AfriKate

Calendrier Quoi

2010-08-03T11:02:00.005Z

March 2008-May 2010: Sénégal (mostly Pellel Kendessa and Kédougou), with brief interludes in Tanzania, Italy, Spain, and Morocco

May 18-20 Labé, Guinea (first 24.5 hours in transit...)
May 20-24 Douki, Guinea
May 24-25 Kindia, Guinea
May 25-27 Freetown, Sierra Leone
May 27-29 River No. 2, Sierra Leone
May 29-30 Freetown, Sierra Leone
May 30- June 1 Kénéma, Sierra Leone
June 1-2 Koindu, Sierra Leone
June 2-3 Nzerékoré, Guinea
June 3-4 Man, Côte D'Ivoire
June 4-8 San Pedro, Côte D'Ivoire
June 8-10 Sassandra, Côte D'Ivoire
June 10-17 Abidjan, Côte D'Ivoire
June 17-19 Dixcove, Ghana
June 19-21 Capecoast, Ghana (+Kakum)
June 21-23 Accra, Ghana
June 23-25 Hohoe, Ghana
June 25-28 Kumasi, Ghana
June 28-29 Boabend-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, Ghana
June 29-30 Tamale, Ghana
June 30- July 3 Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
July 3-7 Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
July 7-10 Banfora, Burkina Faso
July 10-12 Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
July 12-14 Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
July 14-16 Dakar, Sénégal
July 16-18 Ngor Island, Sénégal
July 18-21 Dakar, Sénégal
July 21-August 4 Cambridge, England
August 4----- *USA!*

Wheel of Misfortune

2010-07-31T09:31:00.006Z

A game Booboo and I played on our trip, through which we rewarded ourselves for misfortunes... Here is the score-board:

1. Event
2. Number of Occurrences
3. Points Earned

1. Received actual Dowry Payment
2. Booboo: 1 (money was given to me FOR Booboo)
3. Booboo: 25

1. Awkward *** pimples with heads and blisters
2. Booboo: 5
3. Booboo: 25 (5 points each)

1. Painful pus-oozing body pimples
2. K: 2 (armpit and eye-lid)
3. K: 100 (50 each)

1. Vomiting
2. Booboo: 2, K:2 (alcohol was unfortunately no way involved)
3. Booboo: 40, K:40 (20 each)

1. Weird dinosaur skin bubble blister
2. Booboo:1
3. Booboo: 5

1. Sexual assault by gear shift
2. K:1
3. K:5

1. Mosquito net exploding onto road in the middle of a moto-ride
2. K:1
3. K: 5

1. Bribe standoffs
2. Booboo: 3, K: 3
3. Booboo: 30, K: 30 (10 each)

1. Bags written on according to bogus border rules
2. Booboo: 1, K:1
3. Booboo: 5, K:5

1. Rats held up within inches of face
2. K:1
3. K:5

1. Incorrect stamp in passport
2. Booboo:1, K:1
3. Booboo:5, K:5

1. Replacement of water with car gas, in own personal bottle
2. K:1
3. K:5

1. Blood-spilling thorn incident
2. Booboo:1
3. Booboo:5

1. Car break-downs (at least 10 min sitting)
2. Booboo: 3, K:3
3. Booboo: 15, K:15 (5 each)

1. Fording flooded bridges by foot
2. Booboo: 1, K:1
3. Booboo: 50, K:50

1. Getting taped eating plantain chips in a very gross way
2. Booboo:1
3. Booboo: 5

1. Eating staple
2. Booboo:1
3. Booboo:5

1. Eating rocks:
2. Booboo: 10, K: statistically must have as well but doesn't seem to have noticed
3. Booboo: 10 (1 each)

1. Near robbery
2. K:1
3. K: 5

1. Brink of bladder blast
2. Booboo: 2, K: 1
3. Booboo: 10, K: 5

1. Walking into gaping cockroach den dirt hole instead of shower at "Beverly Hills Hotel"
2. Booboo: 1, K: 1
3. Booboo: 5, K: 5

1. Falling/ flying gracefully off moto
2. K: 1
3. K:5

1. Burn from moto's exhaust pipe
2. Booboo: 1
3. Booboo: 5

1. Fever
2. Booboo: 1
3. Booboo: 20

1. Limping to market to replace broken flip-flop and hearing everyone along the way tell her to stop, her flip-flop is broken!
2. K:1
3. K: 5

1. Listening to Shaggy's "It wasn't me" on the same car trip
2. Booboo: 5, K:5
3. Booboo: 5, K: 5

1. Dealing with drunk guy visit to our hut at night while the other of us pretended to be asleep, thus removing his chance to drunkenly woo us in french
2. Booboo: 1
3. Booboo: 5

1. Leaving Burkina in a rage of near-tears each suddenly with $200 less due to surprise border dues
2. Booboo: 1, K: 1
3. Booboo: 5, K: 5

BONUS! UNQUANTIFIABLE POINTS OF MISERY!

diarrhea: +100 each
personal space violations: + 200
Guinea trip +150
Persistent African-Flirting aka harassment: + 100
Al Qaida ruining plans: +50

FINAL SCORE:

Booboo: 895
K: 900!

you should've gotten another ass pimple, Booboo!

BOOYAh!

My Favorite Things-- about West Africa

2010-07-23T11:39:00.003Z

Raindrops on corn husks and whiskers on catrats
Bright striped a** kettles and warm running sh**s
Brown rat-chewed packages three months waiting
These are a few of my favorite things!

Cream-colored cattle and crisp unripe mangos
Door breaks and day breaks and street children gang-os
Wild bats that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things!

Girls in bright pagnes with mismatched head sashes
Sweat drops that drip from my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white toubabs that melt into drinks
These are a few of my favorite things!

When the mosquito bites! When the killer-bees sting,
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad!

But really:
-how drivers ALWAYS stop to help other broken-down drivers. Even with no tools or spares, they'll figure out some crazy way to tow it with a log (which I have seen) or push it, or something
-bissap juice, especially frozen
-the constant high-fiving congratulating any attempt to joke, even the quite clearly un-funny ones
-how laughter seems to always be on the tips of everyone's tongues, even when their words are sad or angry
-street food stands: meat skewer grillers, bean/omelette/spaghetti/caterpillar sandwich ladies, sweet tea and coffee tables, full meal cheb shacks... besides the excellent food, I love sitting at kids-low teetery tables in the middle of the sidewalk, chatting with nice strangers
-fanice! (Ghana and Burkina): ice cream in a bag, sold from carts wheeled around like wheelbarrows or on bikes. GENIUS!
-buying food through windows of public transport... how the hawkers will always run your change to you even if your car starts taking off
-that old people are respected and waited on and kids made to do it (we have this perversely reversed in the states)
-that no one whines about rough childhoods or neglectful parents. Everyone's had it rough here, so they all just get on with it. Furthermore, this extends into a drastically lower rate of creepy crimes. I know a lot of people have the idea that Africa is scary and dangerous, but the only real risk in the places I've talked about is pick-pocketing. And, isn't that an understandable crime? I'd do it too. In the US, as a girl, I sadly don't even stop for broken-down cars on the side of the road. This is because America has creepy creatively pschotic people who commit unspeakable crimes. I blame it on our self-absorbed whininess, among other things.
-singing, clapping, dancing, drumming
-men wearing pink boubous
-20 cent sandwiches
-mango, banana, papaya, coconut, pineapple, cacao, citrus--- trees
-peace corps house libraries
-peace corps volunteers, the greatest group of people I've ever met
-waterfalls outside of any guidebook
-being led to said off-the-map waterfalls by barefoot 7-year-olds scrambling effortlessly ahead, bush-wacking with homemade fishing poles
-starry, starry nights: shooting stars every 5 minutes
-sling shots, bamboo flutes, wooden hoops, and tied-trash soccer balls. Toys R Us ain't got nothin on creativity.
-washing clothes in sparkling rivers
-roasted corn made by 5 year-old siblings and dropped off lovingly like bouquets of flowers. or, made by street venders who wrap them in the husks as natural wrappers
-orange juice: squeezed straight from the orange to your mouth
-roasted peanuts and raw wet peanuts and picking or shucking peanuts with the family until you can't feel my finger-tips anymore
-mosquito net forts
-lanterns and candles that remind you to look at the world in romantic lighting
-wall-scrambling lizards
-fantastical birds
-hollowed-out baobabs
-tree-dwelling vines: the original jungle gym
-shaking everyone's hand when entering a room
-the circus acts of daily life
-inappropriate shirts with english writing no one but you understands ("Grandmas aren't supposed to be this sexy")
-the friendliness and readiness of everyone to always jump up and help with anything-- not just the white people, but EVERYONE
-that I could get free water, food, and shelter if broke, lost and homeless, in any village with any people. Why are the world's poorest people also the most generous people this Connecticut girl has ever met?
-Indiana Jones bridges
-Obama-gear, Obama shops, Obama music, Obama biscuits!
-hammocks
-rain winds
-postcard landscapes that make you wish you had fly eyes that could see all around you at once, and an even bigger soul to take it all in
-the ability to scatter terrified children with a jump and a "Boo!"
-4-year-old children with 3-year-old children on their backs
-group napping during the hot hours under the shades of trees
-being the most popular person in a 10 mile radius
-dug-out canoes
-simply putting down the phone without hanging up when lecherous guys call: they run out of credit and stop calling! wonderful system
-biere, grande modele
-not needing a towel
-being able to barge into restaurant kitchens to check out the ice cream, or ask for garlic cloves, or just to say hi
-tea
-"how is your family?"-- the fact that it matters yet is still so common
-the new levels of intimacy reached with friends once you know the details of their pus, snot, and especially other bodily secretions...
-NICE people
-gypsy funeral disney singer lady
-Touree's omelette sandwiches once I ride into Dindefello
-calling the Kamaras thieves, and hanging out with neene galle
-how cute Daby and Sadio are... they definitely win Best Couple in the Pellel superlatives!
-the little kids who chant my name and run at me like I'm Santa Claus (Houssey, Aliou, Mariama)
-the SOUARES, the entire reason to stay for two years in Senegal. The greatest family I could be adopted into. I miss them so much!
-people who actually read my blog. Thanks for sticking with it guys! You've made me feel much less alone and much more interesting than I perhaps have the right to feel! Hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have! Thanks so much!

Burkina Faso et fin

2010-07-23T10:46:00.003Z

Burkina Faso:
Not so bad once al qaida's kidnapping plots make you get stuck there! It's beautiful and the people have the same warm teranga that they do in Senegal.

