Back to Kolda

The newest group of Agricultural and Community Economic Development soon-to-be volunteers have been in Senegal for about one month now. This past weekend they all got to get a taste of volunteer life during "Volunteer Visits" (VV) throughout Senegal. VV is a few days where new trainees shadow current PCVs,  often the ones whom they will be replacing, to learn more about the work and the region they will be in for the next two years.

As my Kolda Business replacement isn't here yet, I wanted to meet the new Urban Ag volunteer in Kolda in case he was interested in any cashew projects or meeting up with my contacts. Also, the visit means I got to catch a ride all the way down south to Kolda for a long weekend back 'home'.

We arrived late Thursday night after dropping the new aggies and their bikes along the rode into Kolda. I had tried my host mom's cell phone a few times to let her know I'd be in town but I hadn't gotten a hold of her. So I showed up at my house on Friday morning to find the door locked and no one home. As she usually goes to the market in the morning, my grandma goes to greet and my little brother has school, I wasn't too worried to find no-one around, so I biked off to greet some other people. I rolled back in around noon to find that my family was still not back. Finally, feeling a bit like a lost little child, I went around asking my neighbors "have you seen my mom?!" Turns out a family member I had never met (since her husband's house is in Thies, she's rarely back home in Kolda) had just gotten back from pilgrimage to Mecca, which of course means PARTY.

I roll up to my aunt's house to find meat sauce pasta already made and fancy rice being cooked. After shaking hands with all my extended family members and my host mom herself, I got a plate of food and sat under the mango tree making small talk with my cousins. After catching up on gossip and asking my favorite cousin all those awkward questions like "remind me who that is..." lunch round 2 showed up, along with some cold sodas. After everyone had eaten, the returnee sat us all around in a circle where we prayed and shared stories, encouraging her to use her time after pilgrimage well.

Saturday was a fun day complete with friends and counterpart visits, tying up some loose ends with an artisans in the embassy project. Then Sunday Funday was the final farewell to Kolda. I spent most of the morning at my best friend's house, helping her and her sisters get ready for a neighbor's wedding then gossiping under the mango trees with my favorite cousin and her friends while they did laundry. These moments are what I most fondly remember about Kolda, being part of those daily moments. I had a great last meal at my family's house, with a surprise arrival of one my Dakar host brothers - perfect timing too as he is the best tea maker in our family. After our goodbyes, I headed up to the Kolda Volunteer Regional house for dinner and drinks to celebrate our new arrivals. Then it was an early morning and long 18 hours back to Dakar.

The trip was a good time for me to realize that while Kolda will always feel like home, I can never come back in the same context as a PCV in Kolda but I will always have a place to share some laughs and eat good rice down south.

Eid Mubarak! Happy Feasting!

Happy feast day to everyone celebrating Eid Al-Adha! Today (or tomorrow in Senegal), we're celebrating the willingness of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son. This means families kill a sheep, grill up some meat, greet friends and family asking for forgiveness, giving forgiveness and offering blessings. It also usually means fancy new clothes but as I didn't have time nor funds to do so, so I'm dusting off my outfit from last year.

Due to the amazing hospitality of Senegal I have been invited to several houses to pass the holiday, but I'm spending it with family - my host siblings in Dakar will be roasting up sheep tomorrow. Its lovely to spend holidays with family and friends. Although as I am not in Kolda, I'm going to rack up a phone bill making phone calls wishing people a happy tabaski tomorrow.

Dakaroise

I'm a city girl now.

I left the town of Kolda in the south of Senegal over 2 months ago. After a wonderful 40 day vacation with my family and friends in the states eating, drinking and making merry I returned to Dakar, the capital of Senegal for a third year with Peace Corps. Sort of.

