I have finally had some small success in uploading pictures so there are some new albums for you all to look at. And I've been adding to the pre-existing albums some so there are new pictures in those as well. I will try to write captions for them eventually, but for now at least you can all see my new site and family and hut.
From the 'album link' on the side of the webpage, you have to click on "Cait's Pictures" then click Caitlin's Public Gallery.
That's where you find all the albums.
Enjoy!
Also thanks to all of you for the tips on craftmaking. Please keep them coming!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Trying my very best
I cried for the first time at site. I am surprised that it took almost two weeks. Funny thing was, I was surrounded by other volunteers at the time and on the phone with someone from home. Who knows what triggered it, but I was suddenly overcome with how much work there is to be done here and my own small insignificant contribution to what seems like unsurmountable need. It is so overwhelming to sit back and look at the lack of infrastructure, money for education, non-existence of income generating activities, and dearth of healthcare.
What Senegal needs is a total overhaul of the education system, employment opportunities and infrastructure. It is the hugeness (is that a word?) of these “topdown” needs that make me feel useless, because I can do so little to change that.
Sometimes it just builds and it is too much for one idealistic California raised Peace Corps woman to handle. On the one hand, crying made me remember that yes, this IS hard and that while you become somewhat numb to the poverty and the sick babies and the inefficiencies of daily life, it is still hard to see day after day. It’s not even one specific thing that is the hardest, but everything all together.
The fact that children here while not starving, are stunted and malnourished, and ALWAYS have respiratory problems, and there is SO much idle time and no outlets for them. Even when they are in school it’s usually only for a few hours a day and practically every week the teachers are on strike or they have a meeting and class gets cancelled. There are no after school activities. Girls come home and work, and boys sit around and play and fight with eachother. There aren’t sports clubs or dance lessons, or theater productions, or chess clubs, or pottery classes, or music lessons, or even after school tutoring. There is just idle time. Everyone wants to come to America to work. Everyone. I have yet to meet a person who has not asked me to take them to america so that they can work. There just aren’t jobs here.
The other day I met a woman who has her first baby. Roughly 2 months old and so tiny. Maybe 6 pounds. Maybe. She has been having trouble breastfeeding (she thinks she doesn’t make enough milk…though her breasts were huge and obviously painful and swollen with milk) so she has already started the baby on the bottle which trains her not to be able to suckle at the breast. She gives her water and formula. I am sure it’s untreated and making the baby sick. The baby fusses constantly and I was so overwhelmed with how helpless I felt. I tried to initiate the breastfeeding conversation and make suggestions and show her how to feed, how to reteach the baby, but it was no use. She was obviously self-conscious about not being able to breastfeed, and hesitant to have this conversation with a stranger (understandably) and convinced that she wasn’t producing enough milk—that it’s her fault.
Here I am, I have the knowledge to help this woman help her baby and yet I can’t make her change her behavior. I can’t do anything other than try. And while I tell myself that it is better than nothing, it still doesn’t feel like it. In the states she would be able to go to a lactational specialist and have help and be able to feed her baby, or if not, at least have the knowledge and the means to give her child clean water and formula. But here, my hopes are low that this one will make it. And I don’t know who she is and I probably won’t see her again.
These are the kinds of daily interactions that are the most devastating.
Women and children here eat dirt. They actually will go to the well where the dirt has been dug up and is rich in minerals and eat dirt. They are so desperate for iron that their bodies crave it. I see babies here eat sand all the time. Instinctually it is correct…they need the minerals, but clearly it is more hazardous than helpful. My baby host brother plays in the sand all day long with chicken poop and goat poop and who knows what else, and then sucks on his hands. My host family had a volunteer for two years before me and watched her wash her hands with soap everyday before meals and talked to them about handwashing with soap, and they never do it. They tell me to do it, but they don’t.
Behavior change is slow…painfully slow. These things are touched on in school. There are TV advertisements all the time showing people to wash their vegetables with clean water and to wash their hands with soap. No one does it.
How on earth am I supposed to make people change? Why would anyone listen to me?
I know that these ups and downs are part of the experience. That I have many more frustrations to come. That I need to know that what I am doing IS important, and does matter. That even if I only help one person than it will be worth it. That sometimes you plant the seed and you can never see the results. But some days repeating that just does not help. Sometimes you just need to cry about it. And that’s okay.
I have posted statistics on infant, child, and maternal mortality in Senegal all over my walls, and written in huge letters “THIS IS WHY YOU ARE HERE” to inspire me day to day. And this is why I am here, to try and make a difference. I am committed to the cause, but some days I feel like it will never be enough.
But I am trying my very best…
What Senegal needs is a total overhaul of the education system, employment opportunities and infrastructure. It is the hugeness (is that a word?) of these “topdown” needs that make me feel useless, because I can do so little to change that.
Sometimes it just builds and it is too much for one idealistic California raised Peace Corps woman to handle. On the one hand, crying made me remember that yes, this IS hard and that while you become somewhat numb to the poverty and the sick babies and the inefficiencies of daily life, it is still hard to see day after day. It’s not even one specific thing that is the hardest, but everything all together.
The fact that children here while not starving, are stunted and malnourished, and ALWAYS have respiratory problems, and there is SO much idle time and no outlets for them. Even when they are in school it’s usually only for a few hours a day and practically every week the teachers are on strike or they have a meeting and class gets cancelled. There are no after school activities. Girls come home and work, and boys sit around and play and fight with eachother. There aren’t sports clubs or dance lessons, or theater productions, or chess clubs, or pottery classes, or music lessons, or even after school tutoring. There is just idle time. Everyone wants to come to America to work. Everyone. I have yet to meet a person who has not asked me to take them to america so that they can work. There just aren’t jobs here.
The other day I met a woman who has her first baby. Roughly 2 months old and so tiny. Maybe 6 pounds. Maybe. She has been having trouble breastfeeding (she thinks she doesn’t make enough milk…though her breasts were huge and obviously painful and swollen with milk) so she has already started the baby on the bottle which trains her not to be able to suckle at the breast. She gives her water and formula. I am sure it’s untreated and making the baby sick. The baby fusses constantly and I was so overwhelmed with how helpless I felt. I tried to initiate the breastfeeding conversation and make suggestions and show her how to feed, how to reteach the baby, but it was no use. She was obviously self-conscious about not being able to breastfeed, and hesitant to have this conversation with a stranger (understandably) and convinced that she wasn’t producing enough milk—that it’s her fault.
