Happy Thanksgiving

I know it's a little late, but I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! I also would like to write a little about my pilgrim-style Thanksgiving experience here.

So, there were 3 main options for big American-style (what other style there is, I don't know) Thanksgiving celebrations here in Senegal; the Peace Corps regional houses in the North and in Kedougou were both were planning big dinners, or we were all also invited to dinner at the Ambassador's in Dakar. I was planning on going to the one closest to me in Kedougou, but the day before just didn't really feel like making the journey and honestly just felt indifferent about the whole Thanksgiving celebration here. My friends Josh and Tracy also felt the same way, so
we decided to stay here and cook our own Thanksgiving dinner.

The cooking was interesting; we didn't have much to work with as far as making "traditional" Thanksgiving dishes with ingredients from the market. Also, Tracy and Josh are both vegetarians, and I'm not a pilgrim, we didn't have a turkey. I lack the know-how and desire to go through the process of "live turkey in the market" to "Thanksgiving feast turkey on the table." Those skills are required here just as much as they were for that first Thanksgiving, and I'd rather just go without.

The celebration of Thanksgiving is not just about eating good food, though. It's also about giving thanks and being with people you care about. With that in mind, we decided to invite some guests to our celebration: Sara, a woman who is doing research for a Fulbright here and her husband, our favorite guard El Hajj, and two other Senegalese men, Pap and Ibrahaima, who are not only great friends but also very helpful to Tamba volunteers in a variety of ways.

I've never really done much of the "lets all say what we are thankful for" in past Thanksgivings, but this year I was all about it. I began the giving of thanks by saying how thankful I was to be surrounded by so many great friends: thankful to be in the same region as Tracy and Josh, thankful to learn about and be able to help Sara's Fulbright research, and especially thankful for the special relationships I have formed with the Senegalese people we invited.

I then went on to say that I'm thankful for this entire Peace Corps experience- the highs and the lows- and for the personal growth phase I am going through right now. I'm thankful for friends and family that haven't forgot about me and make sure that I know it. I'm thankful for so very much, I could go on and on, which is also something to be thankful for. Eventually I stopped being sentimental and let everyone else have their turn, and it was just such a touching experience to go around the table and hear what everyone was thankful for. Spanning nationality, religion, and culture, and so much more, there were general things that we all gave thanks for- the families we were born in to and the families we have made, health, food on the table and love in our hearts.

This was my first Thanksgiving away from home, and I expected it to be hard for me, but having dinner with so many interesting, dynamic people from such different backgrounds really felt like the true spirit of Thanksgiving to me. What I want to say is that this Thanksgiving was the first time that I have seriously thought about how much I have to be thankful for. It's taken me almost 9 months, but I am finally becoming energized and engaged and comfortable here. What I've learned recently is that the frustrations, disappointments and heartaches I experience here will eventually be made up for by the fascinations, euphoria's, and revelations. I'm in the fascinations, euphoria's, and revelations stage right now and couldn't be happier.

Much love to all of you, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Girls Leadership Camp: An Attempt To Tip The Scales

So far, any health work I've done in my village has been very informal and not very well received. Even if I have helped educate people in my village about health topics, I really haven't ever felt like I've made that big of a difference in their lives. I recently was able to do some very fun and fulfilling work outside of my village, helping my closest neighbors Sara, Sharon, and Erin do a girl’s leadership camp in Koumpentoum, the departmental capital of Tamba. The three of them had written and received a grant for this camp and subsequently planned most of it all before I even arrived to Tamba, but even though I wasn't a part of the initial planning stages, but I was able to help with its implementation and it was very gratifying, to say the least.

The idea for doing a girls leadership camp stemmed from The Michele Sylvester Memorial Scholarship Fund program, which is funded by friends and family of Peace Corps Senegal who are committed to girls' education in Senegal, many of which have experienced the real circumstances when it comes to girls education here. In short, there are many economic, cultural, and social barriers that keep girls from attending and succeeding in school. UNICEF estimates that almost two-thirds of women age 15 and up in Senegal are illiterate, and that only 16 percent of Senegalese girls finish elementary school and go on to secondary school. With that in mind, scholarships are awarded at the middle school level only and are based on the girls' GPA, motivation, need, and location. Each girl receives a grant of 25,000 CFA (app. US$ 50) to help with school supplies, uniforms, and other school-related costs. The whole application, interview, selection, and awarding of scholarships process is done exclusively by Peace Corps volunteers. Approximately 30 scholarships are awarded annually throughout Senegal, enabling the recipients to have access to continued education and all of the possibilities that come along with it.

After the scholarships were awarded, Sara, Sharon, and Erin were looking for a way to further interact with the girls who had been nominated but didn't win. They chose to do a girls leadership camp to motivate and encourage all of the girls involved in the nomination/scholarship process in their studies. There were a total of 20 girls invited to the camp; 12 girls from Koumpentoum and 8 girls from Kuchaba, a town 30K into the bush from Koumpentoum. The broad goal our camp was simply developing and encouraging life skills such as communication, decision making, thinking, managing emotions, assertiveness, and self-esteem building.

Special thanks to:
Sara's parents in America for having 50 shirts made and sent for the camp.

Front: Girls Leadership Camp, Koumpentoum 2008

Back: Girls Education: To Give Them The Power To Pursue All Of Their Dreams

Thanks also to:
-Some of Sara's previous co-workers for sending 2 whole boxes of notebooks for the girls.

