombrero on the front. They are from here, or France technically, trader joes? Note: they were actually not made in Turkey. Its okay, I was shocked too.
-I still have the henna on my nails from Tabaski. I think it will wear off just in time for the henna that they plan to give me before I go back to the US.
-It hailed once in Senegal sometime around 30 years ago, just like the cookies, another shocking thing. The people ate it off the streets.
-There was a flipped car last night from someone hitting a pot hole. No one was injured. It was quite a side to see a car flipped back over.
-Last night was my birthday dinner since I was gone on my birthday-yassa poulet ontop of Moroccan couscous (my host mother was reluctant to make the couscous, but she knows I love it. Who cares if they think its cheap. Its tastier and healthier=fabulous). It made me very happy.

Hope this finds you all well,even though I dont really know who that means, but as always,

With love,

Ananda

Gore Video Outtakes

2009-12-29T13:41:00.001Z

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Yep, outtakes are always more fun I think. Enjoys, muchos grandes love

-Ananda

The British Are Coming, the British Are Coming!!! Or, err, the bread?

2009-12-29T13:34:00.001Z

8:00 a.m. - Wake up, get ready for the day, head over to our family’s restaurant to go eat my bread and tegga degga (natural, no added hydrogenated oil, peanut butter, yum).
8:30 a.m. - Find out that the bread has, in fact, not already arrived at Mamour’s Boutique, and so we stop and pass the time by trying to be the first person to find the white, hearse shaped, bread car. There are an amazing amount of imposter cars.
9:15am- People search the other boutiques in town for the remnants of last night’s bread, which isn’t exactly soft anymore. About three people get to eat and go on with their days. Currently the whole village is at a standstill- no one goes anywhere or does much of anything, as we are all playing the waiting game. This would be why people have so much patience here.
10:03 a.m. - Bread Arrives!!!!!!!!! We jokingly cheer, people eat, lives commence, and I go to work.
It’s easy to take something simple out of this situation- like if there was ever a war in Senegal, just go for the bread makers and the whole country would stop- yet it exemplifies so much more. The plain, empty, usually abundant, cheap white baguette bread that is sold here is essential to almost every person and household as a cheap way to get calories. While people eat things like chocolate spread or eggs with their bread sometimes, it is simply not within most families means to make meals, most of the times for huge households, that don’t contain a one food or another that can inexpensively fill people up. Here its rice, couscous for the poorer families (even though it has more nutrients), and bread and, from what I gather, its beans and tortillas in Guatemala. Either way, it is distinct example of the poverty and fragility with which the people around me live. One little thing, like not having the bread delivered, or how yesterday there was just simply no water, can completely change or halt life here. There are no back up plans, no second options to help life continue. For that takes money, space, liberty, ideas, whatever you may- all of which are harder to come by, the poorer you are.

Christmas Mashing of the Mass

2009-12-29T12:35:00.001Z

America is known for its obsession with political correctness. Have any public figure make one slip or slightly slanted joke, and the horse race media takes it over to spin every angle and proportion out of the story. Senegal for one, runs on a very different scale of political correctness, neatly exemplified by how I’m always greeted by the name toubab, or whitey. I’ve always thought of myself as a person who’s pretty good at handling humor or politics, whether I agree with them or not. Then I went to mass on Christmas morning, which had been moved from the night before due to the fact that the Pastor didn’t show up. I knew that it wouldn’t be the same as Duke Chapel, but expected consciously and unconsciously, the same love, peace, and nondenominational message. While the people at the mass call themselves Christians in general, it was a very distinctive Catholic service, complete with Holy Communion. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, but it was just a bit surprising. Then the Pastor went on to preach. It started with the peace and love message, and then slowly turned into a joke about how God did not, in fact, make an original fish that then turned into man- Church 1: Evolution: 0. Then he really got rolling: while the Muslims should be applauded for asking for forgiveness each year, how can they believe in more profits than just Jesus? While we are all good Christians, we must remember to set an example for others. Look at Rwanda, they are 94 percent Christian and have had the genocide of the century! Something about Taiwan and Toubab (Alec and I) followed when the Pastor switched to wolof. Finally, it was all capped off when I met the Pastor at the end of the service… and he commenced to try and get me to marry him and bring him back to America with me. While this may have just been a very…individualy interpreted holiday message, it was quite an experience. Touché Senegal, for now being called toubab is on the politically correct side my scale.

Gore Video

2009-12-29T12:25:00.000Z

The Absolute Randomest Jumpiest post ever, yay week of Christmas.

2009-12-27T18:08:00.001Z

Fun updates in bad grammar, yay!!!

Okay, well lets see. This week was pretty crazy. Went to Dakar on Monday with my host mother to get a pair of jeans that actually fits (the ones I brought are more like comfy bagginess, not exactly good for anything but lounging and such), and then ended up having to go back the next day at (woken up at 5:50 am, left at 6:30, got there at 9:25) to fill out visa forms for Gambia and get our visa pictures taken. All of us, except matt, went to this French restaurant/bakery for lunch and it was complete heaven. I had a three cheese quiche and a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I may have felt slightly sick from the richness of it all, but it was sick heaven. Then there was a bus ride from 2 to 6 to get back to my town (with no traffic, I think it would take about 30 min, maybbbbe).

So I was going to go to midnight mass on Christmas eve… and then my friend Marcel (christian) comes back, and says that the pastor either didn’t want to come, or couldn’t find transport… so mass was put off until 10am on Christmas day. Then comes a very catholic service, which I was surprised at simply because im used to a very non denominational service. And then there was the pastor. Well, first he made a joke about evolution and how god didn’t make an original fish that then turned into a man. Then there was the laugh at how Muslims believe in a prophet other than just Jesus (but they have the redeeming quality of asking for forgiveness for the new year). “for even though we Christians live love and peace, we need to remember that those are our values. Look at Rwanda. Its 94% Christian, yet they have had the genocide of the century”. Then there was something about a whitey and asian (Taiwan, made me laugh) when he said some stuff in Wolof. Finally, when I met him after the service, he hit on me and asked to go to America with me like every other Senegalise man. Yep, it was epic, and made me miss home quite a bit. At least it’s a good story though. Oh, and the chorus…they have a drum section.. Even the national service had a drum section for the chorus. Silent Night with added beats is just wrong.

Um, lets see, on Christmas day there was a ‘christian’ Christmas party over in sangalkam- first there was this choral concert, but like there was the African drumline, and then all the old fat ladies would bust out dancing once the beat hit. Then it was on to the dance, around 1 am, where I must say, I kill. I finally learnt the ridiculous Senegalese dance moves, and everyone was basically in awe that a toubab/whitey could dance. I probably dance with you know, at least a third of the people there. I decided to help Penda to convince Aida to let her come to the party with us, but shes really kina awkward,/ boringinsh, I thought sprining her from the coop would make her livelier, but sadly, not really at all. Africans are super into the whole make a circle and have people show off in the middle, yep, me= champion.
Then last night was this festival called TamXarit (tam harit), which is the muslim new year. Basically all the kids dress up as opposites- girls as men, guys as girls) and go around playing drums and dancing for money, rice, or couscous at different houses (that’s sounds really bad I know). I was pretty much the money maker for my shock value, as a white person participating, and for my fabulous dance skills which everyone was amazed with (thank you previous night for giving me them).

missing driving- its so nice, fun, and freeing.

So I got home at 1:40am on Christmas eve (went to Sangalkam to visit Marcel and I‘s friends and at least see the church on Christmas eve (im not super religious, its just a family tradition to go to duke for midnight mass, so it was more of missing the family than anything religious. Marcel is my neighbor, fellow christian, and all around good guy that my parents trust), Rachel called me at 2:50 am, but I was lying awake in bed since I suck at sleeping, and then I talked to her for an hour and eventually fell asleep around 4:30am. Then after the party, I got home around 4 am (it took like half an hour to walk home), and fell asleep sometime after that, and was up until about 12ish last night writing stuff. So im pretty dang exhausted to say the least. But on the bright side it was all pretty fun, and it was something different and new and good. Got to talk to the family for like, an hour and a half on Christmas day, which made me super happy. Im having them freeze me peppermint bark chocolate because its basically beyond delicious and can be bought only during the holiday season (even though I make it as a chritmas preasent every year for people, but hey, its different). My host mother bought singing lights to put up in her ‘restaurant’, by singing it means notes that hare much higher than Alvin in the chipmunks, and there arent even words. Thank gosh she finally learned how to turn it down.

Okay, apologies for how everything jumps around. Loveeeeeeeee

Ananda

pictures of tamxarit to follow

Happy Holidays

2009-12-23T18:27:00.002Z

Merry Christmas guys! Or kwanza or Hannukah or whatever you like really. Miss you all and hope everything goes/is going spectacular. Eat tons for me. Im starting to take down all the recipes so I can make them when i get back (only the ones i like of course, they do exist). Promise to take pictures on Christmas and New Years, and the day after Christmas, which i forgot the name of, but its basically cross dressing day and all the men go house to house in womens clothing singing and you give them money. That promises to be hilarious.love you all,

-Ananda

Leaving Dakar Video!

2009-12-20T18:38:00.000Z

Poverty's Design

2009-12-20T17:55:00.000Z

There are many different scales by which to measure poverty: less than a dollar a day, being able to provide food, shelter, healthcare, emergency funds, stability, etc. Compared to many places in Senegal, my community is pretty well off in that the majority of the population can afford at least their food and house, which is either a gray concrete block or a thatched hut with some form of tin usually attached. When walking home from work, I have two views in front of me. On the right, there is the lush reserve where the different flora and fauna create a quilt of beauty. To my left though, is the plain and gaunt grey concrete wall that seems to never end – changing from wall to wall, house to house, and grey to grey to grey to grey. To be sure, this design is not representative of a culture which is full of so much character and color in every aspect of life. So here’s another face of poverty, shown by the simple fact that putting color into one’s life is almost always beyond ones means.

I promised...

2009-12-20T17:33:00.002Z

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

Current TV Blog

2009-12-20T17:29:00.001Z

Hey guys, so Current TV is doing a blog about/with GCY fellows, which is pretty dang cool. So heres the link, and below is the blog that will be appearing on it.

http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/12/14/global-citizen-year/

Home’s a pretty big deal to me, its where I feel safe and comfortable, where all my roots are, where I go to relax, breathe, and just be. From what I can tell my new home here in Senegal, which I will be staying in for six months, is just a tad bit different. First, it’s all hustle and bustle. Eleven children (of which three pairs share the same name) divided between two sets of parents in the two parts of the house, a restaurant to run, relatives and friends always coming and going, and cooking and dishes are forever being done. Not quite the same ambiance as my Dad, cat, and I. Then there is the hierarchy that exists. Bali and Awa clean and cook for the house and restaurant, only the women do any chores, older people get more food and respect, and then there’s the fact that while they think of me as part of the family, I’m still separate from it. Growing up with two brothers and a sister, we all did our equal share of chores, whether it was vacuuming or the dishes. When eating, we were given equal shares of food which were not divided by age or sex. This difference in hierarchy has led me to feel as if I’m playing politics at home, for everything I do has a different significance and every American expectation of equality is out of place. Along that line, independence is a very different thing here. No matter what I do, be it going to the bathroom or work, I am always asked what I’m doing, for permission must be granted to do almost anything (not going to the bathroom, thank you very much). Back in America I have a freedom to go almost anywhere, and a Dad who just wants to know if I’m okay, not what I plan to do after showering. All at once I am the most independent that I have ever been, far, far away from everything that I know, and yet the most dependent as I have rules and expectations from a family and culture that are foreign to me. True, I probably couldn’t imagine a more different home. Nevertheless, I still eat breakfast with my ‘dad’ here, enjoy helping to cook, do my own laundry (it just takes a bit more work here), and have the sanctuary of reading (as I am lucky enough to have my own room). Being here for almost two months, I know that I’m not at home yet. It is possible though, so I’m looking forward to having over four months to find out.

Pictures and new schedule!!

2009-12-18T17:13:00.002Z

So a quick update of what ive been working on to make my week consist of ( note, the study and rufisque english club begin after christmas). Hope to get a good post up on sunday.

once a week i have french/wolof classes at matts house with his host father

then ill be helping with an english club in sangalkam at a school once a week

then one in rufisaque with this canadian ngo

im doing a study in my town about the imact of the village of tortues, and then seeing peoples view about the environment in general so that i can apply it to senegeal, africa, and developing nations in general

a project to grow trees for noflaye and the people in it, and hopefully getting the children involved so that it interests them in the environment and becomes sustainable

teaching the Bali and Awa ( in the picture above, awa has curly hair, this is the one who does the housework) french

tutorng my little brother Tomas in english and french when he gets home

turtoring my mentors little sister person in reading french

oh and working at thsi libraary that my host father started that is like a preschool in the morning, adn like a study/ game place for older kids in the afternoon

Hope to get a good one up on Sunday, Love you all,

Ananda

Day of Sacrifice.... Litterally

2009-12-09T17:20:00.000Z

Well to say the least, chickens are no big deal. I mean really, they are small, equivalent to a soccer ball. You could even kick them if you really wanted to. Rams are really not small, and I’m sure that if you kicked one, that it would kick you back, with sure damage being done. This past Tabaski was a day of Senegalese food and fashion immersion. The day started out with the peeling of about four kilos each of onions and potatoes. Peeler blister and onion tears: check. Be proud though, I only started crying after onion kilo 2.5. My little brother Thomas then dragged me to the other side of the building so that I could join in on the Ram Fest 09’. I had the pleasure of coming in just as they were slitting Ram #2’s throat : three full grown men holding the ram to the ground with its neck opening up to the earth as its life flowed from it. I promise I only jumped around and freaked out for a couple of minutes. Taking back up my butcher title, I was allowed to skin the hind leg. The trick is to get the knife to find the line between the thin layer of fat, and the lean muscle. I think I actually did pretty well as my host father was particularly impressed with the fact that my leg was cut better than the ones not done by me. That is where my skinning ended though, as they slung up the ram on the wall in order to let the blood drain out as they hacked off bits and pieces with a machete. After a brief period of washing my hands, I moved on to cleaning and separating the hacked chunks of ribs, shanks, and other mystery meats. This lasted a couple of hours, as you much imagine that a full grown ram consists of quite a lot of meat. Fast forward to nighttime when I go to put on my fabulous boubou, or traditional Senegalese outfit. With bright green with gold embroidery shirt, paine (like a skirt), and foulard (a head wrap), matching luminescent green eye shadow that I never knew existed, cornrows intact, and henna on the hands, I was a sight to be seen. All around me there were exclamations of “rafet na trop!”, basically “Its really pretty!.” I stand by the fact that I looked like a jolly green octopus, and possibly even more out of place than usual. The night began with a traipsing around the village visiting different families, and ended at my friend Awa’s house with legitimate dance lessons. Beginning my day as a butcher, I finally transformed into the jolly green octopus that dances. There was no thing that was more important than another, just a totality of a complete experience… and knowledge that I helped kill my universities mascot of course.