Highlights:
-Riding a moto! You obviously don't need a license and it was cheaper to just learn rather than hire a driver. So much fun! Through sugar cane and peanut fields, down shaded tree-lined dirt avenues, past mountains and waterfalls and lilly-ponds and villages.... It was so unbelievably gorgeous, that I couldn't even help exclaiming about it out loud in "oohs" and "ahhhs."
I want one!

-Papa Noel: an eccentric previous-American with amulets and traditional clothes, who goes by Papa Noel... While sitting at an outside street tea table late one night, he sauntered down the street in a little cloud of magic. He came over to greet Ria and gave us anti-mousitque from him front bib pocket as well as a short american history lesson. Booboo and I were instantly infatuated and wanted to know everything about him. What an interesting guy! We saw him a few more times, but it'll never be enough of Papa Noel. The best thing about him is how he dances at the traditional music shows. It's like a robotic dashboard-doll shuffle. Afterwards, he leaves bags of bread in their money bowl. (I left two packages of underwear... long story.) We were sad to leave the place of P. Noel, but I at least am staying close to him in the form of my falling-apart copy of Lord of the Rings, the donation of which he merrily accepted. And so I gave a present to Papa Noel! What does that make me?

-Ria: a British special ed teacher who does things like hitchhike literally to Timbuktu. On that trip, she spent three weeks crossing the dessert with 56 toureg men and their giant guns, one old woman, 16 goats, and she-doesn't-know-how-many chickens. My favorite quote was (imagine in a cute british accent:) "All I brought into the desert with me was a dagger and nine goat skins." Why the goat skins? "Well, they're cheaper there!" Ahhh.
Meeting people like this is inspiring and otherwise enlightening. It's good to meet people more "hard-core" than you are, and it might be even better to realize you have no desire to be that hard-core yourself. I think we all kind of want to be like these exciting people, but the very fact that we want to tell these stories makes us already unlike them. I'm just glad they're around to have nighttime tea with!

-The Carpe Diem Cafe: I convinced the management to give me a free espresso after showing him my tattoo. Free advertising! They were baffled as to how and why the name of their restaurant came to be on my ankle. I was getting the feeling that they really had no idea it was anything but the name of their place, so I asked them to confirm the french translation. "Les plaisurs sur la table!" No, that's your motto, I see on the sign, but I mean the translation of the phrase, "carpe diem..." "Oui, oui, ca signifie 'les plaisurs sur la table!" And they could not be convinced otherwise. Wow.

-Fried caterpillars: surprisingly tasty! They sell them in sandwiches in La Vielle Quartiere in Bobo, and I really don't know why they don't sell them everywhere else too. The caterpillars eat up the shea trees, so I think it would be smart all around to eat them up first!

-The rest of La Vielle Quartiere: quite interesting. It's divided into sections for: Muslims, Animists, Griots, and Forgers. They make everything from millet beer to drums there. The largest "fetish" in the animist section is covered with blood and feathers for sacrifices. The sacred catfish river was a bit of a hoot. Besides being sacred, it also functions as the disgusting town dump. Pigs waded through, and filth and trash were everywhere. A kid was peeing a high golden arc into it as well. Perhaps the no-eating-the-catfish rule is for the best!

-Acrobatic dancers: We saw an amazing performance of stunts that are literally in Cirque du Soleil, non-stop. Holding each other up at ridiculous angles, standing and flipping off each other's heads, flipping in every other way, eating fire, balancing and juggling with spinning bowls... Absolutely hands-down the best show I've ever seen for $1.20!

We had to skip Mali to avoid being kidnapped, but I'll go back there some day. So instead we flew to Dakar (this transition was not exactly painless, but I'll leave it to Booboo to write about that...) Once in Dakar, we saw our favorite people, went to surf camp, and I bought $50 worth of parasite/ amoeba/ schisto medicines.

So concludes our magical journey! Good times!

BOOBOO GOT BRAIDED!

2010-07-15T17:59:00.003Z

It was completely hillariously fullfilling for me, all the women involved, and all passersby who stopped mid-stride or peddel to gape. It was less of a positive experience for Booboo. I took about 100 photos because I figured the actual braids wouldn't last long enough for a great enough part of the world to bear witness. It's our duty to spread joy by sharing her rat-head with the masses. She wanted a mohawk in the middle at first (yet was ademently opposed to extensions that would look "ridiculous") but there was no way the woman would let her walk away from their braiding stand looking like a mad woman (unfinished braids are like insanity badges for women. For men, it's the complete lack of clothing). In the end, we all won, really. Less so for Booboo and her sore scalp.

"Terrifying. I am Darth Vader taking the helmet off... with 4 chins."
--Booboo's reaction to a photo of her scary white-girl braids

The Great Race

2010-07-13T13:36:00.002Z

So I've been of a minority race for two and a half years now. It's an annoying but enlightening experience. Within this time, I must say, I've noticed a few differences between white and black people. I know I'm supposed to say we're all the same, and of course fundamentally or spiritually or whatever, that's true. But still-- we're not. We're all different and it's ok. We don't need to be "color blind" because it's good and necessary to all be different from each other. And there's one difference in particular which maybe I shouldn't say as it might get me in trouble... But I would like to get it off my chest. So here goes, the racist conclusion I've come to: black people.... are better.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry, the majority of my family and friends; I'm sorry world leaders; I'm sorry fellow prep-school kids. It's true and it's time to accept our defeat as gracefully as we can. Which really isn't that graceful, and I think this proves my point.
You know when you are faced with that inconveniently-located caution tape once you've already set out on the straightest path to your parking spot and you really don't want to re-set your course? Or, for the more rurally inclined, when you want to somehow get on the other side of a fence? Hands on your hips, you pause breifly to consider this nuissance of a barrier. Of course you can do it, you just need a minute to figure out the best way... Can you stretch your leg over it? Are your pants too tight for that sort of thing? Maybe under? Can you still bend that way? Could your body scrunch small enough to go through?
Meanwhile, Mariama Diallo (the Sarah Smith of Senegal) has stepped over as daintily as a tight-rope walker-- with 8 gallons of water balanced on her head, a baby on her back, malaria coursing through her veins, a cup of corn in her tiny stomach, and she's probably clapping and singing while she's at it.
In her wake, you suddenly see the possibility in her steps. And there you go!-- with just the smallest grunt and stumble on the other side. Maybe we weren't always like this, but somewhere along the way, the majority of white people seem to have lost their natural grace, the autonomy of their body parts in sync getting somewhere. Maybe we're just out of practice. Not so, here.
Still not convinced with my revelation? So you go to the gym and haven't lost the natural ease of your legs? Fair enough. In that case, let me take you on an imaginary journey to My Life. Please get on the imaginary carpet. A little quicker... Watch how Mariama does it... There we go!
*****(imaginary journey music)*****
Here we are, in a beautiful but HOT land. The local people welcome you kindly and press roasted cobs of corn in your hand. How sweet! And delicious! But focus, now.
What do you notice about everyone around you? #1. They're beautiful. Like models. Chisled, sculpted, smooth, hairless, glowing... Now I personally have gone through, in my lifetime: several years of braces and teeth cleanings, pimples, tubes put in my ears, my tonsils taken out, high-power contacts, and countless medicines, vitamins, and gym classes just to stand here next to them, quite literally pale in comparison. And you? Well you're sweating even from your eyelids, you feel a heat rash spreading, and your skin is already burning from the sun. In short, you're in my boat, buddy.
But let's not get down on ourselves-- at least our hair is easier to deal with, for the most part. So that's... something...
Anyway, let's just lather on some sunblock and appreciate #2: mad skillz, yo. Everyday life here is filled with amazing cirque du soleil-type acts. I don't just mean the clown cars in Guinea, although they are impressive..
First and foremost, the balancing thing is just ridiculous. We literally cannot even carry our own bodies down this street without stumbling over the rocks, trash, and potholes. And you, I might add, are nearly bent over, staring at the rocky ground just missing Sherlock Holmes' magnifying glass. You look ridiculous. Stand up and get yourself together! OK, now look at all the women walking by us. They glide like phantoms or music box ice-skaters, never looking down or tripping, with any number of strange cargo balancing improbably on their heads.
At the summer youth camp Peace Corps Kédougou puts on (started by Willie Adams and Dan Egan), we had a games day. We planned to do that race in which you balance an egg on a spoon and run as quickly as you can without dropping it. Once we had the contenders all lined up with their eggs, we realized we were missing the spoons and the kitchen hut was locked. Uhhh... carry them on your heads! -one of us joked. But suddenly, they were. Every participant was successfully balancing an egg on his or her head (except the PCV rep...) and the joke was on us. The winner of the race was a bald guy.
Back to our street scene, you are now gaping at a girl biking on this bumpy not-quite-road with a large bucket of bread balancing on her head. Yeah. Hawking women walk by with three foot tall stacks of biscuits on their heads. Since we are greedy Americans, we stop them. With a gleam in you nefarious little eye, you spot the brown ones at the very bottom of the stack. "Les chocolats?" we ask, half apologetically, half challengingly. And her friend helps her extract them like a jenga piece, all while leaving both loads perched perfectly on each of their heads, as if they're glued on. Even little girls around us are performing these impressive feats. "Jeez!" you say, while stuffing biscuits above your double chins (sorry for pointing them out). I myself have started clapping for the women like a slow-moving seal.
I'm not even going to get into dancing as I think it's rather evident. Face it, dude. The Africans win. But it's ok. It's cooler in the shade of their shadows. Let's follow Mariama.