-Katherine Suri and members of The First Presbyterian Church of Mountain View, CA for their generous donation of pens, pencils, and stickers.
All of these donations were greatly appreciated by all involved and allowed us to make gift packages for all of the girls. Thanks for your help!)

On the first day of the camp, the girls arrived and received their gift bundles of t-shirts, pens, pencils, stickers, and notebooks. We then introduced our panel of successful women, which included a midwife, teacher, leader of the girl’s academic excellence club in Koumpentoum, and radio station technician. These women then each talked about the obstacles they had faced, how they were able to overcome them in order to get to where they are now, and their plans for the future. After that, we had a question-answer session with the girls and the women on the panel. I think this discussion was really motivating for the girls because the women on the panel were all from the Koumpentoum region and had similar upbringings. Their success showed the girls that they too have the same chances for personal liberation of unprecedented dimension and opportunity.

The next session was basically an introduction to the topic of gender and was led by Erin, a volunteer whose drive and dedication to the development of Senegal makes her not only a great role model for fellow volunteers (aka me), but also for the girls at our camp. She began by describing the difference between "sex" and "gender roles". We then handed the girls "gender cards" with words such as: control, strength, caring for the sick, violence, work, money, cooking, religion, intelligence, leadership, ect. We told them not to look at their cards until we said "go!" at which time they were to tape their cards in what they thought to be the appropriate area on a board we had made that had "Female" and "Male" on different sides.

She then asked the group if everyone agreed on the placement of the cards, which sparked debate among participants regarding how the culture views certain activities in terms of gender. After asking the opinions of all participants, most of the cards were eventually moved to the area in between "Male" and "Female," an area that nobody had even originally thought to be an option when they originally decided where to put their cards.

Erin ended the session by having the girls list some of the gender roles expected of men and women in Senegal. They then discussed challenges to current gender roles and ways to foster change within the community and culture. I think it was a really great session and helped the girls to realize that gender is determined by culture- it is how the community wants you to behave and think based on whether you are a man or a woman. Complete changes in attitudes about these issues probably didn't happen from this session, but it at least formed a base for the beginning of the girls' thought processes around these issues and how they affect their lives and futures.

After this session, Michele, Sara, and I went to pick up lunch and made were laughed at by all of Koumpentoum as we walked from the cook's house to the community center we were using for the camp. White girls with bowls on their heads are always an entertaining sight for Senegalese people.

For the last session of the day we showcased Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! (She Works, She Lives!), a documentary produced by Peace Corps volunteers highlighting achievements made by five women from poor families. The objective of the film is to promote, among young Senegalese girls, the idea that it is possible for everybody to succeed, regardless of their family’s financial situation. USAID loaned us a projector and it was so amazing to watch the girls- many of whom have never watched or seen a TV- see this documentary. It is very well put together and interesting and I would highly recommend it to any of you all who are interested in this topic. It's in French but there are English subtitles, and the website is http://www.peaceonlyproductions.blogspot.com/.

After the video, we had dinner and then had a dance party, which was lots of fun for all involved; Senegalese people love to dance and also love forcing American's to join in, and then laughing at/with us for our lack of rhythm.

The second day was amazing because Awa, who is the culture/homestay trainer for the Peace Corps in Thies, came all the way to Koumpentoum to lead sessions for the day. I cannot explain how much I personally love Awa.

We have a special bond; she helped me through some issues I had during training, installed me into my village. But my love for Awa is beside the point. She is one of the women featured in Elle Travaille, Elle Vit! , and it just a great role model and motivator for young women.

She led sessions on developing life skills such as good communication and negotiating, making appropriate decisions, thinking through the consequences, and delivering assertive messages. She split the girls into groups and gave them hypothetical situations- a father refusing to let his daughter continue going to school and arranging an early marriage, rape by a family member, ect. - and had them perform skits based on how they would deal with the given problem. These skits and following discussions really helped the girls develop critical thinking skills and taught them a number of alternatives in dealing with difficult situations.

After Awa's sessions, we had a recognition ceremony for all of the girls at the camp. We invited their families, gendarmes (police), teachers, principals, religious leaders, and other community members. Erin led most of the ceremony and began by thanking everyone for their support and talking about the importance of girls’ education and empowerment. She then recognized each of the girls, and then two of the groups with the best skits preformed their skits for the audience, followed by all the girls singing a song about women's empowerment. After all of that, some of the teachers and community members made brief speeches and thanked us for our work with the girls and just thanked us over and over again, then thanked the Peace Corps, then thanked America, and one teacher even ended his speech with, "viva America! Viva Obama!" which I thought was a nice touch.

It was just really nice to hear all of these important people say thank you to us and that they appreciated our work. It's just not something you hear very often here, and even though I didn't even play that big of a role in the whole camp, it was still the most heartwarming, "maybe I am doing some good here, after all" feeling. I can't really explain it but I really think it's true that as a volunteer, you get just as much as you give out of your work.

The rest of the photos from the camp are posted here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/GirlsLeadershipCamp#

Hope all is well with you all and keep in touch!

Learning To Live With What I Am

So. I shaved my head, as many of you know. Contrary to what some of you may be thinking, no, I haven't completely lost my mind. I know, I know, the odds aren't exactly in my favor: remote village in Africa, no electricity/running water/cell phone reception, nearest white person/person that speaks English 45K away, ect. BUT, for the time being, I am clear headed and in touch with the real world. Well, most of the time. Anyway, since it is kind of a radical thing to do and some of you may be interested, I thought I would write a little bit about it on here.

