wherever you go, here you are

- Who’s in the bathroom? I asked my mom Rama the other morning, as I prepared to take a bucket bath and found the door locked.
- Benn unka, she said.
- A gecko? I asked, amused that a gecko would be able to lock the door behind itself.
- Waaw, she said.
- A gecko? I repeated.
- Waaw, she said. Unka bi mooy Soukeye.
Yow xam nga unka begg na ndox. Soukeye, douche douche rekk!
““Yeah, Soukeye’s the gecko. You know how geckos like water, Soukeye’s always in the bathroom!”

My sister is 18 years old and stylish, so I’m not really surprised. But sometimes I get so caught up in the way things are different, that I’m caught off guard by the similarities that are universal. Like my father Ibou taking care of getting things fixed around the house. Our 2-year-old neighbor Awa who laughs at my mom Rama when she talks to her in a funny voice. A guy friend getting distracted from our conversation by a fancy car driving by. Kids losing concentration as the end of the school year nears.

It’s true that some things are the same everywhere you go. And I laugh at how people can be so seemingly different on the outside, and yet essentially so much alike.
Thinking of those similarities makes me remember that I am accepted here because I am just another person. I am a human, like everyone else. The people I respect the most here are those who see me just as a woman, and a friend. Those who see through the layers of color, nationality, and respective status, and realize that all of those things are merely illusory.

And the time passes. Each day I still leave the house to choruses of “Toubab, hey!” but I am still here. Those words haven’t killed me yet. Neither have the copious amounts of greasy rice I have consumed over the last 14 + months, the almost daily comments about the size of my derriere, the incessant curiosity about my lack of husband, or the view of my inability to cook fish and rice à la Senegalaise as a terrible failure on my part as a woman. The other day I told someone who was riding me about my inability to cook rice and fish, “Sama liggeey nekkul ci wagne wi.” [My work is not in the kitchen.] And he barely hesitated before saying “Yeah, well, you ought to be able to do everything, work, and cook, and clean,” and so on. And I just laughed, forgetting now what it was I answered to that. I laughed because it’s never enough to them.

Whatever I do here, it’s never enough. I go to school 5 days a week and try and do work there with the teachers. I attend almost every single meeting about this local trash management project. I learn Wolof. Am still learning. I learn enough Serere to be able to greet Sereres, and people tell me I should be able to speak Serere. I tell them all the Sereres speak Wolof, so what’s the point? I try and keep up with my French, which now has developed a West African accent. I come home and sweep my floor. Yes, I can sweep. On weekends I wash my own clothes, YES, by hand. YES, they’re clean. Plus if I do say so myself I am open and optimistic and encouraging and greet everyone I know whenever I see them and go out of my way to be polite most of the time. SO WHAT if I can’t cook ceebujen? Ten years from now, is that what they’re going to remember? I hope not.

The school year is, thankfully, coming to an end, and there is a general feeling of restlessness in the air, as students prepare for end-of-year exams and entrance tests into the next classes. The strikes that started the end of April ended two weeks ago, with a promise from the minister of education to give the primary school teachers a part of their salary bonus request now, and the rest incrementally next year and the year after. I’m looking at what worked this year and more importantly, what didn’t, and looking forward to summer activities. I’m thinking about how to fill the hours in July, August and September. And still wondering how it is June already. At any rate, it’s here. And through all the frustrations I’ve had since the school year started off limping back in October, I can’t say I’m not glad to see it end. Although it’s kind of scary to think that I only have one more school year to spend here - one more run from October ’09 to May-ish 2010, depending on when I decide to leave exactly.

I’m trying to gain some sense of perspective about all of it, these two years, this work, this experience and all it means. It’s certainly not an easy task, trying to remain balanced in this topsy-turvy world. Among the photos of family and calendar pages that I have posted on the walls of my room, there’s this quote I took from a friend (who is much better about writing internet updates than I am), who I know won’t mind if I post it here. It helps me sometimes just to take a deep breath.
It goes like this:

“Fill your bowl to the brim, and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security, and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval, and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work and then step back - the only path to serenity.”

