10,000 Girls

I’ve mentioned before that there is a girls group in Kaymor that I’m working with. I know I will be writing more about them in the future, but if you’re interested in the NGO that started the group, called 10,000 Girls, check out their website: http://10000girls.wordpress.com/

You can also watch this video that a group from England made earlier in the year when they came to help the girls improve their business skills. I make a very small appearance in the video, but Kate, the PCV in Kaymor before, talks about the group and how the girls have changed over the course of her two years working with them, so check it out! http://www.vimeo.com/8861673

Package Wish-List

Receiving packages is probably one of the most exciting things that happens to us PCVs, so I thought I’d make a pretty extensive list of things that one could include in a package if one wanted to send a package to me. I’m also posting this on the side of my blog so that you can access the list easily once I’ve posted other things above this post.

- Quinoa (complete protein and very versatile)
- Flax seed (ground or unground)
- Dried fruit and nuts (except peanuts - I live in the Peanut Basin of Senegal afterall)
- Granola
- Energy bars (ex. PowerBars, Cliff bars, SoyJoy bars, Luna bars, Quaker Oat bars, Chex bars)
- S’mores stuff (kids - well everyone - in the village loves making s'mores!)
- Hard candy (ex. Jolly Ranchers, Life Savers)
- Candy (ex. chocolate bars, Twix, Reese’s, M&M’s, Swedish Fish, Mike & Ike’s, Skittles, current/past holiday candy)
- Gum
- Drink mixes with vitamins (ex. Propel)
- Tea (ex. green tea, chamomile tea, sore throat tea, calming tea, peach tea, etc.)
- Random American food such as pop-tarts, rice crispie treats, boxes of macaroni and cheese, chocolate pudding, salsa and chips, tortillas, syrup, chocolate chips, brown sugar, cocoa powder, and anything you can add hot water to
- Cake and brownie mixes
- Frosting
- Seeds for planting
- Pictures (with or without me) – everyone here loves looking at pictures of my family and friends doing anything
- Magazines for me, for students (to learn English, about America and the world, about black culture in America, etc.), and for kids – ex. National Geographic, Time, Ebony, Essence, Zoo Books, Highlights
- Pens (the ones here are not very good)
- Nail polish, simple make-up, sample-sized bottles of lotion (not hair products - they use different stuff here for that), etc. for the young girls and teenage girls in my girls group
- Toys or games for the kids – ex. crayons, coloring books, big sidewalk chalk, metallic Sharpies, used tennis balls, toy cars, beanie babies, animal figurines, etc.
- Anything and everything you send will be eaten, used, or loved in some fashion! :)


NOTE: My boxes have never (yet) been opened by customs or anyone else; however, MICE can get in and eat things in the packages, so it’s best to line the whole box with tin foil or wrap the food in tin foil (since mice really don’t like chewing on that stuff) or put things in tin boxes (and then I can use the tins for storing seeds or other things!)

My hut – and the setting sun

Here are a couple pictures of the outside of my hut, as well as the sun setting over Kaymor (as viewed from the front of my hut).

Basketball

I forgot to mention that I was the ref for a high school basketball game when I was in Dakar. I was at the American Club (where all the WAIST stuff was) and the director of the basketball league was asking around to see if any of us knew basketball and could ref the game, so I gladly stepped in and helped out. It is apparently a new league for co-ed teams at the area high schools - all international schools, so it was mostly a mix of American and French students. I've never had to make the calls in English and French before, so that was challenging! Here are a couple pics from it. I really enjoyed running around the court (even though I didn’t have tennis shoes!) and shooting since it had been about 4 months since I’d picked up a basketball.

WAIST – softball, sun, and suspenders

I’m not sure where to start when writing this post about WAIST…it was a totally new Peace Corps experience for me… I guess what WAIST stands for is a good starting place. WAIST stands for West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament. It has been happening in Dakar for some 30+ years and teams from all over West Africa come to play. Peace Corps teams make up the majority (every region in Senegal has a team, and several other West African countries send teams of PCVs, too), but there are also teams made up of other Americans that live in Dakar and their kids, as well as one Senegalese team. Most of the teams are in the “social league”, but there are a few in the “competitive league” – Peace Corps Senegal formed a competitive team this year. The teams are placed in brackets and the winner of each bracket goes on to the play-offs. Most of the teams have a theme of some sort – the Peace Corps teams usually involve dressing up in some crazy fashion (see pictures below). Since there were so many people around the fields, they had Senegalese policemen there just as a precaution; the policemen didn’t quite know how to react to us in our costumes… (ex. picture below of Byron).