First off, I have no idea why, but ever since I found out I was going to be coming to Africa, I always joked that I wanted to shave my head. I really can't explain why that idea ever came into my mind, but I never seriously thought about it more than thinking it would be cool to do.

In May of 2007, 3 months before I was originally supposed to come to here, I cut 10 inches of my hair off for Locks of Love. My hair was really long at the time, and I figured it was a good idea to cut my hair off before I came here. Anyway, I absolutely hated my hair that short. The great thing, however, was that any time I got upset and felt ugly, I just reminded myself that I cut my hair for a good cause that I really believed in. Here's the basic info about Locks of Love from their website:

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

So, even though I hated how I looked then, I just kept telling myself that my hair will always grow back, but for the with alopecia areata, theirs won't. So, I got over it. As an added bonus, a few months later, my mom donated her hair, too.

Fast forward to Senegal. For the first few months, as many of you know, I really wasn't happy here and came very close to ET'ing (et = early termination) on several occasions. I always said, though, if after IST (in service training) in August, I went back to my village and was happy and felt confident that I would be able to stay for the full 2 years, I would shave my head. Well, I had some ups and downs and plenty of "am I doing any good here? is this worth it?" moments, but I got through all of it and feel stronger because of it.

The biggest contributing factor to me shaving my head was simply because here in Senegal, my hair was a hassle and nothing more. This is what washing my hair in the village would entail: rationing water for a few days and saving up enough to wash my hair (no way was I going to pull and carry more water on my head just to wash my hair: that's hard work), then shampooing and conditioning it via bucket bath, and then beginning the battle that was combing out the various knots/dreds that had formed since the last time I had washed my hair. Oh, and to add to the fun, being naked and thus a huge target for mosquitoes, flies, bees, and the like during the whole ordeal.

The other reason I wanted to shave my head was the fact that I have only attempted to wear my hair down on two occasions in this country, and have only succeed once because it's just way too hot to have hair on your neck here. Yes, some people with long hair do wear it down here, some even on a daily basis, but for me, I would just rather be a little bit cooler and have my hair up than sacrifice my comfort in order to feel pretty and have my hair down, you know?

So anyway, the other day I was washing my hair and being grumpy about it, when I had a brilliant the brilliant idea to shave my head and be Britney Spears for Halloween. I mean, I needed something to motivate me to turn thought into action, you know? I thought about it for a while, and then the thought came to me that my hair was probably long enough to donate to Locks of Love. When I came to Tamba, I measured checked the Locks of Love FAQ and measured my hair, and sure enough, my hair was long enough. So, with a lot of moral support and a little booze, I made up my mind to do it. That night my friends took turns cutting my hair off (and into a mullet, then a rat tail, just for fun, too), and then the next day two of my good friends went with me to the barber shop to buzz the rest off.

Everything happened so fast, I didn't really have time to freak out about much of it. I did cry when I looked in the mirror after my friends cut it all off. I freaked, felt like I had just made myself so ugly, and was really angry at myself for doing it. That had to happen at some point though, right? Anyway, I eventually got it out and that was the end of the tears. The next morning I woke up and my first thought was that I didn't want to look in the mirror. I then proceed to have a pep talk with myself and promised myself that from that point on, I wasn't going to say or think anything negative about my hair. It wasn't easy and I definitely slipped a few times, but I have really been making an effort to stop beating myself up so much in my head about my hair, body, competence, ect. Sometimes I really can be my own worst enemy and it has got to stop. One of the main reasons I joined Peace Corps was to work on myself, especially my self confidence.

It's crazy how hair affects not only our appearance but also our identity. I am trying to find my true self, and not being confident in my looks or who I am is not going to be part of that true self. I finally have come to realize that there is no duality in life, there is no separation, only the whole. I can't be strong and independent and still beat myself up about my appearance. Slowly I will rebaptize self-inflicted negativity as self-confidence.

I read this quote recently and it really rang true to me:
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”

So, that about covers everything. Only one person so far has asked me if I'm a man or a woman, so that's a plus. At the end of the day, hair is just hair and I'm happy I did it.

Here's the link to the pictures of it all:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/ShavingMyHeadHalloween2008#

New Pics

I posted some so pics from my friend Sara's Birthday party in Tamba.
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/SaraSBday#

Not Not Scared

Part of me is hesitant to write about the challenges I have been faced with this month in any specific sense. Part of me wants to keep what I write on here as positive and un-bitchy as possible, but another part of me is all it’s my blog, I can post whatever the hell I want, I can abstain from posting whatever the hell I want, I don’t owe anybody anything. Furthermore, it's a good story and ultimately a good example of the kind of adversity that I came here to experience- the kind that truly tests me. Here goes:

The village I live in is probably typical of many rural villages in Senegal and the rest of Africa. The people in my village are isolated from most outside influences, and this isolation manifests itself in completely unpredictable ways. In broad terms, the isolation of rural villages here provides avenues for world views that are both specialized and universal, and it has particularly validated world views that are patently unreasonable.

