a small circle of life.

My schedule has been, believe it or not, rather full recently. The volunteer who was here at my site for a full tour and some (2+ years) before me just left last week, so helping her get ready to go over the last few weeks was no small task, nor was the passing on of necessary information, pertinent to continuing the excellent and by no means easy work here that she began. That being said, this post is over a week old. But no matter. It's not like I live somewhere where I could have Internet at my fingertips every single day. I mean, this is Peace Corps after all.

Wednesday for lunch we ate another one of our chickens. When I went around back of the house after lunch to draw water, the other two (of the original four we’ve been raising in our little backyard for the past month or so) were huddled together next to our sheep, as if worried they’d be next. I didn’t witness the transformation of live animal to delicious meal, but after lunch there were a few stray gray feathers still laying on the sandy ground next to the back door, and even if I hadn’t asked my sister if it was one of ours, I would have been able to count that now only two of the original four were left strutting around behind the house. Anyway, it’s a novelty to me, being a born-and-raised suburbanite. Raising animals for food is something I grew up thinking other people did, but now that I’m in the midst of it, it seems perfectly natural. Here it’s nothing like the factory-farming culture in most of the States, where we’re generally so removed from our food sources and usually have only half an idea of what goes on between the birth of an animal and its arrival on our dinner plate.

On a less serious note, after lunch I was helping take our little wooden stools that we sit on around the bowl back to the kitchen. Coming back to the front room, I stopped for a moment to find the source of something sticky between my foot and my sandal. My sister saw me and asked, "Li lan la?" (What’s that?)
"Ceeb," I answered, having found a grain of rice stuck to the sole of my foot.
She laughed and said, "Sa tank bi da’y lekk." (Your foot, it’s eating.)

I’m so glad my family has a sense of humor. She’s the one I joke around with about the cockroaches in the bathroom, when the electricity goes out at night and there’s no light to chase them back into their corners. One night a few weeks ago she was making dinner, and after having come back from the bathroom I heard her say to our other sister that there were cockroaches in the bathroom. "Really???" I said, laughing, surprised that she had seemingly never noticed this very obvious fact before. So a bit later on I went to the bathroom and after coming out told her, "The cockroaches said hi." (Or literally in Wolof, "The cockroaches greeted you.") She laughed and said, "Oh really? What did they say? Nanga def? (How’s it going?)"
"Yep, they said, nanga def?" I replied, in a small cockroachy voice. I guess I don’t know what cockroaches would sound like if they could talk, I haven’t watched any of those Pixar bug movies. I don’t exactly like them now, sure, but I guess I don’t despise them anymore. They’ve just become part of my everyday life. As long as they don’t run into my feet…
And as long as the geckos stay out of my bath bucket, I’m ok with them too.

Chickens and cockroaches and geckos and sheep... No lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) but an assorted menagerie nonetheless. More news soon!