Here I am, I have the knowledge to help this woman help her baby and yet I can’t make her change her behavior. I can’t do anything other than try. And while I tell myself that it is better than nothing, it still doesn’t feel like it. In the states she would be able to go to a lactational specialist and have help and be able to feed her baby, or if not, at least have the knowledge and the means to give her child clean water and formula. But here, my hopes are low that this one will make it. And I don’t know who she is and I probably won’t see her again.
These are the kinds of daily interactions that are the most devastating.
Women and children here eat dirt. They actually will go to the well where the dirt has been dug up and is rich in minerals and eat dirt. They are so desperate for iron that their bodies crave it. I see babies here eat sand all the time. Instinctually it is correct…they need the minerals, but clearly it is more hazardous than helpful. My baby host brother plays in the sand all day long with chicken poop and goat poop and who knows what else, and then sucks on his hands. My host family had a volunteer for two years before me and watched her wash her hands with soap everyday before meals and talked to them about handwashing with soap, and they never do it. They tell me to do it, but they don’t.
Behavior change is slow…painfully slow. These things are touched on in school. There are TV advertisements all the time showing people to wash their vegetables with clean water and to wash their hands with soap. No one does it.
How on earth am I supposed to make people change? Why would anyone listen to me?
I know that these ups and downs are part of the experience. That I have many more frustrations to come. That I need to know that what I am doing IS important, and does matter. That even if I only help one person than it will be worth it. That sometimes you plant the seed and you can never see the results. But some days repeating that just does not help. Sometimes you just need to cry about it. And that’s okay.
I have posted statistics on infant, child, and maternal mortality in Senegal all over my walls, and written in huge letters “THIS IS WHY YOU ARE HERE” to inspire me day to day. And this is why I am here, to try and make a difference. I am committed to the cause, but some days I feel like it will never be enough.
But I am trying my very best…
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Joyful Laughter
Giggling until your stomach hurts.
This is something that we can all relate to. When you’re laughing SO hard that you actually cannot breathe and you start to scare yourself because you’ve totally lost the ability to stop laughing. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, and the tears flow out of the corners of your eyes and your abdominal muscles are shaking, it feels great.
This happened to me the other night for the first time with my new host family. When nightfalls and the earth cools everyone’s mood improves tenfold. Suddenly people have more energy, laughter is in the air, everyone is in a good mood. Myself and my four oldest sisters had finished eating dinner and were all piled on top of the stick bed where we eat. My (USA) parents called and while talking my sisters were desperate to greet them and practice their english. This brought a lot of giggles at first, but as they went on listening to eachother’s broken english the laughter mounted and by the third sister we were in total hysterics. She was so flustered and said “Hello, where is your family?” which sounds more like “heeeyloooww. Weh izz yoor famly?” I almost busted a gut, and my sister Mariata (my favorite) fell off the stick bed and onto the sand, not missing a beat. The rest of them fell all over eachother—limbs flying everywhere. Faama passed the phone back to me and I tried to explain that I couldn’t talk because we were all laughing so hard, but the words just didn’t come. Tears were flowing down my cheeks and it felt so good to laugh. Just laugh as hard as I could. There is so much love and affection among the Pulaars (my fam especially) and I am elated when I can find and share in those moments.
This is something that we can all relate to. When you’re laughing SO hard that you actually cannot breathe and you start to scare yourself because you’ve totally lost the ability to stop laughing. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, and the tears flow out of the corners of your eyes and your abdominal muscles are shaking, it feels great.
This happened to me the other night for the first time with my new host family. When nightfalls and the earth cools everyone’s mood improves tenfold. Suddenly people have more energy, laughter is in the air, everyone is in a good mood. Myself and my four oldest sisters had finished eating dinner and were all piled on top of the stick bed where we eat. My (USA) parents called and while talking my sisters were desperate to greet them and practice their english. This brought a lot of giggles at first, but as they went on listening to eachother’s broken english the laughter mounted and by the third sister we were in total hysterics. She was so flustered and said “Hello, where is your family?” which sounds more like “heeeyloooww. Weh izz yoor famly?” I almost busted a gut, and my sister Mariata (my favorite) fell off the stick bed and onto the sand, not missing a beat. The rest of them fell all over eachother—limbs flying everywhere. Faama passed the phone back to me and I tried to explain that I couldn’t talk because we were all laughing so hard, but the words just didn’t come. Tears were flowing down my cheeks and it felt so good to laugh. Just laugh as hard as I could. There is so much love and affection among the Pulaars (my fam especially) and I am elated when I can find and share in those moments.
Gender Roles
It’s difficult to explain the feminine toubak role among Senegalese Pulaar families. But I am going to try to describe the emotional/academic/ego-related ups and downs and thoughts that go through my head as I’m observing, trying to be culturally sensitive, and losing things in translation all at once.
This weekend I was invited to spend the weekend with my Senegalese counterpart at her husband’s second home in a village further west near Podor. I agreed with the hopes of getting to experience a different family dynamic and to witness “Gomon” which is a religious event that happens every few months here in Senegal.
My counterpart is the second wife. She was previously married but her husband passed away and so she remarried very recently. He is a very kind man, and is an official for the department of Matam (something to do with agriculture). Basically this means they’re well off. They have their own car (practically unheard of—like the 2nd house) and so we all piled in for the 4 hour drive to Podor. (We all being myself, the two wives, the two little girls, and their nanny/caretaker, tons of bags, a goat, and a hitchhiker riding on the top of the bags in the bed of the truck). It felt so great to be able to plug into my ipod and feel almost normal. It really was just like any other family trip: a little cramped, we stopped a zillion times (but usually only to greet people in the street that they knew), hot, nothing good on the radio, the parents stopped to buy crap, and by the end the kids were cranky.