For example: In my village, without exception, parents buy special necklaces called gre-gries for their babies. These necklaces are purchased from the local witch doctor and are believed to protect the babies from harm. No problem there, right? Well, one day I was told matter-of-factly by someone in my village that gre-gries are much more than good luck charms: This person claimed that if someone shot a gun at a baby wearing a gre-grie, the bullet would "bounce off." What?! Luckily, gunshot wounds don't really pose a threat to babies here, but I would hate to see that theory tested. I said something to that effect, in an attempt to shake some logic into this person, but everyone else within earshot backed this person up and thus prompted a spirited debate about the "powers" of gre-gries. It was me against the village, and logic was no argument for them. They claimed that "people they knew" had actually seen the invincible shield qualities of the gre-gries against gunshot wounds. A mind-numbing percentage of Pulaars actually believe this, and our debate went on for several minutes, finally ending in a stalemate when I realized that I had absolutely no chance in changing their minds about what is ultimately a harmless, though completely illogical, belief. At the end of the day it really just bothered me that I had to prove something this elementary. And prove it to people to whom I could never hope to convince.

That's just a glance into the absurdity of Pulaar beliefs, but what about the folks who actually take this crackpot logic as irrefutable fact? I spend a lot of time with them, and I can honestly say that most of them are decent, well-intentioned people. The other day I found out that in some cases, they're just dangerously deluded.

This particular day started out like any other day during Ramadan. For me, this meant sitting under the tree in my compound all day attempting to appease the people in my village by socializing with them. What actually happens, though, is they talk over my head while I daydream and pretend to be intrigued with whatever they are saying, which I'm pretty sure isn't fooling anyone, since they all continue to discuss daily the all the progress I am failing to make in my Pulaar.

ANYWAY, I was just sitting there, not paying attention, when my host father came up to me and told me he wanted to show me something in my next door neighbor, Mama Igne's, backyard. He is always doing this sort of thing, coming up to me with this goofy look on his face and then proceeding to show me something insignificant that he thinks I will be amazed by. Sometimes it's an empty Fanta bottle he found, sometimes it's a dirty potato someone gave him; it's always something completely random but it's kind of endearing because I can tell that he thinks that seeing these things will make me happy because he thinks they will remind me of home.

So, with this in mind, I followed him into Mama Igne's backyard and obeyed when he told me to walk towards her douche area. Much to my horror, that tricky bastard had me walk right up to what appeared to be the brand new home of a bunch of big, scary snakes. For reasons I'm not really sure of, I didn't freak out that much. I sort of just abruptly turned around and got the hell out of there. Actually, now that I think about it, I wasn't that scared because I was positive that my dad was for-sure immediately going to get his machete and kill every last one of them.

If you're like me, when you see snakes, especially snakes in Africa, you want them dead. So, when I asked what I thought to be the perfectly logical question, "Well, aren't you going to kill them?" I was shocked when he said no. I then asked every other man that was in our compound at the time the same question, and when they all said no, I realized that things were about to take a turn for the worse.

What I could never fathom, and still can't, really, is the reason why nobody would kill the snakes: Pulaar people, at least the ones in my village, believe that if they kill a snake, their cows will die. To put this in context, it is worth noting that Pulaar people are herders. Owning a cow is the only real source of wealth any of the men in my village will ever have. Therefore, cattle are often the top priority. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I couldn't help but feel personally insulted when I found out that cattle even outrank me. That's a bitter pill to swallow.

I should have known it would be futile, but I attempted to reason with them. I mean, here's a fact of life: There are 9 different types of deadly snakes in Senegal. Yes, deadly. Especially for children and especially for people in remote villages -like the one I now call home- that are hours away from emergency medical care.

What's so disquieting to me is the fact that the only thing separating me from these snakes is a shoddy bamboo fence that is barely taller than I am and often falls down when it rains. Considering that, and the fact that getting over what I believe is a perfectly reasonable fear of deadly snakes is not on my "Personal Growth While In Senegal" to-do list, those were awfully depressing circumstances.

So, I thought, clearly there are problems here.

But it gets worse.

The thing I couldn't stop wondering about was how everyone universally decided to believe this farfetched madness. I don't wonder how they came up with this belief, because that query clearly has no answer. However, I still wonder why everyone decided to go along with it. How could everyone agree on something that could not be justified by anyone?

Finally, I can't take it anymore. I needed to process all of this, so I decided to go into my hut and write in my journal about everything and hopefully calm the F down. Instead, I walked into a full-on horror show when I set foot in my hut and saw something that was about 100 times scarier than the snakes I just saw- a prehistoric looking creature, about 3 feet long, probably 20 pounds, what I could only describe as either a freakishly huge lizard or a small crocodile. A few days later my friends in Tamba informed me that this monstrosity was actually called a monitor lizard, but that's actually beside the point. The point is, I walked into my room in an attempt to calm down, already mildly outraged about the current snake situation, only to find this huge, scary crocodile-looking thing come out from under my desk.

Now, I know that it might be called a monitor lizard, but this creature acted nothing like the lizard he is supposed to be. All of the lizards I have come in contact with in Senegal are great because they are horribly skittish and run as fast as they can away from any human they see. Not this guy, though. There I am, trying to ascertain the relative danger of the situation, and this freak is just staring me down. This is the only time my life that I have ever truly been paralyzed with fear. I mean, this is a problem few Americans will ever face: What do you do to avoid what you feel will be certain death? If you try to run, he will certainly be able to catch you, and then do god-knows what. For all I knew at the time, this thing probably was capable of any combination of breathing fire and engulfing me in flames, eating me, beating me to death with his tail, and probably many more unthinkable atrocities. There is no protocol for this kind of situation.

I faced the problem like a man and yelled for my older brother. I doubt if this kind of domestic exchange is common in places that are not rural Africa.

