Profiles of Coumba Diouma

Profiles: Ado Camara

2011-12-11T11:28:00.003Z

Adama (Ado) Camara

Age: 16-17

Schooling: Yes. She is in her last year of middle school for the second year in a row. She failed the previous year and will be retaking the school year at a private school this year.

What she likes to do in her free time: She likes to study and dance in Toulaye's (me) room with her siblings when Toulaye has dance parties.

Relation to me: My younger sister. We have the same Nene (mom) and Baba (dad) in Coumba Diouma.

Future plans: She wants to continue studying and hopefully make it to high school. After high school, she wants to go to the University in Dakar where she can study either medicine or nursing.

Ado's Story:

Ado is without question the smartest child in my family. She is bright and driven, always with a smile on her face. Nene (mom) and Baba (dad) recognize that Ado is particularly special and actively encourage her to pursue her studies. Ado's final year of middle school, known as 3iem in the colonial French model used in Senegal, was in 2010. At the end of 3iem students have to pass the BFM final exam to gain entrance to lycee, or high school. The BFM is a rigorous and extensive exam covering the entire years worth of material. It must be passed in order to move on even if the student received continued high marks throughout the academic year. Many fail due to its challenging material, especially girls whom are often too shy to seek extra help or are inundated with house work taking valuable time away from studying.

Ado prepared diligently for her final exam staying up late in to the night. Pinching a flashlight between her neck and shoulder to see, Ado quietly recited a year's worth of material repeatedly, under the moonlight. Nene and Baba ensured studying was Ado's top priority delegating chores to other family members and even bought her an extra notebook. If Ado passed, she would be the first family member to enter high school.

Unfortunately, Ado failed the BFM. It was a shock to the family as Ado never before failed. She received a 6 out of 20 on her final exam despite her status as one of the top 5 students in her class. Ado was very upset, but there was something else in the way the family reacted I could not decipher. It took me a very long time to figure out what led to her failure. I found out the other night. Ado's teacher, a man, tried to sexually bribe her for a passing grade. When she refused - or at worst, I dont know all the details - fought him off, he failed her.

Ado said nothing to her parents for along time. She was too ashamed and traumatized to talk. Nene and Baba figured it out quickly, though, as she was crying frequently for no apparent reason. They decided to act as best as they could and sought council from the Director of Education in the rural community, my own work counterpart and Coumba Diouma native, Diery Signate. After the first fail, students are allowed to repeat the year. However, this was not an option for Ado. She refused to go back to the same school. Her school is one of two middle schools in the surrounding area, the other has an equally poor reputation. Other middle schools in the department of Velingara where Coumba Diouma is located are over 40k away, an unrealistic option since commuting is unpredictable, expensive and time-consuming. Ado seemingly had no options.

After much struggle and fighting with the regional school board, Signate managed place her into a private school in Velingara - the town about 15k away from Coumba Diouma, and arranged for a safe homestay. But January rolled around and she still wasn't going to class. At the time, not knowing her circumstances, I couldnt understand why. It appeared to me that she did not take her education seriously and was waisting this incredible opportunity of private school education. To the same effect, her parents seemed not to push her to start school which I interpreted as indifference. I was very, very wrong. A year and a half later, now considered to be one of the family, I understand what transpired.

After talking with Nene the other night about girls education, she brought up Ado's experience and explained everything to me. At that time, Ado was still too frightened to return back to school. Her trust had been violated and the avenue to her future had been horribly tainted. In addition, Ado's intended husband, a formerly wealthier neighbor her own father's age with a long-time wife and several children who recently lost all his money after investing in cows that quickly died, was demanding that she take up with him and refused to give consent for her return to school. Nene and Baba fought this as best they could but it further delayed Ado's enrollment. Penny-pinching any chance they had, Nene and Baba eventually bought back their daughter and sent her to private school.

Ado is now free from the betrothal. She is also back in school studying hard to try to pass her final year of middle school. Watching her with this new understanding, she seems to be moving forward with poise. But the feeling of powerlessness and hurt is heartbreaking.

Unfortunately Ado's story is not uncommon. In fact that same teacher targeted two other girls in Ado's class the same year. They, too, refused to be taken advantage of and were failed. Both girls are no longer in school and have returned to their villages to cook for their family and wait to be married off.