When we arrived at the house I was surprised by a real shower (with good water pressure—amazing!) and we napped until lunch. Then after lunch we rested until tea! (Tough life I know. And to boot it’s cooler out here than where I am so I was barely even sweaty all day and actually had an appetite). Then feeling kind of lost and bored, I went out under the shade structure armed with my Pulaar notebook to try and memorize a few more verbs and maybe learn some new words if I could find a willing participant (the best ones are usually under the age of 10). I ventured out and sat with the women preparing dinner. So that you can picture it, the men sit on one side of the structure listening to the radio and drinking tea while the women sit on the other side preparing dinner. This is the typical scene—and I am not trying to be judgemental, just observational. I sat there helping the women prepare the leccere which always brings laughs.
This is how it goes…I sit in the middle of all of them mixing the leccere (couscous) with all eyes on me. They’re laughing and talking about me in a nice way, but mostly teasing me because I don’t know how to cook (at least the very specific way that they do it). Also, it is a novelty that a toubak would be cooking. They assume we have machines or servants to do all of that for us. (Today they asked me if I knew how to cook rice. I didn’t have the vocab to say yeah…put it in a ricecooker!) In these kinds of situations it’s interesting to observe my own ego at work. I find that at first, I laugh at the teasing, then I tire of it as it doesn’t let up. Usually they just keep saying, “no…do it like this” and will keep showing me the exact same thing. Then I get annoyed because I’m obviously not getting any better (according to them). Horrible thoughts tend to fly through my head like “why are you spending a billion hours a day laboring over this couscous when it will taste EXACTLY the same if you just cooked it as is??” or “yeah, maybe I can’t cook exactly the way you do, but I can do lot of other more useful things with my time!” This is the side of me that I hate that I quickly try to ignore or work through.
Eventually one or two of them will get involved and say “no, no” that I’m doing a good job. Inevitably, I take a million times longer to do the same amount of work as the rest of them. Then my counterpart goes and gets my camera because she thinks that I should have a picture of myself cooking. (This is a phenomenon that I have experienced before. Once, at my family’s house in Thies a total stranger passed by and took a picture of me on his camera phone because a toubak was doing laundry by hand and he wanted a picture to show his friends). All this involvement with the women, is silly and just gives me tough skin for the most part.
But when the men start in….it makes me furious. I want to jump up and scream at them to get off of their fat lazy asses and help with anything for once! I mean really. There they are laying around. They have not gone to work today, or yesterday for that matter, and the women are now preparing the third meal of the day for them on top of a million other chores. So to sit there staring at us working and critiquing just makes me nuts.
Because I am a toubak though, I can get away with comments like “I’m not doing a good job? Why don’t you come help me then?” As long as I keep a huge grin on my face and am careful with my intonation, I was getting enough laughs to keep it comfortable. Another one I used that I was quite proud of was when one of them said “I’m really hungry, you better cook really good cous cous tonight” and I came right back with “alright fine, but then you’ve gotta cook a good meal for me.” This is hilarious to them because the idea of a man cooking is about on par with the possibility of a pig riding a bicycle. Laughter really is key. But I hate the steps it takes to get there. The anger that swells up, the frustration, the desire to scream and shake people. I am not an angry person. I generally think of it as a wasteful emotion. But how do you tolerate such blatantly acceptable laziness and disproportionate division of labor? I don’t. But the trick is learning how to fight it subtly—through exposure and knowledge.
This adventure of mine is an exercise in patience, flexibility, and cultural understanding yes…but it is also a lesson in how to walk a fine line to bring change without making enemies. I find that that is the biggest challenge where gender roles are concerned.
This weekend I was invited to spend the weekend with my Senegalese counterpart at her husband’s second home in a village further west near Podor. I agreed with the hopes of getting to experience a different family dynamic and to witness “Gomon” which is a religious event that happens every few months here in Senegal.
My counterpart is the second wife. She was previously married but her husband passed away and so she remarried very recently. He is a very kind man, and is an official for the department of Matam (something to do with agriculture). Basically this means they’re well off. They have their own car (practically unheard of—like the 2nd house) and so we all piled in for the 4 hour drive to Podor. (We all being myself, the two wives, the two little girls, and their nanny/caretaker, tons of bags, a goat, and a hitchhiker riding on the top of the bags in the bed of the truck). It felt so great to be able to plug into my ipod and feel almost normal. It really was just like any other family trip: a little cramped, we stopped a zillion times (but usually only to greet people in the street that they knew), hot, nothing good on the radio, the parents stopped to buy crap, and by the end the kids were cranky.
When we arrived at the house I was surprised by a real shower (with good water pressure—amazing!) and we napped until lunch. Then after lunch we rested until tea! (Tough life I know. And to boot it’s cooler out here than where I am so I was barely even sweaty all day and actually had an appetite). Then feeling kind of lost and bored, I went out under the shade structure armed with my Pulaar notebook to try and memorize a few more verbs and maybe learn some new words if I could find a willing participant (the best ones are usually under the age of 10). I ventured out and sat with the women preparing dinner. So that you can picture it, the men sit on one side of the structure listening to the radio and drinking tea while the women sit on the other side preparing dinner. This is the typical scene—and I am not trying to be judgemental, just observational. I sat there helping the women prepare the leccere which always brings laughs.
This is how it goes…I sit in the middle of all of them mixing the leccere (couscous) with all eyes on me. They’re laughing and talking about me in a nice way, but mostly teasing me because I don’t know how to cook (at least the very specific way that they do it). Also, it is a novelty that a toubak would be cooking. They assume we have machines or servants to do all of that for us. (Today they asked me if I knew how to cook rice. I didn’t have the vocab to say yeah…put it in a ricecooker!) In these kinds of situations it’s interesting to observe my own ego at work. I find that at first, I laugh at the teasing, then I tire of it as it doesn’t let up. Usually they just keep saying, “no…do it like this” and will keep showing me the exact same thing. Then I get annoyed because I’m obviously not getting any better (according to them). Horrible thoughts tend to fly through my head like “why are you spending a billion hours a day laboring over this couscous when it will taste EXACTLY the same if you just cooked it as is??” or “yeah, maybe I can’t cook exactly the way you do, but I can do lot of other more useful things with my time!” This is the side of me that I hate that I quickly try to ignore or work through.
