Senegal Je t'aime

As I sit on the eve (almost) of my one year anniversary with Senegal drinking a Gin and Bissap (aka g-sap) and listening to year-old American music since I have no idea what is popular there now, its hard to believe how different my life has become. One year ago today, I was sitting in a mess of clothes, giant bottles of hair supplies/make up and God knows whatever else I brought into country arguing with my mom about the best way to pack and telling my dad that there was no way in hell I was leaving out the Q-tips (I was right about that one by the way). The closest to roughing it I had ever come was sleeping in a hammock in Red River Gorge while eating Cheetos and drinking bourbon. My motto, to use my mom's words, was "camping is no room service." As the deadline drew closer, I of course, ate all my favorite foods and had my annual identity crisis about the meaning of life and why it is that I do what I do.

But, on the morning of September 8th, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I jumped on a plane to Philidelphia for staging. Showing up to my hotel room with my hair styled cute, heels on and make up applied perfectly, I succeeded in scaring the hell out of my now, best friend here Natalie. Haha! If it were not for this girl, I would never have survived training. Even as late as November, when I installed in Pakane, I trapped a huge cricket under tupperwear and made a neighbor come to get it out of my hut. I don't do bugs.

Now however, my life seems to play a different tune. With the rainy season upon us, creepy crawlies come out of the woodworks to terrorize me, the smell of mildew and black mold on my clothes, bed and probably even myself is unbelievably pungent, the roof on my hut leaks so badly that I might stay dryer standing in the torrential downpour and on more than one occasion I've woken up to a scorpion climbing up my mosquito net. On any given day, my whole body breaks out with heat rash or some sort or fungal infection, I discover some sort of parasite/worm living in my body or a naked man chases me through the Kaolack market (that happened today). For some reason, this was left out of the booklet they gave before we accepted our positions. With that said, this is my life, my love, my Africa. And God help me, I wouldn't change it for the world. At no other point in my life would I voluntarily give up food and water (in addition to the previous paragraph) for an entire month during 125 degree weather and still have a smile on my face.

All of this said, I can only look back on the past year with happiness. So many things have changed. For example, I drink most of my beverages out of plastic bags (my gin included), I haven't shown my knees in public since last year (me, the queen of mini skirts), things like hard boiled eggs and milk straight from the cow are, in my opinion, more valuable than gold and don't find it odd at all to see two grown men, wearing thug-life tshirts and baggy jeans, holding hands or sitting on each others laps. But, on the other hand, some things will always stay the same. I make Starbucks espresso every morning before leaving my hut and yesterday, I trapped a big creepy spider under a pot and had my host brother take care of it. Scorpions I can do, spiders I cannot.

This past year, I feel like i've found some of the beauty in Senegal, which is not the creepy crawlies, and plan to keep doing the same for my next and final year. It has all gone by so quickly that I can only hope to slow it down just a little. See you all in December for my first time back in the states in over a year. I AM TERRIFIED!

My peace corps bucket list

Sometimes, things happen in life that make you really just have no idea what to do with yourself. Personally, I'm a planner (no seriously, my favorite thing in college was making class schedules) so that's exactly what I'm doing to keep myself occupied while i'm not planting trees in the village. After one more night in Kaolack, I'm heading home to start fasting and I can escape into my "real world." Here's a list of 25 things I want to do before I turn 25. So, essentially I have a year and a half to do all of these things....wish me luck!

1. Learn just enough Czech, German and Dutch to allow me to flirt and get my way when I travel through Prague, Germany, Belgium and Holland.
2. Learn to drive a motorcycle. Not that I want to buy one, but just to know how to ride it.
3. Test drive a Porsche
4. Eat steak tar-tar
5. Bike to Kolda (Just over 100 miles) in one day
6. Go on a quest for the Abominable Snowman
7. See the Taj-Mahal
8. Go on a road trip across the United States, preferably ending up in Napa Valley. God knows I'll want a glass of wine when thats over
9. Learn how to belly dance. Maybe i'll incorporate it into my hour long dance party every night before bed
10. Learn guitar (well, more than the 6 chords that I know)
11. Complete the Goree Swim in November. (Swim from the coast of Dakar to Goree Island)
12. Visit 10 different countries
13. Ride a camel
    
14. Run a half marathon
15. Go skydiving
16. Take up yoga
    
17. travel alone
18. Host Saturday Night Live (I can be pretty entertaining, I think i'd do a good job)
19. Start playing piano again
20. Go to Oktoberfest in Germany
21. Go to Mardi Gras
22. Keep a journal
    
23. Learn how to make a tiny ship in a bottle (I mean seriously, how the heck do they do that?)
24. Become a vegetarian for a year (looks like I should start that one soon)
25. Spend one night pampering myself in a snobby hotel/spa alone

Looks like I'd better get started on some of these. Its been a rough day and night and I think I'll go to bed and head back to the village in a bit. I'll be fasting for Ramadan. Its one month and we'll only be eating or drinking after the sun goes down. Wish me luck and lets hope I don't waste away :)

A busy little girl

So, yes I know, I've been slacking a little on the blogging. Its probably a little frustrating for you guys at home, wondering if I'm dead or if I was killed by my second scorpion sting of the season. Sorry. In a nutshell (I know my mom is laughing at that intro), My past few weeks have been stressful, exhausting but fun and as of yesterday, parasitolicious (yes, I made that word up). Work season has officially started! Alhumdoulillah! So far, I've outplanted half of my trees woot woot! Unfortunately caterpillars ate my nebadye trees, but my advisor told me that they would all grow back. Now, they key is convincing a my villagers to let me plant a bunch of glorified sticks (eventual trees) in their compounds. Hmmm....