Girls Scholarship and Education

2010-10-06T08:34:00.003Z

Girls Scholarship and a Chicken
Dept of Velingara
June/July 2010

During the last week of June and fist week of July, a neighboring volunteer, Camille, and I biked to Mballo Counda, a village about 10K away from my village in the bush (aka no where near a main road in the middle of no where) to talk to a girl named Djenabo Bioro (prn: Jenna-bo) about possibly winning a Peace Corps scholarship, called the Michelle Sylvester Girls Scholarship Program, to attend school for the next year. We biked from my village through bush paths stopping and asking directions from pullar farmers tilling their land with donkeys dragging plows. It rained the night before so the paths were muddy and dotted with puddles. It was a beautiful bike ride and we got to see a part of Kolda that is rarely seen by foreigners since it is fairly out of the way. The rains have come to Senegal and everything is green and lush and the trees are filled with fruit and birds. It took us about an hour to get to Djenabo's village since the paths are eroded. When we finally arrived, Camille and I were drenched in sweat and blanketed in mud. We went to Djenabo's house to talk to her family and conduct an formal interview with Djenabo to find out what kind of student and person she is.

Djenabo is about 13 or 14 and she will be entering 5iem (I believe the equivalent of 7th grade) in the fall after the harvest. Since the Pullars are farmers, school starts in October after the farming is done and the harvest has been collected. She is one of the top students, including boys and girls, in her class with what we would call around a C – average. She is very shy, soft-spoken and slightly uncomfortable with two white women giving her so much attention which manifests itself through fidgeting with her bracelets.

I spoke in Pulaar with Djenabo's family and explained why we were there. I told them that their daughter was very smart and doing so well in school that she was in contention to win a scholarship to pay for her schooling for the following year. There is almost no communication between the parents and the teachers and Djenabo's parents had no idea how their daughter was fairing in school. They were amazed to hear that their daughter was in the top of her class and were so proud that she was doing so well that these two white women had biked all the way to their home to offer to pay for her schooling (which is the equivalent of $10 for the entire year, this includes school supplies like notebooks and pens and covers the cost of tuition).

We told the family that we were very proud of her and that she is incredibly special for working hard in her studies. We interviewed Djenabo and asked her standard "American" questions: what subject do you like the best, what do you do for fun - which is a very different concept since leisure time doesnt really exist here, what she wants to become when she grows up and what the biggest challenge she faces is.

To be considered for the MS scholarship, the girls must be in middle school and in the top end of their class. They also must write a short essay discussing what subjects they like the best in school, where they see themselves in 5 years and what they want to be when they finish school. Most of the girls in Senegal, especially in more remote villages like mine, are married off by their families at young ages, 14 or 15 years old, the average age of a middle school girl. As a result, the scholarship work that peace corps does serves as an incentive to keep the girl motivated to do well and and work hard in order to stay in school and educates parents to help them understand the value of education and want to keep their daughters in school. Moreover, most girls are never confronted with these types of questions and it is very interesting to see how they approach answering the essay.

For Djenabo, her dad is very sick and cannot work. I think he may be suffering from polio and is very ill (we met him and he couldnt even stand to greet us). As a result, the family struggles to make ends meet and everyone in the family must farm the land and pick up the extra slack so they can eat and earn money to survive at the end of the harvest. Another main challenge Djenabo faces is that she lives about 15k away from the school and must stay at a family friends house during the school year just to make sure she can go to school every day. This was a common answer we received during the week of interviews with other scholarship candidates as there are only two middle schools for the entire department of Velingara and villages are very spread out.

She was a little shy at first but her love for school clearly showed through. We could tell she believed it was important for her to do well in school so that when she gets older she can help support her family by other means than farming. She is also a very young 14 year old and, if I may say so, certainly not ready to be married yet.

After the one-on-one interview with Djenabo, we went back and talked with the family, at this point it was all women from her family and a few from the neighbors house, and I reiterated the importance of keeping Jebo (her nickname) in school, how proud we were of her and how proud they should be of her. The public recognition of her success is an important component to the scholarship work to get her family and community rallying around her and to realize the importance of education.