Pictures!!!

2009-12-09T16:40:00.001Z

You know your in Senegal when…

2009-12-09T15:43:00.001Z

Dont worry, I promise a legitimatish post soon. sorry its been so long. Really, it seems like so little gets done here, yet your always busy, even if being busy entails waiting for hours on end. Oh well, here ya go.

The closest thing you get to snow is hundreds of small white butterflies flying across the road
More of those butterflies use intersections to cross than people do
Every single meal takes a couple of hours to cook… and contains at least a liter of oil
You start to only care about mosquitoes being in your room. Crickets, salamanders, spiders, roaches, flies, and everything else seem to matter much less.
The crickets are black… and freaking massive. They also never die. Seriously, they are pretty much indestructible. Only a firm shoe, not a flip flop, can terminate them.
People invest in sheep and construction, not stocks.
Shop talk is of those sheep, not the local sports or politics.
The soap operas are way worse than anything you can imagine. Half of the 30 minute period is literally taken up by ‘shoom, shoom, shoom,’ close-ups. Search Vidaye
If done, giving to the poor must be done strategically. First, food is best, because you never know where the money goes. When giving leftovers, you must then make sure that they do not know where you live in order to avoid masses outside of your house. Note: this applies almost exclusively to toubabs.
It is still easier to find bilingual people than in America… even if the other language is only spoken in a couple square miles of the world.
Doing your laundry draws a crowd… and makes your hands raw
At the sight of food variety an ingrained instinct to scarf takes over. No, there is no hope, only the thought of whether the next cookie will make you throw up or pop. Either way, one eats the cookie.
Having the fashion sense of a teletubbie is prime. Monotone is in, and you can never forget to match your eye shadow/liner to your outfit. Now that would be a tragedy.
Things get steadily less gross… skinning chickens, skinning lambs….fat mothers breastfeeding in front of company….finding out that most people really aren’t fat. I have a tally of six slightly overweight men so far. Women do get bigger as they get older, but only to the point of fabulous jaiefunday.
Its funny that my goal in life is not: to have a jaiefunday, to get married around the age of 18, to find a Senegalese man, to find the most ways to get out of my work, and is not to win a gossip championship (which applies to about half of everyone).
When random strangers try to pay for everything you are doing (from buying fruit to taking the bus) because this is the country of Taranga, or hospitality. Exhibit A. On the way to Dakar I met a man who worked in the airport. We were talking, and while I was looking out the window, he paid for me without me noticing. After about twenty minutes of trying to pay him back, and him not letting me, I gave him my grapefruit, which was worth roughly the same amount, and he barely let me give him that.
People tend to adjust their clothes outside of a bathroom more often than inside of one.
Half of one shopping can be done from your car/bus window as you wait in traffic and vendors walk past with good either on their heads or hanging off of wires. I really think it would be easy to steal a banana off of one of the ladies heads as the bus drives off, hypothetically of course.
You make mashed potatoes… and then mash them with a fork.
You jump onto your public transport while it is still in motion, just as you leave your transport while it is still in motion

A Couple Pictures

2009-11-22T15:38:00.001Z

YAYYYY, Legitimate update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-11-22T15:37:00.000Z

It seems that I have discovered that flu and cold seasons actually change with the period in the year, not the actual coldness of a place. Currently I’m sitting in my little mosquito net (feeling the good ol’ wooden boards of my bed that come through my foam mattress) and am a bit sick to say the least. Truthfully, twenty minutes ago was not a content part of my life, but I’m doing a whole lot better now as I just went and looked through all of my pictures. Somehow they all seem so much more vibrant here, and I don’t know why. So I figure that while I take a break from reading, which actually is making me really happy, for it’s a personal time that often is not gotten here, I should give one of my super fantabulistic updates. Here goes:
-Fruit in general is way cheaper out here. I bought a grapefruit for 100cfa, which is roughly 22 cents. How freaking awesome is that? Yes, I get cheap thrills out of grapefruit prices.
-I’m reaching the beginning of that bored phase that Rachel was talking about with our apprenticeships. I really should find out the difference, if there is any, between a terrapin, a tortoise, and a turtle. These wonderful English brothers and a father (who sailed down here and are going to sail to Brazil next) brought it up and I honestly have no worldly idea.
-We have a turtle named Bill Clinton because he arrived at the same day that Bill Clinton was visiting Senegal. And the girl turtle in his pen? Monica. Monica Lewinsky. When I asked where Hilary was the Senegalese just laughed at me. It was worth a try right?
-I sent of some Christmas letters this past Monday. It feels wrong as Thanksgiving hadn’t even passed yet. Kind of like when you see Halloween decorations alongside the back to school section.
-I finally got to go on a tour of the whole reserve and it was actually fabulously interesting. I got to see a glimpse of the actual relationship between the community and the reserve. Also, sweet pictures are on the way. And if they aren’t sweet, at least they are pictures right?
-The computer at the reserve has a European keyboard. So from using that a bit, I now cannot type on an American keyboard or a European keyboard. It’s like my spelling is half French and half English now. I am aware that you all are probably laughing at me because the spelling failures were there way before French became a daily part of my life. It’s okay, now I just have a good excuse. For the record I can’t spell check because every time I try it deletes the blog post. So there.
-Did you know that the QWERTY Keyboard was actually created in order to be the slowest possible arrangement of keys for typing? With every other arrangement of keys the person using the keyboard on a typewriter would write to fast and ended up jamming the keys, so they had to make a keyboard that limited this ability. I think the one I use is an AZERTY keyboard, even though I doubt that is the official name of it.
-The family is still all around nice. I came to a really interesting realization though. With the mother you know how I described her in western terms. Well after thinking it over with Rachel’s words in my head I found something out that is quite obvious, but that I just don’t think about often. Really, I know cognitively that it is a cultural difference that creates the difference in the way the mother acts in contrast to what I am used to viewing. I saw her as an overbearing person in America, but here it is a normal way to show that you care. It was not hard to cognitively think through that. Instead I find the hard part is having your emotions reflect the knowledge. For feeling that someone is overbearing is much different than knowing. So maybe that will be one of the greatest changes…. in eventually having my emotions and reactions change in accordance with the knowledge.
-Almost all of the cookies here are from Turkey. Don’t ask me why, but I would love to know the reason. Is Turkey secretly the cookie capital of the world? Was the cookie monster born in Turkey? Or now he is the Vegetable Monster anyways so it doesn’t matter. What has the world come to when the cookie monster now eats carrots? Appalling, just appalling.
-Bug spray kills ants. So there is always a huge amount of bugs in my room at night as the single light bulb that is on my wall entices them to crawl through the door crack. Then, by morning, for some reason around half of them end up dead on my floor. I’m pretty sure part of this is due to them flying through my fan. This creates an odd little buzzing sound for a couple of seconds, which freaked me out when I didn’t know what it was. Now I just laugh a little bit. Anyways, it turns out that the ants then come down my door frame and act as little the little soldiers that they are and clean up the mess of dead bugs by carrying them off to the nest (I have no idea where that is). Anyways, it turns out that bug spray kills ants. I wonder if I sprayed a mosquito in mid air if it would die? Don’t worry, I sweep a lot.
-Chapstick is such a life saver here.
-A couple hypothetical/research questions that I’ve been thinking of: Note: I’m just throwing these out there as things I was thinking about. I have no proof of anything, only questions to be asked and answered.
Does poverty correlate to distance from the equator? Possibly there is a relationship to the long breaks necessary in the middle of the day because of the heat, and the relative poverty of many countries along the equator.
In Chinese culture ‘inventiveness’ was always a cherished quality. The inventions of gunpowder, silk, fireworks, etc. were always a huge source of pride for the Chinease. Coincidently many of their inventions involved heavy left brain thinking. Is it possible that from the old times left brain-mathematical-hard science types succeeded more passed on their genes more successfully, and has led today to a relative ease with these subjects for the modern Chinese person? Essentially did natural selection in south East Asia make mathematical sciences types more successful, which in turn has led to the current way that Southeast Asia dominates these fields?
-Does anyone remember the term for when something is transferred from one culture to another but it does not necessarily fit? It happened a lot in colonial times. For example, the French came to Senegal and put in place their education system. Or you can look at any of the Spheres of Influence. I just forgot the term. Something with mirroring maybe? If only I could go back to freshman year world history for a day.
-This all makes me sound much spiffier that I actually am. Do not be fooled
-I have continued with my culinary excursions here. I had a chawarma in Rufisque, which it turns out I had in Dakar too I just didn’t remember the name, but it’s basically beef( sawed off this massive pieces that is rotating in one of those keep-em-hotters), tomatoes, onions, and some type of pepper, French fries, and all of that put in a wrap. Actually really tasty-but it would be much better without the French fries. I found out that there is actually at point that the French fries are not sickly here, which is up to four minutes after they have been cooked. The problem is that they are usually eaten and hour or two after they are made. Humph. I’m currently eating cookies with the name of Karsa, from Turkey. I had the chocolate ones, and am currently trying the Hazelnut ones. Nothing special though, it’s like a cracker on the outside and a bit of cream filling on the inside.
-I found a store in Rufisque that sells the English butter-sugar cookies in the blue tin. I believe that will be my Christmas present to myself.
-And now I’m a bit exhausted, which really is pitiful, as the only things that have really been moving are my hands (and possibly a few brain cells). Currently on the miss list are:
Hot water-honestly cold water does not cut it when you are sick and want to take a shower. Shiver me freaking timbers
Cold weather-at least when it’s cold outside you enjoy the fact that you are nice, warm, cuddly, and have tea inside. Summer sickness is the pits.
Soup-mmm. French onion soup with mozzarella. I also will be trying to make a dish called peposo when I get back, which I am thoroughly excited about. It is not in the least bit Senegalese, and it is authentically Italian.
Non-concrete walls as I just hit my head on mine. Ouch.
Okay, off to read, nap, eventually eat something if I get my appetite back (grapefruit or rice, and such things. I also finally put something up on my wall so the room is a bit less like a concrete chamber and more room like. With love,
-Ananda

I just skinned a freaking Chicken

2009-11-22T15:36:00.000Z

Note: seriously, just seriously. a whole freaking chicken. freak out a little bit for me. Okay, moving on

The book Heat by Bill Buford is about his culinary education as he runs through an intense number of first class culinary jobs. He was first an understudy at Mario Batalie’s Babo, then a pasta student in Italy, and finally shadowing arguably the most famous butcher in the word, Dario Cecchini. This past Saturday I underwent a similar first hand education. I can now certainly tell you that I will never be a butcher. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
My mentor Awa,20 years old, and I had our day planned out as we were going to visit her new husband,30 years old, and his family a couple towns over. When I arrived in the morning ready there was a new plan: cook for the husband and his whole family by the time they visit this afternoon. On the menu were chicken, French fries, and yassa. Yassa is simple. It’s only onions, MSG, and Magic powder which is basically chicken stock. French fries are even easier as you only need potatoes, salt, and a Paula Dean butter-size-amount of vegetable oil. The tricky part had just come through the door, flapping away and trying to escape Awa’s fathers hands. So I watched those three white chickens pecking away as I cried over my onions, oblivious to their imminent fait.
Now it should be made clear that I am neither a vegetarian nor against vegetarians. I am of the opinion though that people know what they are eating. Most people think, “oh, I’m going to eat a hamburger tonight.” They don’t make the connection between those happy cows in California and what is on their plates. Already in Dakar we had gone through the process of preparing a meal completely. For with ceeb u jeen you start with the fish that have just been yanked out of the ocean and are definitely not already laid out in nice fillets. I’m not really a fish person (even though oddly enough I love to fish), so dealing with the smell was the hardest part of that meal. Chicken is a whole different deal though because I actually like to eat it. They are also a lot bigger and quite more alive than the fish were. I guess you could say that Saturday was my chicken baptism. For the squeamish, I might advise skipping the next paragraph.
Step One: Awa’s brothers killed the chickens. Two: pour boiling water over chickens (as they breath their last breaths, I had a bit of a problem with this part) in order to start plucking them. I avoided the neck area till I wasn’t squirming on the inside completely… and then I squirmed some more. I obviously was not as practiced as Awa, but my at least my chicken only needed five minutes of extra help to move on to the next stage. Three: put naked chicken over gas flame to burn off little feathers that you didn’t get by hand. Try not to crisp it. Four: Get all the gooies out from inside. Its important that when cutting the skin that you do not pop the stomach, which I miraculously did not do. Watch gooies float in the bucket that is filled with water, all the feathers, blood, and now the gooy bits. Five: cut off hind leg and feet. Wash chicken with hand soap and salt. Rinse. Ready for cooking.
My first Senegalise chicken lesson: check. Bear Grils would be so proud of me. For now, if I just happen upon a chicken in the wild I have the ability to not completely freak out and to actually make it edible. I will return to the fact that I will not be a butcher in my future, but I decided to be one, if just for a day. I could have opted out of this whole experience, but to me that would have been taking the easy way out- the easy way out of eating meat and of learning about the culture here. There are no supermarkets where I am. Most of what we eat is made by my family or the people we see every morning. Just like Mr. Buford, I am not going to be a butcher. Yet like him, I find a sweet knowledge in the casalinga, the home and hand made food that I live off of here.

