Meeting Adjourned

I've had several meetings at this point for the latrine project and rebuilding the water-tower. You probably can't imagine why "several" meetings and an eternity are really necessary to accomplish these things. That's because this is Senegal. Senegal crawls and talks and repeats and changes its mind and forgets and has three rounds of tea in between each of these steps.
So I go from coloring with Booba and Balla (my best buds who are 5) to summoning the elders and importants and I "run" meetings. They start several hours late at which point I'm already wondering when I could duck out and hoping I won't fall asleep (so far I've only rested my eyes). We gather and eventually they look expectantly at me and I make a little speech: Hello; thank you for coming here today (by this point, tonight); I'm happy to have your input; these are the points I want to discuss; if we work together we can accomplish this... As I listen to myself say this in Pulaar without notes or planning, I'm AMAZED at myself. While I continue talking, I get a little nostalgic for the days when I struggled in my influency.
At this point, Daby, my counterpart, stops me. "Hold on, Hadiatou, let me translate what you just said." Oh. Never mind about the nostalgia then!
I'm still learning about senegalese communication. In the states I don't imagine saying something obvious like, "We should all have water," would be necessary. Here, people nod and "uh-HUH!" at such things as if I solved a problem. Or things like, "Latrines are good for our health... We should make them well so they last a long time," that I throw in as space-fillers-- get the best reception of anything. Much better than painstaking plans and brilliant proposals. A nonsequitor: I love having a "Douche Committee" with a President Douche. (what we call latrines)
My biggest meeting was village-wide, when my APCD came to help us identify our biggest problems and what I could do to help. He said getting people to come to the meeting was always a struggle-- especially if you're not buying lunch (I was not, but I did bring ataaya and kola nuts). We changed the meeting time twice, because of market day and "Fete des Vaches" (Cow Party; which I learned means digging a hole, filling it with water, pounding red bark, and letting your cows eat and drink while you watch them and clear away their poo. It happens 3 times a year to boost the cows' immune systems. Or, if you have money, you could buy the pills.) Then, WE were three hours late because my APCD's lunch was. I still wasn't that worried about our turn-out.
And I didn't need to be! Over 100 people showed, somewhere around 120 including kids. My APCD said it was a bit of a phenomenon. We crowded into a stick-structure classroom, women in the back, and my APCD did his thing from the center with Daby's translations. I mostly took notes and watched those two AMAZING men who go beyond their job descriptions with passion and do SO MUCH. I aspire to be a worthy colleague of theirs.
The problems were no surprises. Over 60 votes for water, then a health post where people could spend the night without having to walk the hour to Dindefelo, then latrines and sanitation, then fixing the road (which I can't do), then better access to malaria meds... There were a couple votes for electricity too and I swear I didn't mean to laugh...
The meeting got good reviews and I felt good about it too. I'd been having a rough time before it with sexism, being treated like santa claus, and an incident that left me in tears. This made it all better. It was awesome for everyone to come, take the meeting seriously, contribute, thank me, and relearn what my role is. I was especially touched when the men thanked my APCD for sending me. They said I live well with them, am always in good spirit (NOT true!), and even though they were unsure about working with a woman, they said they can see now it's just as good. The proof of this, they said, is the great turn-out of the meeting.
It felt so good to hear that! I'd been feeling like it was all I could do not to flip out, not to scream at people and burst into tears (though I supposed I actually DID do all of these things at some point..), to take deep breath after deep breath and keep going. With that much effort just going towards breathing, I was getting down on myself for not being able to handle things more easily so that I could put my effort into helpful projects. So having them compliment my attitude makes it that much easier to maintain it. :o)