As I was explaining this to the family and praising Jebo, an older man walked up and said Jebo should be married off because she was getting old and that she wouldnt make it to University anyway – man, did he walk in at the wrong time! I stood up and, in the best Pulaar i could muster, told him that I was 25 and that when I was 15 I had worked hard in school, gone to college and was now here working and was still not married because I had different priorities and will marry when I am ready and want to my self. All the women started cheering and saying "o hali gonga" which means "she speaks the truth" and he was incredibly embarrassed and sheepishly walked away.

It was a pretty fascinating moment for me as i got to share a different side of life that most women are not exposed to in rural Senegal. It was also a great moment to hear how excited women my age are about acknowledging what their rights should be and how they would have liked the same opportunity for themselves. However, while it is good to have the women's support in that situation, traditionalist views, like that of the older man, are prevalent in this area and it will take a very long time to shift those ideas. We finished explaining the rules of the scholarship and said one more time how proud we were of Jebo and her accomplishments. The family was so happy to hear us say this and very appreciative that we had come and their door was open any time we wanted to come back and visit.

As we were getting on our bikes to leave, we filled up our water bottles from a pump well-do not ever do this! I now have giardiah :( and one of the women shouted my name. We turned around and a big crowd of people walking out of Jebo's compound. Jebo ran over to me carrying a young rooster and handed it to me as a thank you gift, feathers ruffled and flapping, squawking in protest. As she held the rooster out for one of us to take it Camille gave me the "that's NOT coming with ME!" look. So i reached out to grab the gift. As she handed the rooster to me her mother said, "no hewi fii audi" which literally translates to "he's full of seeds" and she went on to explain that he is a good, strong cock that will bring me lots of baby chickens!

Now, because he was a live rooster and i only had a bike to transport myself, they tied him by his feet and hung him upside down from my bike handle bars. Needless to say, my new pet rooster was not happy about biking 10K on a bumpy road dangling upside down from my bike handles. The ride back to my village was filled with more flapping and squawking. And about half way through the ride he peed on me. I showered in purell later that night! So, I now have a rooster that crows every morning and tries to mount every hen in my family compound. I still have not named him and will take any and all suggestions.
I came home the other night from Velingara and asked my dad, Amadou, where my rooster was. He shouted something to my little brother Soulaye and Soulaye ran around to the back of the compound. After about a minute, Soulaye returned walking my rooster toward me by a leash. I looked at Soulaye, then at the rooster, who seemed alright walking and pecking his way toward me with a leash tied around his neck, and noticed something was a little off about him. I thought my rooster was white but to my surprise he had magically turned blue since the last time i saw him. I started laughing and my dad said, "oh ya, we painted him blue so we could remember which one was yours." And Soulaye then leashed him to the outside of my hut. i'm not kidding. I have a pet rooster that is painted blue and has his very own leash so we can go for walks.

Environmental Education - at least that what I think I taught

2010-08-24T11:31:00.001Z

Teaching at the School
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
June 4-10, 2010

Since I am now officially sick of cracking peanuts and itching to get some “real” work started, I walked over to the school the other day to check it out, talk to the students, and see what the teachers there were like (wishing and praying they were better than the ones I experienced during PST in Sangalkam). I walked into the equivalent of what would be the 2nd grade class (ages range from 7-10 years old) and saw there was no teacher around. I walked in, all the kids standing and shouting in excitement, “Toulaye!!!!”, especially my two new little sisters, Houlaye and Hawa, who are in class together. When I got them to calm back down a little, I asked where the teacher was. They told me she had gone to Velingara for the day which is about 15k away and has electricity, wifi, and cold beer! I asked when she was coming back or if there was a “substitute teacher”, by substitute I mean someone at least watching over the kids while they sit at their desks waiting to learn. They said she’d be back tomorrow, inshallah, and that they were just sitting waiting for school to end because they didn’t know what else to do.