While I am still a Peace Corps Community Economic Development volunteer, I will be spending the next 12 months working on a project with International Relief and Development. IRD's focus in Senegal and the Gambia is improving the cashew industry throughout the value chain. This means from farmer's fields to transformation units IRD shares knowledge and best practices to improve cashew business, because Quality Cashew is Good Business. Personally, I will be working on projects dealing with inspiring innovations in cashew byproducts; anything from cashew wine to paint thinners. I'm looking forward to understanding more about agricultural development work and especially from the higher up perspective of a large Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) as well as helping entrepreneurs realize cool products. Only thing that has me a bit worried is the lunch break - its not quite long enough for my usual 2 hour afternoon nap that I grew accustomed to in Kolda. But as the AC is usually on, I doubt I'll feel the need to sweat away an afternoon under a mango tree.

Big city life is not just about my job, although I do love being in an office where I know that people are coming in ready to work. Its a nice change from the usual biking 4 km to class to find 2 of the 16 students are actually there or waiting 2 hours for everyone to arrive for a meeting. Dakar has much to offer in terms of fun and entertainment - a fact everyone reminds me of when I complain of missing Kolda. Just this past weekend I enjoyed a BBQ, softball games and some cold beers. It could be summer in the states - and certainly feels like it with this heat.

While I miss my Kolda family and friends, the old haunts, and the slower pace of life, I think I am ready to become Dakaroise. However, I am currently trying to find a pulaar herder to maybe take care of a cow so I can make some fresh yogurt... got to keep those Kolda roots.

Kids can be killer

Small children have the power to make or break a day - a loudly yelled insult or a cute salutation can change my mood fast.

Today, my little neighbor girls (around 3 years old each) just made my day with a nice long greeting when I got home, followed by a fashion show of their new sandals their respective moms bought them.

Point for cute kids today.

Guest Blogger: Amanda comes to Senegal

My good friend Amanda just finished her two years of Peace Corps service as a high school science teacher in Sierra Leone (I visited with Amber about 8 months ago). She was kind enough to stop by and visit on her way back to the states and I managed to bully her into a blog post, enjoy:

We’ll start the story about a year and a half ago, with me in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, about 1 year into Peace Corps service.  I’m doing what so many Sierra Leone Volunteers do during our oh so rare trips to the capital: wasting all my time on facebook rather than going to the absolutely beautiful local beaches.  Anyway that day I was in for a surprise: a good friend of mine from college (Lisa if you aren’t with me yet) was accepted into the Peace Corps and was headed out to Senegal, only 2 countries away!  I made up my mind pretty quickly that I had to visit her.  I mean, what are the odds of ending up so close to each other?  Actually once I remembered she speaks French, I realized what I should have been thinking are what are the odds of her ending up anywhere else besides West Africa.  It’s actually much more surprising that I ended up out there.

Fast forward maybe 6 months or so and Lisa (along with Amber, another part of the UCLA crew) came to visit me in Sierra Leone for a week.  I loved hosting them in my country and in my village.  It was awesome but maybe a bit embarrassing that Lisa came into my village, found the local Fula community, and started dominating the language (we say Fula in Sierra Leone, they say Pular in Senegal).   Everybody kept telling me how her Fula was so much better than my Mende (the majority tribe in my village and the language I wish I knew better), which I would promptly make worse by saying “yeah, and she’s been in country a year less than I have”.  I think I became a much less impressive person in my community once they saw you.  Yeah, thanks for that…

Another 8 months later the time came for me to say goodbye to my new home, my country of service, my community, my life.  It was extremely difficult to leave the place that had become my home and the people that had become my family, but it was definitely helpful to know I was headed to Senegal first for 2 ½ weeks.  It was comforting that at least I wasn’t leaving West Africa.

