My Sister’s Big Fat Senegalese Wedding

Today marks day number three in the festivities of my host-sister, Hawa’s, wedding.  Weddings here, much like in America, are quite the affair.  Distant relations and friends started arriving last week to spend time with our family and pay their respects to the village.  As with any celebration in Senegal, there has been ample greeting and visiting and lots and lots of food.  For people who live in such extreme poverty, it is also a chance to show off some of their wealth and share what they have with others. 

Like in America, all good wedding guests bring a gift. As my village hasn’t quite gotten to the stage of using gift registries yet, the most common thing to bring is a bucket or benoir and fabric for the bride to make clothes.  Counting the bride’s presents, a major part of the party, revealed that she received more than two hundred buckets and just as many swaths of fabric.  When I inquired what on earth she was supposed to do with so many buckets, someone explained that they will get passed on to her husband’s family.  Women in Senegal always move in to their husband’s family’s house after they are married and part of the party is usually loading all of the gifts (and the rest of the bride’s baggage) into a car and driving her, along with women from her village, to her new home.  As my sister is getting married to a man from the same village, we exchanged the car for a few helping hands to carry her baggage over to her new house.  In the coming weeks, her husband’s family will come to see the new bride and give the couple a blessing.  In exchange, the bride will pass on some of her gifts to show her respect to her new family (If you come pay your respects here, you can bet you’re walking away with a bucket). 

My friend, Aminata, dancing through a crowd to deliver her presents.  Gotta love that hat. 

                Another important part of any wedding is the clothes.  Yesterday, the bride showcased no less than three new outfits, all perfectly tailored and intricately embroidered.  All decent guests also bought themselves a new outfit (including yours truly) for the occasion and here, there are yet more similarities to American weddings.  Female guests grouped themselves according to relation to the bride and bought matching fabric with which to make their outfits (e.g. the bride’s closest friends all matched each other as did the neighbor’s from certain houses, as did the visiting aunts, and so on).  Along with bringing a nice gift, this is the most popular way to show your respect to the bride as well as showing off how much you can afford (certain types of fabric and embroidery patterns are more expensive than others and everybody knows what’s what) so in the next few days the most popular gossip is likely to be about what people were wearing at the wedding. 

The bride and I in our new threads

                No wedding would be complete without food, and lots of it.  The next time you hear a bride lamenting about choosing the menu for her reception, feel free to remind her that weddings here last three days and the participating families are expected to provide all three meals (or more) for all of their guests, those from our village and the ones who came from out of town.  And, as you can imagine, without electricity or gas, cooking for such a large crowd is quite the ordeal.  How women here manage it in such spectacular fashion is still a mystery to me.  Yet, by 10:30 yesterday morning, I had already been offered three meals (and to my credit, only accepted two of them).  I wish I had exact numbers but I would guess that in the past three days my family has cooked close to 75 kilograms of onions, 100 Kg of rice, 50 Kg of millet, 25 Kg of Vermicelli pasta (a rare treat), more than a full cow, and 75 liters of oil. 

                Weddings here happen in multiple stages.  This round is merely the party.  A smaller religious ceremony that accompanied the negotiations and agreements between the two families actually happened a few years ago but as with many things in Senegal, the party had to wait until there was enough money to host it.  Unfortunately, this means that the party can come at an extremely inconvenient time, this case being a prime example since my sister’s groom is out of the country working. This is probably the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around about weddings here.  I understand waiting for the money but having a wedding party without a groom (or the religious ceremony without the bride present, which I have also seen) is a totally foreign concept. 

                I’ve learned a lot over the past few days since there wasn’t very much for me to do except sit and observe what was going on around me.  I mostly hung out with the cooks since that is where I could be most out of the way but people were also extremely excited to show off some of their traditions to me as well as show me off to some guests (you still get a lot of funny looks when you’re the only white guy who can speak Pulaar).  People especially liked to call me over when the music came on.  This wedding had a combination of a DJ with massive speakers (run painfully loudly from a generator) and the more traditional drummers and violinists that appeal a little more to the older generation.  But no matter what music comes on, you can find someone dancing.  During the day, the older women will get up from under their shady spots and dance around more than they seemed capable but the music goes late into the night when it’s a younger person’s affair.  Married women will dance separately from the men to preserve their integrity but a quick glance over and you’ll see more booty shaking than you might expect of married women in a conservative Muslim society.  The younger, single men are also happy to make an appearance since this is one of the few times that there are many visitors around on whom they might make a good impression.  I’m told that until the sun came up, people could be found dancing.  Even my usual bedtime of 9pm was pushed back to a whopping 11 o’clock so that I could partake in the festivities. 