Eventually one or two of them will get involved and say “no, no” that I’m doing a good job. Inevitably, I take a million times longer to do the same amount of work as the rest of them. Then my counterpart goes and gets my camera because she thinks that I should have a picture of myself cooking. (This is a phenomenon that I have experienced before. Once, at my family’s house in Thies a total stranger passed by and took a picture of me on his camera phone because a toubak was doing laundry by hand and he wanted a picture to show his friends). All this involvement with the women, is silly and just gives me tough skin for the most part.
But when the men start in….it makes me furious. I want to jump up and scream at them to get off of their fat lazy asses and help with anything for once! I mean really. There they are laying around. They have not gone to work today, or yesterday for that matter, and the women are now preparing the third meal of the day for them on top of a million other chores. So to sit there staring at us working and critiquing just makes me nuts.
Because I am a toubak though, I can get away with comments like “I’m not doing a good job? Why don’t you come help me then?” As long as I keep a huge grin on my face and am careful with my intonation, I was getting enough laughs to keep it comfortable. Another one I used that I was quite proud of was when one of them said “I’m really hungry, you better cook really good cous cous tonight” and I came right back with “alright fine, but then you’ve gotta cook a good meal for me.” This is hilarious to them because the idea of a man cooking is about on par with the possibility of a pig riding a bicycle. Laughter really is key. But I hate the steps it takes to get there. The anger that swells up, the frustration, the desire to scream and shake people. I am not an angry person. I generally think of it as a wasteful emotion. But how do you tolerate such blatantly acceptable laziness and disproportionate division of labor? I don’t. But the trick is learning how to fight it subtly—through exposure and knowledge.
This adventure of mine is an exercise in patience, flexibility, and cultural understanding yes…but it is also a lesson in how to walk a fine line to bring change without making enemies. I find that that is the biggest challenge where gender roles are concerned.
The Family Tree
This is my attempt to explain my family Lam. But I must say that it is a very US-centric notion to even think that you can explain the relationships to people. Most times when I try to ask people how they are related you either get “he/she is my brother/sister” or “they are my cousins.” It just doesn’t really matter. Family is family. Neighbors are family. At least these are the people that regularly sleep at my house. There are always various additions and often I’ll notice them in the morning.
Here goes:
Baabaa = dad, but he’s super old and retired so I’m pretty sure he’s not actually the dad of a lot of the younger kids
Yaaye = mom, again. Old, probably not the mom of most of the kids.
Binta Jigo = sister-in-law. This I’m sure of. She is married to my brother (whose name I forget) who lives in Dakar who I have yet to meet.
Papa = 1 year old baby boy. Binta Jigo’s son.
Binta = other sister. 17 maybe?
Faamaa = another sister 15 maybe?
Mariata = another sister (my favorite. The ‘namesake’ of my sister at home J maybe 18?
Mamadou Thidiane = 18 year old brother. Actually, the son of my counterpart who is also my sister but lives down the road at her husband’s house. He is sy-sy (player) and always jokes with me that I’m his fiancee. Luckily it’s unheard of for an older women to date a younger man, so I love joking with him that he’s just a kid and too young for me.
Oumar = 13 year old brother. Speaks awesome French. Should be a gymnast. In the states with some training he absolutely could be. But there is no outlet for that here so he just climbs everything and does handstands and backbends and flips all day long in the compound.
Samba=7 year old brother. A cutie. Pretty shy. Doesn’t get into much trouble.
Hapsatou=10 year old sister. A sweetie pie. Also doesn’t get into much trouble.
Nene Bol and Nene Lam = 2 sisters. The littlest ones. Probably both about four. The highlights of my life. Total sassy little things, and exhausting, but also the most lovable and willing to come running full speed into my arms when I come home even though it’s 125 degrees outside.
Acha = a 10 year old who does the vast majority of the washing of dishes and the clothes. She is actually from a neighboring village, but her mother died so Yaaye and Baabaa took her in recently in the past 7 months or so. She has a lot of spunk, but is always the first to hit the other kids. Understandably so. She also has never been to school because she is over the age of 10 and so can’t be admitted this late. I try to shower her with kindness, but it’s so hard when she is so rough on the other kids. Yaaye has threatened repeatedly to send her back to her village, but baabaa always resists.
Other characters whose relationships I haven’t quite figured out yet:
Koran guy: he’s around a lot and sits and recites the Koraan all day. Literally.
A couple of other sisters (names???) who live at their husbands houses but who come around pretty often with their kids.
A brother and his family that live in France. (name?)
This is in no way a complete list, but it will do for now. I bet you’re just as confused as I am!
Here goes:
Baabaa = dad, but he’s super old and retired so I’m pretty sure he’s not actually the dad of a lot of the younger kids
Yaaye = mom, again. Old, probably not the mom of most of the kids.
Binta Jigo = sister-in-law. This I’m sure of. She is married to my brother (whose name I forget) who lives in Dakar who I have yet to meet.
Papa = 1 year old baby boy. Binta Jigo’s son.
Binta = other sister. 17 maybe?
Faamaa = another sister 15 maybe?
Mariata = another sister (my favorite. The ‘namesake’ of my sister at home J maybe 18?
Mamadou Thidiane = 18 year old brother. Actually, the son of my counterpart who is also my sister but lives down the road at her husband’s house. He is sy-sy (player) and always jokes with me that I’m his fiancee. Luckily it’s unheard of for an older women to date a younger man, so I love joking with him that he’s just a kid and too young for me.
Oumar = 13 year old brother. Speaks awesome French. Should be a gymnast. In the states with some training he absolutely could be. But there is no outlet for that here so he just climbs everything and does handstands and backbends and flips all day long in the compound.
Samba=7 year old brother. A cutie. Pretty shy. Doesn’t get into much trouble.
Hapsatou=10 year old sister. A sweetie pie. Also doesn’t get into much trouble.
Nene Bol and Nene Lam = 2 sisters. The littlest ones. Probably both about four. The highlights of my life. Total sassy little things, and exhausting, but also the most lovable and willing to come running full speed into my arms when I come home even though it’s 125 degrees outside.
