"I think I must have a more complete sense of my total song inventory than anyone else has of theirs, except for professional singers. I know roughly which songs I know only the choruses of. I know which songs I know but discovered I couldn't stand to sing in the desert, You Are My Sunshine being a prime example of a song I loathed suddenly to which I had never had any objection previously... Songs help when you're under duress, which is undoubtedly why Boer geniuses of cruelty forbid people in solitary confinement to sing.
"I was singing so continuously that I began to find I disliked it when I stopped... I disliked the ambiance. I was briefly an aide in a nursery school for neglected children, and the best-adapted, happiest, and smartest children in the place were three sisters who had been taken from a mother who kept them chained to a radiator so they would be safe while she was out circulating, and who when I asked them what they did all the time when they were alone said We sang... On I sang."
from MATING, by Norman Rush
SENEGAL SOUNDTRACK '08
1. HOT HOT HOT- Sebastian the Crab?
2. INDIANA JONES (Stones) THEME SONG
3. BEAUTY & THE BEAST SONG (the one that starts, "Little town, it's a quiet village. Every day like the one before. Little town, full of little people, waking up to say... Bonjour!")
4. BIG BUTTS- Sir Mixalot (JAY FUUNDE if you will)
5. STUPID AMERICAN- Eddie from Ohio
6. I WANT CANDY- I forgot who sings this
7. THE ROAD IS LONG- Beatles?
8. I'VE GOT A BIKE (you can ride it if you like... who sings this?)
9. RIDIN' DIRTY- OK I need to learn my singers...
10. HEY, HEY, WE'RE THE MONKEES- Monkees
11. PEPTO BISMOL- Symptoms Jingle
12. SHOO, FLY- Your Kindergarten Teacher
13. DON'T GO CHASING WATERFALLS- TLC
14. STARRY, STARRY NIGHT- Don McLean
15. RIGHT SAID FRED, HAVE ANOTHER CUP OF TEA, WE WAS GETTIN' NOWHERE... (I don't know what this song is but my mom always used to sing it and it gets in my head all the time here)
16. BICYCLE RACE- Queen
17. OLD McDONALD HAD A FARM (see #12)
18. IT'S GETTIN' HOT IN HERR- Nelly
19. PRAYER CALLS- speakers all over ever Senegalese city seemingly planted right outside my windows
20. FAVORITE THINGS- Sound of Music (as per other entry)
21. IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING- (#12, 17)
22. JAMMIN- Bob Marley (Jam tun! This English term actually came from West Africa!)
23. J'AI BESOIN D'AMOUR- I don't know, but the music video is hilarious
24. (anything)- Akon
25. COEUR DE PECHE THEME SONG- Brazillian Soap Opera with a cult following here
26. ------- Youssou N'Dour
27. SENEGALESE NATIONAL ANTHEM- ("Salut Afrique Meeeeeeeere!")
28. YOU'RE MY LITTLE POTATO- Mary's Mom and Minneapolis National Radio
29. I'M GOING SLIGHTLY MAD- Queen (my village will learn this before I leave)
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Songs of a Disco Hut
(I don't know why, but we have meeting huts in Thies and Kedougou dubbed The Disco Hut. I think this is probably just a PC thing, but I kind of hope not. This is about the Disco Hut of the Gou.)
Track 1: RESPECT- Aretha Franklin
Girls' Leadership Camp 7/26
Awa, probably my favorite Senegalese woman, descended upon the Hut to run this shindig. We invited about 20 middle and high school girls from a scholarship contest in the Gou to participate. Some had scholarships, some were married, all could benefit. Awa transformed a whispering self-conscious gaggle of girls into smiling and loud women. By using examples from her own life of things she'd gone through like them, she could empower these girls way better than any toubab could. She's survived a young arranged marriage, sexual assauls, and roadblocks all along the way when she just wanted to go to school and make her own choices. Now she's happy and successful (not that PC pays that well..) and chose her own husband in the end. Awa is an example of amazing triumph with a light about her that makes you love her right away because you subliminally know this all about her.
The girls were great participaters and acted out fabulous skits and everything. They broached all manner of subjects: family obligation, how to stay in school, harassment from anyone but especially teachers (who are infamous for shopping for their female students), available life choices, supporting each other, feminism in Senegal... Many things of course don't have solutions, but it's just as important to Start these conversations.