Women from my village drumming on metal bowls and dancing to greet the bride

                All told, this was definitely one of the best weddings I have been to in Senegal.  But, thankfully, my dancing days aren’t over yet.  The next few weeks are sure to see a handful more weddings as people rush to celebrate and binge before Ramadan sets in in a few weeks.  Sorry about the long post but it’s the first one in quite some time so hopefully that makes up for it.  Happy trails!

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

If many of my friends and family came to Senegal and saw me in my day to day life, one of the biggest surprises would probably be the amount I ride a bike.  Before coming to Senegal, I don’t think I had successfully ridden a bike in more than ten years.  Every time I tried, I fell or crashed.  I never had serious injuries but it was serious enough to deter me from trying again any time soon.

While I was preparing, it was one of the things I was most worried about.  Peace Corps told me that all volunteers are issued bikes and that it may be necessary to bike long distances to see other volunteers, get to markets in larger towns, and to access public transportation routes throughout the country.  But I didn’t heed any warnings to practice biking a bit before I got here… I mean those dozen trips to REI were way more important to prepare me for Peace Corps, right?

Like many other things about living in Senegal, I have discovered that when faced with a difficulty in your living situation, all you need is a little time to practice and mentally prepare.  This has been true of living without electricity and running water, living in a place where no one speaks English, and especially biking.  My village is 7KM (4.35 Miles) away from the closest market.  I am also about 7KM from the closest Peace Corps Volunteer.  It was clear very quickly that if I didn’t get over my hesitations about biking that I was going to have a very difficult service. 

Since then, I have come a long way.  I recently completed a bike trip with another volunteer that was part of a large regional project.  We were visiting remote villages in order to make a map of all the places where someone in our health district can receive testing and treatment for malaria.  The idea is to show where there might be gaps in available treatment so that the Senegalese government’s malaria program can train and place volunteers more strategically.  It was a really fantastic trip and we traveled to more than a dozen villages in just a couple of days.  Each day we biked about 50KM (31 Miles) in order to see all the villages we needed to.  I can’t imagine missing out on the opportunity to be part of such a cool project just because I was afraid to mount a bike! 

Don’t get me wrong.  I still have my difficult days on the bike.  I’ve fallen more than a few times.  In the hot season, the sand still makes biking incredible difficult and in the rainy season, avoiding deep puddles can be next to impossible.  Bike maintenance is still incredibly intimidating to me (although I can pretty confidently change a tire now) but I’m learning. 

 Now, if I go more than two or three days without getting on my bike to go somewhere, I get antsy.  It’s my best and most convenient form of regular transportation and I will hopefully have the opportunity to do some extended bike traveling through Senegal and the Gambia in the coming months.  More than that, biking represents some of the adaptability and resilience that I have developed since being a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Every time I gear up for a trip (pun intended), I remember just how much I’ve changed and I think about how great it is to push my limits to discover what I am really capable of and what really makes me happy. 

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2015!  Thanks to everyone who sent things with my mom and my sister to give me.  Belated birthday and new year‘s packages will still be accepted J

Happy (bike) Trails!  

The New Network

Well, I guess there’s a problem when I have to start off each post with an apology for not posting but that’s the way it is these days!  I can’t believe that I’ve already been in my village for over 6 months.  Looking back now, it has totally flown by even though some days can really feel like an eternity under the Senegalese sun. 

In the past few weeks things have really picked up around here.  A few older volunteers planned a massive project to help people all across the region of Kolda repair and care for their mosquito nets.  In villages all across the region, volunteers have been helping villagers sew, wash, and transform (from square to circular) their mosquito nets.   In most villages the program has also included a small skit about malaria and/or a question and answer session with the audience.  Two older volunteers have been going from village to village more or less for the past two months!  In Sa’re Gueladio, I spent a couple of weeks preparing for their arrival by:

- Asking the chief (also my host dad) for permission

- Telling my counterpart about it so he could help me organize

- Choosing some people to put the skit together and having rehearsals (by far, the trickiest part!)

- Inviting…. And then re-inviting the entire village by going house to house and telling people

- Borrowing seating (straw mats and benches) and benoirs (to wash nets) for the day of

While this is a fairly straightforward task list, actually putting into action was anything but, especially since I spent a few days prior to the event in other nearby villages helping to execute the same program.  The theater was definitely the trickiest and up until it actually happened, I was almost sure it was going to fall apart.  For starters, the cast was ever-evolving due to various travel, changing minds, and really who knows what else.  When I finally got a few of the perspective cast members in the same room for what I thought was a meeting to choose a topic for the sketch, all that we actually decided was to have a meeting two days later where everyone would present their idea for the topic of the sketch and we would choose the best one and then be able to start rehearsing.  This, bear in mind, all for a ten minute skit. 