Acha = a 10 year old who does the vast majority of the washing of dishes and the clothes. She is actually from a neighboring village, but her mother died so Yaaye and Baabaa took her in recently in the past 7 months or so. She has a lot of spunk, but is always the first to hit the other kids. Understandably so. She also has never been to school because she is over the age of 10 and so can’t be admitted this late. I try to shower her with kindness, but it’s so hard when she is so rough on the other kids. Yaaye has threatened repeatedly to send her back to her village, but baabaa always resists.
Other characters whose relationships I haven’t quite figured out yet:
Koran guy: he’s around a lot and sits and recites the Koraan all day. Literally.
A couple of other sisters (names???) who live at their husbands houses but who come around pretty often with their kids.
A brother and his family that live in France. (name?)
This is in no way a complete list, but it will do for now. I bet you’re just as confused as I am!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Calling All Craftspeople!!
I have a request…a call to ‘arms’:
Many people have asked me how they can contribute to my experience, or to my own comfort, or to local schools or things of such nature. I now have a project that I need outside assistance for.
I need knowledge! Knowledge of simple craft projects. I am the president of a girls group (started by some of my sisters and my ancienne). They meet on a weekly basis and each girl contributes 50 CFA to buy supplies and then I’m supposed to teach them how to make things, or teach them computer skills, or how to make anything that they can then sell and make a profit from. All the while, we talk about various issues: family planning, reproductive health, boys, marriage, singers, teach them English, school, clothes, hair, you name it. (again, this is all in theory and hearsay from my ancienne and my sisters because obviously I’ve just arrived and our first meeting isn’t until next week). Which is why I need your help! (PS. Doesn’t it feel great to be needed??)
I have compiled a small list of things that I could come up with that I need from you all at home. I would love additional suggestions and explanations. A few things to remember:
LITTLE SUPPLIES IS KEY! (Or, at least very cheap supplies that we could find here. Aka. Keeping it sustainable and not reliant upon gifts from generous toubaks in the states).
You can explain it to me via email and/or with diagrams of some sort.
It will interest young women ages 15-20.
The end result can be sold for profit. (aka. No tips on how to make bookends, or bookmarks please. They just won’t be useful).
My email address is caitlingive@gmail.com send all the information to me there!
Here is my list of things I’ve run by them and they want to learn how to make/do:
-Lip balm (I already have instructions on how to make that one)
-Jewelry-making/beading of any kind. (Lisa and Kathy White…I’m counting on the two of you for this one. My sisters are obsessed with the shell earrings you made for me Lisa)
-Notebook-making (I’m excited about this one because the materials should be easy to find.).
-Bubbles? How to make them? What can substitute for the plastic sticks that we use to blow the bubbles with? (example: wire bought at market).
-Soap
-Perfume
-Sew or quilt etc. This might be difficult as I’m HORRIBLE at it. I might have to call in a local PCV for reinforcements.
I have already told the more active girls in the group that I am calling on family and friends for this and they are thrilled. I can’t wait to see what all of you come up with!
From across the miles,
THANK YOU!!
ps. if you have only just read this post. There are 4 other new updates underneath this one so enjoy your blog binge!! I hope to have lots of comments when I have internet again next week!!
Many people have asked me how they can contribute to my experience, or to my own comfort, or to local schools or things of such nature. I now have a project that I need outside assistance for.
I need knowledge! Knowledge of simple craft projects. I am the president of a girls group (started by some of my sisters and my ancienne). They meet on a weekly basis and each girl contributes 50 CFA to buy supplies and then I’m supposed to teach them how to make things, or teach them computer skills, or how to make anything that they can then sell and make a profit from. All the while, we talk about various issues: family planning, reproductive health, boys, marriage, singers, teach them English, school, clothes, hair, you name it. (again, this is all in theory and hearsay from my ancienne and my sisters because obviously I’ve just arrived and our first meeting isn’t until next week). Which is why I need your help! (PS. Doesn’t it feel great to be needed??)
I have compiled a small list of things that I could come up with that I need from you all at home. I would love additional suggestions and explanations. A few things to remember:
LITTLE SUPPLIES IS KEY! (Or, at least very cheap supplies that we could find here. Aka. Keeping it sustainable and not reliant upon gifts from generous toubaks in the states).
You can explain it to me via email and/or with diagrams of some sort.
It will interest young women ages 15-20.
The end result can be sold for profit. (aka. No tips on how to make bookends, or bookmarks please. They just won’t be useful).
My email address is caitlingive@gmail.com send all the information to me there!
Here is my list of things I’ve run by them and they want to learn how to make/do:
-Lip balm (I already have instructions on how to make that one)
-Jewelry-making/beading of any kind. (Lisa and Kathy White…I’m counting on the two of you for this one. My sisters are obsessed with the shell earrings you made for me Lisa)
-Notebook-making (I’m excited about this one because the materials should be easy to find.).
-Bubbles? How to make them? What can substitute for the plastic sticks that we use to blow the bubbles with? (example: wire bought at market).
-Soap
-Perfume
-Sew or quilt etc. This might be difficult as I’m HORRIBLE at it. I might have to call in a local PCV for reinforcements.
I have already told the more active girls in the group that I am calling on family and friends for this and they are thrilled. I can’t wait to see what all of you come up with!
From across the miles,
THANK YOU!!
ps. if you have only just read this post. There are 4 other new updates underneath this one so enjoy your blog binge!! I hope to have lots of comments when I have internet again next week!!
The Day to Day
I am sitting in my hut at 2:57 pm Tuesday afternoon May 22nd, 2007. My alarm clock thermometer tells me that it is 110F in my room (Not bad!!). The electricity is working (it goes out at least once a day for a few hours) so I am working on my interpretation of the Peace Corps’ 3rd mission (sharing my experience with fellow Americans). I have decided that sometimes there are just some things that I never mention in my blog entries because I mostly write about big events, or challenges, or trips, but there are so many little details that though I can never explain them all, I want to at least try and list the things that I have been mentally noting from day to day and want to share with all of you. Because it is in the details that sometimes the most memorable moments arise…
Here is my list…let’s call it:
The Day to Day…
*Really skinny, brutally treated, undernourished animals are everywhere, all the time. Horses, goats, cats, dogs, donkeys. It’s horrible. And it never gets any easier to see or to hear the cracks and pounding of the whips and sticks on their bony backs .