Anyway, my brother sees how freaked out I am, and given that he knows there are lots of snakes in the very near proximity of my hut, he is annoyingly hesitant to even come to my hut. Honestly, I really thought that Pulaar men were made of tougher stuff than this. He finally puts his shoes on and walks over to my hut. He asked me what was in my hut, but my speech had temporarily left me. Furthermore, even if it hadn't, I didn't know what this thing was called in English, let alone Pulaar. All I could muster in Pulaar was, "it's big, I'm scared." Finally he gets to my hut and sees it, and tells me that I shouldn't be scared.

At this point, I'm so pissed that I'm actually balling my fists in anger. I say, "I don't care if I shouldn't be scared, get it out!" My brother finally gets a stick and shoos it into my backyard and finally out of my douche area, through the same hole in my fence that the fer apparently entered through.

Now, I don't think of myself as overly prissy, but it bothered me to find this creature hanging out in my room. I was especially annoyed by the fact that my host father didn't seem to believe that the hole in my fence was big enough to bother fixing. I finally threw a temper tantrum as best as I could in Pulaar, and he compromised by shoving an old piece of wood in the hole, which of course was the most half-assed job ever.

That night, I was too scared to take a bucket bath, use the bathroom, or sleep outside. Since I don't have screen doors on my hut, I felt that the only safe decision for me was to sleep inside with both of my doors shut. It was ridiculously hot, I was paranoid, and didn't sleep at all. Furthermore, I was way too scared to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Somehow, though, I managed to not pee my pants and hold it until the morning. Well, at least I've been warned. From here on out, every casual trip to the bathroom has been turned into a scary game of snake/monitor lizard roulette.

The next day, I came to Tamba and have been here ever since. I have bought supplies to get screen doors made, and hopefully that will happen very soon after I go back tomorrow. The thing is, I'm still scared to go back. I just don't feel safe at all. I thought that spending some time here in Tamba would help me to relax and not be so stressed out about everything, but it really hasn't. The fact of the matter is that when I think about going back to my village, it makes me want to cry. I'm sure everything will be okay, but right now I just don't know.

So, that, in a nutshell, is The Story With The Snakes. Not that, you know, any of you were wondering but I felt the need to get it off my chest.

There. That’s better.

Maybe I'm just a big baby, but I honestly don't feel like I'm blowing this out of proportion. I am just going to keep telling myself that I'm tough. I can take it. Even the worst, crazy-filled, stressed-the-hell-out day. I'm lying to myself, of course, but I'm just going to abide by the fake-it-till-you-make-it philosophy.

Ramadan

Happy Ramadan!
Today is the first day of Ramadan for the roughly 1 billion Muslims in the world. Being raised in a Christian family Oklahoma, the "buckle of the Bible belt," my knowledge and experience of Islam is embarrassingly scant. That said, all I really know about Ramadan is what I've learned about how it applies to me and will affect my life and work here in Senegal, but I hope to learn much more about it while experiencing it this month in my village.

Ramadan is one of the 5 Pillars of Islam, meaning that every Muslim- with some exceptions- is required to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire month. It sounds partially feasible to fast from food all day, right? That's what I thought when I heard about Ramadan until I found out that the Koran also requires Muslims to fast from water as well during Ramadan. Let's think for a minute about where the majority of the worlds Muslim population is located: The Middle East and Africa, places where the environment is harsh and life is generally not easy- aka in the desert. Never in my life before coming to Senegal have I had to be this consciously diligent about my water intake. I drink water here like it's my job. I sweat so much here that if I don't drink at least 3 liters of water a day I get a huge dehydration headache. I know I'm a pansy from America and that as a general rule Senegalese people are on average 500% more hardcore than I am, but they also have not had a lifetime of good nutrition and proper medical care, either. No matter who you are, nothing good can come from not eating or drinking water all day in the desert.

The thing that shocked me, though, is that apparently nobody cheats. Maybe my thoughts will change after experiencing Ramadan in my village, but everyone I've talked to about Ramadan in Senegal has told me that cheating just isn't an option for Muslims here. What's more is that people who are not required by the Koran to fast during Ramadan- pregnant and nursing mothers, children, the elderly, menstruating women, sick people, ect.- often still fast. The Koran lays out who exactly isn't required to fast, but it's not really a Get Out Of Jail Free card; those people are required to "make up" Ramadan when they are well, but they have to do it before the next Ramadan. The problem, then, becomes that nobody wants to make it up all by themselves. During Ramadan it is easier to fast because everyone else is fasting. When you have to fast alone, though, I would imagine that it sucks that much more because in addition to everybody else is eating food and drinking water all day long in front of you, there's also no sense of community suffering and motivation.

There are many obvious health concerns for people fasting when they are not supposed to. I have been told that they are many miscarriages after Ramadan because pregnant women often still fast. Children who decide to fast become that much more malnourished and unhealthy. Breastfeeding mom's often don't have enough nutrients to produce milk to breastfeed their babies, therefore resulting in more malnourished babies and potentially a higher infant mortality rate. You get the point. It simply isn't healthy for these people to fast, but they often do anyway, often to detrimental results.