Since the teacher was gone, and I was there, I shrugged my shoulders, rolled up my sleeves, and said, “well, why not”, and began talking. I started off by asking the kids if they knew who I was, what my name is and why I am here (it’s rare for a toubab to live in a Senegalese village so thought I’d make sure they understood). I got a very cute round of snaps and hisses (this is how they raise their hands in school, by snapping, hissing, standing up and even shouting Madam to get the teachers attention, even if they don’t know the answer) called on a kid I knew I hadn’t met yet and got a lovely blank stare from a girl with enchanting dimples. When I called on a few others, the responses were, “you’re here to study Pullar!” or “you’re here to farm!” or “I don’t remember your name. Are you Aminata?” (the volunteer I replaced).

After a few guesses, I did my best in my horrible pullar who I was and what I was doing there. Since most of them didn’t really know what the Peace Corps is, I ended up giving an impromptu lesson on what the Peace Corps does and why I am here to try and help. And since I was there, I figured I’d just jump right into it and tell them about environmental education and ended up doing a short but sweet lesson on what the environment is and why it’s important to take care of it. Since I can’t explain biodiversity or the web of life yet in pullar, I kept it simple: The environment includes all the trees, the grasses, gardens, fields, dirt and land. And if the trees die and go away then when the rains come, the fields and all the crops will go away too and we won’t have anything to eat and then we will get sick and be hungry. And that’s why it’s important to have trees and take care of them and plant new ones. That was the best I could pull of having not prepared anything before hand and not having a dictionary. Bu for the younger kids it was effective and worked. I then had them draw a picture of what they thought the environment was and they drew a bunch of Mango trees, gardens, and cornfields. I had each of them hold their drawing up in front of the class and had everyone look at it and admire the work. At the end of the class, I also gave a recap of what I had said and even gave then a little oral quiz to see if they understood and remembered what we had talked about. They all gave me huge grins and repeated the information. Then quickly ran out of the classroom to go and play.

The next day I decided to follow up at the school and went back in to the 2nd grade class. The teacher, thankfully, had come back from doing whatever it was she was doing in Velingara, and invited me in to the classroom to chat some more with the kids. I asked a few questions about what I had taught the day before and the kids remembered! I also told them that if they wanted to help the environment that I was going to be planting trees in the afternoon and if anyone wanted to help to come. I taught them another little lesson about the environment – this time, the specific importance of trees – and the teacher was great helping me understand what some of the kids were saying helped me out with pullar as well. Later that afternoon, a big group of kids, myself and a few teachers went outside and planted over 200 trees. Most of this was all impromptu and I’m amazed that it worked out as well as it did.

The teacher, her name is Hadi Maaday, and I talked for a long while after school ended and she said that I could come back and talk/teach the kids whatever I wanted. So the next day was hand washing! I explained what bacteria is, why it’s bad, why it makes you sick and how to prevent bacteria from making you sick – WASH YOUR HANDS! I then told them that you have to wash your hands for 30 seconds to make sure all the bad bacteria goes away so I started singing the alphabet song. Only problem is most of the kids can’t get past D. Guess what tomorrow’s lesson is?

Teaching has been great and it seems to come quite naturally, aside from the language difference. I am so happy I stumbled in the other day and I will continue to teach until summer vacation starts. I will be working throughout the summer to get together an environmental education club at the school, probably once a month to start or once every two weeks, depending on how it goes. I also want to start discussing with the teachers the creation of an after school program from kids who are struggling and need extra help. Inshallah, they will like this idea and be onboard and want to take responsibility to coordinate the program. There is a lot of work ahead for me to do, and a lot still seems vague, but I am happy to have discovered at least a bit of direction for my service.

Polio Vaccinations

2010-08-24T10:26:00.000Z

My First Real Work:
Manda Dar Salaam (a.k.a. Manda Crossmonte “cross roads”)
May 30, 2010

I went to Manda, a road town about 25k away from Coumba Diouma, with my community counterpart, Mbarro Camara, to visit another volunteer serving there. Mbarro is a health relay in the greater Velingara area and brought me along to do some health work. Me, the other volunteer, Mike Toso, one of his counterparts and Mbarro met up to give out polio vaccinations, deworming medicine and vitamin A.