Legos

2009-11-22T15:35:00.000Z

When I first arrived in my new family all I had to go off of were first impressions. In my head I tried to decide how I would describe these people who I would live with for the next six months, both to myself and to others. So that is what I did, I described them with words and examples of what I already knew. A mix of Mrs. Weasley and Cinderella’s step mother, jolly like Santa and his elves but a little less organized, overbearing, honestly naïve, structured, socially concerned, overtly open, all different impressions of different people. Going into my first weekly meeting with Rachel I figured that these descriptions would at least give her a view of what I was seeing, or at least what I thought I was seeing.
That was not the case though, for I was given a quick reminder of something that I knew but didn’t contextualize: all of my views are those of the west, of what I have known for the few eighteen years of my life. My mental models are unmistakably American, which I know, but it is easily sectionalized. For example, here everyone holds hands but it carries no implication save friendship. Clearly this is something specifically different than my culture where hand holding carries romantic implications. From here, I can make it a mental point not to judge this, not to think of anything but that which I am learning. My purpose can be to sit and absorb, much as a sponge does.
A problem lies in the things where at once I am obviously affected by my past knowledge, yet am unaware of it. Feelings are deeply rooted things; they are unconsciously and instinctually built within us. All reactions and judgments have their basis in our feelings in some way or another. While awareness that my descriptions were western was an easy cognitive rectification on my part, I realize that my real challenge lies in adapting how I feel in response to the new culture, not only how I think. What I first thought of as overbearing, was just a good show in how to be a good senegalise parent. As I first thought this through, it took away my feeling of resentment, and left wonder. I am still wondering and discovering, for now in this moment I don’t know how I feel or even how I am supposed to feel. Using a classic western example, I think of myself as Lego’s. I started out bits and pieces, was made into a spaceship maybe, and have been broken down again. Only right now, I am building with no premonition of the final product. A castle? Wagon? The White House? The one thing I know is that it is not what I began as.

Beyond Turtles

2009-11-22T15:34:00.000Z

Up until this point its been all about turtles. French turtle vocabulary, cleaning, feeding, and picking up after turtles, turtle facts (Sulcatar turtles can grow up to 100 kilos and 150 years old), and even a turtle shirt with the eleven specials of Senegalese turtles on it. This past week I finally more than turtles as I received my tour of the whole reserve. Ousman, one of the two tour guides, and I started our walk on the official paths and he taught me about all of the medicinal plants protected here. Curing maladies from gallstones to appendicitis’s, some of the plants have more than three-hundred known uses. While people don’t come here every day to pick leaves or bark, the protected fauna here acts as a hospital and pharmacy for many that cannot and could not afford official medical care.

We then reached the brush. While it was not exactly clear, there seemed to be a fairly wide path which was about ¾ of a foot wide. Yep, it wasn’t a path, just the trail left by some flipping massive snake. No big deal or anything, right? At least it explained why Ousman was basically hopping. I thought he had just slid off his rocker a little bit, but he was quite justified in the hopping I think.

When we got to the edge of the reserve, the first of two struggles with the towns people was obvious-the fence. First, some people had cut through it so that they could dump their trash somewhere… on reserved land. Yet others had tried to reinforce the fence in places because they fear some of the things that are protected might cross onto their homesteads. Giant snakes perhaps?

Nearing the place where the reserve boarders the local soccer pitch, the fence simply disappeared, and it was obvious why as I saw sheep and goats being herded off the reserve land after they had finished grazing. Being a complete outsider it was interesting to hear how these people were breaking the laws of the reserve from Ousman, and then to listen to him talk to them about the coming holidays as we passed them Not even a single reprimand from Ousman nor an explanation from the shepherds. Is it a lack of ability to enforce the rules, or just something that is tolerated Either way, it was sad to see one of Senegal’s premier reserves trampled from herds and littered with massive trash piles (some of which were burning). But who am I in this situation, for I don’t even know what other options these people have, if there are any for that matter.

For a first impression, I’m struck by the juxtaposition of views held by the people of Noflaye. At once the town loves the reserve for its plants, educational functions, and the pristine land it saves for their enjoyment. Yet the people disrespect the purpose of the land and fear it for what it protects.

Coming to Terms

2009-11-10T17:14:00.000Z

By all means today should not have been an encouraging day. I got to work and did an hour and fifty minutes worth of raking turtle feces, feed, and pathways. I then walked home and commenced to do three hours worth of hand washing laundry. It was incredibly hot and it didn’t help that every person walking by gawked like a three year old in a candy shop. Then while hanging up my laundry I managed to get sand on about half the clothes in the bucket… meaning that I am looking forward to some exfoliating clothes. The best part is I still have to do my whites. Oh, and my hands are rawer than fish in a sushi roll. I finally got to work and was half way through putting up my last blog when the power went out for fifteen minutes, and then I started the process all over again.
Throughout all of these things I was not ecstatic, but the surprising this is that I wasn’t dying of anger or annoyance. Is it possible that I’m slowly starting to think “n’shallah” unconsciously?
The real capstone came after everything thought. After finally posting my blog, my boss Benoit and I took a clando (clandestine taxi) to Bambilor. He went to get Coca Cola for the Village boutique, and I went to pick up ten liter water bottles (since they don’t sell them in my town). I’m sitting squished in between someone who has gumbo scented BO, and a standoffish woman with five ear holes, and it hits me like the door I ran into today (yes, I do have a bruise, no, I have no excuse)-“oh my, this is that beauty people talk about their whole lives”. Crazy “Touba” and “Alhamdulillah” tagged diang diaye vans veering around pot holes, my driver steering in swerves as his steering column is obviously off, crumbling concrete buildings next to others that are painted like Rainbow Bright sets which are next to thatched huts, the sun glistening off of the red sand creating millions of little mirrors as it sets, the trees so green you can’t believe they are in Africa and not England, and the stunningly dress people walking in between the red and green spheres with dinner resting on their heads.
In most of the terms that have defined my life, I didn’t accomplish much today. And for now, it really is okay. Last year when I was with a very wise friend I was reminded that when you’re happy, you don’t have to question it or justify anything. Perhaps my terms are changing, or maybe I’m just finding perfect moments in new things. Either way, it seems as if that setting sun has finally my soul and heart here in Senegal.

First Photos

2009-11-09T15:51:00.001Z

These are pictures from the night of when I gave out my greeting gifts to the family-this past thursday. The skinny one is Abdoulaye, the square jaw one is Thomas, and then theres Awa and I. Enjoy. I will also be sending these to IDEO to show them the joy their Finger Blasters bring on the other side of the world.

Week One

2009-11-09T15:49:00.003Z

For the record, Im writing my Christmas letters now... before Thanksgiving has even passed. But anyways...

Wow, I am completely exhausted. Last Sunday (the 1st), we met my host parents Lamine and Aida at the Village des Tourtues, where they both work. We went to the house, which is about a five minute walk down the road, dropped off my bags, and then I started work. I had my first day off yesterday. All the others had their first week off so that they could get to know their families and villages. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love working. I love the feeling of being completely spent at the end of the day because you know that you did everything you could have, of going to bed with that happy exhaustion. But I am pretty darn spent. So heres the intro.
Family:
Pap Lamine- Really, really nice. He knows a ton about turtles. He actually works for the NGO SOPCOM (and I know that’s the wrong acronym) that supports the turtle village. Hes also really into politics, is trying to start a reptile reserve near the Casamance region, and is also trying to start a library in a rural town (almost a la Room to Read).
Aida- Is interesting. I decided that the perfect way to describe her is a mix between Mrs. Weasley and the stepmother in Cinderella. Shes really nice to me and always makes me eat tons (as every Senegalise mother does). But she also gets jelous really easily, gossips about the people at work, and is a slight swindler/stingy person. Her French is also rougher which makes it hard.
Penda-18, really nice, speaks a bit of French.
Thomas, 11, and Abdoulaye,9, are adorable. They play soccer. We have fun playing games, but they wear me a out a bit. And their French is really rough so there is a ton of miscommunication.
Mouhammed- Is 1 years old. Is really adorable with huge eyelashes, but also the bain of my existence as a constant 7am wake up call. I also think he’s the reason I have woken up at exactly 3:30am every single day this past week, but that is just a guess. They also let him eat dinner once day without pants on. And let me say, when you eat from a giant bowl, and there naked boy bits (that he acknowledged fully) right up by the food, it is beyond unappetizing.
Penda- around my age, Aida’s sisters daughter that they helped raise. She cooks a lot and helps run Aida’s restaurant.
Awa-shes the maid/friend. Shes kind of a baller. Her and Penda speak zero French, so our communication is kind of funny. But its getting better.
We eat fish every lunch. Depressing my life.
Senegal has made breakfast my favorite meal of the day… because it doesn’t have oil in it. Also, I’ve taken to the English Black tea that Lamine got me for breakfast. Maybe because it tastes like England and the west, or maybe because it counters the chocolate paste that always goes on my bread.
So work. Heres a little recap from the first two days:
November 2nd: 2.5 hours of raking poo and leaves. 2.5 hours painting a sign. 1.2 hours helping to make things on the computer. It should be noted that everything I did this day, save the poo raking, was later nixed. They had told me they wanted something, but forgot about three essential elements for the computer documents. They then decided the sign, after I spend about four more hours on it, was not going to work because it caused to much discontent (it was promoting tipping the guides).
November 3rd: ½ hour handpicking baby turtle poo. There were 14 turtle sets mating. The turtles named Bill Clinton and Monica mated twice. I weighed and measured 53 baby turtles. Translated a tour for two Russians.
I also started with about three boses. So I would be getting a billion different sets of directions, and not know what in the world to do. Rachel and Babacar came to settle everything out, so its all good for the most part.
Okay, tons of experiences to share, but I’m so tired, and I want to try and sleep before I mysteriously wake up at 3:30 and then at 7. Promise I’ll get something up about the actual goings on though.
With Love,
Ananda
PS. It’s the day after I wrote this while I am putting this up. I just ate this fruit called a carasol and it’s a mix has the taste of a lemon with a little berry, and the consistency of a papaya. Actually pretty good.

Great Expectations

2009-11-09T15:49:00.001Z

Everywhere I go I meet people along with their expectations. With one exception, I am always greeted with the French “Ca Va” instead of the ritual “Assalam Alekum”. I have no qualms with being viewed French, as most toubabs here are. Where my uneasiness comes in is how along with the Ca Va comes the undertone that I, because I am a foreigner, don’t care enough to learn the local language and greeting.
Then there is what I like to call Pere Noel Syndrome. When I meet some people they expect me to give out gifts and money like they come out of a bottomless red bag. Yesterday a fourteen year old girl who I met in the Village des Tortues calls me… and asks me to buy her credit for her phone. I greeted a respectable man today who was sitting outside of my house, and the first words he said after the greeting were “donnez-nous d’argent, or give us money. Promptly following this was the “mais tous les autres americains nous donnent d’argent” or “but all the other Americans give money”. Noflaye is a town with a steady influx of tourists due to the Village des Tortues. Is this then the image they end up leaving? Tourism brings money into a country simply through the food, transportation, and lodging that is used. Maybe handouts should be added to this list?
I used to absolutely loathe these moments. After all who enjoys even seeing people who really are in need of help, but are stuck in a time and place where they can do nothing about it? I have grown to see these as an opportunity though. I meet these people and they have the expectation of ignorance, and by the end of the conversation money is the farthest thing from their mind, and the situations of Senegal and the world are closest to it. Is it wrong then that I get a thrill in showing these people how much I am not the token tourist or eco-volunteer? If anything, the problem lies in the fact that these expectations exist. Foreigners come in, give money in some form, and then leave. Whether they are aid volunteers or tourists, the expectations and most of the outcomes are the same. Experts say that the money is good for the economy, which is true. Yet, it makes you wonder, is the impact, the help that one actually wants to do, really achieved?

Baby Steps

2009-11-08T15:41:00.002Z

Hey Guys!

Well its all going pretty well here, just a whole other adaptation period again I think...which means another missing everyone immensely period. Ill write a good description of everything thats going on for you guys tonight and hopefully will get it up for you tomorrow. But know that I miss you guys bunchessss. Heres the first GCY blog that Ive written in the village.