The main problem I have with Ramadan is that many people in rural areas of Senegal don't even know anything about Islam. Because 95% people here are Muslim, it's easy to see how one would be Muslim just because that's how it's always been for their family and for their village. In the big cities in Senegal and pretty much everywhere in Northern Senegal, there are Koranic schools and Mosques everywhere. Parents often send their children to Koranic schools in these areas to learn about the Koran and how to read, speak, and pray in Arabic. I can only really talk about what I've seen in my village, but from my experience there it is pretty much safe to say that nobody there except for maybe 1 or 2 old people know anything about the Koran or Islam. They don’t go to Koranic schools and thus haven't learned how to speak Arabic, which means they don't know how to say the 5 daily prayers, which I can only assume from what I've seen and heard means that they don't do them. If they don't do or know how to say the 5 daily prayers (another one of the 5 Pillars of Islam), why do they find it necessary to put themselves through what I can only assume is the sheer torture that is Ramadan. I just don't get it. I mean, it's the same thing with lots of Catholics in the States during Lent. I've known tons of people who claim to be Catholic but never go to mass or confession and really don't practice anything their supposed religion preaches, but as soon as Lent comes, they are talking about what they're giving up for Lent. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now.

I could very easily go off on a tangent about people blindly following religion and never thinking for themselves, but I will save that joy for another day. I just wanted to write a blog before Ramadan to let you all know what's going on in my life this next month.

As for me, I plan to attempt to fast for a few days or maybe even a week, depending on how well my body holds up. I will not, however, fast from water; that's just crazy. The main reason I want to attempt to fast is because I've been told by other volunteers their fasting really helped them get close to their host families and villages, not to mention giving them some street cred in their village. I definitely want to get closer to my family and my village, and if fasting for a couple days during Ramadan will help me do that, I'm all for it. Also, when in my life will I ever get to experience Ramadan in Senegal again? A big reason for my joining the Peace Corps was to gain perspective of how people live here, and there's no better way to get that perspective than from doing the things they do.

Senegalese Circus and Other Photos

One night during IST, I left the training center and went to my homestay in Thies. When I turned down my street, though, there were hundreds of people in the street and it looked like something bad was about to go down. The children were screaming "TOUBAB!"-the equivalent of "whitey"- at me much more than usual and they seemed really riled up. I had to walk my bike because there were so many people in the street. En route to my house, I saw this seemingly crazy guy with all kinds of trippy face paint and a really weird costume. I also heard music and drums, but it just sounded like Senegalese music that people play every day.

When I finally got home, I asked my family what was going on, but I didn't understand what they told me. One of my host sisters decided to show me what was going on, so she took me to this area that was blocked off by a huge tarp. This was where the madness was occurring. There were hundreds of people in this blocked off part of the street watching the crazily painted and costumed men dance and just be crazy. At some point, I got yelled at and told to leave because apparently it cost money to get in. Anyway, so I got money and paid them and then went back in.

The guys that were dancing were just plain scary. There were all kinds of crying children in the crowd, and I was pretty frightened myself. The painted men kept coming over my way with an apparent agenda of "let's scare the whitey." I tried to just act unaffected and tough, but I still had no idea what any of this was all about. The guy that was singing sounded like he was singing the songs that the mosque plays on it's speakers all the time. I thought that it was maybe a celebration for a particular Muslim brotherhood, (there are lots here, with people very proud of their Iman and corresponding brotherhood) but my family said it wasn't about religion and just kept asking me if I was scared. I thought to myself, "should I be?" Since I had no idea what was going on and my family couldn't explain the madness to me in a way that I understood, I was kind of freaked out. A little while after it got dark, the singing and dancing ended and everyone went home safe and sound. Random.

The next day at the training center, I showed one of my Senegalese friends the pictures and asked what the madness I had just experienced was all about. Culture? Religion? Nope. She pretty much told me that it was the travelling Senegalese circus. There is a cultural element to it, though. I guess in the past, when there were still lions in Senegal, they would bite humans and then the humans would go crazy- probably from rabies- and take kids from their parents and then make the parents pay to get them back. Anyway, that process continued and evolved into what is now the Senegalese circus. The preformers used to "steal" kids from their parents during the circus, but I guess about 20 years ago in one of the performances a kid actually got killed somehow. Anyway, now it's mellowed out slightly. The pictures are pretty cool, though.

Here's the link to the album with these pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/IST
And here's a link to some videos I took:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D_aw_wztFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UP2uLL2XLU&feature=related

I also posted new photos in the Fara album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/Fara
and Tamba House album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/TambaRegionaHouseFun

Enjoy!

Thoughts On Work

Every time my mom calls me, she always asks, "have you thought about what you're going to do for your big project?" To which I tell her that I'm not going to have just one big project, but rather many different projects during my next 2 years here. Oh, and then I also tell her that I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to and that the mere thought of beginning health work in my village overwhelms me in every possible way.

Up until this point, I haven't been expected to begin any work in my village. The first 3 months at site (my village) were just supposed to be for getting to know the community and improving my Pulaar. This past month was In Service Training (IST) in Thies. IST was great and I feel like I learned a lot of important things that will hopefully be useful to my village during my service. The scary thing, though, is that I am going back to my village in a couple days and will finally be expected to actually implement those things. I mean, where do I even begin? Furthermore, I still can only communicate with the people in my village at the toddler level, at best. How am I supposed to be holding health classes and conveying useful information? I know that my language skills are improving every day and that I can't really do that much formal work until I am better at communicating in Pulaar, but I want to be ready now.

