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!

Back to Reality

Ok I know its been forever and I haven't updated. My bad haha, so you can stop worrying that I fell off the planet. My first vacation came, and unfortunately went too quickly and I am back to reality. Lame.


















Paris was absolutely amazing. Minus the fact that anytime I wanted to take a nap or go home for the night, I had to climb five fights of stairs, the apartment was adorable. If we walked a couple of blocks on one side we were right on the steps of Sacre Coeur. Drinking wine on the steps with all of the frenchies (sigh). We sat there a few nights and watched the sunset. One night, we decided to cook dinner (steak and salad with bread and cheese) DELISH!!! Only problem, which I discovered later, was that for some reason, the sun sets later there. And by later I mean like 1030pm. So a huge steak dinner at 1230am? A little strange, but was tasty regardless of the hour. I made sure to get in most of my cravings. One morning, I was dead set on having a strawberry tart. The first two boulangeries didn't have them but I felt weird walking in without buying anything, so I had three different pastries for breakfast. Fat kid at heart I guess :)

After doing the museums, the Eiffel Tower, all your typical touristy things, even some that aren't so touristy and way too much shopping, wine and cheese, we headed off to Dakar. Happy Hour and some non-3rd world things are the typical things to do in Dakar. So, we headed off to Ile de Ngor where we took a little canoe-like boat (pirogue) across and i succeeded in soaking my pants and covering myself with sand. After drinking some Gazelles and taking in the view, we headed down to Kedagou for the 4th of July party and a 36k bike ride to the waterfalls.

Ok, let me just say.....I kicked Chris's butt on that bike ride. No offense babe, but you should practice before I come home for good. This is a habit that I think will be kept. Any way, overall, it was a pretty nice bike ride. Nice view, nice pulaars, nice waterfalls....and then a nice flat tire. LAME! Who knows what did it, but turned out the patches were crap and I did not have my glue. A "nice" pulaar man stopped and helped us try to patch the hole, but lo and behold, crappy patches. So he told us to go to Segou, the next town, and that he would be back with a car. He was going back to Kedagou as well. So we walk my bike there and wait. and wait......and wait. It would have been nice if he had told me he was going back 3 days later. So we walked back to the town and stayed that night at the waterfall, where we were eaten alive by any an everything. Not fun. Granted the people were really nice and the view was gorgeous, I wanted to be in an uncomfortable hammock at the regional house. The next morning, being the charming pulaar lady that I am, we hitched a ride on a massive truck coming from Guinea up into town again. We made it finally, tired and hungry.....or well....tired and really needing a beer. So we did, we partied it up in the name of independence and then floated down the gambian river on intertubes (with the hippos) to obtain more much needed beers and eat warthog sandwiches. Sorry pumba....but I was achin' for some bacon!!

Back up to Kaolack, that wonderful cess pool of a place (especially during the rainy season) before going to Pakane. My village was one of the highlights. I put that boy to work making live fences, planting my papaya trees and of course greeting the village. Which was well, necessary, but a lot of work for me. I don't really do it that much anymore. He also got to accompany me as I yelled at a villager about letting all of his outplanted mangos get eaten by goats. Not so much as yell but sas him until he apologized. The food was a surprise for Chris. On the first day, the bowl was opened and hello bassi! A dish of white rice with ground peanuts, hot peppers and dried fish. Chris was terrified, I let him fend for himself haha. And he absolutely hated millet. I think he may have gagged a few times. If you recall, I used to hate it as well (referencing my millet poem/blog entry). I laughed at him....and then made fun of him with my host family.

The best part of the village would be the death of the goat. Yes ladies and gentlemen, there is one less goat on this earth, alhumdoulillah! I helped the ladies cook, the men sat. big surprise there. But it was delicious, by far the best meal at site in the past year!

Toubacouta was our last little mini vacay. We stayed in the mangroves (a funky looking tree that grows out of the water). The first night, we were typical cheapos living on a budget. But the second, Chris treated me to a fancy hotel overlooking the river. It had a pool, included dinner and breakfast, air conditioning and hot water!!! I'm telling you, I got way too used to this. I'm actually thinking about installing some AC into my hut. You think they do that solar? I actually was cold that night and shivered all night long. It was GLORIOUS!!!!! We even went kayaking, which is nowhere near as fun as jet skiing in the ocean like at Myrtle Beach. Pushing myself along? Pssshhh....who are we kidding, "oh butler.... prepare the air conditioning and run my bath....while you're at it, get me a beer." Man, I could get used to that life! Oh who am I kidding...I live in a freakin village.

I'm sad that this month went by so quickly. Chris is home, I head back to the village tomorrow with 3 bacterial infections and strep throat. Thats right folks, I'm back in Senegal. Kuddi. At least I'll be home for Christmas. 4 months!

A cute picture and the typical senegalese pose....at the gambian bar!

Timeout!!!! no one told me there were scorpions!