With love

I sat watching baby Muhammad run (or waddle depending on your definition) across the courtyard and realized that while we are definitely opposites in almost every aspect, (I do no wake him up at ridiculous times in the morning each and every day); at this moment we are more alike than we ever will be.

See, we both want to do everything, and all at once. He wants to run up and down the stairs and tries to put his shoes on by himself. I already want to know every routine of ever day, what to do in all the different turtle situations, and how do things without asking everyone… just so that I can start learning and doing even more. Muhammad can now get in his rolly without falling, most of the time. So far I’m really good at raking turtle feces and feed for extended periods of time, weighing, measuring, bathing, and feeding baby turtles, and painting giant rusty metal barrels with oil paint.

We are both trying to figure out the world. Everything is new for him, something that hasn’t happened before, which is much the same for me. Except I come with a whole eighteen years of American baggage and experience. Even if I think I have ideas about how people work, they don’t really apply here. In a culture that is based on so many different things than the United States is, I, like Muhammad, have nothing to go off of. This week I tried to describe members of my host family to Rachel. But in doing this I used western constructs and references which came just from w hat I can see and understand (which is little at this point). These descriptions didn’t work because I didn’t know the reasons and history behind my family’s actions. What shocked and confused me was something that was normal, just not normal to me. If babies really are blank slates then, I must embody them and just take things in. Try not to judge, and only to see.

Then there is the language of course. While our vocabularies are different, we both talk in telegrams. In French I can talk about alleviating poverty, but I still forget to contract articles that a third grader would make fun of me for. In Wolof I can get basic ideas through, but the vast majority of my success relies on my fast improving hand motioning skills.

It’s a fact then: baby turtles, baby Muhammad, and baby Ananda. But hey, everything is easier the second time. Maybe that means I get to grow up faster too?

Just Call Me Galileo

2009-11-01T00:49:00.000Z

Sitting here listening to Shania Twain serenading me from the television-in Dakar, in Senegal, on my last day of my first month- I cannot help but notice an odd juxtaposition. All at once it feels like I have been here the longest time, yet it also feels like I have only been in Senegal for a few hours. Reflecting on this beginning of my journey that has stretched from the Institute of Noetic Sciences to the sewage lined streets in Dakar after the big rains, I feel like I am entering my own Renaissance, my own rebirth. Like those of old, it is not a rebirth that forgets everything that has happened in history, but one that is putting the puzzle pieces of the past in their place and building up from them.So I have not found huge new things to care about yet, but I have had the opportunity to shine a light on things that usually sit happily in the shadows. All that I have know of myself up to this point is centered, acknowledge, and there for the pondering. My renaissance is in its infancy, but now it is time for me to show everyone that, in fact, we are not the center of the universe.

Cuisine: I never quite realized how much joy cooking gave me, whether it was for myself or for others. Then there is the feeling of absolutely being alive when you have the perfect meal with the perfect ingredients. Aesthetic: I now see how being surrounded by beauty that lets in the world, and doesn't make you draw connections to prison cells, resonates with you, whether you notice it or not. To me, clothes are a form of personal expression but the different societal norms have brought in this freedom. Language: I've always loved books an absurd amount. Really, the smell of new books is a paramount thing in the world I think. Somehow though, I have never loved writing; I was always bored with my papers by the time I was finished with them. That is, until now. Even as I write this, I am secretly smiling. Writing something out makes me crystallize my ideas and thoughts, finding the flaws and the gems in them. The moment that I find the word that slides into the sentences perfectly is comparable to a tempurpedic mattress: it makes you feel comfortable and content with life. Living in a world that does not pass through my language has only furthered this idea, giving every word in every language more value. Lastly, academics. I'm a self professed nerd. I love every part of school-getting to know the people, the classes, the sports, rising to the challenges, and being surrounded by all of people that act as fountains of knowledge. Now for the first time I'm not in school. The training back in California was like fruit, sweet as candy and amazingly good for me. Here I am learning every single day, just of a different subject matter. It makes me realize how happy I am with days where there is so much to take in, no matter if its a presentation by Joel Segre or if I'm learning how to pour tea two feet above a cup from my friend Amadou.

I have not found the new thing to care about that will define my coming life, but I have had the opportunity to shine a light on things that normall rest happilly in the shadows. All that I have known about myself up to this point is centered, acknowledged, and there for pondering. My renaissance is in its infancy, and it is now time for me to set out and show everyone that, in fact, we are not the center of the universe.

Movvieeess!

2009-10-31T22:50:00.002Z

SO here are some fabulous new movies for you.
The one below these is a video of my friend Boxie James Rapping. Here are:
A video of the HLM Marche, where we bought fabric for Tabaski (huge holiday). With that comes some beautiful trafic footage.
Then there is the video of us all making Ceebu Dieen?(sp) which is basically fish and rice.
Lastly, there is the video from the soccer game.

Right now I'm just getting everything done before I have to pack up final things. Shipping out at 8:30 am to the village tomorrow. I also just wrote a new GCY official blog too. Love you all!!!!

-Ananda

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Movie 1- Rap in Senegal!

2009-10-31T09:52:00.000Z

2009-10-29T22:04:00.002Z

Sorry all for the lack of blogging the past few days, others have had the netbook and I have been catching up on certains stuffs.

First things first. I have decided that the real metahpor for my stay is this: bugspray & deet are my perfume. And I may have already said that, but I feel its necessary to restate it. Now to a good update of which your probably tired of the bullets.

-Grapefruit Fanta (why dont they have good flavors, ie. pomplemouse and lemon in america?? is second only to the original lemon fanta in greatness. almost the drink of the gods.

-I had a Senegalise orange for the first time. Ironically, it is green on the outside, and yellow on the inside. IT tastes like an orange, but a lot less strongly, and it has a hint of fruit punch mixed in somehow.

-I wore a dress on the 26th. And I enjoyed it.

-I'm stocking up on fabulous books to take with me so that I will have some form of english with me in the village. Plato, Carl Hiassen, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Harold Bloom, DH Lawrence, and some french guy. Maybe I'll come back super super smarty pantsy?

-I'm still amazed every day how much American music is listen to here- In the courtyard a few days ago we were all eating peanuts, and they turned on the computer speakers and it went from Akon, to Lil Wayne, to some Senegalise man, to Rihanna. And yesterday the Backstreet Boys 'I want it that way' came on, and everyone, including me, was jamming out. Music really does cross boundaries.

-We made Chebu Jen yesterday at Rachels house with the Walof teacher (as part of our Walof lesson). Yum, more fish and rice. I took some fabulous videos though, and hopefully those will get put up soon. The videos from the other day are getting up soon too, on the GCY website. I just had to send Wil the files because they were so big, so I'll past the youtube link as soon as I get it. As a side note, I think I eat less when I am eating with my hands. Or maybe I just really not a seafood person. And I am a pro at making rice balls with my hands now.

-You fry the fish in exactly 1 liter of sizling vegetable oil, then take out the fish. then you put the vegetables, water, and tomatoe paste (that is brown) in the left over oil. You steam the rice in a collander above the vegetable oil mix. We had plastic bags wrapped around the collander and pot, and underneath the collander, to stop the rice from falling out ( you are supposed to use fabric but Umul forgot it). When asked about the bags melting, the answer was nshallah- God willing. The melting was not so supreme. Then then you take out all the vegetalbes, and put all the rice into the sauce, letting it soak it all up. Divide into bowls, and put back the vegetables and fish. Enjoy making rice balls with your hands, fish (I defered the eating of it), vegetables, and massive amounts of oil that you are eating.

-We got to go to the beach right by Rachels house, and oh how amazing it was. The sand goes out forever- at least a 100 yards. So that you have waves crashing the whole length! When the tide would go back in there was a good 45 yards of damp sand, that would be quickly washed over again with a incoming wave. While it was supremely beautiful, it was another disaster. There was an amazing amount of trash- plastic bags, rags, a broken dish? And then every inch of beach was lined with thatched cabannas which are rented to people who want to leave their bags on the beach-because it is the only space that is not reached by the waves.

-Today was french class and our walof evaluation. I can honestly say that for the Walof test I knew how to answer about four questions out of the whole thing. I've just been focusing on french a lot for the whole time, so I havent really had the time to study walof. No worries though, I have six months to get better at it. And I got to talk to Mrs. Lyn on Skype, which made me super super happy!!!

-Tomorrow: french evaluation in the morning, group debriefing with Rachel, and then we are visiting an NGO.

-Saturday- In the morning Gaya and I are going to the book store. Then we have individual debriefings with Rachel to talk about everything we are about to be dropped into. Lots of packing, as its the last day with our current host families.

-Sunday we ship out to our villages. I hope to at least recap the weekend before I leave. I am super excited, and a bit nervous. I had a bad dream about the turtle poo. I also had a dream that Caroline and I were adopted together, but that is besides the point.

With love,

Ananda

I Oublie my nourriture!

2009-10-25T21:41:00.002Z

Okay, so I totally forgot about food
-I ate these things called Lunnga. When I asked Ama what they were, she said they were like strawberries. So I took a bit out of one. Sure enough they taste nothing like strawberries. A lot closer to fermented or wine soaked nuts
-I ate some combination of Hear, liver, and lung today. Let it be noted that they are all revolting and that if I have my way, I will not be eating any of them again. That being said, I probably will be eating them again at some point.
-They have grapefruit Fanta here and I am extremely excited to have some tomnorrow.
-Walof class begins again this week and I am epicly bad.
Finally, here is a link to the guy I heard sing before Yousse N'Dour (sp). His name is Mame Balla, but I have to say, he is way better live.

Some Bits

2009-10-25T20:37:00.002Z

Lets see. So this weekend:

I went to the Marche HLM to buy fabric for the holiday Tabaski. I am now a champion bargainer as I obtained my fabric for the local price of 1300cfa- about 3 dollars- per meter. Its a fabric called basain, which is not really cottony at all, and actually kind of feels like wax. But that will go to the tailor, and I'm thinking silver embroidery? Promise I'll put the pictures up when I get it, although that will probably be when I am in Sangalkam, so maybe just soon as possible. I also got some vaux (pronounced wax, and it may be spelled wrong) fabric to be made into a dress (gasp, I know).
I went to the Sandaga market to get a cassette made into a cd. Here we went on a wild goose chase as one of the people we were with, Samba, decided we shouldnt just let the heckling sellers go. Instead we should follow them all the way to the other side of the market, and then find out that what we want isnt there... even though we never expected it to be. Due to this I was also not allowed to find a nut seller who had salted cashews-which do exist, as I have already had them here.
Depressing: there was a parapalegic at the HLM market- he didnt even have a stool to sit on. Instead, he was just on the ground next to everyones feet.
Joel: A young boy with a cateract was asking for money at the bus stop. We all wished you were there with the super thin lenses.
On the bus, a lad got on with a baby. Seeing that there was absolutely no room to sit down (as if), she promptly ejected said baby into some mans lap. And he was totally cool with it, and so was the baby. Victoria and I equated this to handing of a football- except the football was alive. Its slightly crazy to think of anyone doing this in America- from fear, from the fact that the baby would be wailing, from the person not actually holding onto the baby once it is dropped into their lap.
At Sandaga there was a man who had something wrong with his legs. So he rolled around on this 2x2 plastic square with wheels. He then decided to come down hill strait at me with a speed that was unbelieveable (litterally, I didnt know he would be able to go that fast). Due to this fact I had two options: get obliterated by this man, and probably end up hurting him. Or jump. So I jumped. Quite surreal.
Four (maybe five if I understood the Senegalise accent better) people thought I was spanish this weekend. Either I'm a little bit tanner, or I look less out of place. Score.
I'm up to 9 marriage proposals
I went to my first soccer game. It was incredibly cheap- about 75 cents to watch two games. Sadly I only got to see about half of each of them, and I only got to see one goal. But the people there were crazy. There was one man who sat ontop of the passageway that led to a stairwell and he would dance, and then lift up his shirt to show an undershirt that said something in walof, and then he would yell at one of the team managers. Supposbly he was a big supporter.
Here are some real summaries of what the other fellows will be doing:
Matt: he gets to work with the local agriculture programs in production, harvest, and comericilzation. He also get to check out sal harvesting and trading at this place called Lac Rose-which is a lake that is bright pink from the amount of salt in it. Then he gets to look at the relationship of development of socio cultural elements (music, oral tradition, ect).

Alec- He is working in a local western hospital, and then once a week he is going to this tradition hospital. He also gets to follow ome Red Cross people around. Also, he gets to go with some of the staff on field visits to super rurual villages- I will definitely be tagging along on one of these trips. He gets to research the impact of Rachels program Smiles for Senegal, and helps decide what to do with it in the future (is it worth it?)

Hilary- shes working at a western health clinic too, but also at a Maternity/midwife center. she gets to look at the relationships between healthcare and a devoloping country.

Gaya- will be working in a large elementary school- helping with librarires, computer labs pta, community garden, and classroom participation. She also will try and find out what it is lacking in the education, and try and create a project to fil that gap (ex. drawing class). She will also look at education in a developing country.

Victoria- will work at a NGO called the Program of Devopment of Infants and the Family (translated)- which is basically a childhood center. She gets to do all the preschool activities, and gets to investigate links between early development and local development.