The first 3 months at site, I didn't feel guilty about just concentrating on learning Pulaar and not doing any work, but now, when I return to my village and am expected to begin working but can't because my Pulaar isn't good enough yet, I feel like a slacker. Good news for me, though; the month of September is Ramadan and since my village (along with 95% of Senegal) is Muslim, they will be not eating or drinking water from sunrise to sunset and will pretty much be tired all the time and not interested in doing anything in addition to their daily work. From what I've heard from volunteers that were here last year for Ramadan, I'm pretty much off the hook as far as health work goes during Ramadan, which will be ideal for me. I plan to spend Ramadan really working on my Pulaar and conducting an informal survey of the 450+ people in my village to get a better idea of their wants and needs. I plan to ask each family about how many children they have, their ages, how many children of theirs have died, which of their children are in school, if the family has a mosquito net, and if they have a proper latrine. These questions are all related to project ideas I have.

For example, I have been told that the infant mortality rate in my village is much higher than the Senegal average. There are many problems that stem from or contribute to infant and child mortality. In most cases, infant mortality in Senegal is due to dehydration from diarrhea. Dehydration is also because mothers here don't usually exclusively breastfeed their babies because they don't know that breast milk is 90% water. Because children die in large numbers, households tend to overcompensate and have more children, often leading to very large families. Too poor to invest in the education of all of their children, families can only educate one child, usually the eldest son.

With these issues in mind, if I can convince new moms to exclusive breastfeed their babies and encourage ways to better nourish their children, it makes sense that the infant/child mortality rate will go down. If mortality rates go down, it follows that women will stop overcompensating and having more children than they can adequately support. Finally, with smaller families, girls can begin to have more of an opportunity to go to school instead of getting married when they're 15. I know that it will take many years for all of this to happen, but if the only thing I successfully accomplish here is getting new moms to stop giving their babies water, exclusively breastfeed, and continue good child nutrition, I will feel successful. The rural areas of Senegal are not going to develop and/or change overnight, but in time, with the proper knowledge, people will stop dying unnecessarily and start living longer, more prosperous lives. That's the goal, at least. I just want to do whatever I can to help be a part of that process.

Things That Seem Still Are Still Changing

Time to talk about my village and new home for the next two years. Anyone excited? I know I am.

Here’s some stats of my village:
Around 450 people
No electricity
No running water
60K to nearest internet
6K from main road
12K to electricity
Shady cell phone reception within village

I finally was “installed” into my village on May 19th. Installation is the Peace Corps term for getting dropped of in your village by someone from the Peace Corps admin. My installation was pretty standard, I think, except that I was so nervous/sick that I threw up twice in the car ride from Tamba to my site (roughly 60K). All throughout PST I kept having this vivid mental image of me just standing in the middle of nowhere in some random Senegalese village and just waving by myself as the Peace Corps car drove off into the distance and left me all alone to die, which was pretty much what happened, of course with the exception of me dying. It was pretty scary, and I will admit that I choked up when the car was driving away, but I pulled myself together and everything ended up being ok.

It's really hard to put into words what I feel/think about my village so far. Sometimes I struggle with just being there, but if I take it moment to moment, the days take care of themselves. During the first three months at site, we have been told to concentrate on integrating with the community and learning our local languages, and so that's pretty much all I've been doing- that and reading approximately a book a day, but who's counting, really? During In Service Training (IST) in August we will (hopefully) learn how to actually serve as efficient rural health volunteers. That said, here's what a typical day is like for me:

The sun and heat- combined with the sounds of women pounding millet, morning greetings and women gossiping as they walk to the well- wake me up.

I put away my mosquito net and outside bed, make instant coffee, maybe attempt to do some yoga, get dressed and psyche myself up to open the door to my hut and face the day.

Greet everyone in my compound (takes longer than you would think), and have breakfast (couscous and water sauce, everyday, without fail).

Go to the well with my host mom, attempt to help pull water, end up being told "a wawaaa" meaning "you can't/ aren't able to," hang out with the women at the well for a little while, get help putting my 20 liter bucket on my head and walk back to my hut, usually while being told "a wawaa" the whole way.

Hang out and attempt to be social, meaning at the very least sitting outside of my hut in case my family or any passerby's want to talk to me, and on good days meaning walking around to other compounds and greeting people, drinking tea, ect.

Get summoned for lunch by a small child who is to afraid of me to say anything other than "my mom called you." I always ask why, but the kid just stands there and looks like he/she (depending on whose mom is summoning me on that particular day) is about to cry and run away. "For lunch?" I ask, "yes or no?" I never get an answer, but I always am amused by just how scared some of these kids are of me, so I play the game everyday.

Walk to usually one of three compounds in my village for lunch, where I am told to "naam fof!" or "eat all!" and am harassed to no end when, to their daily surprise, I don't. Lunch, by the way, is white rice and peanut sauce. Every. Single. Day. If you look at my photo album entitled "Fara" there's a picture of this dish. You might mistake for mud or poo on first glance, but look again: that's my lunch.

After-lunch-sweat and nap.

Read, hang out, drink tea, maybe help pound millet with the women, maybe study Pulaar.

Evening trip to the well with my mom, repeat of the "a wawaa's."

Walk to place with reception and call Michael =)

Bucket bath

Lay down in front of my hut and fall asleep until dinner (couscous and water sauce again)

Listen to my iPod for no longer than 20 minutes (no electricity means I have to ration my happiness, aka my cell phone and iPod)

Sleep!

