Let's all just take a moment and think about how wonderful washing machines are. They are beautiful, wonderful, helpful machines that make our clothes smell and nice and fresh. Over the past five weeks I like to think I've really become accustomed to some of the tougher aspects of life. Every morning I pull water to drink and every night I pull water to have my bucket bath. Every couple of days to a week I pull water to "do laundry." As I think I've explained before, this entails have two separate buckets, one to scrub the clothes down with soap, and after you wring them out you put them in the clean water to soak before you wring them out to dry in the sun. The Senegalese ladies have a wonderful system of scrubbing every inch of every piece of clothing that at the moment I feel I will never be able to copy. My little sister laughed at my skills and since then my pride has been hurt; since then I have not allowed anyone else to watch me do laundry.
My family is wonderful! My "parents" are around 35 and 25, and they have four children: Ramatouly (8), Ibrahima (6), Alpha (3), and Mamadou Yaya (6 months). I also have an "aunt" (Umu) and an "uncle" (Omar) who are really great. He's around 30 and she's 18- they have one son, Moutarou, who just turned two. My mom's are really great- they take me everywhere with them and introduce me to their friends, and teach me the difference between Fulakunda Pulaar and Pulla Futa Pulaar, which is apparently vast. The kids are great and it's cool to watch them becoming socialized. For example, Alpha and Moutarou are just learning how to eat at the communal bowl. Normally people eat with their right hand and have their left hand on the bowl, but Alpha always forgets and his left hand is in everyone's way when we're trying to eat, and he's always getting yelled at. They also like to stand up and announce they are full a lot, walk away for a bit, play, and then come back and claim they were never full and absolutely must eat some more. Sometimes this happens once, sometimes lot's of times, and every time their mothers get very upset and and yell at them.
So what is my daily life like? I sit around a lot. I (try to) talk to people. I watch my moms cook and drink tea. I visit other compounds and try to make friends. My main strategy has been to break out into random dancing and I think it's been pretty successful. Now anytime anyone sees me they tell me to dance and I'm obliged to comply. Not that it'll be a surprise to anyone, but everyone says I'm really good at dancing. I also attend Pulaar School quite a bit. An NGO in the area,Totstan, has programs running in about a dozen villages around Kolda that simultaneously teaches adults (almost all of the students are women- my counterpart signed up for the class just to be involved and sometimes the chief will come watch) how to read Pulaar and live healthier lifestyles. This specific class is focused on taking care of children and has talked about nutrition, sanitation, the importance of ALL children to go to school as long as possible. Totstan has also discussed touchier subjects in the past, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), and I think they've done a great job getting people to think critically about these issues. Not only that, but a lot of the women (most if not all didn't go to school long enough to learn how to read) are slowly but surely learning how to read and finding pride and enjoyment in their accomplishments! For the first couple weeks, without fail, my moms would want to read their Pulaar books with me before we all went to sleep. Women who are taking the class will ask me to sit with them while they read and help them through any difficulties. Another great aspect is that the women with older children let their kids read too. Although I'm sure it's not intentional, these family meetings inspire a love of learning in the kids. When they see thier moms doing something, they also want to do it. I've even seen the dads reading the books. Needless to say, I think Totstan is wonderful and I cannot wait for it to start again once Ramadan is over.
There are also meetings to go to. Sanankoro has a women's group who is currently collecting money to save for later. Right now people tend to have a little bit more money than usual because they've harvested and sold their crops, but come the cold season (aka starving season) there's less money to go around. So this group collects money throughout the plentiful times, puts it in the bank and withdraws it again when it is needed.
Workwise I've done a couple of things. I went on two vaccination tournees, which involves me, the health relais (essentially a volunteer health worker in the village), and the ICP (equivalent to an American nurse training wise, but since doctors are sparse in the rural areas they run the health centers and are a really big deal) going compound to compound giving polio vaccinations to children under the age of 6, as well as vitamin supplements. This was a semi traumatic experience for several reasons: 1. Children think they're getting shots, and they immediately start bawling, making it harder to get to their mouths and have them swallow all of these wonderful gifts, and 2. It's hot. On top of this I had my first serious toubab moment. For those of you who don't remember, toubab is word Senegalese people have for Westerners. The response to this generalization varies from person to person, but it's starting to grate on me. Generally they don't mean it maliciously, and are just really really really really excited to see a white person (although it does apply to other races and Senegalese people who are too "Western" as well). Well, I enter a compound on the vaccination tournee and make eye contact with this little boy, who is probably around 3. I see his face immediately drop and terror ignite in his eyes as he desperately starting clawing at his mother for safety. He was inconsolable. I couldn't go near him because he was so scared and after he got his vaccination his mother took him into a hut so he couldn't see me. Silly toubab, scaring all the children. Meanwhile his brother and sisters were laughing hysterically and trying to get me to go near him.
Aside from tournees I have my scholarship program going on! I'm still working on home visits but I'll wrap that up in a couple weeks. We were able to nominate six girls to receive inscription fees for the next school year! There were nine spots availalbe but an insufficient number of girls with qualifying grades. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED! Because we have less girls than we thought, we have already met the quota! Any overage will go to another volunteer's program since it's Peace Corps Senegal wide, which is just as great since girls will get the opportunity to learn!
I also attended a relais training with my counterpart, which was great because I got to meet a bunch of health workers in the area. Relais are volunteer community health workers and great PC work partners It was 4 days worth of walking 7km there and back, and everyone was astounded that my counterpart and I walked. I just told them it was good for our health. After the training was over we held a baby weighing to gauge malnutrition in the area and I'm happy to report that we had no severe cases and only two borderline cases. That's a great foundation for my work and I can't wait to see a bunch of fat little babies.
Next week I will be having language seminar at a fellow volunteer's site, and then it's off to beautiful Kedagou to celebrate the 4th of July with the Peace Corps fam! Looking forward to meeting the other volunteer's and seeing my stage mates again!
Ajaraama!