Manda is a road town of about 5,000 people. We walked door-to-door asking if there were children under the age of 5 in the household, how many and if they were around. Since there is no official census of the area, this served as one. We then got all the children in the household together and administered the polio vaccination, vitamin A and the deworming pill. After we were done, we marked each child’s left pinky with permanent marker so we didn’t give them two doses by accident; after a while I started drawing smiley faces on the older kids’ hands to get them to smile. For the most part, the vaccinations went fairly smoothly however you’d be surprised with how many children are scared to death of white people. I’m not talking about shyness. This was kicking and screaming, clawing their way to free themselves of these scary “whities” making them take icky medicine while forcing their mouths open. It was actually pretty comical.

After schlepping around Manda in the hot sun for 8 hours we managed to get around to most of the households that were on the list for that day. We picked up where we left off the next morning and continued until late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we ran out of medicine and the health supervisor ran out of refills as well. That is a common problem here. There is not enough money to supply medical workers with enough resources needed. This is especially true in hospitals and in schools where resources are needed the most. Even though we didn’t have enough medicine to complete the job it was a good experience for me to have. I really enjoyed trying my hand in medical work and it felt good to do something tangible.

Welcome to Coumba Diouma, Toulaye

2010-08-09T18:40:00.002Z

The First Few Days:
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
May 19 – 25, 2010

I am not kidding when I say that all I did for the first week at my new home was crack peanuts. I cracked peanuts with my mom and grandmother, cracked peanuts with my neighbors, the women’s group two compounds down, with the school teachers, and with a group of men while drinking ataaya and talking about how hot the sun was that day. I have cracked and de-shelled over a baseball season’s worth of peanuts and have not eaten a single one of them.

In case you didn’t guess, it is peanut season right now in Kolda. Known as the peanut basin, peanut production accounts for about 40% of cultivated land in southern Senegal and is the main source of income and employment for rural farmers in the region. Peanuts are the main cash crop for farmers in the Casamance (the area of Senegal below the Gambia) and comprise around 60% of Senegal’s agricultural exports, 75% of which is in non-refined peanut oil. Yes, that was a mouthful. Having said that, we crack and de-shell a LOT of peanuts.

Early every morning, the women in the village walk to their peanut fields, pick peanuts from the plant and walk back home with a giant overflowing basket on their head. They dump the peanuts on a mat, usually in the center of the compound, and get to work cracking and de-shelling. Cracking peanuts here is an actual art form. They don’t crack them in their hands like we do at a ball game. Instead, they pop them on a wood block or the cement and they crack open easily if hit in the right spot. I haven’t mastered this quite yet but am getting closer. Every now and then I manage to make the same popping sound but it is rare. Something to look forward to over the next two years…

While cracking peanuts I did my best to chat in broken pullar to get to know people in my new home. I addressed the usual questions: where are you from, why are you here, and where is your man? I explained that I am from the US and that I am a Peace Corps volunteer and that I am here to help with environmental health education. Their response was “ah, just like Aminata?!” (the volunteer I replaced). And after a few bad jokes in terrible pullar people started warming up to me. I slowly started to talk about other topics outside of the weather, which is actually only consists of saying that the ‘sun is hot’, “nange no wuuli”.
I’m slowly meeting new people and my new neighbors and hopefully soon enough I will start to form real relationships with them. I have been playing with the kids and running every night with a large following. I feel like Forrest Gump a lot of the time. I’ll start out running by myself and slowly, kids will see me running, drop what they’re doing and chase after me. By the time I hit the road, I have about 20 little village kids in a clump panting and trotting about 20 yards behind me. It’s adorable.

Honestly, that’s about it. I’ve been trying to get some sleep these last few nights as I am still exhausted from PST and the emotions from moving in and starting my life in Coumba Diouma. While it may not sound like much of a way to begin work and life in my village, the important thing is that, so far, I am happy.

Sleeping Under the Stars

2010-08-09T18:06:00.002Z

My First Night
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
May 19, 2010

Well, I didn’t cry once today. Thought I was about to earlier this afternoon, but got it together. I’m exhausted and looking forward to getting my first good night sleep since I got here. It’s quiet and the stars are mesmerizing. It is a crescent moon laying low on the western horizon shining bright perfectly through my hut window.

