I wouldnt say that these first five months would be an accurate representation of what my life as a PCV will be. I mean lets face it, I spend at least 5 hours a day sitting. Mostly by myself (feel free to insert aw of sympathy here). Another, at least 3, being confused and the rest sleeping. But, hfaving ordered my seeds and sacks, come march, I can start my tree nursery. Yay! Enough of this sitting around drinking tea, that will surely turn me into a diabetic by age25, kuddi (crap in pulaar). And the good thing is, Ill be at site more often and can fully attack the termites. Ill be like buffy, but with termites. WATCH OUT!
Speaking of the little mutants, apparently, my wall is just not comfortable enough anymore. I came back from our regional strategy meeting to find that they had made their mound through my mosquito net and were now, resting comfortably on my bed. Not cool. And I think the goat that loves my pillow will have something to say about that too.
And its not like im planning to move to the floor either. Its too freakin cold! Thats right, Africa is an artic blast! I came here expecting warm, nope. It reminds me of my decision to go to KY for school. Its the south, its warm year round! ha! Too bad i sleep in fleece and 2 layers of sweats. ugh and im still cold. lame. But being cold here, where its perfectly acceptable to look utterly ridiculous, i made an impulse purchase. A sexy little number that can be best described as flashy, vibrant and bill cosby-esque. I paid about a mille (2 dollars) and when your family tells you you paid to much, you begin to second guess yourself. Or at least most people do. My goalwas to get a hideous sweater and i succeeded :) Go figure, the senegalese, the royalty of ugly attire,had the nerve to criticize me! it must have been bad! Oh well. You can all sleep well knowing that you will be able to call a sweater just like that your own next christmas. Thats right guys, fugu jai christmas, the african version of a good will. The reject american and european clothes. YES! Ill put up a picture when i get on next time, since my camera chord has gone missing, like so many other things in my life. kuudi.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Character Building 101
Dodging a dive-bombing Danza as I burst out of my mosquito net and break through the door, plunging onto hands and knees and throwing myself face first into my douche is not what I would call a particularly pleasant evening. Food Poisoning: Another one of Africa's little ways of telling me it hates me. I don't think I even have to say how many reasons the words face and douche should not be used in the same sentence. Much less come even close in reality. Unfortunately, it only took me a few moments, scratch that, I immediately regret the decision to develop an intimate relationship with my little hole in the ground. One would think that a chicken would be much better lunch choice than one of fish face, bird seed and ameobas. One would think. Seriously though, how often do I get to eat meat?
Considering that after pulling the lid off the bowl, the first parts of the chicken I saw were the feet followed shortly by the beak, I should know better. Sure enough, almost exactly 8 hours later, I'm curled up fetal positioned around a bucket on a freezing cold, concrete floor and praying for the sweet relief of death. Also praying that the mice don't realize that I'm on the floor as well. Mouse bite to the jugular would not be my preferred way to go, and lets face it, there would be no fighting it. It was pathetic. However, while trying to maintain a positive attitude that I will, infact, live through the night contrary to what my body was telling me, I tried as hard as I could to think of something else.
Ok, so brace yourself, this is why I will be such a weirdo when I come back to the states. Unlike a "normal" person, who would choose to think of oh I don't know, what I might do the next day or my Paris vacation in June, Christmas next year in the states....no. What pops in my head? Sheep. Sheep? Really? The only way to rationalize this is that I was trying to fall asleep. Counting sheep right? Well, thats not exactly how the thought process went. I want to know, who the hell thought of counting sheep before bed. Sure the serta sheep are cute, but Pakane Toucouleur sheep? Absolutely not. There is no way on earth, I would ever want one of those no wool, crusty, crapping, snot machines jumping over me until I slept. There is one in particular that is overly creepy. It has a cold, I'm sure, and will come up behind you after the sun goes down and do one of two things. The first: use me as a personal snot rag and the second: does anyone remember the creepy kid in Hey Arnold? He is the sheep version of that kid. I am still wondering what threw that into my mind, but its an honest question? Does anyone know where the idea of counting sheep came from? Why on earth wouldn't they choose something cuter, like koalas or something. What the h?
On the other hand, I feel that I have successfully done my job here in Senegal and come home now. No, I have done nothing Agfo related or work related yet period. But, I have successfully incorporated sass into everyday conversations. And I now know how to call someone a creeper in Pulaar. I do so at least once a day. My 15 year old brother does not appreciate it, but I don't care. As I said, mission accomplished :)
Things at site though are going better, I'm a lot happier despite the fact that one of my mom's is evil. She hates me and I'm not particularly fond of her either so it works out. My other mom is about to pop and I'm hoping that she doesn't have the baby while I am gone for IST. I really want to be there for it, as well as the baptism. IST brings me to another point. We are being forced to commute back and forth everyday from the training villages. I absolutely hated that family and really feel no reason to be nice when I go back. They certainly aren't. The Peace Corps staff is about to see one grumpy Sarah, that's for sure. Unfortunately, this means no skyping and I will be stuck eating more millet. Ugh!
Give me a call whenever though, it does get lonely in the village. Its really hard to relate to women, since we have absolutely nothing in common and the men always have ulterior motives. Its annoying. Oh well, hopefully soon I can feel like I have actual friends there as opposed to still feeling like a guest. Lame.
I hope everyones new years was fun and happy 2009!!
Considering that after pulling the lid off the bowl, the first parts of the chicken I saw were the feet followed shortly by the beak, I should know better. Sure enough, almost exactly 8 hours later, I'm curled up fetal positioned around a bucket on a freezing cold, concrete floor and praying for the sweet relief of death. Also praying that the mice don't realize that I'm on the floor as well. Mouse bite to the jugular would not be my preferred way to go, and lets face it, there would be no fighting it. It was pathetic. However, while trying to maintain a positive attitude that I will, infact, live through the night contrary to what my body was telling me, I tried as hard as I could to think of something else.