Round-the-World Cup

2010-07-11T17:50:00.004Z

It's been so much fun to travel through Africa during LA COUPE DU MONDE!
Even during everyday life, TVs are almost always tuned into soccer matches. Badji's waiting room pavillion hut and every boutique in Kédougou are constantly host to crowds squinting at tiny players for teams like Manchester United. But now, Manchester United is watching OUR teams. It's time for Africa! (Shakira reference... what a great song!)
This year participating African nations included: Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and host South Africa. I got to be in Côte D'Ivoire for one of their games and Ghana for three of theirs (their last one in Burkina). It is the Most Exciting Thing Ever. I've never seen such universal support across the country for anything. There is nothing in America that compares. The Superbowl is more for eating and meeting up and even then only a percentage care. Most people seem to be more on the "Oh yeahh.. when is that? Who's playing?" side of things. (Guilty.) I think the presidential elections are more similar because at least everyone's more or less paying attention. But that only divided the country! The World Cup is a beautiful unifying event of the collective heart. (I realize I sound gooey cheesy, but I don't care! I'm swept away by the festive mood! Weeee!)
For the Ghana vs Germany match, we were dismayed to find out that it wasn't an afternoon game like we'd thought. It was scheduled during our bus-ride. Nooo! So we dejectedly boarded the bus in our Ghana hats (and slap bracelet thank you very much!) bummed to be missing out. But at every slow-down of the bus, we stuck our heads out the windows to catch glipses of boutique TVs which are so considerately posted all along the roads. A few other passengers had phones or radios stuck to their ears and gave secondary running commentary. So it ended up being kind of fun and amazing how connected we all still were.
Ghana lost that game as we arrived in Hohoe, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the streets! As we climbed down the stairs we were able to join in right away with the dancing, singing, marching, cheering, and chanting of "BLACK STARS!" Street party! People honked all around and zoomed by doing acrobatic tricks on motorcycles (which made me tut and worry at the time, like the old woman I've become.)
Ghana was still in the tournament and there were absolutely no hard feelings about the loss. Booboo and I marvelled at this because we're used to more critical fandom. She said in New Zealand, they turn on their teams with wrath at every loss. I thought of the most zealous Yankee fan I know who one day angrily thrust his Yankees keychain at me after they lost. Fair-weather fans! I wouldn't want to play for you!
"See the champions
Take the field now
You define us
Make us feel proud!"
(If you don't know this song, you are unforgiveably estranged from the rest of the world!)
The most exciting game was of course the Ghana vs US game. I imagine other citizens of World Cup countries had trouble visiting rivals with some overenthusiastic fans showing actual animosity. But here it was all the friendliest rivalry I've seen! There was only a jovial "IIII'm gonna getchu!" atmosphere. It was actually fun telling everyone I was an American before the match. Although it helped that I was on the right side...
Now I'm not a total traitor. I wanted the US to score... once. Then we could still hold our heads up. But I definitely wanted Ghana to score more!
We were returning late that day from a pottery site village of an aquired friend (who is in love with Booboo, incidentally). The traffic jammed up as we all became frantic to see the game. It's starting! We raced into a cab whose driver then jumped out to fiddle with the engine. Nooo! We thought about jumping out to find a different cab, but then we heard the crackle of static and announcer voices. He was only fixing the radio to hear the game! Hear, and see too, as it turned out. It's no exaggeration that every single TV was tuned into the game. As soon as we passed one set, we came into view of another. As we drove down the streets of boutiques, masses of men, women, and children glowed before the boxes, bouncing with excitement.
Ghana scored the first goal while we were still in the car. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!" (the world all nationalities can understand!) The crowds in front of the boutiques starting jumping up and down. People starting running around with airplane arms as if they'd scored it themselves. Cars all over the road blasted their horns and carried pumping fists out their windows. I waved my own yellow, green, and red hat back at the festive world. Party in transit!
We finally stopped at a crowded restaurant when we couldn't stand it anymore. I had the best burger of my life and joined heartily in the merry-making. A lot of Africans are quite theatrical (I blame the soap operas) which makes events like game-watching all the more entertaining. These fans were passionately invested: moved to tears or stomping tantrums at small losses and even stronger reactions to success. And I found myself heppily carried along.
I felt a little bad for the US team, mentally comparing that moment in America to the one here. How many people were watching quietly in brightly lit rooms on large couches over there? Who are not actually immigrants? I hear crickets. Which is why I wanted our goal. But for all the fans on this continent, I really wanted Ghana to win. For all the people on their tiptoes in the back of starlit crowds... for all the little barefoot boys thinking, "That could be me!" for the first time... for all billions of breaths held here... GO BLACK STARS!
When they did win, it was like the ball dropped on New Year's. Or like we'd all just won the lottery. Screams, jumping, overturned chairs, sudden abnormal-to-the-culture embraces between strangers, hands shaking every single other hand in communal congratulations... What deserved joy on a continent of hard lives!
Since then, Ghana has unfortunately lost to Uraguay, thus ending our dreams of African victory-- for now. But the fans are still as proud and loyal as ever. And the party is not over!
It never will be.

Going, Going, Ghana!

2010-06-23T11:58:00.003Z

So far, we've gone through Guinea, Sierra Leone, Guinea again, Cote D'Ivoire, and now we've reached GHANA, the land of plenty-- of tourists. Despite feeling way less badass, we are loving all that Ghana has to offer. Highlights so far include:

1. Not getting asked for a bribe at the border! First time in the entire trip! They checked EVERYONE"S papers, not just the whites' and it was the most organized crossing we've ever had!
2. Green Turtle Lodge in Dixcove. Backpacker paradise on the ebach, complete with a giant boat-bar, happy hour when it rains, ping pong, pool table, lots of other games, young people, and a fun camp feel. Although, as excited as I was at first to see other white poeple, it got kind of old.
3. Dixcove's crazy riptide. I was trying to converse with a fellow expat while out in the water. He dove neatly under each wave and continued easily wherever he'd left off. I however, was trying to look as cool as possible while recovering from some washing machine tumbles, coming up spluttering and readjusting my ill-fitted bathing suit.
4. Cape Coast-- got in just in time to see the Ghana vs. Aussie match. They DOMINATED, but it still unfortunately ended only in a tie. (We are about to watch the Ghana vs. Germany match in a bus station. I have a sweet patriotic hat and SNAP BRACELET and Booboo has a headband/sash.)
5. Ice cream venders on bicylces. What a wonderful world.
6. English language bookstores! Almost better than food!
7. Street food: red-red, fried chicken, fufu, fish, octopus, popcorn... the best street food yet!
8. Kakum Park: the canopy walkways are quite cool. The views are absolutely gorgeous and it's an incredibly enjoyable experience being up so high but still completely safe. I have to admit I had a bit of a superiority complex come in when the other people on our tour were freaking out a little. I personally felt disappointed by how completely unscary it was-- couldn't even raise my pulse! So I was rolling my eyes at the other peoples' squeals and at the "I survived the Walkway" tee-shirts. Come on! There's a huge sturdy safety net encompassing every bridge, sturdy fenced-in railings, and the walkway is so secure, they say it could take the weight of an elephant! These people should try carrying their bikes over the bridge to Ingli! (Which, it should be noted, I myself was too scared to do-- thanks, Matt and Jordan!) So, very immaturely, I danced across the bridges and boycotted the railings. (Mother, I can hear your gasping protests from here... Sorrrry!)

9. We were going to camp in the "platforms among the trees" but it ended up being kind of a rip-off to camp a foot off the ground in a closed-up park. The flight crew from our tour somehow rejected our charming plea for a ride out, but karma may have had its way with them later. Their and our destination, Accra, was unreachable. The two bridges were washed out completely by the floods. It was crazy. So far, I've heard 35 people died from it all. But when our tro-tro hit the traffic jam at the river, we didn't know any of that. The car emptied out and the other passengers walked about a mile through stopped-up taffic to cross the rushing waters by foot. We hung around for a while, hoping for a refund for the other half of the trip. When it was clear our driver was nowhere around, we hoisted our bags (I HATE MY BAKCPACK) and set out after the others. Most people stayed in their cars and gaped as we passed them. If they were in a high-engine car, some could brave it eventually, but the others had to turn back. As we finally got to the water ourselves, the offers of, "I carry your bags across just two ceedis!" increased exponentially. I pulled up my pant legs and we took off our flip flops to wade through. Booboo was a bit nervous about the dirty water, but I already have schisto. I've also waded through many many many dirty waters in Senegal, sometimes up to my chin with my backpack on my head or my bike on my shoulder, so this didn't really phase me. It was more fun, if anything. With the miles of stuck cars and fellow barefoot waders, there was a great feeling of community. We laughed and waved and shook our heads as we passed each other. Everyone had their arms around each other and helds held to steady one another in the current. I had Billy Joel's "And we will all go down together" song in my head, though of course I was trying to change it from "go down" to "cross over safetly". It was sweet, really.

Booboo was a bit nervous at the second and deeper section. We paused and while a group of guys and I tried to give her a pep-talk, a truck with a long empty flatbed splashed through. We all cheered and clambored on (I was completely ungraceful scrambling from the tire and over the ledge with my huge backpack pulling me like a magnet back towards the ground). It was a great ride with 10 other grinning guys. The wind pipi longstocking-ed my hair, but it was still a great way to see the place.

10. The best part of the ride came from a guy who was creepily filming us with his camera phone. Usually I try to step away from these, but since I couldn't on the truck, he got a film of me boringly sitting there. Booboo, however, was completely oblivious of his camera work and he got a FANTASTIC one of her shoving plantain chips very unattractively into her mouth. I'm laughing just writing it. She was truly and gruesomely Stuffing Her Face, and joke's on him if he wanted some hot video of the white chicks he rode with! He showed us these videos on the tro-tro we shared to get to the same neighborhood in Accra. We cracked up until I had tears streaming down my face. One time Booboo took MB and me to an Angels game and we watched this lady i front of us more than the game. She was sucking all the salt off her unshelled peanuts at a frantic pace with a specific process to it. We and about 6 other people stared fascinated at her as she did this and dropped the whole unshelled peanuts on the ground. This strange behavior in addition to her ridiculously 45 degree angle penciled-in eyebrows inspired all of us to snap photos and videos of her while the less interesting game continued in the background. I share this warm memory with all of you because my theory is that, in Ghana, at least, BOOBOO IS THE PEANUT LADY! This video is the greatest part of my trip so far.
11. Accra: we are staying at "The Beverly Hills Hotel." Except that this Beverly hills has a boatload of cockroaches and replaced the shower in the middle of our stay so we couldn't use it. I'd still recommend it though-- just don't buy the 3 ceedi nescafe!
12. Touristy things: markets, art gallery, Cape Coast Castle (complete with Obama plaque), Sunday church services, lighthouse...
13. Sign advertising "Emergency Ambulence/ Hearse Services!" I'd count on them for the second thing only!

Well with that, we've still got half of Ghana to go! Stay tuned! (By the way is anyone reading this? I feel kind of stupid if I'm writing to next to no one.. Could you comment if you're reading?)

Woman Enters Man...

2010-06-07T10:51:00.003Z

Since we didn't have Liberian visas, Booboo and I decided to go back through the forest region of Guinea, on the Most Gorgeous Roads of our collective lives and enter Cote D'Ivoire on the west, in the region called Man. The more we learned about the rebel strong-hold there, the more nervous we became about having to deal with that when every single border control officer was already demanding bribes. The others weren't so bad: in Sierra Leone, they suggested giving an additional sum, although they didn't recquire it. Ha! The second time back in Guinea, the small soft-spoken Very Pulaar man said, "Wait but you have to pay us!" I got little farther in my speech beyond, "No we don't!" before he settled back with a little giggle and said, "Okaaaay." Bless the pulaars.