The last two nights I was in a city called Kounkane, located about 40K south of my village with a group of volunteers installing in this area. This morning, we took three volunteers to their respective villages and watched as a huge celebration took place to welcome them in to the community and family. Drums, dancing, and a sacrificial lamb were in order and the volunteers received in this fashion seemed excited, their nervousness waning.

I was the last person to be installed in village out of the Kounkane group. We drove into Coumba Diouma with the white Peace Corps truck, my entire life packed tightly into backpacks and trunks strapped to the bed of the pick-up. As we drove past the school kids started running out, waving and shouting my new name, “Toulaye! Toulaye!”. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered stronger as we turned into my new family compound. My arrival was much less dramatic that the slitting of a goats throat. I was welcomed warmly and with probing eyes by some members of my new family; others seemed to trickle in unaware that I was to arrive that day. My dad, Chief Amadou Camara, reintroduced himself to me. One by one he pointed to each member of my family that was present, sitting under the shade structure in the middle of the compound, and said their name as I smiled nervously, thinking, “How am I going to remember all these names? Everyone looks the same!” After the brief introduction the Peace Corps driver, Pap, took off and I was left alone. The kids helped me put my things into my hut and life went on as per usual.

“Well, at least that’s over,” I thought to myself as I walked into my hut. When I walked in, there was a huge welcome note from Annicka, the volunteer I replaced, saying “Good Luck”, and “Bismillah”, and “Welcome, Rachael!” in big bubble letters on the chalk board painted on my crumbling wall. It was very thoughtful and comforted my nerves. I looked over my new digs for the next two years, took a deep breath, and said, “ok, this is home”. I started unpacking my things in my new hut and slowly my new brothers and sisters started trickling in, cautiously curious to see what this new volunteer was like. I tried the best I could to chat through terrible pullar. They were sweet and did their best to try to make me feel welcome and help with my things. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much to unpack nor any furniture to rearrange so that took about 10 minutes. Now, I was left with the rest of the day with nothing on the agenda. I walked out of the hut did my best to walk around the village greet people until dinnertime where we ate millet and leaf sauce. I have a feeling that dish will become a staple in my life over the next two years.

Anyway, it is bedtime and still no tears. My mom called me as well as veteran volunteer living in the region of Kedougou so that made me feel less alone. I am viciously tucked in to my mosquito net and will be sleeping, for the first time, outside under the stars in Africa.

Swearing my life to the United States Government

2010-08-09T16:52:00.003Z

Swear In
Dakar, Senegal
May 14, 2010

I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer! Early this morning, we drove in to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, to go to the American Ambassador to Senegal’s house for our swearing in ceremony. We had a police escort and dressed in Senegalese clothing – all looking fabulous in our Complet (for girls) and Bubu’s (for boys). The ceremony itself was very nice. Madame Ambassador spoke as well as my new boss, Peace Corps country director Chris Hedrick, and a few others. After the main speeches, we were told to stand and raise our left hand to swear in as volunteers for the United States Peace Corps. We repeated an oath that at one point says, “to serve our country and to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. This part seemed a little strange; I hope I didn’t just accidentally enlist myself into the army. After the oath, they called us up individually to receive our Peace Corps Volunteer identification cards and other credentials (which I should probably open up and read). And then we went out to the patio and ate bite-sized pizzas, brownies and some sort of botched lemon bar concoction. There were also chicken skewers with peanut sauce. Yummy. After some schmoozing, us new Volunteers headed to the American Club in Dakar and went swimming and drank some well deserved celebratory beers – I even was able to get a cold Corona with a lime! We hung out there for a few hours and then headed back to the Thies Training Center. I will leave in two days to install at my site, my village, Coumba Diouma, and I can’t wait! It feels great to be done with training and all the hard work over the past two months and to finally call myself a real Peace Corps Volunteer!

Happy Birthday, Daddy! I love you!

Warmth of a New Family

2010-08-09T16:04:00.002Z

Leaving PST Homestay
Sangalkam, Senegal
May 9, 2010

On my sunsoaked mattress in my bright blue room I sit watching Sadio prepare the third cup of ataaya. Pouring the steaming sugary mint, she swirls the teapot to ensure every last drop of flavor is absorbed. Leaning over two shotglass sized cups, swirling and pouring, Sadio glances up at me between sniffles. It is my last hour with my training homestay family and my mother, Sadio, is making it special by preparing afternoon tea.