Track 2: IT'S RAINING MEN- Weather Girls
House Meeting and Farewell Party for COSers 7/27
After a feast of freshly slaughtered pig (in which I have yet to participate but am Truly on the brink) in every form, we lay around holding our shocked and overstuffed distended village-bellies, moaning, and happy. A bunch of Guinean PCVs were visiting as well. We were about to call it a quiet night... but this Allah did not will. Thirty seconds of wind and we were up from our candlelit hammocks, running to grab sheets off the clothesline and bring beds into the Disco Hut (because it has more rain coverage than the other structure.) We moved like frenzied ants and impressed ourselves by actually making it before the hard rains came. Then the dark and stormy night raged outside while we had a slumber party in the hut of soggy satisfied volunteers, 2-per-ill-equipped-beds and no space in between. Once in a while, Gujo (our dog whose name is Pulaar for "theif") or Henry (our new dog) came in to wet-dog-shake or drop off a pile of bloody pig skin. Perhaps not your average sleep-over. Better!
Track 3: LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX- Salt n' Peppa
AIDS NGO meeting 7/28
Senegal's AIDS count: 1%. Kedougou's: 8%. We have an apparently energetic migrant population and sizeable prostitute community. Now, we have grant $ to do our best to combat these forces. The meeting, run by Matt, hosted NGO's and anyone doing anything to teach about AIDS- to see who to train more, what they're doing now, who could/would use more funds, what methods would work... It was the preliminary meeting of many to come, but it went well. I just tried to understand as much as I could while mostly thinking of slogans we could use in the future. "Wataa Sodu SIDA!' = 'Don't Buy AIDS" (re: prostitution). "Voulez-vous transmitter avec moi?" "Preserve ta sensation? Preserve ta sense! Preservatifs: Pour Preserver La Vie." ... Unfortunately I don't think everything translates, like: "Wear a condom: Everyone's Doing It" or "Don't Have Sex with Miners" --meaning someone who MINES since they're major carriers in the area, but also because of the baby-bride phenomenon. Clearly, it was an eventful meeting for me.
Track 4: HELLO, GOODBYE- Beatles
COS Discussion of floor of a gutted Disco Hut 7/29
The room was Alexa's Opium Den... and it was Robyn's and Amy's. They're all leaving. We looked up past our knees at the haphazard hatch ceiling. Alexa noticed for the first time her old friend's name graffitied on a beam. It was his hut too. Now it's mine. For a while, at least. Usually, it seems like it will be for an eternity, but someone also a flash.
Dorm rooms, streets, and restaurants you leave... You know the feeling of unintentionally leaving something of yourself in them... The sad fact of the invisibility of this piece drives into you like a stake that won't stop until it's gone all the way through you and come out on the other side. That place was YOU, your pain, your thoughts, your LIFE, it held so much, you held each other... It boggles your mind that it could exist in a similar capacity for someone else. You can't admit it's like an old love being with someone else. It's just a place, after all.
I think this dischord must multiply fanatically for places, for example, in Africa. They're not recyclable dorm rooms but tiny unique pieces of a corner of the world untouched by anyone you know in your previous lives. Stakes are higher. They hold more sweat, tears, soaring passion.
It's two years and many tracks away, but I'm a little afraid to leave this place of extremities, this room, this Disco Hut.
Track 1: RESPECT- Aretha Franklin
Girls' Leadership Camp 7/26
Awa, probably my favorite Senegalese woman, descended upon the Hut to run this shindig. We invited about 20 middle and high school girls from a scholarship contest in the Gou to participate. Some had scholarships, some were married, all could benefit. Awa transformed a whispering self-conscious gaggle of girls into smiling and loud women. By using examples from her own life of things she'd gone through like them, she could empower these girls way better than any toubab could. She's survived a young arranged marriage, sexual assauls, and roadblocks all along the way when she just wanted to go to school and make her own choices. Now she's happy and successful (not that PC pays that well..) and chose her own husband in the end. Awa is an example of amazing triumph with a light about her that makes you love her right away because you subliminally know this all about her.
The girls were great participaters and acted out fabulous skits and everything. They broached all manner of subjects: family obligation, how to stay in school, harassment from anyone but especially teachers (who are infamous for shopping for their female students), available life choices, supporting each other, feminism in Senegal... Many things of course don't have solutions, but it's just as important to Start these conversations.