Kaymor is in the Kaolack region in Senegal, so that was the team I was on. We decided to dress up as lumberjacks, which was a really fun them to dress up for – and the markets in Kaolack and Thiès actually provided an abundance of fabric, suspenders, and other supplies to satisfy our lumberjack needs. We started off with a strong win Saturday (2/13) morning, but had a disappointing loss that afternoon. The next morning had lost again, and then had a triumphant win against another PC Senegal team who had gone back in time for their PC-BC theme. We were hoping to be able to win our bracket and make it to the play-offs but it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe next year. The Peace Corps team from The Gambia ended up winning the social league, which was exciting (since PC teams don’t usually win).

As I mentioned above, PC Senegal formed a competitive team this year – and they even got yellow t-shirts made. It was all guys until enough people gave the guys a hard enough time about it – and then they let me play. We got killed (for the most part) in all three of our games, which just means we need to practice more for next year. Maybe the next couple groups of PCVs that are coming to Senegal in the next year will be full of good softball players – there are only a couple PCVs that will still be around next year.

Since we PCVs are (by most American standards) pretty poor, Chris Hedrick, the PC Senegal Country Director, found home-stays for all PCVs that wanted one. These Americans living in Dakar were nice enough to open up their homes for several days to crazy PCVs used to living out in the bush (or at least most of us…some enjoy the luxury of towns). For most of us, this was just the taste of America we had been dreaming of for weeks…or months. :) I stayed in the home, where the husband and wife had both been in the Peace Corps (that’s where they met) in the ‘90s, and now the man works for USDA and the woman is a teacher at the international school their two young children attend. I stayed there with 3 other PCVs from Senegal and one PCV from Togo. The five of us really enjoyed sleeping in real (soft!) beds, taking (looooong) HOT showers, and have a refrigerator and an oven as well as a dinner table and couch – all things that most Americans (including myself!) take for granted but which we found to be such a novelty. We took advantage of all the amenities of an American kitchen and did a fair amount of cooking – we would have done more if we hadn’t been able to buy real hot dogs at the softball field and if there weren’t such delicious restaurants in Dakar to check out.

Speaking of food, our time in Dakar was not just consumed by softball – most of it, actually, was not. The softball games were played at the international school that is right next to what we call the “American Club.” It overlooks the ocean and has a pool, basketball and tennis courts, a sand volleyball court, playground, a little fast-food-type stand, bar, and lounge chairs – i.e., everything that we wanted for our mini-vacation from the village life. I played a lot of sand volleyball with other PCVs, which was a ton of fun and a collision with another PCV’s shoulder (and three stitches on my chin) didn’t stop me from continuing to play. I also spent a lot of time swimming and just hanging out in the sun (and shade) chatting with other PCVs. In the evenings, we all went out and explored the various restaurants in Dakar. It really is quite amazing how different Dakar is compared to the rest of Senegal.

Overall, I really enjoyed my first WAIST experience and am looking forward to WAIST 2011! :)

How to be every combination possible of every age and both genders all at once:

Step 1: Join the Peace Corps
Step 2: Be the only “toubob” in your small Senegalese village
Step 3: Enjoy a wide range of activities

I’ve broken this “How to” down into three simple steps, and now I’ll describe how I’ve successfully managed accomplished it – how I’ve managed to be every combination of every age and both genders all at once:

I draw and play with kids. I have crayons in my hut that the kids love scribbling on scrap paper with (there isn’t an abundance of paper around, so I grab as much scrap paper from our regional house in Kaolack that I can find and give it to the kids to draw on). The kids love it when I draw them a car or house, but I still can’t successfully draw a bike…maybe by the time my service is over I will have accomplished that task. :) Once the paper is full of scribbles (or even when it isn’t) I turn the paper into an airplane – and then my hut becomes the craziest airport in the world. I also play around with the kids outside – chasing them, throwing them up in the air, dancing with them, playing hand-clapping games, etc.