Then Gaya, Victoria, and Hilary will identify all the local womens organizations, and profile them ( membership, leadership, economic activities, ect.). And then they will al be doing the same thing with english speak clubs and such
My friend Amadou taught me to make tea the Senegalise way last night. So wach out, I am now a master and can make it for all of you.
Today everyone came over to learn how to make beneighs(sp, they are basically donught holes).
And currently I am struggling with youtube as I try to put up the videos from this weekend
Oh and I forgot to put on bug spray before breakfast- three mosquito bites just on my right foot in the span of three minutes. Humph.
Overall its going swell, I will be glad not to have the talkative walof speaking men outside my window in Sangalkam. I mean, they must be hilarious, because they laugh all the time. But its just not that funny at 1 30.
Must now go eat dinner. Fabulous. Its 9 by the way.

Metaphor My Life. or My Life is Metaphor

2009-10-25T20:21:00.000Z

Two days ago while struggling to fall asleep (due to the hilarious walof jokes being told outside my window by ten Senegalese men), I pulled out a stack of Visual Explorer cards, from the Center for Creative Leadership, that I had gotten during training. Visual Explorer is basically a stack of really nice photographs that are card sized. I then asked myself questions, and tried to find out which picture perfectly explained my emotions or ideas about that question. It is surprising how much more you find out about yourself when you make yourself realize why one image or phrase resonates, and another doesn't. This led me to think about how much of my life is explained like Visual Explorer- in metaphor.
Dakar is Rome to me. They say one of the reasons Rome fell was because of how poor the poor were getting, and how rich the rich were getting. Every day I walk past three women who each have two children. They eat, sleep, and live their lives on the street. They have no steady source of food and no shelter from any of the outside forces. On the other hand as I keep on walking I see Mercedes Benz C-Class cars and BMW's right along side the shabby taxis. Downtown there is the palatial Presidents quarters, and just down the street are local shacks. There are the people who get good health care, like the twelve-year old in my neighborhood with a cast on his broken arm. Then there are those who don't- the paraplegic we passed at the Marche HLM who didn't even have a chair to sit on, or the man at Sandaga (the grand market) whose legs were paralyzed so he uses a plastic square with wheels that sits two inches off the ground to roll around, and who I literally had to jump over as he zoomed underneath me.The disparities just sit in front of you- obvious to any eye, draining to the spirit, and as a current matter-of-fact. So if it were hundreds and hundreds of years earlier, would Dakar have the same fate as the great Rome did?

A bitter jalapeno. That was the phrase that I used to describe a vegetable here that looks like a green tomato. Then there is the Lunnga which looks like a giant black olive, but tastes like a fermented or wine soaked nut. Bissap is green and frothy, with a bitter and smooth taste that reminds me of oak tree leaves ( I ate anything as a child). As I obviously cannot send back hundreds of Lunnga fruit for everyone to taste, I must then try and describe what I have done with the things that many of us may share. Granted, you all may not have had a leaf phase in your youth.

Being in a place with a different language brings up some nifty little problems. First, our backgrounds are completely different. While I may use the right words and phrases to describe something to someone from the west, those same words can carry no weight here, hence lost in translation. Sadly, when trying to describe something, you want to give it due justice, but the simple lack of knowledge stops you from giving it the language it deserves. When speaking in English I relish my adjectives, my phrases, colloquialisms, puns, and oxymoron's. Unconsciously and consciously they allow me to see things that may not be necessary in life, but that truly bring the picture into focus. Maybe metaphors are a true measure of fluency?

Some people live their lives in technicolor. Others live life in misery. And still others live in ignorance, bliss, knowledge, etc. While there may not be one way to live life, it has become blatantly obvious to me that almost everyone lives their life in metaphor.

Apprenticeships!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-22T22:41:00.002Z

Hold on. Most freaking important thing ever. I was walking down the street yesterday, and there was this girl right. So there was this girl... in this basketball jersey... with yellow and really dark blue writing on it. You know what it said? Montreat. Now I've seen Notre Dame shirts, Boise State, the Lakers, everything. But Montreat? How small does that make the world feel right now? I bet its cool, maybe even snowing in Montreat right now. And if it already hasnt I'm sure it will be snowing in Michigan soon Aunt Linda, or Washington depending on where you currently are. Anyways, wow. Montreat.. in Senegal.

So we finally got the summaries of our apprenticeships today. I shall transcribe it, and then give a fabulously witty commentary/not.

I shall reside in Noflaye (which is part of Sangalkam) and work in the Village des Tortues. The apprenticeship will consist of a wide range of activities in the Village des Tortues, an environmental and tortoise reserve. As decided in consultation between GCY Program Manager, Me, and Village des Tortues supervisor, the activities will include environmentla conservation work, park upkeep, translation, and production of English-language materials, digitizing park materials, and leading tours. I will also carry out an independent investigation into the relationship of the park and the local rural community. This will involve defining a project that takes place both inside the reserve and within the local community. It is a very structured apprenticeship in which tasks will be well defined and evaluation of work will be regular. At the same time, it requires initiative on the part of the fellow (me) since some of the work will involve thinking beyond the boundaries of the Village des Tortues and considering environmentla conservation and the community more broadly.

Then Alec, Matt, and I (the three fellows in the Sangalkam Rural Community) have a service project. It will consist of profiling the population of each village (Noflaye, Bambilor, and Sangalkam) including the number of homesteads, people residents in each, ethnicity, and economic activity. This will not only provide an excellent opportunity for the fellows to render a service to the authorities hosting them but also to encounter every family in their village, which is an exceptional way to socialize and become inserted in the community. THey will also gain an intimate portrait of the people and activities amongst whom and which they live.

Lastly(ish) we will work with the local middle school and seek to become involved on a regular basis with the english clubs and computer labs, as well as any possible athletics, so as to interact with Senegalse peers and to use their skills in these areas to the benefit of local youth. These activities will be Fello-initiated, in consultation with menotors.

Whew, that was a lot. So lets see, it does sound pretty amazing right? And I am super excited about it. But this is also the best case scenario, in that it depends a lot on other people, a whole lot can not go right, and there are just cultural factors. As in the reserve is successful.... but every time that Rachel has been there she hasnt seen one person actually working. So if all else fails, I figure I have the study of looking at what role the environment plays in the developing world, and an anthropological look at Senegalise culture. I also have a fear that all I am going to end up doing is giving tours, translating panflets, petting turtles, and cleaning up their poo. All around, its pretty darn exciting, even to know what I might be able to do. I'm thinking of taping the summary to my wall when I move as a goal reminder of what I can do. Rachel also assured us that the first month that we are there, absolutely nothing will get done. Which I'm sure I will be frusturated with, but hey, at least I'll learn a bit of patience. Lots and lots of personal reflection time as well I'm guessing. Okay, nighty night.

Goings On

2009-10-21T15:52:00.003Z

So its basically been a huge mess of learning. French in the morning, french in the afternoon, french all my life. Which is good. But I'm even worse at french grammar that I am at english grammar- so its a bit trying to epicly fail every moment of six hours. Okay, that may be a slight overstatement, but I think its getting a little bit better. Tomorrow were making crepes for all the military guys from Fort Brag before they leave! Benjaman and I talk every day during our first break, hes basically the coolest guy ever. Hmm, so what I've missed this week: laundry detergent, trafic laws (especially the ones saying yield to the pedestrian), my oatmeal rasin cookies, grass, fashion ( I look at the NYTimes Magazine fashion section when I am online, what is happening to me?), and cooking in general. Oh, and apples and brie, so delish. I've been decidedly more adventureous of late: I ate the green frothy bisap sauce (I think its made from the plants leaves), and it kind of does taste like leaves. Then theres this green tomatoe looking vegetable, it tastes like a bitter jalepeno. Rachel reminded me that saying something made my taste buds run away and hide in a safe part of my mouth when I ate it is culturaly insensitive, so I will just say they are an acquired taste. We find out a summary of our apprenticeships tomorrow!! Well actually we were supposed to find out today, but Rachel is sick, so it was bumped to tomorrow. Then at the end of the month, the day before we leave, she will meet with each of us individualy to give us in depth discriptions of what we are doing.

So every night around 11pm a group of aproximatly 12 full grown men gather outside my window and talk for at least two hours. Point to me for bringing ear plugs. Also, the past two nights I've been getting these wierd little bites while I sleep. I figure I can just ride it out, and then I can always light a bug bomb in my new house if it is a problem. Then around 6am someone comes and nocks on the metal door that is outside my room, but about two inches from it. Its not that its really loud at all, I just always think someone is knocking on my door so I think I have to get up for it. I'm pretty sure this trip will help me be one of those people who actually sleeps, or more that actually can, through sounds and light. Who knows, maybe I will even learn how to nap?????Le Gasp! So I must go home now, as there is this massive soccer match tonight and if I go home to late I will be caught in the crowds which is a bit dangerous, as I have all my stuff with me. Hopefully next week I get to go to a match too. Oh, and I'll let you all know about it tomorrow, but I finally went on a run.... and got to play soccer =)

Ahhh The Creatures of the Deep!!!

2009-10-18T13:37:00.003Z

Video of Island Commentary
Video of Island Scenery

Right now the rain continues to pound the tin over my room. Since last night the rain has been torential, pouring over every crevice, dripping from each edge, and slowly seeping over every surface. To say the least, it was quite the oppisite of my experiance yesterday.

Saturday began like every other day this week- the same breakfast, the same walk to the Baobob center, and the same 9-1 french class. This was where the routine stopped though, for we were off to the Isles of Madaline this afternoon. Our first task though was to obtain lunch, as we did not have enough time to go home. So all of us set out-some to the nearest boutique and others to the super marche. It eventually ended up that Alec and I went to the boutique-buying baguette like rolls, eggs, and onions (and he got a potatoe). We then continued back to the Boabob center and ended up making the most delicious egg sandwiches, and the others followed suit when they came back from the super marche with whole wheat bread as their prize.

After our lunch of champions, we were off to the Corniche to meet Rachel, Mr. Diaham, and one of the french teachers, Umul. It was a beautiful day outside- the sun was shining, reflecting off every wave and there was the beautiful breeze from the sea- almost completely masking the tantilizing every present smell of burning trash. Into our beautfiul blue boat we then went with a promise that if Mr. Diaham fell in the water, I would jump in to save him. Rachel had promised Umul the same in the back of the boat.

Pulling up to the islands, we went past the craggy cliffs which were full of massive black and white boulders... or as we found out massive black rocks with lots of birds flying over them.......yep. We then pulled into an inlet strait out of Treasure Island and jumped (litterally) onto the rocky 'dock'. Nico, the boats captain, then went to pick up a couple of the other people who had been on the island. With a vote of hands we all decided to take the tour of the island before giving ourselves the satisfaction of diving into the beautiful glistening cove. Highlight facts:
a) people dont inhabit this island because there is a spirit that protects it, and which struck down a bulding that a misionary was trying to build here. Originally the missionary thought the fishing people, the Lebou, were knocking down his building. But he eventually realized it was the spirit. b) they have a lookout building that was recently built in order for the park service to watch out for people poaching or taking things off the island. It still stands because they made sacrifices to the spirit when building it.
c) People come here and poach the turtles for their blood, especially during mating season. It is supposed to be a good talisman. Which is exhibit A for why the park service has to be vigilant.

As we made our final turn past the cove where birds go for safe haven, our view opened back up to the water we were about to jump into. The sun was just begining to set, and the tide was rising by the moment. So we all ran in... after being told which way to get around the random algae covered rocks that were under water. Alec, Victoria, and I (the first ones in) reverted to the classic doggy paddle as a way to easily get over the rocks. Inovation at its best right there.

Eventually we all got to the rocky ledge accross the water. It was only moments later that two things happend. First, we were doused with fresh seawater breaking over the rocks behind us. Then we realized that there were sea urchins everywhere, and that miraculously none of us had even touched one. Now we had been documenting our trip quite well up until this point, but none of us had really wanted to risk swimming with our electronics above our heads. The thing was, that it was just so beyond beautiful. Alec was then the super hero of the day as he swam back, and then trecked accross the rock cliff/wall (safely) with his camera in order to at least doccument a bit of our adventure on the wetside of things. Eventually we all decided to adventure a bit, and we carefully made our way up over the rocks behind us. There were the waves crashing into the island, a mere three feet away from us, and the water then being sucked back out like a reverse waterfall with the tides. Alec and I then made our way up a ... hill/mound/cliff/ridge of rocks so that we could see everything. To our left was the cove we had just been swimming in. In front of us lay the whole Atlantic- and all of you back over in the US- and two sections of the island that reminded me most of the tale of Jason and the Argonauts. There was the giant half of the island that had been split in half by the water, and evertime a wave came the water would shoot up fifteen feet into the air as it burst through the tight space. Then there was the cave that had been hollowed, creating a gaping hole where the waves dissappeared. To our left, was a peninsula on the island that was completely covered in birds! Yes, all the rocks over there were white. Then we saw Nico enter the cove, we were summonned, and we decended back to reality- swimming back to all of our things on the other side of the beach. Going back to Dakar everyone was winding down and watching one of the most beautiful sunsets that I have seen in my few years of life. After an amazing day, all we had left was a race to get home before the lighting cracked open the skies.

Great Success

2009-10-16T21:55:00.002Z

Right now I'm talking to Rachel on skype. Greatest success yet.
Yesterday I helped peel and prepare all the vegetalbes for dinner. It made me miss cooking a lot. Anyways, I looked ridiculous- I was in bright blue pants, a pastel yellow oxford, and had a bucket full of water and vegetables on top of a stool, and of top of the open part of the bucket was a bowl being balanced, where I was trying to cut the onions witha reallyu dull knife. But I was still a champion. And I cut the potatoes for the fries! ( no, they are more like, potatoes which are marinated in oil).