Track 2: IT'S RAINING MEN- Weather Girls
House Meeting and Farewell Party for COSers 7/27
After a feast of freshly slaughtered pig (in which I have yet to participate but am Truly on the brink) in every form, we lay around holding our shocked and overstuffed distended village-bellies, moaning, and happy. A bunch of Guinean PCVs were visiting as well. We were about to call it a quiet night... but this Allah did not will. Thirty seconds of wind and we were up from our candlelit hammocks, running to grab sheets off the clothesline and bring beds into the Disco Hut (because it has more rain coverage than the other structure.) We moved like frenzied ants and impressed ourselves by actually making it before the hard rains came. Then the dark and stormy night raged outside while we had a slumber party in the hut of soggy satisfied volunteers, 2-per-ill-equipped-beds and no space in between. Once in a while, Gujo (our dog whose name is Pulaar for "theif") or Henry (our new dog) came in to wet-dog-shake or drop off a pile of bloody pig skin. Perhaps not your average sleep-over. Better!
Track 3: LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX- Salt n' Peppa
AIDS NGO meeting 7/28
Senegal's AIDS count: 1%. Kedougou's: 8%. We have an apparently energetic migrant population and sizeable prostitute community. Now, we have grant $ to do our best to combat these forces. The meeting, run by Matt, hosted NGO's and anyone doing anything to teach about AIDS- to see who to train more, what they're doing now, who could/would use more funds, what methods would work... It was the preliminary meeting of many to come, but it went well. I just tried to understand as much as I could while mostly thinking of slogans we could use in the future. "Wataa Sodu SIDA!' = 'Don't Buy AIDS" (re: prostitution). "Voulez-vous transmitter avec moi?" "Preserve ta sensation? Preserve ta sense! Preservatifs: Pour Preserver La Vie." ... Unfortunately I don't think everything translates, like: "Wear a condom: Everyone's Doing It" or "Don't Have Sex with Miners" --meaning someone who MINES since they're major carriers in the area, but also because of the baby-bride phenomenon. Clearly, it was an eventful meeting for me.
Track 4: HELLO, GOODBYE- Beatles
COS Discussion of floor of a gutted Disco Hut 7/29
The room was Alexa's Opium Den... and it was Robyn's and Amy's. They're all leaving. We looked up past our knees at the haphazard hatch ceiling. Alexa noticed for the first time her old friend's name graffitied on a beam. It was his hut too. Now it's mine. For a while, at least. Usually, it seems like it will be for an eternity, but someone also a flash.
Dorm rooms, streets, and restaurants you leave... You know the feeling of unintentionally leaving something of yourself in them... The sad fact of the invisibility of this piece drives into you like a stake that won't stop until it's gone all the way through you and come out on the other side. That place was YOU, your pain, your thoughts, your LIFE, it held so much, you held each other... It boggles your mind that it could exist in a similar capacity for someone else. You can't admit it's like an old love being with someone else. It's just a place, after all.
I think this dischord must multiply fanatically for places, for example, in Africa. They're not recyclable dorm rooms but tiny unique pieces of a corner of the world untouched by anyone you know in your previous lives. Stakes are higher. They hold more sweat, tears, soaring passion.
It's two years and many tracks away, but I'm a little afraid to leave this place of extremities, this room, this Disco Hut.
Thies again Thies again, Jiggity Jig
8/3 Back in Thies for IST and happy to see my host family even if they are my "throw-away" family. They've grown, and I know how to say things like that. Baby Ami doesn't cry anymore and reportedly has been chasing every toubab on the street shouting my name. They seemed happy to see me too. They even painted my room for me, put up hanging hooks, and gave me a door curtain! They asked a lot about the ville and it was strange to be in a position of authority as a legitimate resident of their own country. But village life really is a world away from them. Neene told me my body left and I must not be eating. Like a true neene! The boys snuggled up on me as much as they could before getting scolded.
Then something remarkable... With my 1st African host family, huddled and crowded on the ground around the family dinner bowl... we watched Jack Bauer save the president of the US. "24" has come to Senegal and they eat it up faster than cheb jen. Jack's french dramatics struck me as riotessly funny several times as I watched, grinning. I used to watch this in my Kirkland dorm room! So much better now.
Then something remarkable... With my 1st African host family, huddled and crowded on the ground around the family dinner bowl... we watched Jack Bauer save the president of the US. "24" has come to Senegal and they eat it up faster than cheb jen. Jack's french dramatics struck me as riotessly funny several times as I watched, grinning. I used to watch this in my Kirkland dorm room! So much better now.