On the way out of Guinea, we literally woke up some guards who quickly tried to look as important and professional as they could, while wiping the sleep from their eyes. My favorite part was when the "security officer" said in english that he should really check our bags, otherwise how would he know what's in them? Booboo said, "I just told you!" in a petulent 8 year old voice. Then the best part: she fist pumped to the said, and in the way that you'd hiss, "Yessss!" she said, "Trust!" I bit my lip to keeo from busting out laughing and tried to solemnly nod along instead. They all let us go with their phone numbers.

It wasn't quite so funny in Cote D'Ivoire. Our reservations were not unfounded. The rebel soldiers were all high on power trips and carrying their guns showily everywhere. (Ahh, compensation.) The plan Booboo and I decided on beforehand was that I didn't speak french well-- only pulaar and english. My goal was to channel Reece Witherspoon from Legally Blonde, but less annoyingly. So we smiled and said, "What???" a lot, and giggled. At one point I was having trouble summoning a credible giggle (since I actually understood the lewd things they were saying), so I literally said out loud in english, "Giggle....!" and the ridiculousness of that in turn got a few good ones out of each of us.

At the first post, the men were all over us and it wasn't too hard to be legally blonde until they were tired of asking for money. We accepted banana cookies and nodded a lot and shook everyone's hand and didn't say or "understand" much more beyond answering our destination and saying, "touristes!" The other guys in our car with whom I'd talked to a bit must have been suspicious, but they didn't rat me out.

The next one was the worst. A camo-clad guy on the back of a moto demanded my passport and shouted about it not being stamped. So we had to leave all our bags and our arguments with the massa bus people and trudge over to the gendarmerie.

I said, "Assala Malykum" and the leader rebel soldier answered, "But I'm Christian! How dare you greet me like that!" and his underlings cackled. I tried not to roll my eyes and said, "Well then greetings under the eyes of god..."

Oops! First Legally Blonde slip! I quickly stuttered some unintelligable ameri-french, but his eyes were narrowed. So we began our worst exchange with the rebel soldiers. This guy was ridiculous, not used to ever hearing "no," and a fan of playing with his gun.

The rest of my L.B. performance should win me an Oscar, if I do say so myself. Things went mostly like this:

Rebel Leader: "I don't care that you have your rubbish visa! It doesn't matter here! This is a war-zone and now you need to answer to us. We don't work with that embassy, so now you must pay us too! It's the only way!"

Me: "Yes... visa?... we have... no to-pay..."

The guys were all quite scary and prone to shouting and on the inside my heart was racing and I kept having to swallow. On the outside, I did my best to maintain the same L.B. placid expression. I concentrated on appropriately balancing my three weapons: stupidity, charming feminine wiles, and the side of justice. Mostly the first two.

When things fell too much on the last point, "You... here... to live?... is good?" + smile + small giggle. Woo, back in balance.

When we still weren't paying, he brought in a "translater." Luckily his english was almost as bad as my fake french. I batted my eyelashes at him. (Who knew people could successfully bat eyelashes outside of loony toons? But, YOU CAN.)

After a very long and tiring interrogation; I finally stammered that we didn't even have enough CFA to give them-- just enough for the bus that was waiting for us! This was not far from the truth. I asked them if there were banks and hotels in Man. The mood wasn't at all set for this touristy question, but I wanted to blatently ignore the mood and make them feel in some sort of authority still.

They finally let us go after getting our numbers and giving us theirs. (They wouldn't have rested otherwise-- with all the other soldiers bound to ask them what they got out of us, they needed to be able to show off something.) Of all the preposterous ideas, though. Like I'm really going to call up some power-tripping jerk and try to have another terrifying conversation with him? What are they thinking? I almost can't wait for them to call my American cell phone while I'm in line at Starbucks or something. I'll say to the cashier, "Hold on, it's a corrupt rebel soldier leader in Cote D'Ivoire... just a second... but I'll have a cappucino..."

There were many more soldier checkpoints after this and over and over we took out our passports, refused bribe demands, summoned fake smiles, and took peoples' numbers. If we weren't young women, I honestly don't think we could have ever gotten through all those with any money left. But instead of feeling celebratory about it, our terror kept growing. On the road, every spotted outfit and farming machete slung over regular peoples' shoulders looked like camo-clad soldiers with guns. Over and over, our hearts hammered from the psychological mirage. When we finally got into a hotel room and locked the door, we hugged each other and tried to laugh. But all night our terror still reigned and we both had camo-clad nightmares.

This experience has given me a new respect for people who go through battles and war. If we were so affected by a single day without even any true threat of being killed, I truly can't imagine what it's like for soldiers or the civilians caught among them. At the same time, I feel like I hate the concept of soldiers more than ever. I know so many poeple becomesoldiers, but I really think it's hard to impossible for this to not negatively affect them. The uniforms, the guns, the power, the separation from "regular people", the tangled responsibilities of following any order and dismissing previous independent philosophies of what's right and what's wrong. What else but these philosophies makes us humans?

I hope I'm not offending anyone by this. I know it's a sensative subject to criticize a practice for which so many of our loved ones have died. But I mean to criticize the system that killed or broke them, not the original people who enter into it.

Anyway, being on the side of the somewhat hunted, I began to wonder what exactly the differences were between rebel army occupation of northern Cote D'Ivoire and American army occupation elseware. I know we're more organized, with at least some official systems in place for answering for your actions. And we have fancier equipment and sweeter rides. But in how many people's nightmares do our American soldiers feature?

To end lightly, I'll share a bizarrely coincidental message from the fates: As I wearily settled back into my half-seat on the bus after yet another check-point, I was starting to doubt the way I was dealing with it all. Suddenly, a moto comes by, and in pink letters on the driver's shirt says: LEGALLY BLONDE. If that's not a sign that it'll all be okay, I don't know what is!

How to Take Roads Less Travelled: West African Public Transport

2010-06-06T20:13:00.004Z

1. Play dumb. It's easy. You won't often understand what's going on anyway, even if you are fluent in the language. Stand around with your pathetically confused expression until someone has pity on you and takes your bags and gestures you to the front seat. If no one does (for shame!), point to it yourself and batt your eyelashes. No, it's not fair, but you just think about all the hissing and catcalls and grabbing on the street and then decide whether or not you deserve a few toubab perks after that!

2. Beware of the front middle seat. I took this in a tight skirt (flowered one from you, MB) and it was rather too much excitment for me. As they instructed me to get in, I just stared at the non-seat before the gear-shift and I had no idea how this would work. Then a guy grabbed my thigh to pull it over to the driver's side. I slapped him off my bare skin and said I got it! So I sat with one leg pressed up against the driver's and the other awkwardly straddling to the passenger seat which was pretty full already with Booboo and the bony old man who kept diggin his elbow into her. My skirt became extremely short in this position which ended up mattering because the gear shift was IN MY CROTCH. I put a water bottle against my goods to act as a barrier. The driver was annoyed to keep hitting it when he shifted, so he threw it aside at one point. But I insisted. So the whole trip involved my thighs getting groped and my crotch getting knocked. When I'd try to move my knee aside a little to give him space to shift with less contact, it would get wedged under the wheel and prevent all steering. So, groping it was. The keys also fell out a few times (which doesn't stop the car because it's hotwired anyway) and he had to feel blindly around ly entire bare leg to find them on my toes.

Remarkably, the driver was impressively professional about it all. I guess that's a common occupational situation, but for a very muslim country with more headscarves that I'd seen in Senegal and even some full out hijabs, I felt like a complete 'tute. I waited for him to linger on my thighs or do some less-necessary shifting but he actually remained quite focused. Still, I do not ever want to be in that seat again-- at least not without pants!

3.Get ready to have your style--not to mention body-- cramped. What I thought was a cramped sept-place (taxi-sized peugeot with 7 official spots) ride in Senegal becomes at the Very Least a neuf-place in Guinea and beyond. They don't have seat ratio laws, so they pack it in like I had no idea was possible. The driver shares his seat. Three or four adults can sit next to him (one straddling the middle) with at least as many kids. The three seats in the back and way back may hold double their numbers, plus kids on laps/ floors/ partly standing. I have seen up to eight people sitting on the roof and have no doubt that more is not rare. So one taxi= 8 seats (including driver's) = give or take 20 people. It's INSANE. The same applies for any vehicle. In our Guinea pick-up, over 20 passengers had to spill out of the back over and over to walk up the hills all throughout the night because the truck couldn't bear them. Expect elbows/ shoulders/ hips/ etc to dig into you. Expect to wear the scents of multiple people's sweat by the end. Try to avoid armpits.

4.If you feel nauseus... (which is more than likely due to the off-roading, smells, heat...) it is generally expected that you will vomit neatly into your own handbag or lap. It is a good rule.

5. If someone misses a bit and gets some vomit on you or baby pee/poo, don't freak out. They will feel bad and offer you water or a cloth. C'est la vie, and you're not clean anyway.

6. If there is frozen meat or live animals on the roof, be wary of window seats. On long trips, the meat will unfreeze and rain blood down the windows, horror-movie style. It will splatter through an open window, but closing the window makes it stiffling inside. The animals will pee and poo, but at least this is a limited number of times. People in the middle usually escape unscathed.

7. Otherwise, window seats are KEY. Sometimes the wind is strong, but keep it down as a courtesy to the poor unfortunate souls behind you.

8. Window crankers in their entirity are rare, but don't let that stop your ventillation ambitions! The driver will usually have a wrench or some other way of jerry-rigging it down.

9. Bring a scarf or bandana. If you have long hair like me, it will whip visciously into the face of your more-or-mess innocent neighbor in strong winds, if you don't wrap it up. More often, you might need it to wrap around as a dust mask in every season but rainy season. The dust can be an undefiable force-- it has covered my whole face red when I've worn a scarf ghost-sheet style! Also, scarves are handy for wipes, make-do pillos, and sweat rags.

10. Bring also on your lap instead of stored up on roof: water (for drinking and bush-sh*ts), zippered-up valuables (you could be pick-pocketed in your sleep, even though it's rare), book (even if you get car-sick while in motion, you'll want it when you break down), sunblock for your window-side (but try not to sit on this side! calculate ahead of time!), change for peanuts/ fruit/ biscuits/ eyc sold through windows, and needless to say, your sense of humor! So your driver may be an ***, but he'll be a lot easier to bear if you can successfully convince him (and the entire sept/ neuf-place, thank you very much) that YOU are the girl in the ever popular Madonna (singer) sticker. (My story is that's why I'm in Africa-- to tour and promote my cool sticker!)