- Lao-Tzu

more photos

I uploaded all the pictures I took from our Earth Day events at school. Check them out!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/offtoseetheworld/

and I promise a real post soon...

all coming together...

Whew! Tomorrow is May already, hard to believe. I am still here in Senegal, and this month I actually did a few things, if I do say so myself. So to fill you in, here are some highlights of the last few weeks.

On April 12 we did celebrate Easter here (if some of you were wondering), since my community is split Christian/Muslim, and I got to enjoy the visible harmony between the ethnicities that live here. Christians invited Muslim family and friends to spend the day at their houses, both religions went out on Saturday to take advantage of the holiday by dancing the night away at the local club, and many Muslims prepared a traditional sweet peanut butter/millet/baobab juice soup to be doled out to all of their Christian kin. I ended up spending the day at the nicest place in town, in fact, as my host mom happens to be the younger sister of the wife of the mayor. Lucky me! So I got dolled up along with my sisters and we enjoyed a delicious lunch and dinner there, just hanging out with family, despite my host family being Muslim and the mayor’s Christian. Here’s me and my sisters just before we went out for the day:


The day after Easter was the last of school break, which had been going on for 2 weeks (Senegal observes Christian holidays in the school calendar because their first president was Christian). And then the very next day I hopped a car to Thies, as I had been asked to help out again with the newest group of Peace Corps trainees, this time for the few days of Counterpart Workshop.

from my journal, Tuesday 4/14:
“Back in Thies to help with counterpart workshop, and I’m happy to feel valued here, for my year of experience, though I feel I left site today with hopes that a lot of good things will get started by the time I come back Saturday, and seriously doubt that most of it will in fact happen. If only it weren’t Earth Day next week, and if it hadn’t just been Easter break for the last two weeks…it’s just poor timing…”

But being in Thies was a good break, and I felt useful at counterpart workshop, being a go-between for the training staff, visiting work partners and the soon-to-be-volunteers.

And somehow I came back to site Saturday to find my teachers assembling a group of CM2 (like U.S. 6th grade) kids to start rehearsing a skit. Monday I easily convinced two other teachers to go with me to visit the chairman of the big market to ask permission to bring kids over to do a cleanup. We got him to agree to give us soap and bleach for hand-washing afterwards, and pay for gasoline to burn the piles of trash that the kids would rake together. By Tuesday the theater group was finding themselves costumes and a group of girls had a dance number ready. A list was compiled of one boy from each class who was going to fight in the wrestling match (lutte). And then Wednesday came, a day I’d been fretting about for at least a month, feeling like if I didn’t do something with my school for this one day that’s all about the environment, then I’d be a BAD environmental education volunteer.
And surprise: it wasn’t a disaster.


from my journal Thursday 4/23
“So. Yesterday was Earth Day. And a success!
The set-setal [cleanup] was fairly organized, kids brought brooms and rakes and the teachers supervised, we got eau de javel [bleach] and soap from Cheikh Diop at the marché and the kids washed their hands, the dance troupe performed (rather racily and scantily clad for some), the skit went on, and though getting cut off prematurely, was still mostly appreciated, and of course the lutte was the highlight. Director Diedhiou said a few closing words, and I financed the purchase of 150 0.5 liter sachets of water for the two CM2 classes who had cleaned up behind the marché. All in all, I’d call it a success. And I was the instigator! It all came together at the last minute, and though certainly there were things that could have been improved upon, I am happy with the way it all turned out. This was a major effort, and everyone at school really put their all into it, without asking for anything in return. I feel like I earned my pay this week! I did something visible, tangible, and I feel good about it. Now to settle down and work on lessons in the classroom…”

It turned out the timing was good after all, as Tuesday this week all the primary school teachers in the community started to strike.

That’s news from this side of the ocean. Here are a few pictures of Earth Day ’09, and I’ll post the whole lot on my Flickr photo page, so don’t forget to check it out!