Milking It
Just as I was thinking how nice it was that silly US taboos don't exist here... my feelings changed. Specifically, I was thinking of breasts which are always out there for all to see, and represent proud motherhood rather than shameful sex. Little Saliu was petting me as per usual and when he happened to brush my breast in passing, I thought how nice it was that that could just happen without shame or awkwardness or a meeting with the parents. Then he sweetly told me he liked my breast. He said this in the same way he tells me he likes my hair (head or leg). This felt weird. Not as weird as when he and Boobacar then suddenly proceeded to pretend to be suckling babies. I had to push them off and squeal that I wasn't their mother and, "No milk here!" I guess I'm still American.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Giving Away Mosquito Nets to Needy African Villages
... isn't quite the party it sounds like. Unless your idea of a party involves leaving the splendors of Cake-A-Day to bike 4 hours up the mountains, lose one member of the team to a bike fall after the worst hill of my life (she's fine now), eat only a dirty sachet of roadside peanut butter to fuel you, and sleep on the floor. And that's just to get to the party.
The day of, it poured through the early morning as we pushed and slid our bikes to the first village. We arrived dripping, muddy, and famished. There was rumor of a breakfast in the midst of bread and mayonaise. We gasped with excitement and promptly reminded each other not to get our hopes up. A little American portion of my brain that hasn't yet been scorched out realized how sad we were top be so sincerely impressed with the idea of bread and mayo. That portion shut up when we found out we really shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. No bread. Or mayo. Or dirty baggies of PB...
We finally had someone bring us kossan. BAD IDEA. Kossan is pretty much a bowl of gross sour milk with chunks and sugar in it. Flash-forward to a sequence of Alexa and me vomitting repeatedly en brosse and in the middle of the night for the next several days, with fevers, and even a gold star for me (PCV's should know what this means...)
What makes it worth it anyway?
The day of, it poured through the early morning as we pushed and slid our bikes to the first village. We arrived dripping, muddy, and famished. There was rumor of a breakfast in the midst of bread and mayonaise. We gasped with excitement and promptly reminded each other not to get our hopes up. A little American portion of my brain that hasn't yet been scorched out realized how sad we were top be so sincerely impressed with the idea of bread and mayo. That portion shut up when we found out we really shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. No bread. Or mayo. Or dirty baggies of PB...
We finally had someone bring us kossan. BAD IDEA. Kossan is pretty much a bowl of gross sour milk with chunks and sugar in it. Flash-forward to a sequence of Alexa and me vomitting repeatedly en brosse and in the middle of the night for the next several days, with fevers, and even a gold star for me (PCV's should know what this means...)
What makes it worth it anyway?
- amazing beautiful villages with waterfalls and kind people
- the BEST RAINBOW OF MY LIFE seen on our way back to our host's village. We made most of this trip in the dark, walking our bikes and singing for a couple of hours. Anyway, the Rainbow TRIPLED and stretched all the way across the sky. I even got extra time to marvel at it while waiting for Alexa to finish puking in the bushes.
- A ride back to the Gou! I could've cried with joy. Granted it was in the back of a pick-up along with a man, four women, a gas tank, three chickens, our two bikes, and over ten bags... down those same horrid hills... But we sported our helmets, gripped the side, tried not to boot, and appreciated that we didn't have to pedel ourselves. And for free! Because people can be so nice!
- learning about another village/planet that doesn't speak any of our languages, has weird greeting rituals involving young men turning and squatting before old women and exchanging "Ohh" "Eeee" "Ohhh" "Eeee" "Ohhh" etc., and where they perform a sort of step-team clap rhythm to show agreement. All in favor say clap-clap smack clam smack-smack clap clap-clap!
- saw the biggest moniter lizard dinosaur ever
- mountain-top sunset
- I was still sick and pathetic when I got back to the Gou, with nothing to help but... THREE PACKAGES! Thank you MB, Tessa, and Mrs.B! You made me SO happy!
