It seems like I always learn more about my identify with my own country when I'm not there

It's been two weeks since I last wrote a post, so I figured it was about time. I've been learning a lot and feeling more and more comfortable here over the past couple weeks. I've had the opportunity to travel around my region a little more, and the travel has taught me a lot. I think the most important personal development this experience is going to bring me is generally making me more humble. Obviously you already have to value humility to live abroad and volunteer, but you really can't appreciate the conditions in which you live until you abandon them.

We take our comforts for granted in the United States because, in most cases, we've had them since we were born. Complaining that the hot water is gone or that I don't feel like cooking dinner for myself one night is put in context when you're in Senegal. Granted that I still live in very comfortable conditions here, I'll now appreciated sit-down toilets, showers, and kitchens much more when I return.

I recently went to a couple towns, one of which is about 35km from Ourossogui, called Mboloyel. This area is really dry, and the water table in Mboloyel is 70-80 meters deep. Since drilling a well and lifting water up from that deep with a rope and a bucket is pretty impossible, the women in the village walk 2km each way to wells in another village, balancing water on their heads so their families can drink, eat, wash clothes, and bathe themselves. Not to mention bring water for the rice and millet they grow, and provide for the animals they raise. The vegetable garden in the village isn't exploited, because they don't have enough water and other materials. There's also no form of health clinic, so when anybody gets hurt or needs to give birth or whatever, the 2km trip needs to be made on foot or on a horse cart.

I miss my family and friends, but I've learned about people's experiences here and know that I'm blessed in that way, too. Senegal, like some other African Muslim countries, has a history of talibé children. Because parents want their children to learn the Quran (and might not want/be able to take care of them), they entrust them to marabouts, Muslim leaders. The children learn the Quran and Arabic, but during most of the day are sent out on the streets to beg. Any money they earn goes to the marabout, and they have to scrounge around for food. Because alms-giving is a tenet of Islam and the experience is seen by some people as necessary for their sons to become men, this practice goes on. Even though they're sometimes beaten by the marabouts and made to sleep out on the streets because they didn't bring back any money, there are talibé everywhere. Seriously, Dakar, every town, and every village they're around singing Muslim songs to request money and/or food. A friend of mine was a talibé and went nine years without seeing his family, from 7 to 16 years old. 9 years! Here's more talibe info:

http://www.talibe.net/

http://tostan.org/web/page/694/sectionid/547/parentid/552/pagelevel/3/interior.asp


Mauritania decided to kick out its African-descent residents in 1989, too, which caused serious problems in the region. The Senegalese didn't like Mauritanians coming and taking business here, so there were massacres on both sides and many people lost family members. Also sad, but anyways, my point was to show how humbling this experience has been so far. Despite the numerous difficulties people live with every day here, they're the nicest people I've lived around. They always take the time to greet each other, ask about each other's family, work, etc. And what little they may have, it will always be shared. I talk more about these values in the future. For now, I'm out. Sorry about the depressing post, so here's some good Senegalese music to cheer you up:

Walking around, trying not to get burnt

cultural schtuff

I'm learning a lot about Senegal, the Fouta region in particular, and working for a non-profit while I'm staying here. The primary purpose of this blog is "cultural awareness," though, so here goes. After almost two weeks in my town, Ourossogui, I'm learning the ropes. I'm really struggling to learn the language here, which I'll talk about in a minute, but I can get around my town and am starting to understand Senegal a little better. What I've been most happy to experience is teranga, or hospitality. People say that Senegal is the country of hospitality, and it really is. After eating lunch at a colleague's house for the first time several days ago, he invited me to come eat lunch with them every day. After going there twice more for rice with fish, the typical Senegalese lunch, they invited me over every day for dinner, too! I haven't gone yet (I'm going tonight) but it's astounding how generous that it, albeit completely taken for granted here. It's something most people wouldn't imagine doing in the United States or Europe, so I was surprised but excited at the same time. Besides a guard where I live, there's usually nobody else and going out to eat by myself can get a little lonely. So having the opportunity to eat with a nice family every day is awesome. Of course I'm going to reciprocate as much as I can. We're going to trade Pulaar and English lessons, their 7-year old son asked me to buy him a ball, and I'm going to leave one or two things that are hard to come by here, but valuable in a utilitarian sense anyways.

So on to Pulaar…. It's really hard. There's a few different dialects spoken between different regions of Senegal, Mali, Niger, Guinea, and maybe a couple other locations. Here it's called Pula Futa, and it's completely changed my paradigm of language learning. I just don't understand it. It's complicated because the conjugations don't work the same way. Words can change pretty much completely whether or not they're singular or plural, and there's a lot of words that mean the same thing. Commands or questions like "you do this?" and "she does this?" (same this) might sound completely different. Plus I didn't really have a language training before coming here, so I'm having some difficulties… Excited about it though because some Peace Corps volunteers have picked it up decently after 6 months, so I'm going to work hard to copy them.

The last thing I'll talk about in this post is the "toubab" effect. The word toubab comes from the Arabic word toubib, meaning doctor, or so I've heard anyways. Now it's used throughout a decent part of the world, especially West Africa, to mean foreigner, stranger, or whitey. Everyone will call me toubab here and it generally doesn't bother me. Kids usually just yell it to get a wave or a handshake or a "bonjour, ça va?" so it's typically pretty innocent. I've heard some people get frustrated with it because adults can use it with a somewhat negative connotation, and because a lot of times it accompanies assumed social status. As in "toubab, give me money."



Okay, that's it for the moment. More multi-media posts to come in the near future. Take it easy.

Nothing to do with Senegal, but i really like this song right now

I don't really know what to say....

My world just changed drastically. I was at orientation in Thiès for a few days in a facility with Western toilets, (cold) showers, A/C, and food prepared for me three times a day. 10 hours on pothole-filled roads and I arrived where I'll be living most of the next 6 months, during another electrical outage. Luckily I was able to get a ride in a pick-up truck, otherwise this was the alternative:



Old beat-up station-wagons you cram a driver and seven passengers into.

Since arriving the electricity has been really reliable in Ourossogui, Senegal, but the water goes out most days after about 8:30 before coming back at night. In Dakar there was one night when I was chilling on the roof and needed to get a fleece. Saturday and Sunday it was 102F degrees here (41 for the Europeans reading this). I have no stove, no sink, no working refrigerator, definitely no air conditioning, and the bathroom is a squat toilet and a drain. At first the heat and the concepts that I was going to be walking to buy food and taking bucket showers for the next half a year intimidated me, but now I'm settled in really well. I'm doing fulfilling work for a non-profit that's done and doing really special things in Senegal and other African countries, and starting to slowly pick up the local language. The people here are really nice, and there's Peace Corps Volunteers in the region who are willing to serve as good resources, friends, and Senegalese beer-drinking partners.

I'll get used to cooking for myself over a propane tank, but I think I'll still be buying food out a lot. Breakfast is a loaf of good fresh bread for 20 cents with nutella and instant coffee. Lunch and dinner can be between 400 and 1500 FCFA, or about 80 cents to 3 dollars. There's spicy bean sandwiches, grilled lamb, grilled chicken with fries and salad, pasta, traditional senegalese dishes like cebojeen (sp?) and mafé, and other stuff.

For now I'm pretty settled down, but hopefully soon I should be traveling around the region a little. To give you a little idea of how it looks here, this is behind my office/house complex:




More pictures to come soon, if not more. Peace,

Jonah