*TRASH! It is everywhere. Truly, it litters everything, even in small villages. I’ve almost become immune to it. Though most people burn the majority of their trash, the harder plastics, glass and other non-burnables inevitably end up being thrown in huge empty fields next to houses, and all over the roads. The wind picks it up so it gets everywhere. Another volunteer brought up a really good point though, in which she compared it to the trash consumption in the states. She brought up the fact that in the states, we produce WAY more trash but we hide it. So we are ignorant to how much waste we actually produce. What would our homes and towns (not to mention huge metropolises) look like if we did not pay to have our trash buried and exported to other poorer countries? Food for thought…Since I have been at site (1 week tomorrow) I have yet to even fill up a full plastic bag of burnables! It’s amazing how little waste you produce when you’re living simply.
*Being CONSTANTLY asked (no, bombarded really) by everyone and anyone for everything. This is not exclusive to strangers or children in town. My own family is constantly pestering me to give them cell phone credit, let them drink from my water bottle, give them candy, etc. Mostly it is in jest, but it does get tiresome and it has been one of my greatest challenges to keep laughing them off and come back with witty comments. Having spoken to my ancienne volunteer though, she had the same thing happen until one day she just blew up at them and then they laid off. So, I hope that it won’t come to that, and otherwise I do love them very much, but sometimes you want your home to be the one place where you won’t have to be pestered. My yaye (my host mom—literally meaning, grandmother in Wolof) is definitely my best advocate though. If she hears of them asking me for things, she yells at them and shakes her head and mumbles that her children are bad. My ancienne advized me to make her my closest ally. Some brilliant advice I am definitely going to take to heart.
In town though, when children ask me for things, I will just tell them it is impolite to always ask for things, or I will ask for the same thing in return:
Child: “Gimme a present”
Me: “NO! Give ME a present.”
It always stops them dead in their tracks, or they think it’s hilarious and we all win.
Though with adults it is a little bit trickier. When I come up with a witty comeback though, and I get a good laugh, it can make my day.
Example: Today I went to the market to buy a lighter for my gas container/ ‘stove’ and some mangoes. I was bargaining (horribly I might add) with the mango lady when 2 older gentlemen walked up to me and asked me my name. Then they asked if I would buy them mangoes…so I just smiled and laughed and said “no way, I’m a guest in your country, you should buy ME mangoes!” They loved it, bust out laughing, shook my hand, and went on their way. I count that as a successful cultural/language experience! One for the books…and it was all in Pulaar to boot!
*Lizards! They are everywhere. Totally harmless and don’t bother me at all, but I will often come home and have 5 of them in my douche. They live in the rafters in my hut and I can usually see their tails and toes hanging into my room at night. I like having them around though because I know they help protect me from bugs! But their thunderous scampering across my tin roof is another day to day nuance I have come to expect.
*Sand!!! I don’t know what all of you are picturing, but I know that when I envisioned my PC experience I had visions of greenery and tropical climates like the one I experienced in Ghana. Not so…think desert, because that’s where I live! There are some scattered cactus-like bushes that grow (somehow) in the open fields, and other than the scattered neem tree or two, everything is flat and brown and sand blows in the hot wind all the day long ( for you Davisites, think Davis, CA in August plus crazy winds!!)
*I have turned into a text messaging FOOL! My cell phone is a constant fixture, as is the beeping alert tone it makes when I have a message. Because I am a mostly urbanish volunteer I am supposed to help act as a coordinator for the rural volunteers and I have pledged never to turn my cell phone off in case of emergency. Or, so that when they all DO hang from that one tree in their village, at just the right angle, and have service for a brief moment, they can get ahold of a fellow PCV if need be.
*Dolce and Gabbana brand stuff! It’s everywhere! And it always makes me laugh because back home there was some sucker who paid top dollar for that EXACT same shirt (granted when it was in season like 10 years ago). And now, some old Pulaar man in the Fuuta in Senegal is rocking one simply because it was sitting on the top of the pile at the weekly market! And he will certainly get more use out of it for the 50 cents he paid, then whoever had it first. Or maybe it’s actually never been worn before and it was just exported to Senegal as a surplus product. Who knows? But it’s such a great nuance that endlessly entertains me. I think the best shirt I’ve seen so far was on a young man in a village outside of Thies. It was beige, with brown cuff sleeves, and in purple, gold and silver sequined lettering from top to bottom it read:
Fashion,
Design,
Italian,
Disco,
Concept
Amazing! I wrote it down because it was just too wonderful to forget. Even now I’m giggling out loud thinking about it.
*Everything I own or have in my room is “ina yoodi” (‘it’s beautiful’) to everyone that comes into my room. This includes everything from my GLAD tupperware containers, ‘crappy’ plastic bowls I bought at market, my Nalgene bottle, scotch tape, books, bottles of lotion, a filthy backpack, earrings, clean notebooks, the trunks that hold my clothes. Not to mention my computer and camera and bike (aka. things you might expect to get commented on). My sister Mariata recently commented that “white people have the best stuff.” I didn’t even touch that one. But those kinds of comparisons are made all the time. Both my family in Thies and here often start off with sentences like “We Africans….” Or “White people…(insert categorical stereotype).” Sometimes I choose to engage them in a discussion about that particular observation and engage PC’s 2nd mission, but usually they are uninterested and I let it go. But once in awhile they surprise me and really want to know about what I always say “American is REALLY like.”
*Butt sweat (affectionately termed ‘swamp ass’ by fellow PCVs). I know that this isn’t the nicest image. But it is a constant fixture in my life. And as a ‘guest’ I am usually offered the plastic lawn chairs in lieu of a mat on the floor or a stick bed bench. This is awful because inevitably when you sit there for more than 5 minutes, when you stand up it looks as if you’ve peed yourself. And it has definitely earned me comments from my family. They just don’t sweat as much as we do. They do sweat some, but usually along the brow or in the armpit region. I haven’t decided yet whether this is due to their superiour acclimitazation, or to lifelong intensive dehydration. (Probably some combination of both).