In the end, things came together beautifully.  There was great attendance all day. In total, we washed about thirty nets, sewed up about twenty, and transformed over twenty nets as well.  During Universal Distribution last year, my entire village got square nets.  But with some simple materials (a plastic tube, tape, and a few fabric scraps) and a bit of ingenuity, any square net can be easily changed to circular.  This makes them a little longer, easier to hang, and some people really strongly prefer them.  The sketch also came together out of nowhere.  First, my counterpart conducted a Q&A with the audience to get the conversation going about malaria and particularly the importance of preventing and treating malaria in pregnant women, since that was the topic of our skit.  Then, somewhat miraculously, nine people from my village performed a flawless skit about the importance of detecting malaria early in pregnancy and attending regular pre-natal visits.  The audience was totally captivated and laughed a lot.

I should note that watching Senegalese people perform theater is sort of an interesting cultural experience because it’s hard for us Americans to understand all the references (for both linguistic and cultural reasons).  Right off the bat, when the cast was introducing themselves by their character names, the audience was already cracking up which makes me think that there must have been some references that went over my head.  Considering what a small part of this project it was, the theater really highlighted the importance of working with Senegalese counterparts and having host-country nationals really run the show.  If I had tried to script the theater or direct the flow at all, I doubt the skit would have been anywhere near as entertaining.

In other news, rainy season has ended and “cold” season has begun.  In reality, it’s slightly less sunny during the days but still quite hot.  It actually feels pretty chilly at night, at least enough for me to bring my sleeping bag back to village to stay warm while sleeping.  My garden is also starting to be productive.  The colder weather has especially helped the lettuce to thrive and I have seen my first eggplants start to grow.  I’ve also added a banana tree and a plantain tree that are still getting going.  The extra plants have made the process of watering my garden a bit of a marathon each day but it’s also pretty fun.  My moringa trees have also grown very quickly and my family has even started to use some of it in the meals that they cook!

I wish I could say that I will post more soon but that’s probably not true.  Enjoy the pictures and happy trails!   

Transforming a net with my counterpart

Kadja, my neighbor, was particularly happy to leave with a newly circular net 

We were also able to provide on-site testing for anyone who had a fever or headache on the day of the event

Opening scene of the theater: what a father should look like when his son wakes up feeling ill 

Taking their son to the hospital ASAP!

Dakar, Training, and Back to the Grind

First off, sorry about the delay in posting.  It’s been a busy, yet somehow uneventful few weeks.  Right after Ramadan ended, I made my way back up to Thiès for the second half of my training.  But the other new volunteers and I decided it might be worth our time to leave a day or two early and take a slight detour in Dakar.  We were right. Twelve hours and seven vehicles (including a boat) later we found ourselves practically a world away in Senegal’s capital.  Dakar has very little in common with my village, and while it’s definitely not like being back in America, it’s pretty darn close.  There are sit-down restaurants, high-class shopping, ice cream parlors, and my personal favorite, American style grocery stores.  Our excursion pretty much centered on food cravings and planning our next “extravagant” meal.  Highlights included bagels and lox, veggie pizza, ice cream, and not a single bit of rice.  On the last day we visited Gorée Island, an historic slave trading post.  

Then, it was back to the training center in Thiès for an intensive two weeks of technical training.  This included sessions on common malaria prevention activities, proper cooking of nutritious porridges, and the ins and outs (literally) of building latrines.  The days were long but the information was mostly useful and, as usual, it was great to see everyone from my training group.  By the end of training, I was pretty eager to get back to site and start planning with my counterparts but after spending time with all my friends again (not to mention the air conditioning and nice showers) it was a little hard to pull myself away from Thiès.  

When we finally did get back to Kolda (a 14-hour trip this time without a boat since we didn’t come through the Gambia) I got stuck for another two days at the regional house.  Last year, the volunteers in Kolda planned a youth camp for middle schoolers that took place in March.  I really want to be involved in next year’s camp so I volunteered to write the grant.  But this was a slightly rushed process as the grant deadline was September 1^st.  I couldn’t start the grant until after training, and as you may have noticed, internet is in short supply.  After traveling to Bagadadji (another city in Kolda) to meet the staff of the campsite where camp will take place, I could hammer out a budget and got the grant submitted on time.  Now I get to sit back and not think about camp for another three months until the real fun will begin.  

Life back in village has resumed its pre-Ramadan pace, so there is still lots of free time.  I spend some time each day gardening (I’ve got basil, sweet potato, cucumber, and squash started with tomato, lettuce, eggplant, and pepper on the way) and I started practicing with the village soccer team every afternoon.  I’m still abysmal at soccer but all the running is a good workout and people here really get a kick out of it (pun intended) when they see me try.  