Ending my 22nd year at the beach, we brought in my new year with a game of Kings. For those of you who aren't familiar, its a college drinking game with rules for each card. On in particular, I think it was the 10 card was snake master. If you make eye contact with the person who drew that card, they make a hissing sound and you have to drink.

After I went back to Pakane, my little hut sweet hut, i started sweeping and getting my place ready for visitors. Not an easy task let me tell you. Swept under the desk, under trunk number one, under trunk number two and SSSTTTT!!! Snake eyes! Or should I say Scorpion eyes!!!! Yes thats right ladies and gentleman. The little bastard ran out from under my trunk right at me with his little stabby tail thing up in the air ready to strike. AAAHHHH, hold on....oops peed my pants..... now again AHHHHHHH!

Taking a closer look, there were 3 of them, all running around, stabbing each other, the wall, the giant millipede who also decided to make a home under my trunk for a week (ew) as well as my pinky toe. Stupid scorpion. Thats it, I was pissed. Who has the nerve to make a home under MY trunk, and then stab MY toe with its pointy thing?! Some house guest. SSSTTT SSTT SSSTTT! Scorpion eyes my ass!

Since I was already sweeping, I had my dust pan and used it as a weapon, of sorts. I'm pretty proud of myself that my first instinct was to beat the crap out of them until they died. Considering, that when I first came to my hut, I trapped a cricket under tupperwear and made my friend come and get it out. I managed to crush one, and squish the other two (screaming the whole time) in between the pan and the wall until my younger brother came and rescued me. Only then, did they find it necessary to tell me that once the rains come, there will be scorpions the size of my forearm. I wish they hadn't.

Other than that, things have been better. I haven't posted in a while. I figured, since things were not going so well in the village, it was best to hold off writing until I wasn't so negative about my life there. I'm back to hanging out with my friends there and we have successfully completed 9 latrines, working with 12 farmers with their tree nurseries and I'm about to hand out the 125 nets that you all helped to raise money for. Again, thank you. Things are good, no fights, just sitting around with the locs. I outplanted my first tree. Unfortunately, it got eaten by termites. DAMN! but i'll throw some ash in the hole and try again.

I'm heading to Paris on Sunday and can't wait. Its time for a vacation at last!!! Mali is on for September. I'm going with 3 other girls and I can't wait!!!!! Before you know it i'll be home for christmas too. I'll post again after Paris Rachel. Rest easy I'll stay more updated from now on, if for no other reason than your entertainment hahaha!

Oh what a week

As if I wasn't stressed out enough a week and a half ago, this latrine project, I am convinced is going to kill me. We succeeded in picking up the materials for 9 latrines, 3 of which were built before I left for Kaolack. However, the rest of the villagers have started accusing me of being "political" for only giving them to 9 people. At least 10 times a day, I explain that everyone will, in fact, receive a latrine. At the moment though, we are funded for nine and hopefully, once these 9 are done, the other money will have arrived and we can start the rest. The only reason they are getting them first is because they showed me that they have finished digging their holes. And, since there is only one mason in the village, we can only do one at a time any way so there is no problem and they need to chill. Needless to say, they don't get it. And on my way to another compound to start his douche, I was confronted, wait no, ambushed, by a villager. He begins screaming at me like a crazy person (and a 5 year old). Well, after a week of trying to get my point across and having people treat me like crap, I lost it. Straight up, legit flipped out. Started screaming about how he was acting like a child, what a big jerk he was, how he needed to stop chewing with his mouth open and spitting mango on me, how i'd make sure he never received anything from me as long as I lived in the village....anything you name it, I screamed about it. To add to things, my family decided to leave me out of lunch that day too. So 330 comes around and still no lunch, but luckily I was too upset to be hungry. So I left and said nothing to my family or the village. This was monday night. I'm not going back until Friday, I'm still too angry with them.

On a brighter note, I taught a sexual health session in natalie's village. Since its a pulaar village I was able to speak comfortably about, well, birth control and condoms. I managed to learn a thing or two as well. For example, a bike pump is useful for more than just helping out with flat tires. It can act as "a man" when you're doing a condom presentation. To make things even better, the condoms were Christmas colors! Although, really, who the hell would want to use a green condom? Even in Africa, ok especially in Africa, do you really want to associate green with your errrr ummm "private time?" My vote-- not so much.

While everyone laughed histerically the entire time, we had one woman and one man (separately of course) come up and demonstrate how to put the condom on. Mainly just to embarrass them, but I think that they did end up learning about their options. When we explained how the women are tired of having children and raising them for as long as they can remember, and the men are busy, ok maybe thats not the right word. So, while the men are drinking tea and sitting in the shade, maybe they should consider not knocking the women up quite as often. Condoms! Birth Control! USE THEM!!! They seemed rather receptive and it didn't seem to offend them. Or at least they didn't tell us if it did. The best part came when we needed to take the Christmas condoms off the bike pump. Its so much more fun to actually use the pump. And in doing so, i shot a condom off into the crowd, hitting natalie's mom in the head (not hard). Myself and everyone else lost it and to be honest, I almost peed my pants laughing so hard. Giant green condom flying through the air-- and SMACK! Stuck right in her weave. How charming.