11. Bed or bruise. On overnight rides, like our one from Kédougou to Labé (24.5 hours, they will pull over for about a three hour nap. This is why everyone else will have brought matts to sleep on. I had only my thin sleeping bag, but we zonked outn EASILY anyway. It was only in the morning did we process the intense discomfort of sleeping almost directly on a bed of rocks. "Princess and the Pointy Pebbles" I muttered as we groaned, shifting around our bruises as goats sniffed our toes.

12. If you get food, share it with everyone around you, and the driver. If there are 20 people behind you, it's okay to just stick to your own row. It's good to get other passengers on your side because you'll be the main target for cheating/ lying/ taking general advantage of. Be more selfish with your water. I shared mine with a woman and her toddler on the way to Guinea, but should have held on to it when the guys over the popped hood asked for it. they ended up dumping all the rest into the engine and then took my bottle to fill with gasoline! Which I stole back in the end, not realizing it was clear "essance." Payback...?

13. Get ready to ride the rage. The worst representatives of every one of these countries are the ones at airports/ garages/ other transit stations. Here, everyone will try to cheat you because they assume all white people have more money than they know what to do with. My blood has never boiled as it has in garages. Examples from this trip:

Over breakfast at a Guinea garage, a particularly crude oaf graced me with his disgusting presence. First, he asked for his present. Nothing new; I asked for mine. He said it was in his room, and continued down this vein more graphically than I may have ever heard, at least in pulaar! I told him our conversation was over-- several times. I ignored him. I asked him to leave. He was loving it. I threw his sunglasses several yards away, impulsively. He still grinned lesdly. I finally got up and expressionlessly grabbed the huge knife the cooks were using to cut bread. The boys scattered and laughed nervously. I sat down with the knife and he decided to leave for good. I explained to Booboo what was happening and breezily said, "First death threat of the day and I haven't even had breakfast yet!"

My second, third, and forth death threats were granted to a driver. He kept demanding that I pay for empty seats when people got out so he wouldn't have to fill them (as if they aren't really already "filled"). He did not stop, even when I scolded him for his rudeness and incorrect assumption that I'm rolling in it. I told him in english that I'd slit his throat, which is a gratifying method of feeling better without the person understanding the horrible thing you just said. When he still didn't stop, I said it again-- this time with CLEAR hand motions. I also acted out choking him from behind. He got better after that...

14. Obey the law, not the law officers. In Senegal, they're usually OK, except when they want extra cash before the holidays and will invent bogus fines and i.d. card checks. (Ask Jared about his arrests°. In Guinea, they suck a lot more. They held our passports for ransom, basically. When a guy who spoke english tried to coax me to pay up, I unleashed the wrath that I can't quite correctly unleash in pulaar. I berated him for breaking the law when it was his primary job to uphold and defend it. I would not ever pay a bribe to him or his evil cohorts because we already bought the visa. He could make ur whole car wait all day (gesture to woman and two infants), but that's still that. I was inwardly quite impressed with my little speech. I guess once the english started, and I realized exactly and correctly how I wanted to respond, I couldn't hold back. He let us go. And asked for our numbers. I wanted to spit on them as we left, especially one who condescendingly taunted our backs, but I settled, thankfully, for a Very Dirty Look.

This happened way more in Cote D'Ivoire, but see the next post for details of that.

Often, the gendarmes are comically ridiculous and you can see so clearly how they just wanted the job so they could wear the uniform. When we first checked into Guinea, by a guy in a "Xena: Warrior Princess" tee-shirt, another passenger came in to get water. A guard stopped him. "Are you military?" Nooo... "Then where did you get those boots?" Sure enough the mere civilian was sporting the same boots as the grandly powerful border control gendarme. "I bought them in the market..." The gendarme was extremely put out. He and his coworkers sported a variety of official-wear themselves-- one just had the hat. Another had flipflops, but most wore the same black boots. The guy looked betrayed, as if he were thinking he could have skipped all the training and long hours and just bought the beautiful boots, the prize and point of his occupation-- at the market! He made quite a fuss and demanded the guy take them off. I guess eventually it blew over, because Mr. Boots later got back into the car, rolling his eyes, adorned still in his boots.

15. Figure out what everyone else is paying for their bags and argue adamently for the same. In Senegal it's around 500 CFA, sometimes less. Guinea: Nothing. Sierra Leone: sporadic-- nothing to a mille. Cote D'Ivoire: Nothing, but that doesn't mean they won't try. I have yet to see about the others.

16. If you can get your hands on any old cassette tape even partially bearable, you might want to bring it to gift one of your drivers. A lot of drivers have just a single tape which they have no problem replaying 30 times. Even if you started out liking Akon or Youssou or Celine, IT GETS OLD.

17. Motos: don't wear tight skirts-- they rip (yours again, MB! but I sewed it back up). Hold on- best not around driver's waist because he'll be in love with you enough as it is already. Find a bar beneath or behind your seat. Careful with your baggage. I had a mosquito net explode like a party cracker out in the middle of the road, which made driving a bit tricky... Don't be afraid to ask your driver to slow down-- they often try to show off for you until you do. That said, moto rides in West Africa are excellent! You can see so much and pass all the cars getting stuck in ditches, and not dye pedelling yourself on your own bike. It's fantastic. The best and most beautiful rides of my life have been on motos in Guinea.

18. Tips from Booboo: "Focus on the scenery and not on your situation. Become a very creative daydreamer. Take comfort in the knowledge that those giant beads of sweat will cool you when the wind blows by. Acceptingly settle into your uncomfortableness with the knowledge that it will end... eventually."

Bon, donc maintenent: BON VOYAGE!

Grand Finale Quoi

2010-05-04T17:44:00.007Z

Some of you might be wondering what I'm doing still on "AfriKate" and out of the States. Wasn't I supposed to be done with Peace Corps by now? Yah... I AM! I am officially an RPCV. But... I'm still here...

That is because, among many things, my dear college buddy, BooBoo aka Ryan Lindsay is visiting and we have a grand adventure ahead of us. We spent quite a bit of time living it up in Dakar stalking rumored embassy location to get our Visas. Now we're in home sweet-Kedougou soaking my mini-Herman (remember those pictures of Jordan's neck-crater?) Then we will go back to my village on a bike ride on which I will come as close as possible to regret over N'ice Cream (we have had at least quadruple the number of ice creams as we have visas). I will say goodbye and it will not be pretty. Then we will go back to Kedougou, and embark on out to: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, and back here to N'ice Cream. I mean, Dakar. (INCHALLAH). We will be accompanied by Roxy, Mary, and Andy and Annicka to Sierra Leone. THEN Booboo and I get to see my dearest MB in Cambridge and probably embarrass the living daylights out of her with our heathen ways. But she will forgive us.... right? I hope to also meet Kate in England and fly back with her to the great US of A to an airport swaying with adoring fans and readers of AfriKate who will swarm the arrivals gate with plates of nachos and oreo-milkshakes. Right? This will be at the beginning of August. (INCHALLAH. I can't stop saying this; it is like a nervous tick. Just let it happen.)

For better documenting and organization and normal perspective of this entire thing, please see BooBoo's blog. It is much better: http://backpacknomadic.net/

As for all that's been happening while I have been neglecting this blog... It's mostly about saying goodbye now. This is predictably wrenching. Except for it being hot season, it really is an awful time to leave. Yeah, two years is a long time, but if your going to a foreign senegal-exy, you kind of need it. My language came slowly and only now do I feel very confident in it. It's like I put in my pulaar-contacts and now I can see the whole scene clearly. Maybe I don't know the name of that bush on the scene but at least I can tell it's a bush and it's the one we get our tooth-sticks from. (does that make sense?)

It's been more fun in the village than ever before because everyone showers me in praises and proclamations of love everywhere I go. (So, if this doesn't happen when I'm in the States, I gotta warn you all, I might just have to come back... It's a good gig.) Their tune as far as females go has completely changed. They first used to say, "You know, I was worried about you being a female, but now I see that females can do just as much men..." Now, they are saying, "Females clearly are way better than males and do so much more. Look at what you've done! You can't leave!" I'm sure my replacement will prove to them that this isn't quite true either though. But it's still LOVELY to hear, even if I keep squirming feeling like I don't deserve to be hearing it all.

We've also been playing a lot more now that my focus is off of work. I've taught a little bit of "karate" to some of the more mature kids. I'd been promising them I would ever since they saw the photo of me breaking a board, and man, are they pumped! They are really so cute about it. We're treating it like a secret club and they're even practicing in secret! I told them not to teach any of the immature bullies anything. I'm also teaching juggling since mango season is perfect for it. I've got about four kids who are pretty good at it now, and we're even trying to add tricks like bouncing them off our knees. One juggle-focused day, I looked around and saw boys balancing long bamboo poles on their hands and feet and a girl sliding mangos down her legs in a rapid pattern, in the exact same ways I did in that Michael Moschen juggling show in high school. How incredible that they all so naturally do what I and a bunch of other prep-schoolers paid hefty chunks of money to learn to do. This is something I'll really miss: natural life. Waking up with the sun, knowing how to run on rocks in the night, discovering tricks and abilities naturally... It all feels so right. In the States, we withstand hurricanes of passive un-discovery and forget how to move naturally and sit quietly and make toys from mangos. With the advertisers choosing how to stimulate us, we forget how to move for ourselves, and can barely balance sticks without someone literally selling the idea to us in an advertised workshop.

Other things I started because I'd been intending or promising to ever since I got here: braiding my hair and learning arabic. The hair was an awful idea, as I promised all the village enthusiasts that it would be. I took pictures for proof of how hideous it was, but unfortunately (or fortunately), my USB broke with the strain of acceptance. It broke, actually while I was writing my 50-or so page COS report (single spaced) and brought me to tears until I remembered a desktop I'd saved it to. It's sad that I lost so many photos, though...

As for the arabic, I don't remember if I shared yet that technically, I'm a muslim.... Hahaha, only technically, though. That is because to technically convert to Islam, you have to repeat the words, " Ashahadu anlaa ilaaha illa Allah wa ashahdu anna Muhammadan rasoolul Allah" (I bear witness that there is no god but Allah; I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) three times (here, at least... I don't think across the world it has to be three.) So my sweet dad said, "Hey Hadiatou, say this..." And I said, "Okayyy!" and had no idea what was going on except that he was giggling at my prononciation. I realized only several months later that that is what happened. Oops! As for learning arabic, I'm not really. My dad teaches Koranic school and it sounds and looks so cool on the wooden prayer tablets. I'd always meant to learn a bit of it, but it's a bit late now. It's kind of handy to know a bit when I meet, for example, Saudi Arabian imams who can do flips 12 feet up on the Dakar trampoline and who then buy us coconuts.