The talk of the town is that the forage (water tower), an NGO project that was underway until they ran out of money, is being resumed.  Meaning, si Allah jabi (if God agrees), in the next few months houses in the village will have taps of running, safe, drinking water.  Tied to the forage is a plan to start a massive community garden.  Gardens in the past have been relatively unsuccessful because of high labor costs.  However, with the need to pull water from wells eliminated, hopefully this time will be much different. 

I think that catches us all up.  Thanks for reading and I’ll update again as I can.  Happy Trails!

Fourth of July, Ramadan, and Just a Little Bit of Work

This year has marked many first for me.  As you can imagine, the past few months have been full of even more new experiences.  Among many others, this year I was out of the country on July 4^th for the first time, I am observing Ramadan (sort-of) for the first time, and I’ve been doing a lot of work that I never expected to be doing. 

Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal has a strong tradition of celebrating the Fourth of July together in true American fashion: way too much food, fun, and fireworks.  Volunteers from all over the country gathered in one of Senegal’s southernmost regions (still a 9 hour station wagon ride from my region), called Kedougou, to celebrate, sight-see, and do a little work along the way.  The volunteers in Kedougou organized a massive tree-planting project for the whole city of Kedougou on the 1^st and 2^nd of July to make use of all the volunteers that would be visiting for the party.  Then on the 3^rd, I took a short hiking trip to an amazing waterfall.  It was, without question, one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.  Naturally, I forgot to bring my camera but I will get some pics from a friend soon.  The actual Fourth, volunteers cooked up massive quantities of roasted pig (roasted overnight in pits in the ground… pretty cool), potato salad, cole slaw, French fries, guacamole, cookies, and brownies.  We had music, games, and fireworks.  It was a great time to meet new volunteers, catch up with my friends from training, and see a new part of Senegal.  

As fun as my trip to Kedougou was, after spending almost a week away from site, I was ready to get back to my village.  Before I left, I did my first work-like activity in my village and it went pretty well.  Six months ago the Kolda Region was hit by a Mosquito Net Universal Coverage campaign.  Every house in Kolda was given complimentary mosquito nets for every sleeping space in their house.  This program was facilitated by USAID and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in Senegal and Peace Corps volunteers were a big part of the on-the-ground effort to distribute nets.  Now, every six months, there is a monitoring and evaluation survey to see how people are using the nets and if they have been effective. There is a wide range of net usage throughout my village among men, women, and children.  Some people sleep under a net every night while some others think that it’s only important when mosquitoes are abundant after the rain.  Some make sure that their children are covered while leaving themselves exposed and I suspect that some others weren’t completely honest with me about their family’s net usage.  It felt good to talk to people about malaria and net usage, particularly in the weeks leading up to the rainy season when the incidences of malaria are going to skyrocket.  It was a good challenge for my language skills and definitely forced me outside of my comfort zone in my village. 

This month has definitely had a different feel in my village because most everyone is fasting for Ramadan.  Adults wake up at 5am to eat and drink water and do not ingest anything until 7:30pm.  However, the amount of work that people need to do each day hasn’t decreased.  Most men in the village are still spending the better part of the day working in the fields and women are still cooking meals for those not fasting (children, pregnant women, the elderly, etc.), doing laundry, cleaning, and having to prepare food to be ready at the earliest possible moment for breaking the fast and dinner at night.   In general people are more tired and there is much less activity in my village.  I’ve been joining the fast for the days that I’ve been in village (though drinking water in private) and it is definitely exhausting.  

I’ve actually found that Ramadan has been a good time for certain types of work (despite my additional exhaustion). I was able to work up the motivation to start a compost pile in my backyard (to be used for future gardening activities).  Other work however probably needs to wait until Ramadan is over.  For example, a baby weighing that my community health worker planned for a few of the surrounding villages was poorly attended last week.  Don’t worry though, there were still a lot of mothers who came with their children.  I even got peed on while picking one baby up from the scale… 

This week, Ramadan ends and there is a large celebration called Korité.  I’ve also made plans with a few other volunteers for work projects.  I’ll be planting Moringa (a very fast growing tree that produces highly nutritious leaves) at a nearby health post and we’ll be setting up a booth in one of the local markets to talk to people about malaria and net care and repair.  

I’ll be in Kolda for about another week and a half before I go back to Thiès for another two weeks of training and a summit for all health volunteers.  I am excited to get the second part of my training because I think it will help me get a better idea of what’s possible over the next two years however I am really not excited about being away from my village for more than two weeks (or the 12 hour car ride between here and Thiès).  Either way, I should have more to report soon.  Happy Trails!