At six months into my service (eight months in Senegal) I feel like it’s time for a little recap. Peace Corps has thus far been the most exciting, eye-opening, inspiring, stressful as hell, challenging and life changing experience of my life…they weren’t joking when they said this is the hardest job you will ever love. With conducting all of my work in a language completely foreign to English, being placed in a region dubbed “the last true Peace Corps experience in Senegal because all we have to rely on is eachother” by the Country Director, and also being the only agroforestry volunteer within 5 hours of me (there are at least 3 agfo volunteers in every other region)—Peace Corps sure handed me a challenge. But while living in Kolda amid luscious green forests and waterfalls or having a site mate would be great, it’s kind of nice knowing that Peace Corps has the confidence to place me in one of the toughest areas of the country (especially for an ag volunteer given the climate and resources here), a place that needs all the help it can get. On the really tough days, when the sun is setting and I should be sitting at home, I hide out in the field just to have a rare moment of privacy, peace and quiet…but then just as often when work is fantastic, I love lying on my family’s mat and just talking, playing with the kids and looking at the shooting stars. As other volunteers describe it, Peace Corps Senegal is truly a minute by minute experience.
A few quick notes:
1. If you haven’t read or if you have but read it awhile ago, read the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Not only is she an amazing writer, but it is incredible how well that book describes my life here. Everything from the way she describes cooking to the gris-gris people wear. If you want to get a better understanding of life in Senegal, please read it. (although take note some major differences-we don’t have torrential rainfall here, there are no rivers near me, and unfortunately I do not get to eat manioc everyday)
2. If you are interested in trying out some Senegalese cuisine: Bostoners check out Taranga’s in the South End and New Yorkers go to 116th or 125th streets in Harlem
If you really want to impress the restaurant owners try out these phrases (spelled out phonetically):
Asalam malakum (hello)….they will respond malakum salam
Nunga def (how are you)…response: mangee fee rekk. (I am here only)
Naka leegAy bee? (how is the work)…response: mungee doe (it’s going) or sant yalla boo bah (thank God a lot) or Jaam rekk (peace only)
Boog naa…(I want)
Jehrehjef (thank you)
Now for the good stuff:
Top 5 Things I Love Most About Senegal
1. The fact that every time anyone walks into a boutique, a house, a car, etc., they always greet everyone
2. I can walk into a random person’s compound at lunchtime and they will offer me delicious food
3. I have camels in my backyard
4. Not in my village, but when I am at the office or in Dhara, I can walk a minute out the door and there is a bean sandwich lady in the morning or a chicken sandwich lady at night-both of which cost less than $1
5. Lying on the mat at the end of the night with my family and friends
Top 5 Things I Can’t Stand About Senegal:
1. Women here are second class citizens who are expected to cook, clean and take care of the children every day without complaint and accept the fact that their husbands will most likely take a 2nd, 3rd or even 4th wife
2. The sense of time in Senegal: When a meeting is set to start at 9am, people will usually show up and get started at noon (that is not an exaggeration)
3. Having little anonymity/privacy/independence: it would be so nice to be able to go for a run and not have to pause my music every time I pass any random person
4. While on the topic of running-having to wear ankle length leggings with basketball shorts over them in 100 degree heat and still be called ‘sexy slutty’ when I run by an idiot riding by on a horse cart
5. People assuming that I am rich and thus asking me for everything under the sun
Things I miss the most about America
1. Family and friends so, so much!
2. American food/nutritious food that isn’t 100% carbs/the fact that you can hop in your car, drive two minutes down the road and pretty much find any food you’re craving (although we do have fresh mangoes everywhere here-take that America!)
3. Feeling clean. My feet have not been totally clean in 8 months.
4. A culture where people truly love and take care of animals. Senegalese sense of fair animal treatment is throwing rocks at dogs and kicking cats (my 30 year old cousin sprints out of the compound if he even glimpses my tiny kitten)
5. Dressing like a real person. Not that I don’t love the ankle length skirts and hanes tank tops, but it would be so nice to be fashionable for a day
10 Most Memorable Moments in Senegal
1. Finding out that I had amoebas living inside my body
2. Sitting with my Linguere family on a ledge overlooking the ocean, watching the sunset and toasting Father Christmas
3. Riding a camel in my backyard (and not falling!)
4. On my first horse cart ride, climbing into the back with my friend Amanda and tipping the entire thing over and falling flat on the ground laughing my face off
5. Every soccer practice with the men’s soccer team in my training village-playing in the sand with guys (for the most part) faster and stronger than me was by far the best workout of my life
6. Giving my first training in Wolof to 50-150 people at a time
7. Rapping beats about Senegal/singing Lean On Me at the top of our voices in the back of a pick up truck as we were pulling into Dahra
8. Carving watermelon jack o’lanterns for Halloween at the training center
9. The first day in my village-being left to the wolves by Peace Corps-50 women dancing and singing around me who I couldn’t understand, and then being told I had to eat a lunch of plain rice by myself in my room, facing away from the door (I have never missed home more)
10. A random village day- we had maafe for lunch (my favorite meal), followed by spaghetti for dinner, followed by soccer matches at night…that was a great day. (the power of food here is boggling)
5 Top Favorite foods
1. Maffe- a rice based dish with a thick peanut sauce that usually comes with cabbage, potatoes and sometimes cow meat
2. Spaghetti, macaroni or vermicelli-nothing like we have at home, they cook it super duper mushy and cook it in a vinegar sauce with onions and sometimes meat
3. Domuda- similar to maafe but a spicier, thinner sauce that sometimes comes with fish balls
4. Tamarind-they make this amazing, vinegary, spicy concoction make out of Tamarind seeds…soo good!
5. Mangos and Ardo vanilla yogurt-do I need to say more?
Hardest things I have had to see/work with
1. On multiple occasions when I have been traveling, I have seen women with late stages of AIDS have to be lifted into the car because they are so sick and they are finally seeing a doctor
2. Talibes that have no shoes to protect them from the hot sand and no coats to protect them from the cold
3. Animals being abused, mistreated and/or beaten
4. Women having very little freedom
5. Finding people who are motivated to work and learn
1. Fish net cloth makes an awesome sifter when I am pounding cow poop
2. I can get my whole body clean with half a bucket of water
3. Beans with hard-boiled eggs, onion sauce, peas, mayonnaise, and mustard on a sandwich is heaven
4. If you take 3 Benadryl before bed, it will help you sleep through unbearable heat
5. When your kitten is convulsing it is probably because it ate too much salty fish and did not drink enough water-lesson learned
1. I just saw a guy wearing a Red Sox jersey in Dahra…I have to call Mark and Tommy!
2. I just went to St. Louis for the first time and I ate ice cream, a cheeseburger, pesto pasta, candy bars, omelet sandwiches and meat….I have to call Anya!
3. I just saw a woman riding a motorcycle with a guy on the back….I have to call Eliza!
4. I just saw ‘How I Met Your Mother’ on a TV in French…I have to call Emma, Eliza and Jenny!
5. I just got stood up for the third time, trying to have a meeting with my women’s group…I have to call mom!
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