*Latin American soap operas. The characters from ‘Barbarita’ (a Venezuelan soap that plays mon-fri) are practically national heroes. And the greatest part is that it’s dubbed over in French. It is totally attrocious and unwatchable. But you’re damned if you try to interrupt people while they’re tuned in. They will in no way be rude, but you’ll be lucky to get a word out of them. I take advantage of this block of time from 7:30-8pm to scurry to my room and ‘bucket bath’ or write for a precious 30 minutes of solitude. On the weekends, ‘Maria del Barrio’ takes it’s place. (In case you were wondering, it is not any better.)
*The absolute blissful joy that comes early in the morning and again at the end of the day when I can shower and cool off, and feel chilly for those fabulous few minutes. (And when I say chilly, I really mean it. I’m actually cold! Granted it’s probably anywhere from 85-90 degrees at that point). In the mornings after my bucket bath, I tune into the BBC on my radio, and sit and eat my cool instant oatmeal (LOVE IT! Thanks mom!), and Nescafe (Yes, I still take it black. Gross I know.). I plan out my day, and enjoy the few moments of solitude and ‘normal’ time. I didn’t realize how much I missed knowing what was going on in the world until I tuned back in.
*Dizzy spells. Sort of like a head rush, usually when sitting down. These are very mild and only happen every few days, but it is a side effect of the Mefaquin (anti-malarial) that we are all required to take. It is a constant reminder of the threat of malaria and the importance of protecting myself from it. Now in the dry season the threat up North is almost non-existent (I have yet to see a mosquito in the Fuuta) but it is one of the biggest health concerns during and after the rainy season.
I think that for now, those are all the details that I have mentally filed away to share with you all. Thanks for tuning in for that marathon account of my life.
I was recently on the phone with a friend and she asked “So, what exactly is your work?” I realized that I haven’t talked much about that at all yet, so I promise that a ‘work’ update is in the near future. But to summarize, for right now, just learning how to live, and make all the necessary greetings (of which I’d say there are about 40 people I have to meet with still), and studying/practicing Pulaar, all take up my whole day.
Do I feel like I have a lot of down/idle time? Not at all. Before I left, people kept telling me how much I would be reading during my two years in the Peace Corps. I have yet to read a single page in a book since I’ve been in-country! I have the opposite problem of feeling like there is SO much I want to accomplish and not enough time in which to do it. Everyone’s experience is different, but I cannot imagine feeling like there is nothing to do. I feel a sense of urgency and satisfaction because I have lists and lists of tasks, projects, contacts, causeries, presentations, meetings, and the like, that I want to accomplish in the first three months alone! I think that this might just be my nature and even sitting here rereading this entry, I realize why I have earned the title among the other PCVs as “the girl who has already done everything eventhough she is only 23!”
‘Inchallah’ that fire doesn’t ‘burnout’ before I can accomplish everything I want to…
Here is my list…let’s call it:
The Day to Day…
*Really skinny, brutally treated, undernourished animals are everywhere, all the time. Horses, goats, cats, dogs, donkeys. It’s horrible. And it never gets any easier to see or to hear the cracks and pounding of the whips and sticks on their bony backs .
*TRASH! It is everywhere. Truly, it litters everything, even in small villages. I’ve almost become immune to it. Though most people burn the majority of their trash, the harder plastics, glass and other non-burnables inevitably end up being thrown in huge empty fields next to houses, and all over the roads. The wind picks it up so it gets everywhere. Another volunteer brought up a really good point though, in which she compared it to the trash consumption in the states. She brought up the fact that in the states, we produce WAY more trash but we hide it. So we are ignorant to how much waste we actually produce. What would our homes and towns (not to mention huge metropolises) look like if we did not pay to have our trash buried and exported to other poorer countries? Food for thought…Since I have been at site (1 week tomorrow) I have yet to even fill up a full plastic bag of burnables! It’s amazing how little waste you produce when you’re living simply.
*Being CONSTANTLY asked (no, bombarded really) by everyone and anyone for everything. This is not exclusive to strangers or children in town. My own family is constantly pestering me to give them cell phone credit, let them drink from my water bottle, give them candy, etc. Mostly it is in jest, but it does get tiresome and it has been one of my greatest challenges to keep laughing them off and come back with witty comments. Having spoken to my ancienne volunteer though, she had the same thing happen until one day she just blew up at them and then they laid off. So, I hope that it won’t come to that, and otherwise I do love them very much, but sometimes you want your home to be the one place where you won’t have to be pestered. My yaye (my host mom—literally meaning, grandmother in Wolof) is definitely my best advocate though. If she hears of them asking me for things, she yells at them and shakes her head and mumbles that her children are bad. My ancienne advized me to make her my closest ally. Some brilliant advice I am definitely going to take to heart.
In town though, when children ask me for things, I will just tell them it is impolite to always ask for things, or I will ask for the same thing in return:
Child: “Gimme a present”
Me: “NO! Give ME a present.”
It always stops them dead in their tracks, or they think it’s hilarious and we all win.
Though with adults it is a little bit trickier. When I come up with a witty comeback though, and I get a good laugh, it can make my day.
Example: Today I went to the market to buy a lighter for my gas container/ ‘stove’ and some mangoes. I was bargaining (horribly I might add) with the mango lady when 2 older gentlemen walked up to me and asked me my name. Then they asked if I would buy them mangoes…so I just smiled and laughed and said “no way, I’m a guest in your country, you should buy ME mangoes!” They loved it, bust out laughing, shook my hand, and went on their way. I count that as a successful cultural/language experience! One for the books…and it was all in Pulaar to boot!
*Lizards! They are everywhere. Totally harmless and don’t bother me at all, but I will often come home and have 5 of them in my douche. They live in the rafters in my hut and I can usually see their tails and toes hanging into my room at night. I like having them around though because I know they help protect me from bugs! But their thunderous scampering across my tin roof is another day to day nuance I have come to expect.