I play soccer with teenage boys and young men. In the middle of January the middle/high school in Kaymor started its soccer league: each grade has a team – and the teachers also have a team – and almost every evening (never Wednesdays and Sundays) two different teams will play each other. The teachers “recruited” me to be on their team (not because I’m good – almost all the teachers are better than me – but because I’m their age and they thought it would be more fair for me to play on their team than on another team), so I played with them in their first game (and haven’t been in Kaymor for the other games). We played well but could never quite get the ball into the net, so we ended in a tie of zero to zero. On the days when there aren’t games the boys (and teachers if they want) still go out to the field and just play for fun. I enjoy these days more than game days because we all get to play and because there is often a lot of laughter while we play – I remember one day in particular we spent more time laughing (usually for no apparent reason) than we did playing soccer. I always go home from playing soccer feeling tired but refreshed at the same time.

I braid hair, get dressed up, and talk “girl talk” with teenage girls. Braiding hair is a big cultural activity here, so I’ve gotten my hair braided four times now. Getting dressed up – wearing new clothes, putting make-up on (some girls spend more time putting on make-up here than I did in the States, though I guess that isn’t saying much since I rarely wore make-up in America…), choosing the right earrings or bracelet to wear, etc. – is just as exciting for girls here in Senegal as it is for girls in America, and with the spread of American culture, the girls don’t really look that much different from girls in America either. “Girl talk” in Senegal really isn’t that different either – and it certainly is helping me broaden my Wolof vocabulary! I also am trying to get the girls to do things that typically boys only do here – like go running and play soccer. The girls do these things in their PE class (which they only have once a week), but usually that’s the only time they do it. My friend Yassa will often jog out to the soccer field with me and run around the field for a little bit while I play soccer with the boys (she doesn’t like playing soccer). Sometimes we do pull-ups on the soccer net (the net itself is only put up during the school soccer games – see picture I posted in the previous blog post), but neither of us can do that many…yet anyway! :)

I talk about marriage, children, and life with young and older women. These topics are incredibly common – and I can relate to them because of their similarities in American culture, but at the same time they are also things I can also use them as an avenue to teach Senegalese women about American culture because of their differences. I talk with women about these topics while I’m helping them cook, at baptisms, when we’re doing laundry, when we’re eating or making tea, etc.

I work in the garden or field with women and men. As I’ve mentioned before, I am now helping out women with their women’s group’s garden as well as the talibe’s garden in Kaymor (talibe are boys and young men that work for a marabou, which is a Muslim religious leader), and I work out in the fields (and will do so a lot more once the rainy season starts in a few months). These activities also provide plenty of time to talk not only about agriculture and gardening, but also about the environment here, culture, food, religion, education, and the list is endless.

I talk about the past and how things have changed with old men and women. This is something I am only beginning to be able to do (because my language skills have not been good enough until now), and I am excited to see how much I can learn about Senegalese history and culture from older men and women in the village.

Working out – Senegalese style

Exercising in Senegal – especially in a small, rural village – isn’t quite the same as exercising in America (especially when it comes to working out in a “high-tech” exercise facility that is full of treadmills, stationary bikes, weights, mats, balls, classes, etc.), but it can certainly be just as effective. To stay in shape, many men and boys go running in the evening – they will sometimes go jogging for long periods of time, while other days they will do more sprint/speed workouts. They also do sit-ups and push-ups as well as other activities to work their arms, legs, and core, such as jumping and various arm movements – such activities are workouts even without weights. The guys also obviously play lots of soccer, too, and use the soccer posts to do pull-ups. I do all the same stuff the guys do – and have started trying to get my friend Yassa (and any other girls that are around) to work out with me, too, as you can see from the pictures below.

S’mores in Senegal and Cake in Kaymor

Here’s a brief blog post about how I’ve been teaching my family and friends in Senegal about standard American treats: s’mores and cake. (This blog is also an advertisement of sorts for how I use things I receive in care packages, in the hopes of receiving more care packages.) :)

Little needs to be said about the s’mores event except that it was a huge success. I brought them out of storage in my trunk one evening when a couple other PCVs were in Kaymor for Wolof language help, so the three of us taught my friends how to make s’mores – and they loved them!!!