I also got to eat my first two bananas that were freshly picked from the banana tree. Its not that bananas in the US are bad. Its just here they have so much more flavor- as in they have it. While they are green on the outside, they are perfectly ripe and delicious on the inside, with little intricate flavors that are so subtle that they must be lost when they go over seas. So yes Mama Miller, they are amazing.

From the History Walk

2009-10-14T20:40:00.006Z

On Sunday we went for a beautiful promenade in downtown Dakar for our History Walk with Rachel, who is a person that I have no qualms calling erudite. Throughout our whole walk we had the task of picking out which houses were made before and after the french colonization. To say the least, I learned a whole lot. Our next walk is this Sunday. So these pictures are from when we passed by the beach- you all finally get to see part of the beauty that Senegal has, and from today at the house! Enjoy!

Khalifa & I

A'luun with his afternoon snack

The beach.. mmm trash

Elephant Gun

2009-10-14T19:44:00.005Z

It rips through the silence, and all that is left, is all that I hide.-Beirut

Looking at the majority of my days, there are usually some things that go wrong, but every day seems to turn out at least a little bit great. Its funny though how sometimes, even when so many things go right, the few wrong things that actually happen consume you and your day. Yesterday I recieved an e-mail from Ian, one of the guatemalan fellows, which made me elated beyond belief, as we became fast friends in San Fran. I got to talk to Mrs. Lindquist and wish her Happy Birthday (Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!). I improved my french. I ate an orange. I got to listen to some good music, met a new friend named Boxie who can rap and beatbox, had really good food (eggs for the first time!!!!!! even if they are fried like the fries at mcdonalds), and the heat wasnt even that bad. I cant really say how much better all of these things made me feel, so thank you for them.

Yet yesterday was one of those moments that eveyone talks about, when you just say "what in the world am I doing here?" Everyone says you will have this moment because of what you are doing where you are, or because of what you cannot do where you are. I have a cold, there is no toilet paper, the smell of burning trash is nauseating, the scenes you see pull at your heart strings again and again. You deal with these things, you learn from them. They are part of the reason for why I am here. They are the challenge that is there to make me more than what I am.

My first moment then, is simply the feeling of absense that I have. The singular fact that I am not there for the people I left accross the ocean. Yesterday I found out beyond dissapointing news for a person who means the world to me, and I know that I cant do anything to contact her and I wouldnt even know how console her if I could. After learning that, I found out that the mother of one of my best friends, who for the past three summers was a good friend to me, died. I dont even know how she died, just that she did. Right now, I am absent for those people, who I can do nothing for right now. Usually during these times you are around the people that know how to help you be okay, and how to help you help the ones who are hurting even more than you. But today will not be one of those days-the ocean is to vast. So here is my first obstacle, and its not even the country that is trying me- it is the gnawing feeling of the hole of absence in my heart. And so I grow up. I am okay, and I will be okay. The only thing this does is affirm to me how much you all really mean to me.

With more love than you all know,

Ananda

Rest In Peace Martha Peavyhouse.

The Zoo

2009-10-14T19:28:00.004Z

The zoo was depressing, in that there is too little money, even for the few animals that they have. Here are some pictures I stole from Alec (I forgot my camera).

Burning trash. Exhibit A.

An example of the taxis here

The tiger

This would be what they feed the monkeys

Great monkey cage

Not much of a lion cage right?

The Jackals

Hyena

La Rhume i.e. The Cold

2009-10-13T19:02:00.001Z

Ick. I have a cold. I found out the night before last night that my host mother had a cold.... and then yesterday afternoon I was attacked by a bout of sneezing, and am currently up in arms against my cold-vitamins, vitamin c, oranges, vicks stuff, etc. Worst things about it: its like having a cold in summer, all you want is nice warm soup and hot tea... which are both things that make you disgustingly hotter in this heat. Second, the tea here has caffine in it, which would make it do more bad than good. So ick. But on the upside the rash is gone! Party. Just incase you all were wondering no, I do not have a fever, in fact I'm running about a degree below normal, so I'm good. Just super exhausted with the cold and all the learning. I'll write more tomorrow.

Interesting fact of the day:
-taxis have hair extensions hanging from their rear bumpers
-Because of the moth of november (or maybe the begining of every month) there are choralers (ish) who go go through the neighborhoods at night singing something in arabic that I cant understand.
-When you sneeze people say Alhumdulilaay ( thanks be to god) because they percieve it as the devil being purged out of your system. People have been saying this a lot to me the past two days.

If your feeling a little bit like me right now, watch this.

I Forgot A Few Things

2009-10-11T14:29:00.000Z

Hmm so heres some more light hearted items

Palm Action- You shake hands with everyone you meet. It is only when you get 'palm action' though, that someone is intrested in being more than aquaintance. So beware of the tickle of the palm

Another NC Connection- So it seems like everyone is from north carolina. Small recap
GCY fellows- Laura Keaton, Michael Wilson, and Me
GCY staff member Graham went to UNC and lives about two minutes from my school, and Mrs. Lindquist taught him at Ravenscroft. He also played soccer at CASL
There were the presenters for the Center of Creative Leadership ( one of the days in San Fran) who are from Greensboro
There was another group of people at IONS- and six of them were from Charlotte
One of the board members for GCY grew up in NC, went to Broughton, and then to UNC. And his brother is currently attending Chapel Hill.
And I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Anyways, we were talking to are wolof teacher about where we were from. Of course I say I'm from Raleigh. It turns out his best friend sells inurance in Raleigh.

In Senegal the man gives a dowry, or a payment, to the womans family for her. Comman payment meathods include: A cell phone, cloth materials, a car, a tv, or.... a sewing machine. Traditionally the cash amount was 25,000 CFA. Thats you know, about $50 for a wife.

P.S. Joel, I just want to say hey.

Views for Thought

2009-10-11T13:14:00.000Z

Yesterday we went to the zoo. I'll tell you about it when I can steal pictures from Alec so you can actually see it. Instead, I think I'm going to skip to going home from the zoo.

Here we were-Victoria, Alec, Matt, Hilary, and I (Gaya is still getting better so Rachel took her home in a car)- standing on the corner leading away from the zoo in the twilight right before the black of night. Behind us lat the cement walls with their murals of lions, tigers, and..... monkeys (no bears, sorry). And in front of us lay the massive trafic jam where we were trying to get into one of those magnificently sketchy car rapides in order to get home. During the day you see all the cars in Senegal, and you see the black stencht that they excrete for a few seconds. In that erie light though, all was visible. Over the line of brakelights was a black cloud- swirling with the wind, growing with each car, revolting with each sniff. We couldnt catch a car rapide on the corner due to the traffic jam, so we were forced to walk up to the next stop- through all the highway entrance ramp that looks like it belongs in modern day france, past the street sellers who were packing up their stands, the children running home, the cars pulling into the few abondoned dirt patches, the stand along "Imports" car vender (Mercedez, Americain, BMW, so on), accross streets where mr Diobe stopped cars before we crossed, through the underpass next to the trash on the sidewalk, past the mounds of scattered plastic that are shoved into the middle of the roads so that cars can still pass, past all the cars still waiting while they belched out the acrid smoke, and past the fading colors that we could still see. Before we finally turned onto Bourrgiba, where we would catch our car rapide, the view was not breath taking, but more and juxtiposition of a beautiful disaster. The break lights reached into the distance against the black night sky. There were the streetlights- not lit up by their own illumination as they stood dead, but rather the cars coming at them and going past them, casting shadows on themselves. The people in their blues, yellows, reds, organges- every single color went along with all the colored fruit, creating a kalidescope of color, the piles of trash flashing in and out of view as they were lit, and all while your throat burned, the slow burn of the mix of cigarette smoke and smog. Yes, beauty in the people and color, disaster in the waste and distruction.

The window like structures that let air into the breakfast area.

Another of my view from breakfast.

The view from the breakfast table- think plastic camp table & chairs.

The view from the top of the house-During the day.

The family sheep!

The courtyard in the daylight

The roof view again. The dirt soccer field is right next to those trees

The alleyway next to my bedroom.

The soccer field view a gain.

In Pictures: the Courtyard

2009-10-10T23:51:00.000Z

Okay, so I am exhausted. Seriously. I was going to write the amazing blog (psych), but my arms hurt just from being a bit high so that i can type, and by a bit high i mean above my belly button. And i need sleep because of the concert last night, so I'm sure this blog would make no sense anyways! So, here are some pictures, with captions even! EEEE Gads!!!!! But I dont have class tomorrow until 3ish. So i will be writing a nice little blog tomorrow expling the world and writing letters. And then to the downtown for a history lesson. Fabulous, I know. So that is the way it shall be.

Caroline: I want you to know, that everyone here wears jellies. Its freaking ridiculous. The babies, tons of guys- everyone. They're like the jack rodgers but they have the jelly part covering the toes as well. Smart no? Oh well, thinking of you, and I love you.

-Ananda

Brother: Moussa with ze corn

Brother: Mamadou with said corn as well

Me with said corn.

Corn made on the castiron charcoal... thingy

Khalifa cooking the corn in the coals on the cast iron................. thingy

me with the breadbowl at dinner...at 10:30pm. its approximately 94 degrees with the heat index

Sister: Ama at dinner

My desk with the essentials: nalgene, bug spray, sunblock, money, gorilla pod, cashews, and squishy ball.

Mosquitooo neeeetttt

Khalifa with the bananas from the banana tree!!!

Said boys shower door.

the courtyard from the oppisite angle. I was sitting in that chair yesterday when I wrote the pictures in my head blog. and the cooking stuff was to the left in the picture. for the record that is

banana tree all chopped off : (

A Short Quip

2009-10-10T14:22:00.000Z

We went to the Youss N Dour concert last night- he finally came on stage by 2:30, and everyone was so tired by then that we only stayed for one song. The act before him was great though- one guy playing a guitar. My friend Samba is going to get me his cd, so I might be able to post a song.

Feeling slightly non well right now. Possibly from lack of sleep, or awkward food. Going to Dakar's main park and zoo today. Cue homesicknees. I'll update later, promise.

-Ananda

Pictures In my Head

2009-10-08T23:43:00.000Z

The courtyar din my house is roughly a 12/12 square with an extra 4x6 rectangle added onto it. From me at 8 o'clock I have the grey concrete hallway that leads to my room and the stairs. At 10 there are the two bathrooms/showers- one for the men, and the other for the women. At 12 there is the banana tree- curved by the weight of this unfippened bananas so that it touches the boys molting white wooden bathroom door. At 1 there is the door to the room that I should have been in ( but now Ama is). I had to move because one of the biggest rainy seasons ever brought floods and water damage to almost every home- leaving dankness and mold. At 2:30 there is the kitchen, another 4x6 rectangle, filled with its counter, refrigerator, and few cabients. OUtside its door sits the gas tank with its signle burner on top, and right next ot it lies the oron charcoal holder- the two things which prepare every meal my family and I eat. And then at 6 lies the cream colorred cement wall that separates Mousa's room from the courtyard.

Okay, two things about today, wait, no fourish.

1) Wolof does not have words for: funny, kate, or sad. Just think for a mmoment about waht that means about the culture. My theories?
Funny- humor is expected from everyone, if everyone is funny, there is no reason to say it.
Late- in Senegal, your not 'late' if you arrive four hours. Need I say more?
Sad- People here dont really understand public crying, it puzzles them, and they always dont see why you would cry. For the people here, someone is always there for you, whether you like it or not. So if you have a person who you can always talk to, even when your going out of your mind, there is no real reason to be sad.

2) I roasted coffee beans tonight on our little courtyard over the charcoal. We then ground them and will have fresh coffee tomorrow morning (I'll drink it for the experiance, but seriously, its so freaking hot right now, 101 heat index with ridiculous humidity). The smell of the beans was amazing- there of course was the smell of coffee, but there was also something much sweeter, almost of cinnamon and cocao. Then we roasted peanuts in their shells.. and I just ate them. Yep, fresh hand roasted peanutes.

3) I ate two banans today, and they made my life. Anything that is not a) strait carbohydrates b) with oil makes me extremely happy. Me + Salad= would be heaven. Sadly, it is not so, as its not edible for me.

4)We bought fabric yesterday and today we brought it to the tailor (nyaokat) and will have two paris of pants and a shirt by next week.

Oh and my brothers just litened to Akons Beautiful and Sexy Girl. Its just kind of surreal. Oh, and they love jazz. And as I'm not sleeping because I'm being kept up by my neighbors... and writing this blog... I herd the neighbors play Replay. That would be for you Mini.

The heat rash is doing much better. The phamacies " milk of the .... eaufaut" (whatever that means, oh how french is confusing) did well. On the bad side, I now have a rash on part of my stomach and all my lower back. Options: a) Its just a different type of heatrash b) my clothes werent ironed right so I now have fly larvae in me, dont worry, its not dangerous, just disgusting. c) (the option im voting for) I have eaten so much freaking oil that it is litterally seeping out of me, yes that is disgusting. Dont worry, if the heat rash milk doesnt help it I'll be going to the doctor tomorrow.

Even more important than that: IN the past 2.5 days I have got to talk to Mrs. Lindquist and Adri on the phone, Mrs. Karsten through e-mail, and Zuleika, Michael, Ian, and Erin by skype/Facebook chat. Yay.

Tomorrow: French and the last day of survival wolof.

Note:Sorry the posts are so long, I know they can be tiresome to read, but its hard to do them in small enough incriments because of scheduleing conflicts. Also, after this month, its not exactly going to be a full technology time, and while I have it (which is really unexpected) I figure I might as well use it. Night, or morning to me.