Most of all, the project itself satisfied. It was mostly well-organized so we had an accurate number of nets to distribute so each bed in the villages could be covered. We explained how to use them (I put on a little snoring-in-bed act while Matt the mosquito hot the treated net and died. Then I used my steller language skills to exclaim, "No malaria here!") We wrote their names on the nets so they'd be less likely to sell them, and weeded out a few people who were just trying to get extras. For the most part I support the idea that net usage rates will be higher when nets are not given for free and thus taken for granted. Studies support giving them to health huts and having workers there explain and sell thel for a small price with a commission for incentive-- as well as through private more expensive avenues for wealthier people. But neither of these apply to the gorgeous and dirt-poor Fungo area.
It was good to feel useful.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Eat Your Peas; There Are Starving Kates In Africa
excerpt from Mating by Norman Rush:
"In Africa, you want more, I think.
People get avid. This takes different forms in different people, but it shows up in some form in everybody who stays there any length of time. It can be sudden. I include myself.
Obviously I mean whites in Africa and not black Africans. The average black African has the opposite problem: he or she doesn't want enough. A whole profession called Rural Animation exists devoted to making villagers want more and work harder to get it. Africans are pretty ungreedy-- elites excepted, naturally. Elites are elites.
But in Africa you can see middleclass white people you know for a fact are highly normal turn overnight into chainsmokers or heavy drinkers or gourmets..."
I get by with a little help from my friends... Alexa and I have adopted a cake-a-day regimen and have made it a whole week from her packages. My weight is coming back, along with my greed. It's amazing how quickly you get used to things no matter how difficult the transition. In the village I'd gotten used to corn mush. Now, cake.
The villagers will probably always be satisfied with corn mush ("lacirre"). They don't have time-consuming fantasies of tacos and oreo milkshakes. Sometimes I envy them.
"In Africa, you want more, I think.
People get avid. This takes different forms in different people, but it shows up in some form in everybody who stays there any length of time. It can be sudden. I include myself.
Obviously I mean whites in Africa and not black Africans. The average black African has the opposite problem: he or she doesn't want enough. A whole profession called Rural Animation exists devoted to making villagers want more and work harder to get it. Africans are pretty ungreedy-- elites excepted, naturally. Elites are elites.
But in Africa you can see middleclass white people you know for a fact are highly normal turn overnight into chainsmokers or heavy drinkers or gourmets..."
I get by with a little help from my friends... Alexa and I have adopted a cake-a-day regimen and have made it a whole week from her packages. My weight is coming back, along with my greed. It's amazing how quickly you get used to things no matter how difficult the transition. In the village I'd gotten used to corn mush. Now, cake.
The villagers will probably always be satisfied with corn mush ("lacirre"). They don't have time-consuming fantasies of tacos and oreo milkshakes. Sometimes I envy them.
Are You There, Allah? It's Me, Hadiatou
I very much enjoy that Allie's Senegalese name is Fati (Fatoumata) and mine is Hadi (sounds like "hottie"). I also enjoyed her visit. I didn't completely enjoy feeling like a sadistic personal trainer from hell on the bike-ride in, though. Let me take a moment here to remind and emphasize to potential visiters that this is not an easy bike-trip. It involves carrying your bike through rivers, heat, rockiness, and not a whole lot of what you would consider "road." So you have to be kind of in shape or else have enough money to hire someone to drive into the bumpiness of my Guinean shire.
Luckily Fati was a grade-A trooper. She survived a scorpian-siting, tuti flies, red ants, and corn mush. We christened ourselves the DindeFelo-ship and went to the waterfalls there (Dinde Felo) before failing to find the ones in the shire. We also gave an info and question and answer session to a group of visiting American high-schoolers. (Alexa the 2-year volunteer, novelle moi, and Fati the Fulbrighter.) It was pretty fun to feel so cool and make me realize how far I've come already.
The other members of the DindeFeloShip took some great pictures so you should bother them for them...
Luckily Fati was a grade-A trooper. She survived a scorpian-siting, tuti flies, red ants, and corn mush. We christened ourselves the DindeFelo-ship and went to the waterfalls there (Dinde Felo) before failing to find the ones in the shire. We also gave an info and question and answer session to a group of visiting American high-schoolers. (Alexa the 2-year volunteer, novelle moi, and Fati the Fulbrighter.) It was pretty fun to feel so cool and make me realize how far I've come already.
The other members of the DindeFeloShip took some great pictures so you should bother them for them...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
My Beautiful Face
To see photos of yours truly, stalk Jarred and Marissa through their blog albums! Links at the bottom of this page... Some day I too will have pictures...
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