I have only been in country for two months but the connections I have made with my host family in Sangalkam have been remarkable. It’s incredible to imagine that we managed to form such a bond over a short period of time despite the gross bathroom, Sadio’s handicap and a massive language barrier.

She pours the first cup of tea and we sip around the foam. It is a hot afternoon and the sunrays plunge through my screen window transforming it into a boiler room. Isotou sits on my lap, taking advantage of the last few minutes with her new big sister while Ibrahim, my ever-precocious 2-year-old, waddles around my room delightfully handing me my toiletries as I gather my bags.

Hadi, my sister, walks in and sits next to me. I hand her some ataaya and she sips it as we joke about jaifundays – or “ghetto booties” – and how I need to work on mine before I come back to visit them. (I guess I just don’t make the cut in Senegal.)

Sadio, squatting over the propane can, adds more sugar to the brewing ataaya. The air is heavy and hot and the flame from the gas stifles the room. One by one, each of the ten kids in my compound filter in and sit on my twin-sized bed, joking and petting my hair.

After the third cup of ataaya, the kids start to get rowdy and give each other piggyback rides. Then, they tackle me in unison as Hadi picks up my camera to capture the moment. With every snap of the camera, the kids squeal with excitement. Nothing is more electrifying than having their picture taken from a digital camera where they can have instantaneous results. The photo session ends and Sadio, having cleared out the propane tank from the corner of my room, shoos them away. All but little Isotou scamper along and an impromptu soccer game breaks out in the front yard of the compound.

Sadio looks at me with a mischievous smile and tells me to wait on the bed while she fetches something from her room. Isotou looks up at me with a wide eyes and a luminously sly grin. I hear Sadio rummaging through her armoire, hear her shut the doors, and see her fling my doorway curtain open. With maternal pride, she gives me a pink and blue complet. She makes me try it on and I do several full turns for each of the family members that trickle into my room to see the toubab in traditional Senegalese dress. They all smile and say it looks nice.

Sadio pushes my shoulder down to make me sit on a stool in the middle of my room she used while making ataaya. Her and my neighbor Keita grab a section of my hair and start braiding; petting and smoothing out the uneven pieces. After a minute, they stand back and marvel at their work. Hadi, still holding my camera snaps a few pictures and then directs me to pose in a Senegalese fashion. We giggle as I make funny faces and the kids sitting on the bed try to jump into the frame.

It is almost time to go and Sadio starts to get teary-eyed. We have become very close over the last two months and it is hard to say goodbye for the final time. We hear the Peace Corps car pull up to the roundabout where it is to take us back to Thies where we will take our final language exams head to Dakar to swear in as official Peace Corps volunteers. I snap a few final pictures of my family as Sadio, Hadi and the kids pick up my baggage and head out the door. I say bye to everyone in the compound and feel a strange sadness I didn’t expect. I have formed a strong bond with my family in Sangalkam and know I will miss them dearly.

The women and kids insist on walking me to the car. As we make our way down the sandy streets, kids I’ve played soccer with or tickled on my way to class shout my name and wave goodbye.

We get to the car and the rest of the volunteers’ families are there goodbyeing and taking last-minute pictures. I pick up Ibrahim and Isotou and give them a big hug. Sadio, Hadi and I look at each other and start to cry. We give each other one more group hug and I bored the bus. As the car pulls away, Isotou runs after it waving for me. Her little legs and tiny flipflops patter in the sand. We turn the corner and are moving on down the road.

Training may be over but I will never forget the warmth and welcomness I received from the Diallo’s in Sangalkam. I will always consider them family and hope they will do the same.