It was interesting learning the prayers and talking to my dad about his philosophies of the religion while also reading the memoir, Infidel (read it!). I've read many other accounts as well that shadow my perception of Islam's influence. I won't get into that here, but I'll just say I'm very glad to have my amazing family and trampolining imams to remind me that the goodness in people more often prevails. I've met far more militant Christians than militant Muslims, which I think says a lot since this is the first really religious place I've lived. But this is a long conversation, so you can just go ahead and buy me a taco platter in America to continue it in person, hmm?

Other fun village finale things include the Anti-Early Marriage party that the middle school kids planned. They performed skits and songs and organized a huge party. I'm so proud! They asked me to be the guest speaker, which was really sweet and cute. I talked about how women didn't use to work in America either until WWII and then we had an intellectual and economic boom when we had double the work force.... etc. Neene Galle and I then did a village-wide sex-ed talk, which was sort of embarrassing for us all. We showed gross photos of STDs (her choice!) and I did a condom demonstration using water bottles with the orange gatorade one representing disease. Otherwise, we are having fun just playing in the shade. Our new hobbies are trying to do pushups or balancing tricks I learned from martial arts. And of course, Uno.

It is going to be so hard to leave these wonderful people...

Anyway, I plan on continuing updates on this blog during the trip, but I really recommend Ryan Lindsay's blog for better and more frequent news. Thanks for keeping up!

mango tree

2010-05-03T17:27:00.002Z

our mouths are red-rimmed

with mango rashes but still

we claw at the branches for more

we can't help it-- there's candy

growing in our trees, and we can't

stop until we've licked the last sap

from the webs of our fingers

and are picking at the strings

in our teeth with faces like

abandoned lovers'. we poke with

long bamboo up at the speckled

sky where golden globes hang

out of climbers' reach

making our necks strain and

our dry mouths yearn, oh,

let them fall-- in the cool

protective underskirt of the

tree, beneath which we mass

attending the sermon of

whispering leaves, peeking

from beneath their indiscreet green

at the dusty hot everything else

that is not

a mango tree

River

2010-05-03T17:16:00.002Z

String of life,

River, feed us your dark

drops . snake through the

village so we can flock to

you, hands and hooves out-

stretched; have mercy

and come when we call

you, digging in your dried

up promises, watching

for holes to slowly fill

with mud. we will drink it.

and when you teem with

darkness, we strip to

our ebony bones and throw

our clothes on the rocks

of your body. over and over

we slam colored cloths,

grunting to take out the sweat

and filth of our lives.

smoky swirls of peanut

soap suds and filth released swim

down river to the next

group of black skeleton women,

beating their only threads into

grey ghost whirls. this too,

we will drink. plastic and gourd

dishes and babies and each other's

backs and our own sore

arms and legs-- we wash these

too, dousing them in you, shining

majestic towers of our bodies

pause to reflect in your

contesting blackness. it's been

hard days, and you've seen

it all. you watch us sing

and weep and throw ourselves

on your shores, between broken moons

you take it in, reflecting back

our bones and furrows among

ripples, as if

to say, "I see, is it something

like this?" but you have it

backwards, always.

you only know the trees and

shade as your neighbors, and

our sighs as we splash our burning

faces. but when we fill gourds on

our heads and wrap up with

un-dried pagnes with babies

on our backs, you

squint at the dust that

ambushes on the path

away from

you

Party in the Pellel

2010-05-03T16:35:00.002Z

Circumcisions:

The boys (around 9) dress in white and that's really all I see of them from the women's area, so don't worry about ghastly descriptions like that. Usually in Senegal, the boys ask for money before it happens, standing on the road in their white outfits. Sometimes it's a scam. But in my village, we like to concentrate on superior begging methods: cross-dressing women.

It's amazing. These women aren't old, but with 4 or 5 kids already, they're far from girls. They're respected and dutiful women. Pretending to be little boys. Wearing men's shoes, caps, baggy shorts, and all, they also paint their faces white, dangle corn cobs around their faces and necks, and scrounge up an odd backpack or thermos. The sing, dance, and bang cans or bottles as drums. They're pretending to be talibe and collect change from people so they can split it later to buy mint candies for everyone.

Neene Galle is the funniest. I think she's usually best at whatever she's doing, and I love that this also applies to being a class-clown. She walked and danced with an over-the-top limp, talked like a boy with a lisp, and changed even her posture and facial expressions. I love this woman.

Besides this, circumcisions are also lots of sitting and eating, just like everything else....

Baptisms:

See previous sentence. One interesting thing, though, is some of the naming traditions.

If a child is born after 3 or more deceased children, there's a jinxing kind of tradition the mother follows by "throwing out" her child. She leaves him or her in the woods and another woman in the family follows to reclaim him or her. Long ago, they used to leave the babies overnight, sometimes in a fishing net in the river. If the baby was meant to live, they'd find him or her the next morning. These days, the baby is reclaimed immediately. Then, they name the baby one of the "throw-out" names: Naari, Bono, Wandu, Hawka, Noge, Kenda... (Cat, Hyena, Monkey, Trash...) My baaba was originally a throw-out baby and was named for the basket thing you use to sift out corn fluff from the kernels. They changed his name to Alphajo because Imams in Kedougou (maybe Senegal?) must be named either Thierno or Alphajo.

If a woman gives birth to twins, there are designated names for them too. (Houssaynatu and Hassanatou, Adama and Hawa...) A child born after twins is Sadio. Names can be repeated in the family.

I was hoping to get a baby tokora (named after me) at some point, but I neglected to focus enough of my friendship attentions on women pregnant with girls. The closest I got was little Aissatou naming the stuffed frog I gave her after me. But as she is an unnaturally shy and suspicious girl who doesn't like people to even catch her smiling, I was touched. When I asked if the frog had a name and if she was going to have a baptism, she shyly said, "A girl named Hadiatou" smiled and looked away quickly. Awww! Also Diardi said she'd name her daughter after me if she ever has one. But as she had about 6 kids who died, it doesn't look like the odds are strong. She said if she has a boy she'll name him Ian or Ben, after my American brothers.

Birthdays:

We don't have them. We have no idea even how old we are. They are baffled when I try to explain the importance we place on them in America. A cake and all that hoo-haa just for a single person not even getting married-- every year? Who's weird now?

Ataaya the knot

2010-05-03T16:08:00.003Z

Weddings:

The bride did not smile all day until I agreed to get my camera and take her photo. Not once. So much for "the happiest day of your life."

It started with all the women squatting next to a fence in the small bit of shade it provided. When the sad girl came, they criss-crossed black fabric over her baggy red shirt and I could see we were off to a painful start. They covered her head with an unflattering bathing-cap-type-thing made of red bin-bin beads. They fussed over this for ages, slightly moving tangles of string or trying to add even more beads. Then they tied kola nuts so that they would dangle around her face like tether balls. They must have hurt, swinging into her face when she moved. They added more criss-crosses of beads on top of the baggy sashes. Then, in a culmination of ridiculous, they ceremoniously handed her sun-glasses, which she very seriously maneuvered around all her dangling head decorations. It really looked like we were weird little kids playing "wedding" who didn't even have cable as a point of reference. Fatou mawdo snapped open a black umbrella to top things off. It was such a strange mixture of traditional and modern objects that stood out weirdly from each other.

The girl's betrothed came and we clapped and sang and paraded up to a less-treacherous part of the path at which she could climb on his shoulders, frown, umbrella, and all. We followed, clapping and singing to his house. There, people gave her 25-CFA-ish (pennies) and she and her family and nosy people counted it immediately. Everyone else danced. Because THIS is when the ladies break it out. Haaaaa ronki!

The VIPs all went through the hut and into the shower and pee spot in the backyard. We all fought over spoons like squawking chickens for the gosi. I did not fight, of course, but offered my ladle to the sullen bride. Hello, it was her day, wasn't it? But they made me take it back and got her another one later. Then, still like chickens, we fought over the gosi, slurping away in the muddy bathroom that smelled like pee. Next, rice. My hands were so filthy from painting and shaking hands so I needed a spoon, which they obliged. Since I got a late start to eating Diardi's and my bowl, the others started a dance party while we were still squatting, squished to the side. Once I realized that urine-soaked dirt was getting kicked into my precious rice, I announced I was full. I did my part in dancing, appreciating that they persuaded me only slightly more than everyone else. Obviously, I was awesome.

Then we all waited until past dark for corn to be measured out to give away. I followed the women who all carried huge bowls on their heads while simultaneously clapping and leasing the songs. I kist had my water bottle and skirt bunched so I wouldn't trip on it and still I had to concentrate much harder than anyone else on not wiping out. The moon was almost full and pretty bright, but still, rocks ha hewi. Behind me-- RIGHT BEHIND me, like blasting speakers with bouncing woofers, all the kids shout-sang at the tops of their lungs all the wedding songs. Ahhh... at least it's better than funeral wails...