Ok, so brace yourself, this is why I will be such a weirdo when I come back to the states. Unlike a "normal" person, who would choose to think of oh I don't know, what I might do the next day or my Paris vacation in June, Christmas next year in the states....no. What pops in my head? Sheep. Sheep? Really? The only way to rationalize this is that I was trying to fall asleep. Counting sheep right? Well, thats not exactly how the thought process went. I want to know, who the hell thought of counting sheep before bed. Sure the serta sheep are cute, but Pakane Toucouleur sheep? Absolutely not. There is no way on earth, I would ever want one of those no wool, crusty, crapping, snot machines jumping over me until I slept. There is one in particular that is overly creepy. It has a cold, I'm sure, and will come up behind you after the sun goes down and do one of two things. The first: use me as a personal snot rag and the second: does anyone remember the creepy kid in Hey Arnold? He is the sheep version of that kid. I am still wondering what threw that into my mind, but its an honest question? Does anyone know where the idea of counting sheep came from? Why on earth wouldn't they choose something cuter, like koalas or something. What the h?
On the other hand, I feel that I have successfully done my job here in Senegal and come home now. No, I have done nothing Agfo related or work related yet period. But, I have successfully incorporated sass into everyday conversations. And I now know how to call someone a creeper in Pulaar. I do so at least once a day. My 15 year old brother does not appreciate it, but I don't care. As I said, mission accomplished :)
Things at site though are going better, I'm a lot happier despite the fact that one of my mom's is evil. She hates me and I'm not particularly fond of her either so it works out. My other mom is about to pop and I'm hoping that she doesn't have the baby while I am gone for IST. I really want to be there for it, as well as the baptism. IST brings me to another point. We are being forced to commute back and forth everyday from the training villages. I absolutely hated that family and really feel no reason to be nice when I go back. They certainly aren't. The Peace Corps staff is about to see one grumpy Sarah, that's for sure. Unfortunately, this means no skyping and I will be stuck eating more millet. Ugh!
Give me a call whenever though, it does get lonely in the village. Its really hard to relate to women, since we have absolutely nothing in common and the men always have ulterior motives. Its annoying. Oh well, hopefully soon I can feel like I have actual friends there as opposed to still feeling like a guest. Lame.
I hope everyones new years was fun and happy 2009!!
Friday, January 2, 2009
A celebrity in Senegal
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, a celebrity made a guest appearance in Senegal. Even better, in Pakane. Toucouleur…my hut. No no, I don’t mean Akon, that Seneglese sensation (gag). Since its been about a week and a half since I have been at site, this could be old news to some of you who got my excited text message late one night. Bear in mind that I am on hallucinogenic malaria medicine, so don’t judge me. Seriously. Anyway, so here I am minding my own business, sleeping and feeling the breeze as Felix the bat buzzes too close to my mosquito net, when he starts to talk to me. Naturally, as anyone would do when I bat starts talking to them, I respond in Pulaar. It’s apparently not weird at all for a bat to speak to me, aka I am insane. So, peering through my mosquito net, the bat flies toward me and hovers at eye level, giving me the pleasant surprise of speaking face to face with my first celebrity. Tony Danza. Much better than Akon in my opinion. Especially since, the Danza bats face was that of a young, whos the boss Tony. Delightful! However, I am apparently crazy, since I’m not exactly sure if it was a dream or not…
It had to be, right? Oh Melfloquine, you make my life interesting. And for lack of anything else to do in the village, I now have a friend. Tony Danza.
As far as projects, I start my field training on February 5th, back in Thies. That means skype possibilities people! Get excited. After that, probably early march, it is time to start planting trees. However, I’m going to try to hold a meeting with my village (despite my lack of pulaar abilities) and see who all is interested in having a tree pepiner. Also, I’m still really excited for this drip irrigation project that I’ve been talking about with local ngo’s in Senegal and West Africa. I think that it is something that will have a real lasting effect. Not that trees will not, but hey, gotta water them some how right!? Wish me luck on that one.
I’m a little nervous to go back to my termite mound…oops, I meant my hut. I’m pretty sure that when I go back, they will be one in the same. It’s been about a week and a half, since the 23rd, when I left for Christmas. I was planning on being back in the village for new years but seeing as how my fears came true since the last blog, and I have giardia…that didn’t really happen. I have been sitting in Dakar, watching countless movies over and over since Med was conveniently out of the office and not picking up my phone calls. The treatment of waiting it out a week and seeing if it goes away is not really my idea of fun. And I think Tony Danza would agree. I finally got so fed up that I left Dakar on New Years day, after a night of curling up on the couch of a 3rd year volunteer’s Dakar apartment and watching as we lit off, what would be, extremely illegal fireworks in the states.
So here I am, in Kaolack, staying an extra day to play with all the fun goodies I got in Christmas boxes. I picked up 4 more today. ☺ So far, I’ve gotten 3 from the parentals, 1 from the sister (I LOVED it!!!! It was so much fun to open and I’m guessing that the only non-girly thing was from Scott. Too bad zeke wasn’t here to open my presents for me though), 1 from the Pittengers (thank you so much, crunch berries are amazing), 1 from Chris (I’m a little terrified of the present you sent) and 1 from the Graggs. Thanks everyone, its really made my Christmas! Happy New Years and I hope to hear from everyone soon! The danza bat sends his bat along with my parasite too!
Whats the score up to so far? I think its…
AFRICA:3 (maybe 4)
SARAH: 1
Also….that is the cutest picture of max and sammy that I have ever seen!
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