So there you have it: my typical day. It doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you I go to bed every night exhausted. It's hard right now because I still am not that great with Pulaar and so every moment of the day often is a struggle. I feel that I am constantly being reminded of the fact that I'm an outsider and am not good at their language. But I don't want to be an outsider. I don't want to have to psyche myself up every morning just to open the door to my hut. I'm just biding my time right now, attempting to learn Pulaar, and just waiting until the day where I feel comfortable in my village and can finally call it home. Bottom line, everything is going to be ok. This whole "integration" thing is a challenge I can overcome. I was told to expect to feel embarrassed, foolish, and sometimes inadequate. Because it’s all part of the experience. These trying times are what we eloquently call “adjustment”. They’re difficult, natural, and useful. I'm learning how to respond to novel situations and am learning a heck of a lot about myself in the process. And that, my friends, is progress.

I promise to write more soon about my village and health-related activities I have been doing (I promise, I’ve done productive things!) soon, but I hope that this post at least can suficie to catch you all up on what my day-to-day life has been like for the past 2 months. Thanks for reading and keep in touch, please!!

Long overdue fist post

11 may
Hiyo friends and family in America! Yes, this is Amber, and yes, I somehow have managed to survive almost 2 months in Senegal almost completely unscathed. Are you all proud? I certainly hope so because I am not near hardcore enough for this country in any way, shape, or form, but am slowly but surely morphing into a quasi-hardcore PCT (Peace Corps Trainee).
I realize that this first blog post is a little bit late, but I just haven't had that much time and have not really been sold on this whole "blogging" thing. Anyway, the main reasons I am just now attempting to write and post my first blog entry are:
1. I'm really not sure if anyone will want to read anything I have to write. Even back in the good ole days when I could depend on those then unappreciated language parts of my brain to speak and write intelligently, I was never that great of a writer, so it’s pretty comical that now that I for some reason I still have not realized I decided it would be a good idea to attempt to write a witty, inspiring, and insightful blog (shaaaaa right), which leads me to reason #2:
2. I really don’t know why anyone would ever want to take time to read about the incessant jumbled mess of thoughts perpetually battling for attention and importance in my mind. I obsessively over-analyze everything and have a killer case of low self-confidence, which combined with my obscene indecisiveness can only lead to a cluster of thoughts that are probably a lot better off just staying inside my head, rather than being posted for all the world to see, and by whole world I mean hopefully at least 5 people that haven’t forgotten me back home and think I'm cool enough for them to want to keep up with what’s going on with me while I'm in BFE Tambacounda desert Senegal for the next 2 years.
3. I miss everyone of you all from back home and hate that communication is so unreliable here and I just feel like I’m losing touch with stupid stuff that I loved like work and boy gossip, you know? Just know that any seemingly stupid response here, face book wall post /message, or random e-mail never ceases to bring an incredible amount of joy and encouragement into my day and I really do appreciate knowing that there are people in this world who understand me and even miss me.
4. I have to say it. I’m more than slightly skeptical about this whole blogging trend and so naturally am especially wary of both the seemingly self-important people who write them and the creepers that read them. I really just hate the fact that people that blog appear to be trying way to hard to fashion portraits of themselves as curious, reflective, wide-ranging individuals. I would just rather spend my time reflecting and ranging wide.
For all of these reasons, I have only made a few feeble attempts over the past 8 weeks to even type out anything I thought anyone would be interested in reading but then just got annoyed with myself and stopped.
That, said, I’m going to attempt to hit the high notes of my past 8 weeks here in a somewhat cohesive manner, but I don’t really think in a cohesive manner anymore so I'm going to apologize in advance for my haphazardness.
I was going to write some about these past 8 weeks of training, but so much happened and I went through so much personally that I don't even know where to begin. I think I can best write about what's going on with me now.
On Friday we officially swore-in in Dakar and are now PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers) instead of PCT's (Peace Corps Trainees), and I, for one, couldn't have been happier. I am so ready to be done with the rigid structure of PST and finally be in my permanent village and actually doing development work. I was supposed to be heading to Tambacounda with two other people whose sites are in the region on Saturday to hang out at the regional house for a couple of days and then be officially "installed" in my village on Tuesday, but I have to stay in Thies for another week of language training. Why? We all had language placement interviews last week and were required to test at least "intermediate low" in whatever local language we have been learning. I apparently only tested "beginner high" in Pulaar and so myself and 2 other volunteers have to stay here another week and take more language classes.
By the way, Pulaar is freaking hard, in case you were wondering. There were 3 of us in my Pulaar class, and out of the 3 only one person got intermediate low, if that says anything.
French is the official language in Senegal and hence the language of the formal education system. There are also 22 national languages. Pulaar du Nord, the language I have been learning, is spoken by about 25% percent of Senegalese people, according to Lonely Planet. It's a beautiful language, but it by no means comes easy to me like learning Spanish did. For example, the English language has 2 articles: "the" and "a." In Pulaar, there are 24. Yes, 24 different articles. There are articles for liquids, quantities, different types of animals, ect., and we won't even be learning any of these until IST (In Service Training in August). Awesome. I really feel like going on a rant about Pulaar right now and the many ways it's a linguistic nightmare, but I think it's best to not let all of my frustrations out here, right? The main thing I have learned throughout all of my language learning difficulties is that not everything comes easy to me, Pulaar being one of those things. In a frustrating way my daily battles with my attempts to learn Pulaar are actually humbling and daily lessons in perseverance.
I know I haven't really caught you all up on much, but I hope that you all enjoy the pictures I have posted and I promise to write more soon. Hope all of you all are doing well! I miss and love you all!