A week or two after making the s’mores I decided to try making a cake from a couple of brownie mixes. My friend Yassa and my host mom Suckeye helped me make it. I sent a kid to buy us a couple eggs, some butter, oil, sugar, and powdered milk (it is very standard to send a child to the boutique right nearby to buy things – so don’t worry I’m not endorsing child labor or anything). Then we mixed up the cake batter and put that in a pot and stuck it on top of the standard wood fire we use to cook with. While the cake was cooking we mixed up frosting – chocolate squares (left over from s’mores), butter, powdered milk (and water), and sugar – and got that melting/boiling on the gas. Once it was hot, Yassa and I took turns mixing it with a fork to get it thick (didn’t entirely work, as you can see from the picture – it was still a bit runny when we put it on the cake). A wood fire isn’t exactly ideal conditions for baking a cake, but it worked for the most part – the middle was a little gooey and the outside was a little burnt, and it didn’t come out of the pot very easily, but we were able to salvage most of it and then cover it all up with frosting. I topped it all off with some mini M&M’s I had also received in a care package. Then we set it aside to eat after dinner. When I was taking pictures of the cake, Suckeye wanted a picture with it (and with a 10mille bill that she had in her hand at the time – big bucks!). We ate the cake that night – since there are so many people in my family (like essentially all families here in Senegal) everyone got just a couple bites (literally), but everyone really liked it (some said the frosting was a little too sugary…how can anything be TOO sugary?). :) My host dad ate his piece with bread (as did a couple other people) because it was so sugary and because they eat all food (that isn’t mixed with rice or millet) with bread. I found that a little strange…but at least he liked it! (I was actually kind of hoping that most people wouldn’t like it so I could eat most of it. It is very hard to satisfy my sweet tooth here…) :)

Overall, I think my American-food-taste-tests were a success and hope to continue making both s’mores and cake – as well as any (and every) American foods – in Kaymor. Moral of the story: keep those packages coming! :)

It’s cold here… let’s garden!

The “cold” season is in full swing here (we’re actually getting pretty close to the end) – and so is cold-season gardening. I’ve mentioned before that there is a women’s group in a village near Kaymor and I help these women out in their garden. Lately I’ve mostly just been helping them pull water from the well and watering the vegetables with this water – sure is a great arm work-out! A local NGO helped them install a small-scale drip irrigation system this past October (soon after I got to Kaymor), and I think I will try to get a similar system installed in the school garden I am going to be starting soon with the elementary school in Kaymor. The women have mostly lettuce, cabbage, and a really big and sweet radish in their garden, as well as carrots, onions, chives, and mint. The kind of vegetables they grow changes quite a bit with the seasons – they grow eggplant, tomatoes, hot pepper, okra, bissap, and lydor (a medicinal plant) during the rainy season.

In the pictures below, the women in red is the president of the women’s group and the woman in blue is her sister-in-law and also a member of the women’s group.





The talibe just started a garden about a month ago – they cleared land out in the bush (just a few minutes’ walk from their house on the edge of Kaymor) and built a fence to keep out all the cows that wander through the bush. There are a couple guys that do most of the work in the garden, though none of them have had much experience gardening before so I’ve been working with them pretty closely to help them get started. They have mostly cabbage and onions right now, as well as some lettuce and carrots. They also have quite a few mango, banana, papaya, and other trees in their garden, all of which are still really small but will be producing in the next few years.

The guy on the left here is one of the “leaders” of the garden and the guy on the right is Tomsir, my friend who I teach English to and who is also a talibe but doesn’t work in the garden much (because the marabou often has other work for him to do).

Tamxarit – Senegal’s version of cross-dressing Halloween in December

Probably the most bizarre Muslim holiday is Tamxarit. It is the Muslim New Year celebration – and what better way to bring in the new year than dressed up as the opposite sex running around the village with your friends? Apparently the kids in Senegal cannot think of anything better to do, since that is exactly what they do. I’m sure if I were a few (well, several) years younger I would be doing the same thing, too.

As you can tell from the pictures below, some boys put their sisters’ skirts and shirts on, and wear head scarves while others just throw on random clothes, paint their faces, and/or run around beating a drum and dancing. Most girls wear their brothers’ “boubous” and some also paint their faces white like some boys. For several hours in the evening, the kids run around the village in groups asking each compound for something – most people give the kids millet, corn, peanuts, or rice. The kids then usually divide it up among themselves and give it to their families, or they may sell it and use the money to buy candy or cookies or some other treat.

This year Tamxarit was on December 26th (the date changes every year because the Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar so it is based on the moon) and I was glad I left our Christmas activities in Kaolack early to get back to Kaymor for Tamxarit – it was definitely an exciting night in Kaymor!