With love,

Ananda

New Blog Post On GCY wepost

2009-10-08T12:12:00.000Z

Complete sentences and all in this blog post!!! All about the first market day.

http://globalcitizenyear.org/author/ananda-day/

Moving Day and A Bit

2009-10-05T17:57:00.000Z

Oh la la, where in the world is my mind? Ho, hum. Well, actually, no ho hum at all. The past three days have been ridiculous.
So, lets start with my first french lesson with Madame Dianaba (Jana-baa). Before the lesson we had to take an exam to find out which class we would end up in and the exam consisted of a speaking conversation with the french teacher. Now in our group one person speaks impeccable french, Hilary is pretty darn good, I'm okay, and we have three who speak absolutly nothing. So we of course are like, no these people dont speak french. Instead of being like oh they dont need to take the exam Dianaba goes (in french) "super, lets start with them. To say the least, it was a quick exam. Anyways, Hilary and I are in the same class, which is quite a nice 1:2 ratio if I may say. Anyways, one of our tasks was to interview a man who works at the Baobab center in french. So we had gone through all the formal things-what is your name, occupation, where you were born, family, political believes, and so on. Anyways, he then states the question, a-tu un copain? Now litterally copain means friend, as in do you have a friend. At the current time I was exhausted, so of course I was like yes, I have tons of friends, and rattled off a bunch of people. Then he asks Hilary if she has a friend? Her respons? No. It was at this point that I remembered that in slang french, copain means boyfriend. To my horror, I had just told the man working at my 'school' that I had tons and tons of boysfriends. So I back tracked to say the least.

Yesterday was the official day that we got dropped off to meet our homestays! We got in to this massive van, that probably could have sat about 27 people or so comfortably. Off to each house we went, dropping fellows off to meet their new families. And then it was just me in the van while we were dropping Matt off. Side note, while sitting in the van a street vendor walked by with his box on his head. Now most of these people sell things such as cookies, batteries, t-shirts, or drinks. But this was not so for this special fellow, instead he had a box stuffed full of class-a lingerie on top of his head. Sadly, I have no photograph of the oddity.

Now a bit about my family. My last name is now Diallo (Jallo). I live in a neighborhood called SICAP Liberte, which is in the quartier next to the school. The home phone number is 011-221-33-864-0946. My cell phone number is 011-221-70-208-5693. -By the way, here, people dont say my number is two, eight zero.... instead they breat it up and say seventy, two hundred and eight, fifty six, and ninty three (which would be my number).. and in french. I knew I should have practiced the higher numbers more often. Okay, so officially there are three children in my family- Ama (26) is a female who works in her brothers shirt buisness. Khalifa (23) and Mamadou (20) are both in college. And then there are Karfa and another guy, who I think live there, but I'm not quite sure. See, in senegal, family if a very blurred line, so people just walk in like its no big deal. And to them, it really is no big deal. And there are Mama and Papa, but really I have no idea who is actually part of the family. Oh, and there is this french lady who works at the NGO with Karfa (who also owns the custom tailoring shirt buisness) and shes pretty cool. Ps, I totally think they have a secret thing together, but who actually knows? The whole family is pretty freaking smart too, we had discussions on the healthcare and politics of France and Senegal. Might I add, they dont really speak english, I mean Karfa can help me when I dont know a word in french, but litterally I now speak french 24/7 when at home or meeting people not with GCY. Well there was a big kerfluffel over the fact that the room I was supposed to be in had a bit of water damage, which had made it humid and with water stains/ mold on the walls. Eventually I ended up switching rooms with Ama, just for sleeping though so that I can still lock my room with all my stuff when I am no there. By the time all of this was sorted out, dinner was served- fried fish, yassa (onions & sauce), fries (dont even think about the word 'crunchy), and baguette. Until then, I had successfully avoided eating fish. This came to a tragic end though as I ate my first bite. I did only have one bite, but still, ew. And I know, I know, I'll have to start doing it sooner or later. As I was almost falling asleep as I ate, I then went to bed, reading my dear Dan Brown novel and writing in my diary. At about 3am, I woke up to the brilliant feeling of drowing... in the heat & sweat, even though I had a fan trained on me. Disgustingly hot to say the least. This morning I woke up with a beatuiful combination of: my eighth mosquito bite (even though i wore repellant & had a mosquito net) and a massive heat rash on the back of me legs, because it was so hot & sweaty when I was sleeping. Ick.
Today was safety and culture training. But I must go now, its getting dark at the Baobob.

Oh and P S. My house has wi fi!!! Karfa runs his shirt business online (and has a Macbook Pro might I add), so its all hooked up. Sweettttttttt! But I dont in the least expect this when I move out to the boon docks. Sending out letters tomorrow before a downtown sortie where were learning to barter!!

PSS.
So every morning we have the same breakfast of bread and stuff on it. Also, people drink really hot tea and coffee in the morning, which to me is ridiculous because it just makes you hotter! Back to the point though, send me Marmite. Besides the good nutritional value, its also something thats not always fo-nutella for breakfast. Its okay Heather, I know you think its ridiculous that I like marmite on bread.

-With love,
AD

Nighty Night

2009-10-03T23:12:00.000Z

Had my first journey into the neighborhood where I will be staying for the next month, SICAP Liberte. Here a last couple of pictures of the appartement before I move tomorrow. I am getting eaten alive by little bugs!!!

A Day of First Notes

2009-10-03T15:27:00.000Z

two ladies seen from the apartment balcony in senegalise dress

view from the balcony

again

and again

yep, still the same view. but this is the last day at the apparment, so eventually I'll get pictures of the house i'll be in for the next month.

October 3, 5pm.

Hmms. So a quick recap of the world as is, and has been for about a day.

-I got a red hard cover mole skin in the airport because i think I'll run out of space in the ones I have now. It was a great success.

-My last American meal (in Dulles) was Pizza, oh so great.

-There were a ton of MBA students on the plane, and when we were telling them about GCY the repeating phrase (on of the girls litterally said this 12 times) is that we seem really mature.

-I watched part of the Hangover on the plane before I fell asleep.

-The thing that most made me freak out/ be aware of the fact that I am actually in Africa was when the moment I stepped off the plane, I saw soldiers. There were soldiers at the terminal (that we were bussed to after getting off the plane), at the visa check in, at the bagage claim, after you have your bagage x-rayed, outside, and then on the roads leaving the airport.

-Good golly, this place is wicked humid. Think NC in the dog days of summer where you walk outside and feel like your swimming and need a snorkel to breathe. Its like that, but the sun is stronger. And dont worry, I'm all about sunscreen.

-So there is a lot of rubble everywhere. And construction. Like there was rubble right next to the runway at the airport. Oh, and there was a cat.... on the runway... near the rubble.

-There are horses in the medians of the highway. Supposobly they belong to someone, and they just wander off to feed, then they come back to their owner. Freaky when you see a horse on your first trip on a 'highway' (not really speedy, just two lanes really, and there are speed bumps everywhere. side note, there are almost no car crashes in Dakar. While there are also about two stoplights in the city, and there are some signs for directions, people avoid epicly failing each other by always communicating, person to person, before they turn or where they are going.)

-There are also sheep everywhere. Except they have no wool. I will try and get pictures of all of these things, but it might not be till later. For the spartan elite, the word for sheep in french is : mouton- pronounced moo-tawn.

-So on the first day (yesterday) I was so tired that as I brushed my teeth I used tap water. Call me captain idiot. Rachel, my team leader, says its not going to be too bad. I mean, maybe I'll just get immune a little bit faster.

-Every morning we are woken up promptly ( around 5ish i think) by the chanting in the mosque. Which really is beautiful. But in all honesty it is not best appreciated until more sleep is obtained.

-Here they call white people toubabs( two-bob). So everytime you walk past a group of kids, they go: toubab, toubab, toubab, etc. Its kina funny, but also quite wierd.

-its basically essential to shower three times a day as the weather is killer. i use the word 'shower' loosly.

-Today I had my first french lesson, oh what a great four hours.

-In approximately half an hour ( the Senegalise arent really watch people, to them, your not late if your there within four hours) we will be going on tours of the nieghborhoods of our host families. Yesterday we went on a tour of the neighborhood around the Baobab center, which is where we are learning. Currently there are students there from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Concidentally, two soldier from Fort Brag just left, as my french teacher, Madam Dinaba was teaching them. I can now tell you how to get to the post office, cell phone store, grocery store, the presidents house, the Baobab center, a pharmacy, and probably some other things.

-Tomorrow we are moving in with our host families. Wahooooo.

-Lunch yesterday consisted of: whole fried fish, seafood white rice, and ontion saucy stuff. Barf on my life. And yes, I know, I will have to eventually learn to live and love the seafood. Still, barf.

-Breakfast is typically baguette & fo-Nutella stuff made with peanuts. or margerine, or preserve.

-We have also had a random sampling of different sheep stews. Beware of bones. Also, can we just talk about how there are sheep everywhere? Les Moutons sont en tous dicrections!

-I'm also wearing tank tops for basically the first time ever. But dont worry, I cant wear them in public, that would just be silly. Only in the apparement, or under a button down.

-Gaya and I are currently sitting in the middle of the hallway ( with no air circulation might I add) in order to get an internet connection.

-the power went out last night, the first night, and not unordinary, yay for flashlights.

-We got our cell phones yesterday. they are kind of like pay as you go phones. I still have to check international rates. Can you recieve international texts?

Gota go though, promise at some point I will actually write in complete sentences, preferably coherent ones. Love you all.

So Long America, Hello Humidity

2009-10-02T21:04:00.000Z

Ian, Gaya, and I during our all-night goodbye.

Gone, Gone, Going

So heres the general overview for the past few days: We had a documentary film maker named Tori Hogan ( Beyond Good Intentions) come speak to us about social media, had Nancy Farease teach us about photo essays, went to the GCY send off party, had a send off discussion with Abby, watched a video compelation of our US training, packed, visited Guide Dogs for the Blind, a homeless shelter, l eft the dorms at 3:30 this morning, and then finally took off for Washington, Dulles where we will then connect to Dakar (and hopefully where I will be posting this). But to the more important things within.

Well obviously the most important thing was that there was a Free Taco Truck at the send off party, complete with bottled Jaritos and Coca Cola. I am proud to say that I championed two Chicken tacos Verde and Two Hot and Spicy Chicken Tacos. To say the least, Ian was proud. In general, the party was another those amazing meetings where it seems I’m meeting all the most interesting, important, intelligent, and generally incredible people. Ex. John Wood, founder of Room to Read, Abby’s mother, sister ( Hannah shes in public health, and its basicallly amazing), brother, and father, reporters from from Frontline, and of couse, more people from Raleigh, NC (Enloe graduate). Oh, and then there was the small detail that the day before Abby had asked Gaya, Matt, and I to write “ a little something to say” at the party. 24-hour crunch much? So we all arrive at this gorgeous stucco house in the Bay Area, its cold as all get up, of course we are in thin dresses as theres no reason for added warmth in Senegal, and…..the power is completely out. Needless to say I had the great opportunity of reading my speech in candle light with the added bonus of Abby hovering over me with an Iphone on the flashlight app. Who knows, maybe the mood lighting made people like it, but as for general consensous: people couldn’t see me shivering due to the dark, which is probably a good thing, and most seemed to like it (the frontline ladies gave me their cards!). One last thing, so there was a trampoline, and I’m pretty sure we had the equivilant of a mini party as we wrangled Ms. Erin Brennan (GCY Program Director) to come up with Matt, Zuleika, Hilary, Gaya, and Alec. The best part was probably having Erin have semi-mionor-half joke-heart attacks when say, my pen would fall out of my pocket and it became a dangerous object that that to be addressed with the utmost expediancy. Needless to say everyone laughed their hearts out when we super bounced Erin… even Erin.

So after this oh so crazy party, we made and adventure dash into In and Out, I mean, who wouldn’t do that at 11pm on a Tuesday night? Sadly (or not so sadly as they were beyond delicious) I was full of taco, so Gaya and I split a fry and chocolate milkshake, oh greasy goodness. On a side note, they are supposed to have the most amazing fried chicken in Senegal- its lightly breaded and then sear-fryed( if you can do that).

Well skipping forward to Wednesday, or yesterday, or today if you count it by how long I’ve been up. What a completely bittersweet day. See, its just another round of goodbyes that we had to now say. I mean really, what am I going to do without the other half of the fellows ( Ian, Laura, Zuleika, Marguerite, Michael, and the team Leader Luis)? Wait, wait, wait though. First we had a mess of packing and laundry to do. From about 1:30 pm to 1:45am I believe the packing was quite fervent and then began to die down. It included: doing laundry the whole time, an epic trip to Target for Erin, Gaya, Victoria and I ( I finally got those tights for my dress, ack, and other assorted items such a stock pile of batteries), and then the med kit corrections to make sure none of us is an idiot basically. And on the other side of things, we had to do things that in all honesty deserved the not sleeping that they got. Before we left for the US training institute everyone was asked to bring an object that defined this year for them. To name a few-a matchbox, passports, a peace corps luggage tag, the names of each of the fellows, mini light up hard hat key chain, a diary, a gaurdian angel, and a little shrinky dink of the world from years before. We then of course took on the task of writing each other Plane letters, for whenever you feel sad or lonely, we can always look at them and remember the amazing people in this with us. So in about 3 hours when I board my plane to Senegal I will be taking out my multicolored envelopes and card stock to make me a little less sad to be leaving these amazing people, as I will have at least a little bit of them with me. Sleep didn’t really matter, by far it was more important for everyone to finish their letters, to spend time with each other, and make sure they wouldn’t get arrested for something stupid at the airport.