I'm staying an extra day here in Kaolack, as I said and tomorrow I'm going to a hotel pool to drink bloody marys and lay by the pool. Thank god. I'm going to the beach on the 31st to celebrate my 23rd birthday. God I'm getting old. But i'm certainly ready for a vacation. Im looking forward to it. Luckily, considering how angry I am with the village, I only have to be back for a few days before I go to Thies for my meeting. Working on my birthday. Nice. I'm still going out!

Job description: stressed out nag

Back in Kaolack after a two and a half week long stint in Pakane. Let me just say, this might have been the most stressful at site since arriving. My tree nursery has been finished for over 3 weeks now, and I am just now getting the villagers to start theirs. Although, the chickens have taken a liking to my trees so I had to buy chicken wire and threaten my family that I would eat the chickens if they touched my trees again. Is it bad that I kind of want them to maybe just eat one -- so i can have them for lunch? Anyway, over and over they gave me a time or day to come and over and over again they blew me off. "Sira Ba, I don't have something I need, come tomorrow morning around 9." Nine o'clock comes around and I show up, "Oh sorry, he went to Kaolack." What the h? I think it might be a record to have been blown off 6 times in one day. Seriously?! Finally, I took a book and retreated to the bush shooting dirty look after dirty look and avoiding children by ducking behind trees so they wouldn't follow me. I feel like rather than spending most of my time nagging the villagers to work instead of actually working. Although I have been able to start 7 nurserys before I left, so that helps.

On one especially frustrating day, I decided it would be a good idea to go to my road town to buy a mango. And while I can get them in the village, they're either so squishy it reminds me of the inside of a gusher or dripping with drool from my year old brother sucking on it. Probably a bad idea on that day since I was already in a bad mood and I had to deal with people. The next time I hear anyone in America complaining about racism, I'm probably going to flip. The fact that I had to hide in a random shack, to keep from being harassed, only to be surrounded by 15 teenage boys shouting "toubab" and hissing/making kissing noises as I tried to eat it is, to put it nicely, obnoxious. Seriously, you would be hard pressed to find that in America.

On the bright side, thanks to you all, I am almost fully funded for my bed-net distribution by now! And in less than 24hours! But don't feel like we have to stop at the goal of $250, any extra proceeds will go to other volunteers in need of bed nets as well and who haven't raised the money that they need yet. Thank you so much! Also, I am funded for 8 latrines and am waiting for the reset of the money to come in from a local NGO. I want to start construction this weekend when I go back home to Pakane. The villagers can stop bugging me 3 times a day. They still have not given me their share though, so again with the nagging, I need to start in on them yet again.

So, I came in for Cinco de Mayo and made enchilladas! They were absolutely delicious. However, I came in by car instead of biking Alhumdillilah! That was by far the hardest thing have ever done. I'll probably do it again haha! Peace corps has turned me into a socially awkward masochist. But, since having been here, I've learned that the money we raised fund-raising, for the gender and developement group I run communications for, is not able to be used. According to a new rule, we are not allowed to specifically raise the funds or handle the money in any way. Meaning, all of the money we raised at WAIST (by drinking and selling the boys off as dates) can't be used for the 80 scholarships we are giving out this month. All and all, we may not be able to give out the scholarships. Not good! I'm desperately trying to come of with an answer, so that these girls can actually receive the money to buy school supplies and food.

So, as you can see, I am beyond stressed. Despite even the work aspects, one of my closest neighbors seems to have it out for me since i'm not my ancient (the girl I replaced). Apparently they were friends, and since I'm not her that makes me, well, the devil. What a jerk. Cant relax in Kaolack because of work and can't relax at home because of stupid men (and mice). Lame! On the bright side I did decide on some travel plans!

In October I'm going to Mali with two other people. One of the girls is from up north and I don't know her very well, but the other girl is in the Kaolack region and one of my favorite people in country. 2 full weeks of hiking, riding camels and taking a picture in front of the "Welcome to Timbuktu" sign. I shortened my trip home by a week, sorry mom (we'll talk later) so that in March I can travel West Africa for 3 weeks. My goal is to hit Guinea, Sierra Leonne and Liberia. As for a trip at the end of my service, I'm off to Nepal to trekk in the Himalayas and to find the Abominable Snowman (more like the Adorable Snowman!). After 4-5 days in India I'll be back in the good 'ole US of A.

Also, thank you all so much for helping me with my bed net distribution. If anyone else wants to help me out with funding you can go to my website. Any money over the $250 will go to other volunteers involved in the distribution who have not yet raised enough. So extras are always welcome! I miss and love you all so much and I can't wait to see everyone in 6 months!
www.AgainstMalaria.com/SarahKnight