4 Million Funerals and A Wedding

2010-05-03T15:12:00.004Z

I realized I never wrote about cultural events here in Senegal. We have funerals all the time, and just enough happier weddings, baptisms, and circumcision ceremonies to make up for them. Here are snippets from my journal on the four:

Funerals:

rising at 5 to eat and drink before the sun can witness. sleeping again until the somber call of the drum. pound, pound, pound. someone has died. people run around frantically spreading the news, with an urgency that seems out of place in the village, head scarves flying behind like banners from a plane. when we hear, we clap our hands over our mouths and say, "waiii neene!" and recount the last times we saw the person, how sick they were. pound, pound, pound, the drum even sounds like death. a sporadic then racing heartbeat-- and then it stops. people shudder themselves into their best clothes, women hurrying to cover their heads and take off like vengeful ghosts to the house. on the way they start wailing. a cluster of hunched men under the tree, but women file through the stick fence. like bowing or kneeling or crossing oneself in a holy place, the thing to do here is crouch and wail. this wail... it reaches the spine... like dying animals, like haunted houses, like drunken over-actors, like warped amazon war cries, like murder victims, like the deaf being amputated, like if pain could only be represented by sound, captured in a pandora's box... I could not make this sound. whether I was more afraid of offending with audible fakeness or of finding myself unable to stop once I started... I couldn't. but like magnets the tears on the crumpled wet faces that are only ever composed pull out my own tears too. hunching together on rocks or on the ground for hours and hours, stomachs protesting forced thirst, shaking hands with everyone, "Kori a munyiti? Have you mourned?" every shade or shadow found itself host to grief. the men chant, forever, it seems. how do so many know all these words? perhaps it has something to do with the other person who died today, and the 18-year-old new bride three days ago, and the last villager less than a week before. Kori hida munyiti?

pound, pound, pound. the elder women pound corn for the traditional meal for deceased elders-- the same served at infants' naming ceremonies. pound, pound, pound, they crowd around, taking turns, up to five pestels in one mortar at once. it could be an act in a talent show, a section of stomp! yet something so sad about performing this grueling daily labor even in grief. like if women in america gathered at a funeral to scrub the floor-- if scrubbing gave calluses. who are these people I share my life with who fast from the little insignificant food they have and still farm an hour's walk away in the cruel sun? who deprive themselves of water by day whether it's rainy season or drought? who pound corn while weeping for their brother or sister or neighbor? who are they and when are they rewarded?

they never cry but for funerals. I suppose they come often enough. but it's clear from the haunting wails that this is all their pain and fury and plea at once. if women cry in the regular sitting areas, they are ordered repeatedly to to to the allocated grieving spot, outside the person's hut. it sounds insensitive unless I re-translate it to, "get it out; there you go." then again, it still only allows a person to mourn for as long as their can crouch in the dirt under the hot sun.

an old gypsy-like lady with multicolored headscarves starts singing. her voice is clear and beautiful and ancient. she's like an unreal disney character, her face in a tree. she calls out in her clear voice and we answer like pacified children. people keep coming in to add howls to the background, but we keep going and it sounds and feels so comforting. "muusu reedu yoni, ko nela ameng; hadi jentidoden, ko nela ameng... muusu hoore yoni, ko nela ameng; hadi jentidoden, ko nula be ni... nawna maaya yoni, ko nela ameng; hedoden, hedoden, ko nula be ni..." (stomachaches are okay, it's what's sent to us; listen up, it's what's sent to us... headaches are okay........... sicknesses that kill us are okay, it's what's sent to us; listen up, listen up; it's ours to receive.)

women get bored during the prayers, but some men take machetes and return with bamboo and bark. the latter they bite into strips to tie the body-stretcher with two arches. when the shrouded corpse is carried out over the heads of two men dressed in white, the women leap up, their anguish reawakened in a now-or-never urgency. a beautiful young girl beats the rest of the wails, score to a nightmare. she collapses; the performance draws tears from my eyes, as do other poignant screaming staggers and the supporting hands that catch them. the hair stands on my neck and i cray because it is the only answer to the sound of all that pain. sometimes I can't even recall the face of this corpse over whom I weep. I am a stowaway to horror. today I do, and cry real tears of my own when her husband walks placidly in front, singing a prayer in a quiet but clear voice. the other men go with him down the paths, winding among huts and past my own, to the burial grounds in the woods. the women are left behind. just outside the fence, talk of fields, and breaking fasts.

Visions of an Eye Clinic

2010-03-26T11:35:00.007Z

Highlights Kedougou Eye Clinic 2010

drop it like it's hot!

-One ANCIENT lady sounded very distinctly like a gremlin but we loved each other. She kept hugging me and saying in her smoker-gremlin voice, "You're my baaaby!" Haha! Hilarious!

-I tried to get the pre-op room to sing along with "Mmmbop" at one point, but they weren't very good at it

-holding several small flashlights inches over the surgery space when the power went out

I know, big scary needle and no qualifications. But this is the post-op steroid shot that they can't feel... and I'm a fast learner!
-Fumbling with a man's crotch when he said he had to pee: We were all shouting and running around. We brought his wife in to help him, but she refused to step even towards the table. I went in for it and the nurse shouted that wait!- I should have gloves. Come to find out the man was able to hold it in the end anyway (unlike last year when the pee was thrown multiple times at me and Michele)
-witnessing the rapid descent of hygienic standards: The medical team started out appalled, alcoholing everything until we kept running out of alcohol. A fly entered the room and they freaked out. It eluded murder efforts and buzzed around the Sterile Area. I was able to secretly chuckle behind my mask. I tried to help them feel better about it all, but it was hard for me to summon the correct mindset. I'm about as far as I could get from it. I picked up cataracts from eye goop and blood puddles on the floor. At lunch one day, I licked sardine juice from my fingers and tasted the iodine I'd rubbed on patients' eyes. Had I washed my hands? Ooops!

the sterile blessedly air-conditioned OR and Dr. Judith and Nurse Christine (I love them!)
-Even at my personal low on the hygiene front (clearly pretty freaking low), I could tick off the things wrong when the Senegalese team swept in to borrow the OR for C-sections (of which I saw 3). They know they don't want to track in dirt... so they take off their shoes. However, their feet are still filthy as mine, cracked open, and tromping around those blood puddles I just mentioned. C-sections bring a LOT of blood. Two people had booties at least.

We brought this up to a very nice assistant. He said, "Yeah, but the blood is over there--" he pointed 1.5 feet from his own feet. What about stepping on needles? "They're over there too." We pointed to one that was literally 5 inches from his big toe. He picked it up and laughed the way you would laugh if someone hit a good shot on your side of the ping pong table. "Oui, c'est pas bon.."

-Otherwise, the c-sections were pretty awesome. Bodies are much more pliant than I thought. To suddenly suck up a grey alien-like person from a slice of rubbery skin flaps and wet organs seems quite unnatural. They spank it and it cries. Or, if it doesn't, they suck stuff from its mouth, do CPR, and continuously smack it around so it makes enough noises to placate the mother. The mothers can't see any of this as their upper halves are blocked off by a cloth. Most of them were younger than 17.

planet cataract
cataract removed, hook going into cut above eye
in the eye, dialing in the replacement lens
-On the last day, an emergency c-section (baby dead, but arm and leg already emerged) kicked us out of the OR. Three of the four medical teamsters were ready to pack it in. They were at the end of their two weeks and clearly over Senegal. They waxed poetic about their beds at home and moaned about the dogs barking at night and the AC shutting off. We tried to be sympathetic. Anyway, they were done. Dr. Judith, however, refused to cancel the last cases and decided to do them in a non-OR instead (the "pre-op room" as it was). Dr. Donald McDonald III (I did not make that up) refused to work outside of the AC so we helped Judith mop the floors and walls so she could set down to it herself. She is AWESOME. But it was so far from sterile: windows open, pollen blowing in.... Oh well, it worked!

This is what senegalese feet look like and why I will need the first pedicure of my life when I get back. Thankfully mine aren't quite this bad yet.

The hospital also functions as a dump, goat feeding-ground, and all-over outdoor bathroom...

-My older sister who doesn't live with us had a near death experience during the clinic. She only lived because an ambulance was able to go all the way to her village and bring her to Kedougou where they took out the baby that died inside her and gave her blood transfusions from three people who came with her. Anyway, this is why I saw my baaba and neene there! It was very strange... I was running around self-importantly with scrubs on and couldn't even get the whole story from the family without having to rush off in between. My mother slept on the filthy hospital floor that week (as per usual when family members are kept there. It's up to family to bring food and water). I saw them throughout the day and felt guilty not sitting with them more. When I put pre-op preparatory drops in the patients' eyes I could even see my dad sitting outside the window. But when I got back to the village and was talking to my baaba about how I'd like to go into medicine, he laughed and grinned and said, "You are! I saw you myself in Kedougou! You're a real doctor!" He looked as proud as a biological father would.

It's great to see.

Fête Fecale

2010-03-21T13:03:00.004Z

As a companion to all the new latrines in our village, we had an educational causerie. I wanted to explain that we don't just have them to look more patrone (adj: wealthy, rich, ritzy, balla). In the US, the word "diarrhea" sends kids into peals of laughter. Here, kids die from it. So my poo party, or fete fecale, if you will, intended to explain how we get it, how kids are more susceptible, why latrines cut down on it (beforehand, everyone just went in the bush), and what to do if you/ your kids have it.

I certainly understand better than ever how important it is to relay all this information. But the American in me still felt ridiculous presenting this in front of all the important and respected village elders who come to all my meetings (bless them). I insisted some women and kids come since some of the lesson was specific to them. It became further awkward, however, when I realized none of the women or children could enter the meeting space. It was a holy spot just for devout men. When men need to pray but can't make it all the way to the mosque, they enter this fenced in rectangle of gravel. They take a huge liberty in allowing me to enter, but seeing all the women outside, I did not exactly feel flattered. So I stood awkwardly on some stumps of the fence, literally and metaphorically straddling the barrier.

We played some games with sequence pictures, that amused me because I painted them in watercolor. They depicted things like people pooing in the woods, so it was pretty funny when people asked if they could keep them and hang them in their huts. In the end I quizzed everyone and gave out prizes to the people who knew the answers. These prizes consisted of all the knick-knacks you all have generously sent throughout my time here, that I didn't want to give away as random cadeaux. So the very end became a lesson about yo-yo's, paint-by-numbers, pot-holder making, and best of all, BUBBLES. Most of you should already know how I feel about bubbles, but here, they hover at the very peak of excitement. Blowing bubbles for a group of kids who have never seen them before is in all honesty the Very Best Thing in the world.

So fete fecale seemed a success.... Then again, the very next day I helped build a mud hut. To do this, you need water, dirt, and... POO! (Animal manure; fret not.) It was quite gross. We mix it all up with our hands and then slather it all over the walls (previously made the same way) with our hands. I tried not to think about how people are committed in my country for this sort of thing. The smell was quite bad, but I especially disliked all the maggots, worms, and other bugs in the poo now crawling on my hand until I spread them on the wall. I had a sour expression on my face for the first ten minutes that made everyone laugh. Three hours later, I was a pro. One lady accidentally smeared her entire full hand of poo mixture all over my butt, but I just calmly let someone else rinse it off like I was a baby and continued working.

A real baby came in a pooed herself (no pampers here!) quite appropriately in the giant mound of animal excrement. They sort of cleaned it and soon after brought in a bowl of food which they set just on the edge of this mound. Some people squatted in it. "See, this is what I was talking about! Fecal matter getting in your food makes you sick!" I said, exasperated. I'd spent a chunk of my lesson plan illustrating how it could get into food from things like flies and chickens without us knowing. But I forgot to take into account that people don't even mind eating literally in a pile of feces....

"Haha, yeah, yeah, you're right! Come eat!" At least it was the porridge eaten with ladles since everything else is eaten with hands. Remember, ours are covered in poo. I still said I wasn't hungry, thanks.

Just pooped out.