*Sand!!! I don’t know what all of you are picturing, but I know that when I envisioned my PC experience I had visions of greenery and tropical climates like the one I experienced in Ghana. Not so…think desert, because that’s where I live! There are some scattered cactus-like bushes that grow (somehow) in the open fields, and other than the scattered neem tree or two, everything is flat and brown and sand blows in the hot wind all the day long ( for you Davisites, think Davis, CA in August plus crazy winds!!)
*I have turned into a text messaging FOOL! My cell phone is a constant fixture, as is the beeping alert tone it makes when I have a message. Because I am a mostly urbanish volunteer I am supposed to help act as a coordinator for the rural volunteers and I have pledged never to turn my cell phone off in case of emergency. Or, so that when they all DO hang from that one tree in their village, at just the right angle, and have service for a brief moment, they can get ahold of a fellow PCV if need be.
*Dolce and Gabbana brand stuff! It’s everywhere! And it always makes me laugh because back home there was some sucker who paid top dollar for that EXACT same shirt (granted when it was in season like 10 years ago). And now, some old Pulaar man in the Fuuta in Senegal is rocking one simply because it was sitting on the top of the pile at the weekly market! And he will certainly get more use out of it for the 50 cents he paid, then whoever had it first. Or maybe it’s actually never been worn before and it was just exported to Senegal as a surplus product. Who knows? But it’s such a great nuance that endlessly entertains me. I think the best shirt I’ve seen so far was on a young man in a village outside of Thies. It was beige, with brown cuff sleeves, and in purple, gold and silver sequined lettering from top to bottom it read:
Fashion,
Design,
Italian,
Disco,
Concept
Amazing! I wrote it down because it was just too wonderful to forget. Even now I’m giggling out loud thinking about it.
*Everything I own or have in my room is “ina yoodi” (‘it’s beautiful’) to everyone that comes into my room. This includes everything from my GLAD tupperware containers, ‘crappy’ plastic bowls I bought at market, my Nalgene bottle, scotch tape, books, bottles of lotion, a filthy backpack, earrings, clean notebooks, the trunks that hold my clothes. Not to mention my computer and camera and bike (aka. things you might expect to get commented on). My sister Mariata recently commented that “white people have the best stuff.” I didn’t even touch that one. But those kinds of comparisons are made all the time. Both my family in Thies and here often start off with sentences like “We Africans….” Or “White people…(insert categorical stereotype).” Sometimes I choose to engage them in a discussion about that particular observation and engage PC’s 2nd mission, but usually they are uninterested and I let it go. But once in awhile they surprise me and really want to know about what I always say “American is REALLY like.”
*Butt sweat (affectionately termed ‘swamp ass’ by fellow PCVs). I know that this isn’t the nicest image. But it is a constant fixture in my life. And as a ‘guest’ I am usually offered the plastic lawn chairs in lieu of a mat on the floor or a stick bed bench. This is awful because inevitably when you sit there for more than 5 minutes, when you stand up it looks as if you’ve peed yourself. And it has definitely earned me comments from my family. They just don’t sweat as much as we do. They do sweat some, but usually along the brow or in the armpit region. I haven’t decided yet whether this is due to their superiour acclimitazation, or to lifelong intensive dehydration. (Probably some combination of both).
*Latin American soap operas. The characters from ‘Barbarita’ (a Venezuelan soap that plays mon-fri) are practically national heroes. And the greatest part is that it’s dubbed over in French. It is totally attrocious and unwatchable. But you’re damned if you try to interrupt people while they’re tuned in. They will in no way be rude, but you’ll be lucky to get a word out of them. I take advantage of this block of time from 7:30-8pm to scurry to my room and ‘bucket bath’ or write for a precious 30 minutes of solitude. On the weekends, ‘Maria del Barrio’ takes it’s place. (In case you were wondering, it is not any better.)
*The absolute blissful joy that comes early in the morning and again at the end of the day when I can shower and cool off, and feel chilly for those fabulous few minutes. (And when I say chilly, I really mean it. I’m actually cold! Granted it’s probably anywhere from 85-90 degrees at that point). In the mornings after my bucket bath, I tune into the BBC on my radio, and sit and eat my cool instant oatmeal (LOVE IT! Thanks mom!), and Nescafe (Yes, I still take it black. Gross I know.). I plan out my day, and enjoy the few moments of solitude and ‘normal’ time. I didn’t realize how much I missed knowing what was going on in the world until I tuned back in.
*Dizzy spells. Sort of like a head rush, usually when sitting down. These are very mild and only happen every few days, but it is a side effect of the Mefaquin (anti-malarial) that we are all required to take. It is a constant reminder of the threat of malaria and the importance of protecting myself from it. Now in the dry season the threat up North is almost non-existent (I have yet to see a mosquito in the Fuuta) but it is one of the biggest health concerns during and after the rainy season.
I think that for now, those are all the details that I have mentally filed away to share with you all. Thanks for tuning in for that marathon account of my life.
I was recently on the phone with a friend and she asked “So, what exactly is your work?” I realized that I haven’t talked much about that at all yet, so I promise that a ‘work’ update is in the near future. But to summarize, for right now, just learning how to live, and make all the necessary greetings (of which I’d say there are about 40 people I have to meet with still), and studying/practicing Pulaar, all take up my whole day.
Do I feel like I have a lot of down/idle time? Not at all. Before I left, people kept telling me how much I would be reading during my two years in the Peace Corps. I have yet to read a single page in a book since I’ve been in-country! I have the opposite problem of feeling like there is SO much I want to accomplish and not enough time in which to do it. Everyone’s experience is different, but I cannot imagine feeling like there is nothing to do. I feel a sense of urgency and satisfaction because I have lists and lists of tasks, projects, contacts, causeries, presentations, meetings, and the like, that I want to accomplish in the first three months alone! I think that this might just be my nature and even sitting here rereading this entry, I realize why I have earned the title among the other PCVs as “the girl who has already done everything eventhough she is only 23!”
‘Inchallah’ that fire doesn’t ‘burnout’ before I can accomplish everything I want to…
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