So what did we do in Senegal?  We got to be tourists in Dakar, where I marveled at how big the city is compared to Freetown and the fact that when you call a taxi you just go.  That’s right, you don’t have to wait for the taxi to fill (read overload) like you do in Sierra Leone.  The two of us would just get in and go.  Seriously I don’t think that ever stopped blowing my mind.  Highlights in Dakar: shopping at the local market (and maybe a detour into higher class stores), eating foods that I never saw anywhere in Sierra Leone…actually the 2 things I was most excited to eat were wheat bread and yogurt.  Shows you what happens after 2 years in the Peace Corps.  Feed me Ethiopian food?  That’s awesome!  Give me a loaf of wheat bread?  I think I savored every bite of that in a way that can’t even be explained in words.  We went to some other touristy destinations – I especially liked our trip to Goree Island, and of course getting to meet Senegal Volunteers.  One interesting thing about being in Senegal was there are so many volunteers that not everybody knows everybody (like we do in Sierra Leone), so half the time I would just pretend to be one of them!  That is until somebody spoke something in a local language, then I was pretty easily exposed.

Then it was off to the South!  Down to the greener side of the country, which I was extremely grateful for, having left my tropical paradise of a home.  We headed down to Kolda and went through the usual extreme change from capital city to anywhere else in a West African country.  And on top of that it was the end of Ramadan.  Everyone and everything is quiet during this time of the year, and life moves especially slowly.  We have a mix of Muslims and Christians in Sierra Leone, so I’ve always been aware of Ramadan each time it comes around, but it was a different experience in Senegal.  Being in a Pular community where Islam is such a majority, and where strong family is valued in a very different way than in Sierra Leone, was a striking change.

The week there was exactly what it should have been in a village in West Africa.  Walking around and visiting friends and colleagues; just sitting with people and talking.  Spending time with other Peace Corps Volunteers.  Getting our hair done and our clothes sewn in time for prayday.  And let me be very clear, we spent about 6 hours getting our hair braided.  6 often painful hours where we weren’t eating or drinking because it was Ramadan and we were being respectful to those around us.  Either that or we just didn’t plan ourselves well.  Then I think my poor pitiful starving face made Lisa lose her better cultural judgment and send for food.  I wasn’t complaining, I got to eat rice!  Then prayday came, a day after Mecca celebrated, and we ate!  We ate fantastic food at home, then started making rounds to greet everybody on Lisa’s list.  If you’ve never tried biking around a West African town wearing full African clothes, hair braided extremely tight, at night on poorly lit streets that you still don’t know well, I’ll tell you it isn’t easy…but seriously what a great couple of days (and a night out)!  I’m so glad I was still in West Africa for prayday.  It wouldn’t have felt right starting Ramadan in Sierra Leone and ending it in America, probably not seeing any signs that it was a special day unless I worked real hard to go find it.

There were a few more days hanging out in Kolda, trying to get people to like me even though I couldn’t speak any language.  They’d be like Pular? No.  Wolof? No.  Well then at least French right? No.  Then what do you speak?  English, which most people couldn’t, Krio (and no not the Guinea-Bissau version coming from Portuguese), and a little bit of Mende (no, not Mandinka), which they had never heard of.  So I had to find other ways to be charming!  As difficult as it was to deal with the fact that I couldn’t really talk to anybody, especially after being fluent in Krio in Sierra Leone, I was just continually impressed with the diversity in West Africa.  Those of you out there who know more should check this, but I think West Africa is one of the most diverse areas in the world in terms of tribes and languages, and in such a small area.  And I had the unreal opportunity to meet people from so many tribes and hear so many languages.  Examples off the top of my head from both Sierra Leone and Senegal of people I’ve met and languages I’ve heard: Mende, Timne, Krio, Loko, Gissi, Susu, Limba, Ibo (a Nigerian woman living in Sierra Leone), Fula (Pular), Mandingo (Mandinka), Kono, Jola, Wolof, and I’m sure others I didn’t even realize I was hearing (not to mention others still from my trip to Ghana).  Seriously how many people have the opportunity to experience that…

Then it was off again.  We were on the road from then on out.  We stopped in Tamba for a night, then were off to Toubakouta for mangrove reforestation with an army of other Peace Corps Volunteers.  I can’t even begin to explain how beautiful the delta region is.  Sitting with good people, swimming in the most refreshing water, and watching the sunset over the delta is something I can’t even describe.  After one last stop in a beautiful beach town it was back to the wonders of Dakar and then a sad goodbye to West Africa.