Dinner at the Cartiers'

2010-02-23T19:50:00.007Z

We have a voluntary home-stay program in Dakar for the week of the All-Volunteer conference and WAIST. This is when our PC superiors plead and cajole with their expat circle to let us dirty crazy PCVs stay in their huge houses. They promise we won't be too belligerent, but remind the hosts that we've been living in villages... In short, the hosts are brave saviors for agreeing to put us up. For the most part, they are amused by our enthusiasm for their washing machines and it makes them happy to feel like they're pampering us with what is a regular meal to them. Homestays are the greatest thing ever.

The only slight discord comes from our two worlds colliding. Expats form a strange air-tight community based around the swimming pool, imported peanut butter, and hired help. I don't want to sound too judgmental about this because I do think it must be incredibly hard to eschew this bubble once you've been automatically placed into it as soon as you landed in the country. It's not like they get all the language and culture trainings that we do. When they break through the barriers of worlds apart, it shows truly impressive resolve.

PCVs make up just as much of a microcosm. We strut around in our african prints, greeting people we recognize loudly, and complaining to each other about being called "toubab." "Can you believe they still call me 'white person?' Don't they know I LIVE here?" Haha, what do we expect? We also severely look down on tourists-- I'm certainly at fault for this. I suppose it's because of what we had to go through to delegate the bright-eyed pale-faced versions of ourselves to our pasts. Tourists remind us that we're not really as local as we feel; we're just crashing the party.

So anyway, when these two walks of toubab life meet in Dakar, we expect it to be like a meeting of members of the same tribe. But I at least am always surprised at how different we are.
The Cartiers were wonderful even beyond their washing machine, hot water, the best steak I can remember having, and a stock of french wine. They were a whole new class of worldly. From different continents, with their kids and kids-in-laws from different continents, they spoke more languages than I would remember to list right now. One of my favorite awe-inspiring moments was when I showed them a list from an article my mother sent. It was an annual Economist survey to find the "World's Most Liveable City." Based on things like health care, education, safety, and infrastructure, they rated 100-something cities. The top city was Vancouver and most of the other top 10's here also in Canada, or in Australia. The list I showed the Cartiers, however, was the "bottom ten." Dakar was #10. We were all slightly insulted. They scanned up the other bottoms, and kept saying, "Hey, we've lived there! And there! And there!" They had lived in or visited almost all of the bottom 10. And the top ten? "No, I don't think we've even visited any of these... Oh, I suppose we had a few days in Toronto.."

This of course made me love them. They have so many stories about lions outside their tents and fighting malaria. Except for the malaria bit, I kept thinking, "Can I BE you?" But then they'd make a comment about how bad the potato au gratin was or how all the chocolate at the huge real ridiculous grocery store is crap and it kept jolting my idea of them. I have to remember that expats living for years and years in Africa just don't live like PCVs forever. It's not a bad thing-- I don't want to either! It's just weird to take such ownership of a place but live completely differently and even removed from its people. There's no real answer to that though. They can either dish out their brie and imported duck to everyone around them, do without it at all, or go home? That doesn't seem right either. I guess it's just people like me that need to get over it. People will always have different lifestyles. It may not be fair, but as long as expats don't flaunt it in begger-kids' faces, I guess c'est la vie. We all have different personal criteria for how much we need to reach out, and that's OK too.

OK, enough of this verbosity. I meant to just describe my own ridiculousness on one (of many) occassion(s). The Cartier's dinner party.

The party consisted of expats of course. I think I've already introduced this group as fascinating people with habits that seem extravagant in context. Within their bubble, they have a whole order of social rules which I haven't even figured out yet. I know there are at least standard questions whenever you meet them: Are you on vacation/ how long have you been here (to establish seniority), what do you do (to establish superiority)... and on to check status and familiarity. I have a feeling it cuts out early for PCVs. I think we set off some alarm that shouts, "Oops! Not one of us! Looked it from the outside, but nope! Abort!"

I'm being over-analytical, but only because I'm trying to figure out how I can feel so much more comfortable squatting in the dirt around a bowl of mush and leaf sauce with 15 villagers than at a dinner party with a carpet and a table and napkins and delicious food.

It started with the impeccable french tossed back and forth, high over my head. None of the senegalese lazy, "Et les affaires quoi?" here! I felt like a Texan in the Queen's tea-room. Then I became extremely aware of my flipflops which I had not known were completely gross until then. Then I couldn't think of anything to talk about besides food. What do I do here? Uhhh... do you know what a latrine is? Well, uh, you know toilets?.. Oh did you want to talk about something else before dinner?

The food was good enough that I didn't really care about how out of place I felt. Why yes, I WILL have some more! Mr. Cartier takes it upon himself to ensure that no wine glass is ever empty, so this also helped. I found myself staring, though, at the multiple plates and utensils spread like an army before me, and I wanted to giggle. The kicker though, was the committee of beverages before me: water, the jug the water came from, wine, AND coffee (on its own plate). I really wanted to crack up. I tried to catch M's eye from across the table, but he was too busy contributing in perfect french to the conversation on genetic engineering (I'm not joking).

Why do we drink wine and coffee at dinner? The wine depresses your energy and the coffee brings it back to equilibrium to bring us back to the desired state that is as if we'd never had either. Then why do we? Not that I would turn either down; I'm just saying. When I drank the coffee out of the espresso shot glass, I slurped it loudly. Oops! This is polite to so with ataaya, but as you know, not with coffee. I couldn't stop, though. Even as I was putting it up to my lips, thinking, "Don't slurp, don't slurp," my mouth was preprogrammed to do so anyway. It was sort of fascinating and did not help my laughter suppression.

I think my favorite part was when Mr. Cartier had just topped off my wine and was stepping around me. Shifting my foot kind of opened this crack in it, so I looked down from the side of my chair. He came back and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, did I spill some wine on you?" And I started to answer, "No, you know when your foot cracks and splits open and dirt gets inside and it gets kind of sore and could get infected..." DON'T WORRY, I stopped myself early on after, "Non." But I couldn't help chuckling a bit to myself wondering how they'd react.

In conclusion, bless the homestays for all they put up with, and get this girl back in the village!

Dirty Pictures (not really. don't get excited)

2010-02-23T19:00:00.004Z

from journal:

1/13, Sold soul to devil.

When I first started working on the mosquito net distributions here, I felt like we were killing our bodies, all getting dengue, skipping meals, and biking hundreds of nets over the toughest terrain... to give nets. I remember thinking that if anyone in America had any inkling of what we were doing, we'd have no trouble raising money for nets and transportation in 30 seconds flat.

Today looked very different. We had a camera crew, a twitter team, and phrases like "starbucks sponsership" floating around. Good, right?

I just went to give nets. It can be hard all-day work to do thoroughly, but we know how to do it, and do it pretty well. Enter internationally renowned camerawoman, who I'm hoping is too busy being successful to ever see this... She is INSANE! Within two minutes in her presence (LITERALLY less that 120 seconds, honestly), everyone starts to back away with wide terrified eyes.

We had to get up at 4 so we could get to the village in good camera light. Since they brought starbucks, I let that go, although I must say, no one should have to get up before the morning call to prayer. As soon as we got there, she started right in with her insanity, wiping off bewildered kids' faces with wipes (one ran off crying). Since she couldn't speak any language and was used to having a team of assistants and translators, she just didn't worry about explaining anything. She did anything to make them smile as quickly as possible.

"Tell that man he needs to move; his shadow's getting in the shot!"

"Um, hello, sir," I said. "We're all very happy to be here and thank you for coming to greet us. Thank you for helping the cause to photograph advertisements so we can raise the money to bring more nets to Senegal. We're all happy to meet you today. Also, could you just step a little over here?"

She was tapping her foot and glaring at me impatiently. Then gave me a great fake smile.

The whole thing felt so WRONG. The opposite of Peace Corps. We barely knew any names, didn't make connections, didn't joke or share our stories. We just zoomed in and stole shots of them that only made it look like a sweet and fair exchange. "Dance! I want them to dance!" Oh. My. God.

I must say, she didn't actually steal shots; she made sure her temporary assistant got everyone's official consent on paper (after the shots were taken). And the kids did seem to be having fun even if they had no idea what was going on. We did our best to convey politeness in every interaction. And it IS a good cause... OUR cause...

Maybe she sensed our discomfort, or maybe she's just used to trying to make up for her abrasive working style. Either way, she bought us dinner! I sat next to her at the end of the table because I'm very brave. She asked almost immediately if I wanted to use the shower in her room. Well... YES, actually-- I'd been hoping to do so ever since I learned where they were staying. [This was in cold season, and as we finished working well after dark, our heatless outdoor shower got kind of painful. Heating up water for a bucket bath was equally as painful... It is no longer cold season or cold at any time.] ..But I wanted to EAT first! During dinner, though, she said it three more times! "Don't you want to shower now? I think you should..." pushing her room key towards me. "Um, yeah, thanks! I think I'd prefer to wait until after dinner, if that's OK. I mean, unless I smell too bad! Haha!... I don't, do I?"

"Umm... no...." I asked this a few times, once with, "Do I have any dirt on me or something?" And she responded with, "Yeah, actually, right here"-- my neck.

This had been a weird rapport with her all along. She would look at me and laugh in an aww-you-poor-thing way and once even said, "Haha! I like what you're doing with the dirt all over your face! That's great!" "Um, what? Do I really h-" "No, no, I'm just teasin'! Haha!" And she walked away.

I'd been assuming I'm only as dirty as everyone else. I wash my clothes, bathe daily, brush my hair, keep the dust-wrestling to a minimum. But now I'm doubting that assumption. Was she making a weird but effective joke or am I really that dirty?

HOW DIRTY AM I?

Poo Party

2010-02-20T12:36:00.003Z

Making 50 latrines happen in the village didn't sound like a hard thing. It's a pretty common project. I didn't know that it would take FOREVER and literally make me a stalker. (It's hard to explain to anyone who's not here, but basically if you want to get anyone to do their job here, you have to call them non-stop and stop by every single day. Nothing will ever happen otherwise. It was hard for me to do at first because I really would have a restraining order against me if I acted like this in the states. But we got our materials and transportation in the end! Yay for stalking!)

My counterpart, Daby, digging his douche-hole. I don't think I would have been able to do this project if he and my dad weren't so great at yelling at people to dig their holes and pay already! And they kept great records (I think... I don't read arabic...)

Probably my favorite part about the project was that I named a "Commite de Douche" complete with a President Douche and all. It was fun to write meetings on the calendar.

Now we can stop pooing right outside the kitchen hut!
Aren't they beautiful?

Pictures of my diarrhea/ latrine use causerie to come (aka Poo Party/ Fete Fecale)...