All was smooth in general. And of course after all six of the Senegal fellows are on the road to the airport I burst into a spontaneous nose bleed due to the ridiculous dry air that we had of late. Yay, bloody car ride! Just kidding. Anyways, we get to the airport and are trying to check in, and the issue was that of –“ well you don’t have the extended visas yet (we will be obtaining them in country), so we don’t know if we can let you on the plane. After a great wait of twenty minutes, they finally realized that oh, we were right. Surprise, surprise? But I guess you cant blame them, I mean they would get a $25,000 fine if they messed up. Erin then walked with us to the gate, we all got breakfast, and then it was time. So we said our goodbyes, and my last glimpse was of Erin smiling as she waved while we walked onto the plane. Goodbye San Francisco, no more flowers in our hair sadly…except for the return of course.

So I appologize for the length, but oh well, like it really matters. Hopefully this will be posted while I’m sitting in Dulles airport with some grub. I then plan to do whatever it takes to actually get some sleep, as we arrive in Dakar at 5:55am. Don’t worry, I brought benadryl on the plane along with an eye mask and ear plugs. And I’ve been holding out on the sleep for you know… ever so I should be ready for it. Me= total sleep prep. In actuality= no idea if it will actually work. Well I love you all, make sure you write me back, and I promise to try and notify of safe arrivals. Oh, PS. IM GOING TO FREAKING AFRICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, scratch that, possibly by the time some of you read this… I WILL BE IN AFRICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You know, no big deal. Its just Africa. Okay, its love.

-Ananda

So it turns out that Dulles has no free internet access, causing the posting of this past blog to be a gigantic failure.

Notice though: I have arrived in Dakar, safe and sound, and whenever the power comes back on I will post this blog, and then eventually write one about the first day. Love.

An Education

2009-09-27T04:13:00.000Z

Notice the amazing drawing skills.
The beautiful sunset tonight.
Hmm hmm hmm, where to begin.
Back to the 24th. Visiting all the non-profits was amazing! I might have already said this, but I think I just planned out at least the next five years of my life. Room to Read- one of the most amazing organizations. I love the fact that they educate young women specifically as it has been shown that when girls are educated, they have a bigger impact per person on society. And the people were beyond cool. Then there are about three foundations I want to work with. After that of course, I plan on going back to GCY to work, both in the office and as a team leader. By the way, the GCY staff are about the coolest people in the world. Erin tells me the most ridiculous stories about her Peace Corps time in Saint Vincint, Adri is one of the kindest people ever, Will is always akward and goofy as all getup, Abby just makes me feel like I am in the presence of greatness, and Graham is beyond interesting. To say the least, I would love to work with them. Oh, and Rachel is at least top five in the smartest people I have ever met, and wickedly sarcastic.

On the way back from our 15 hour day Ian, Gaya, Laura, and I fell asleep quite soundly in the far back of the 16 passenger van, and hopefully I shall recover that picture to show you all. To say the least, we all went to sleep quite fast when we got back to IONS.

Friday, the 25thish.

So tomorrow (which is now today), our team leader, Rachel, is leaving for Senegal in order set everything up for this group. Because of this, we had our official debriefing today. So some tidbits maybe?
-there is a caste system, but not like the one in India. It is set up so that people are caste by linage to a job, say being a musician or blacksmith. Free men have the ability to work for their own living.
-Originally people in the cities of Saint Louis, Dakar, Goree, and Rufisque were considered honest french persons, and they took pride in this.
-There are three servings of tea after dinner. Usually young men around my age make the tea.
-For gender, there is equality in difference. There are also generation differences. There are gendered items, like the food pot that the other sex cannot touch. So men just dont touch the food pots because only the women cook the food. While Senegal has a patricarchal society, at a womans wedding, her mothers brother gives her away, not the girls father. Also, the grooms family gives the brides family a 'brideswealth' which is like a dowry, except it is the groom giving it to the brides father because he is taking away someone who would be serving the fathers family.
-Poligamy is allowed, but a man may only have 4 wives, and each one must be treated equally. The only way for a woman to make sure her husband does not take on another wife is to make him sign an agreemant before the marriage.
- In Senegal, time is all relative. When you set at time of 9am, you're not late till 1pm.
-People shower 2-3 times a day. They love to smell good, so they use tons of perfume and cologne, yet they dont use deoderant.
-You cant walk in front of someone while they are praying unless there is something between the two of you, ex. a pair of shoes, because you will come between them and God.
Oh, we had a fashion show this morning! We had to dress in a normal work day clothes, an outfit for meeting NGOs, and an outfit for a religious meeting. Sadly, I have to get a pair of leggings because one of my dresses is a half an inch short.

Saurday, 26th, meaning today.

This morning we had cultural adjustment training. Basically, Erin told us all about the different stages we will go through one we get in country.
1. Enthusiasm (the Honeymoon)- everything is exotic and quaint.
2. Initial Country & Culture Shock-feelinesgs of dependence, homesickness, no routine, limited language availability.
3. Initial Adjustment- Routines are reestablished, part of the language and culture is now understood.
4. Further Culture Shock-I have post training withdrawal, I'll be alone, and will miss daily contact with Americans.
5. Further Adjustment- almost fully functioning. Everything is going pretty well.

There are then the four levels of cultural awareness- unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.

During this Erin drew a nifty picture of an iceberg as a metaphor for what things you obviously know about a culture (above the water) , and those that are harder(below the water). I have attached the copy that I made of the picture in my notebook. I added the shamoo & laura added the octopus ( for the record, Erin's fish and Laura's octopus would totally not survive in the Arcitc). Oh, and I had to bring up Freud of course.

We then had meditation time with Abby, which was beyond relaxing. My story: we opened doors, and mine was just standing in front of me, clean cut and white inside a frame with a bright 1960's brass knob. As I stepped through it, I entered a clean white expanse, no idea if it was sand or not. In the distance there were white mountains, with the sky just bright enough that it contrasted all the white, but soft like it is on the first day of spring, with the sunlight making all the dust sparkle just the slightest in the air. There was also a square cherry wood table with a dark finish and clean white plate in the middle. And blah blah blah.... Mrs Lindquist...then we had to leave a note on the table... and mine said 'I love.' Possibly left for the Therien? who knows the mystery of meditation. Anyways... our session this afternoon was on solving conflict, basically sticking to the facts, and then on active listening. Mr Carl Rodgers much? It ended up being pretty basic, but flipping hilarious. We all played with play-doh the whole time, and the lady kept saying (as an example of being mean to someone) 'loser, slacker, flaker. In then going through one of the conflicts the quote " Its okay to be wrong.... and you are" came about, and personally I think its quite brilliant.

We then went to dinner, where instead of eating the beyond delicious meals we are now used to, we got a surprise. Walking into the dining area every person had to draw a lot- low income, middle income, and upper income. I ended up middle income. We were not allowed to talk to people in other classes. People in the lower class received one scoop of rice, middle- a scoop of rice and beans, and the two people in the upper class ( Ian and Abby Falik) got to eat the chicken verde & other things that everyone else was eating for dinner. This simulation was set up by Oxfam in order to show the relative poverty and proportions of it throughout the world. To say the least it was depressing, but also eye opening. One of the more prominant things I gleamed from it was a realistic view of relative deprivation. If someone makes $1000 in Guatemala or Senegal, they are considered middle income. If someone makes $1000 a year in America, they can barely buy food for half a year, espcially if they have to support more than one person. It was also hard to reconcile the notions of jealousy of the rich & their food, and guilt over how much more we had than the poor.

That was about two hours ago. I then came back to the dorms with everyone and took the opportunity to work ou and shower. Zuleika, Michael, Victoria, and I are now in the dorms sharing pictures and communicating with people. Everyone thinks you seem like the coolest people, at least from the pictures and what I've said. Love you all, night night.

PS. On the Agenda for tomorrow: focus groups with Wil and then we have interviews with this lady named Linda Mornell, a director of summer search. The guatamalen fellows have already gone through these interviews and the reactions that came from them were: torture, evil lady, and tears. Am I looking forward to it? In the way that I'm interested in what she will say about me, but I'm also a BIT not looking forward to being psychoanalyzed and taken apart. Yay. Goodaye mates.

Quick Update

2009-09-25T06:43:00.000Z

room to read office
current tv station!
kiva.org
an example of the amazing ideo invetions
my train study for the ideo teaching

We got up at 6 am today and it is currently 11:46 pm, so I am tired to say the least. A quick recap, and then I shall cover it more sufficiently when I have more sleep in my system.
6:30 departure.
Ride to Paulo Alto
Meet with donors and people connected to GCY- Huge foundation representatives & non profit persons. Meet them at a donors house where we had bagels and coffee over one of the most beautiful views ever.
Off to IDEO, the coolest design firm in the whole world I'm convinced. Heather & Dana- they had an orange book in their office building. Had a planning exercise run with us and we received a tour of the facility.
Off to Kiva, where we met with the founder & CEO Matt and had a great conversation with him while we got to ask him questions.
Then to the Room To Read headquarters where three of the top managers gave us a presentation and answered questions. This is by far one of my favorite oranizations out there.
Lunch at a Guatemalan Restuarant.
A surprise.... which turned out to be visiting the Current (channels) international headquarters on the way back. We met with one of the major project managers and he explained the whole station and answered questions about producing & filming for our coming year.
Went back to Petaluma and IONS.
2/3 toothbrush boxes are here and Mrs. Angells chapstick!

Oh, and I was in Al Gores office at Current (which is basically his tv station). And I have a picture that will come. Night yall. Love

A Day For Champions

2009-09-24T02:25:00.001Z

So I figure I should back track first to share a couple of things.

Moment: Yesterday, Rachel (the Senegal team Leader), Adri & Erin (GCY staff), Ian (a fellow writing a blog post), Laura, and I (answering a survey) were all hanging out in the couch room, which is essentially a room full of three huge uber squishy brown couches. As we were talking about the hot weather, Rachel busts out in a " Oh, my... Really now". It turns out that she had been listening in on our conversation while composing an e-mail containing a sentence about her 8-year old cousin. Essentailly it came to the phrase " my hot cousin". Oh great funny.

Later on Zuleika, Ian, Laura, and I decided to look at the pictures on the GCY website of the past few days. While waiting for them to load, Zuleika pulled out her flip camera in order to 'interview me.' One sentence in Laura pokes me, causing a giggle, which in turn caused a three minute- filmed tickle attack with me writhing in a mess of helpless giggles.

There is also the thing known as GB... the Gangster Bee. Essentially the GB has flown off with chicken & cheese from our lunches outside, and drank mint tea within our conference room. Enough said.

The day we all got here was sufficiently uneventful. We went to this amazing mexican restuarant two bulidings down from the GCY office, where I enjoyed a delicious entree of enchiladas. Overall, the food at the Noetics Institute is basically amazing. Save tonight, where there was sole fish, we have had grilled chicken, fresh bread, bacon, fruit, cinnamon oatmeal cookies.... everything delicious! Something that makes it better though, is the efficiency of the kitchen. We may have grilled vegtables one night, and the next morning you will see them in your scrambled eggs. Along with that, they try to obtain all local foods.

Anyways, today we had by far the most amazing speakers! The first one was named Kevin from the Mulago Institute, and who is deeply involved in the Rainer Fellowship. He taught us the essential ways that you judge the viability of an organizations impact. I.E. is it working or not. The idea is: if you have an impact, it will make people happy. Also, happiness facilitates the process. So what makes happiness? Broken down people need: their basic needs to be met, the prospect of a better future, to keep up with the Joneses, to avoic loss (as loosing an amount is felt longer than gaining the same amount), and to provide autonomy. To then measure this impact you take four steps. 1. What is the real mission of the project? Stated in 8 words or less including in the statements: target population, verb, and an outcome. 2. Find the single best thing to measure. 3. get real numbers before AND after the fact. 4. Show that the change is undeniably attributed to what you did. Lastly, you perform the walk away test. If you walk away, will the effect still be in place? Would people care enough to do it for themselves?

Okay, well I'm off. We are going to have cupcake decorating bonding.

Just for Kicks

2009-09-23T05:46:00.000Z

Today:
So I woke up around 7: 30, 15 minutes before my alarm, which has to be one of the most annoying things in the world. Then I went for a run. Which is actually a lot worse than it sounds because were in possibly the hilliest part of the world. We had a beautiful breakfast of eggs, spinach, and fruit. After that we went to the Oak View Room and had a beautiful discussion with Professor Abernathey of Stanford University. Basically it was all about different definitions of devolopment and how they were enacted. Then we had director of international development from North Western speak to us, followed by a game played with all the fellows. I got to talk to Mrs. Heather, Mrs. Dana, and Caroline today which made my day! After dinner we got to meet the board members, which was pretty freaking intimidating. One of them was part of the Diraper Richards Foundation, one the CFO of Gap (who paints his daughters nails), one from NY who worked in the Clinton white house and organized the understudy program for secretaries, and Mr. Clayton, a fellow Carolina graduate from Raleigh (Broughton). Currently nine of the fellows are residing in Alec & Michaels room litterally acting like fools. We just talked about wild interpretations of dreams, how we're attracted to different people, slam poetry, the forever iconic Lolita, and a couple of unspeakable things. We also had a salsa lesson from Zuleika in the hallway, which turned into a mix of the stanky leg and an all around jam fest. Who is Wallace Stevens? Okay, off to the Diary. Love you all.