Me: Ok guys, are you ready to plant some awesome nebadye trees in your compound!
Villagers: Yea, but I want you, a little girl with the flu who just got stung by a scorpion, do all the work. And after you dig a massive hole, you should go buy me some tea.
Me: Riiiiiiigggggghhhht. OK, well here are 3 papayas, 1 mango, 1 guava and 4 nebadyes! lets get to work
Villagers: Woah woah woah, Sira, why are are planting a stick in my front yard
Me: Its not a stick, caterpillars ate the leaves but they'll come back
Villagers: there are no leaves, its a stick
Me: I know, but they'll grow back
Villagers: Its a stick
Me: No, its not
silence for a moment and then.....
Villagers: (under their breath) stick

(This went on for 10 minutes at each compound)
So, since I was doing all the digging, I planted my little sticks, I mean trees, in their yards. I came back to check on them the 2 days later and they had pulled them out of the ground and the damn goats were eating them. :( Insert heart break here.

Anyway, after my disappointment, I went out to the fields to direct seed some species for a live fence around their crops. You know those moments when you're feeling a little cocky about being able to speak the language? Maybe for those of you at home its french, or spanish, or hell, even english sometimes. Well, I was having a day like that with Pulaar when we went out. In my defense, I had the flu of death and was quite feverish.

The conversation went a little like this....
Farmer: Hand me that shovel
Me: (confused look) I point to a big creepy ass bug.
Farmer: (Sassy tone) No Sira Ba, thats a millipede, not a shovel.
Me: oh, sorry hahaha!

Sometimes, you just look like an idiot, there's no avoiding it. That week or so in the village was pretty busy though. With the start of the rainy season, the nights are a lot cooler, which is amazing. However, the down side of that is that 1. the scorpions come out in full force. I had my second scorpion sting. My fence fell so I tried to push it back to and prop it up with a post. Unfortunately, the little jerks are the same color as my fence and stuck its little pointy thing right into my finger. I have never had something itch so badly! That and it swelled to 5x the normal size. Very attractive let me tell you. 2. The sheep aren't tied up at night. They like to hang out under my overhang and talk all night long. Either that or knock on my door. One night at about 4am after this had been going on all night, I have a fever from the flu of death, I lost it. Went out side in my shorts and sports bra (only) wearing my headlamp and screaming at sheep in the pouring down rain. Samba came out and asked me what the h I was doing haha! He tied them up and told me to go to bed. Gossip the next day you ask? Oh yea, apparently the weird toubab (me) likes to run around at 4am in the rain, naked, yelling at sheep. Awesome.

That and I had the flu of death for the first 5 days, with a 104 fever. Awesome. While swelling and dying of a fever, I had to do my mosquito net distribution (thanks to all of you who donated and your hand drawn thankyou notes from my kiddos are coming soon). Imagine being swarmed by 150 people wanting whats in your hand, and you're delirious from fever. Overwhelming!

Anyways, I spent the past week in Dakar teaching at an English camp, going to happy hour and trying to live in the Western-ish world. We had a lot of fun with the kids. We started off every morning by making them do "head, shoulders, knees and toes" at the top of their lungs, had them to playing kick ball and even had an olympic day where we played with frisbees and basketballs. But, I think the best part was by far watching them try to do a 3-legged race. I actually had a team hop all the way down to the end and back. Apparently they didn't believe me when I said the other way was easier ha! It was a blast and we had some great discussions with the kids about things going on in America and let them think up possible ways to improve the problems.

However, my favorite part was letting the kids pick names. I figured, that since I had to have a senegalese name, they should have an american name. In my group, the best names were Lola, Rihanna, Ludacris, Celine Dion and Peaches. Seriously, I think these kids watch a little to much TV and music videos. And peaches....really? She must have been hungry. Also, one of my group members asked me to write an inspirational american quote in his diary. I agreed, but with the pressure of being put on the spot, I could only think of one thing, a commercial that I hope he never sees. "On the road of life, there are passengers and there are drivers" - Saturn. I'm ridiculous.

Whats the plan now?

Well, I'm headed back to the village this afternoon. Going to finish my out planting and plant my farmers' pepiners. Next week, I'm headed to Sokone to do mangrove restoration. Apparently there are people from DC coming to document. We're a big deal over here I guess. Then, once outplanting is completely finished, I am heading up a mural tourney. I'm going to all of the different subregions in Kaolack and painting murals on walls, schools and who knows, maybe even the villagers themselves! Paint-a-holic. That should bring me up to the early December and alhumdoulillah I'm home!!!!! VACAY FOR A MONTH!!!!

Again, I'll try to be better at updating this from now on. Love you guys and can't wait to see everyone!