Site Placement and Volunteer Visit

2010-07-25T22:39:00.005Z

Mosquito Bednet Distribution in Diaobe --->

Site Placement and Volunteer Visit:
Thies, Senegal
Week of April 10, 2010

Site Placement:

We found out our site placements today! Site placement is the village where we will each be assigned to to work and live over the next two years. We have all been very anxious about finding out where we are going and, honestly, tired of being kept in the dark about our future. There has been a lot of speculation about where each of us will end up but I honestly had no idea where I would be placed. I just knew that since I am leaning Pulla Fuuta that I would be heading to the southern regions of Kolda, Tamba, or Kedougou. From what I have heard, the south is the best part of the country to go as it is not conservative (so I can wear shorts and play soccer with the boys), is very green and hilly, the people are very nice and there is no desert!

So, to the point…

My Site:

Coumba Diouma! That is the name of my new home for the next two years of my life! My village, Coumba Diouma (pronounced Juuma) is in the region of Kolda, in the south of Senegal, bordering the Gambia to the north and Guinea to the south. It is the poorest region in Senegal and consists of rural subsistence farming villages. From what I’ve read, Kolda farms cassava, peanuts, corn, millet and rice. Each are seasonal and depend heavily on how much rain comes during the rainy season (June - November). Kolda is suppose to be the greenest region in Senegal, full of trees and grasses, especially during the rainy season, which I am very happy about. I am replacing another Environmental Education volunteer names Annicka Webster. She has been working on a massive mosquito bed net distribution in the region as well as holding causeries, or information sessions, for villagers on malaria, mosquitoes, and the importance of using mosquito nets. I am looking forward to meeting her when I go for my site visit in a few days.

Coumba Diouma is a rural farming village about 1 or 2 km off a main road. The closest “city” is Velingara, where I hear there is a hotel that has cold coke and wifi. You can google earth/map my village! It’s soo cool, I just did it! But there it is spelled Koumbadouma, so look for that. There are about 325-350 people living there and is has other villages dotted around it. There is an elementary school in Coumba Diouma and they farm cassava, or bantara as they call it here, peanuts and rice. I will be living with the chief of the village and his family in a family compound of about 25 people. I am supposed to have a nice, large hut and a decent sized back yard. (but really all I care about is having my own douche so I can go to the bathroom and shower in peace). My new dad is named Amadou Camara and when I visit the site I will be given a new name to initiate me into the family. I am very excited and happy with my placement. I talked to a couple other volunteers who new my site and they say that I am very luck and that I have a very good one. It’s supposed to be very beautiful, green, happy and safe. I can’t wait to see for myself!

Volunteer Visit:

I visited my village the past few days with another trainee, Mike Toso, who will also be my sitemate (closest neighbor). We visited his village first and then traveled to mine and did the majority of our stay in my new home. It was an interesting experience as the volunteer I am to replace, Annicka, will be moving out of what has been her home for the past two years. It is a very hard thing to come to terms with and she did a wonderfully mature job of letting the visit be about me. (I will have to make sure to do the same when I am replaced). Materially, I do have a lovely large hut. It is painted bright blue and has a mango tree painted on one of the walls. I will inherit a desk and chair placed by the window which faces west where I can see the sun set in the evenings. I have a big douche area that is clean and private, and best of all, all to myself! I have a little shade hanger to sleep under at night or rest from the heat during the day. The entrance way is lined with climbing vines with big, green leaves and is cozy and quiet. I have a little space for where a garden could grow – we will see how that turns out, and I have a screen door that doesn’t quite latch leading to my back yard. Physically, Coumba Diouma is beautiful. It is blanketed with trees, grasses, and gentle rolling land. There are seasonal rice fields for acres fenced off plots for bantara. There is space and quiet. It is very pretty.

My new family seem wonderful. My dad, again, is the chief of the village, Amadou Camara, and he lives with a few of his brothers and their families. There are plenty of children for me to play around with in the compound and I am very excited to play games and have dance parties in my hut. The women seem friendly but they are very close to my ancienne (Annicka – that’s what we call the people we replace) so I am a little apprehensive about how they will receive me. But I hope for the best.

My name:

My new dad, Amadou, meticulously consulted his wife and other family members about naming me. It took them until the second day of my visit to name me – I think they wanted to feel me out before they decided on a name. It was a very sweet ordeal. He gave me a good look over, examining my personality and mannerisms. Talked with the family and then named me after his wife, my new mother, Ramatoulaye Camara. Toulaye for short (pronounced like the words two and lie, twolie, emphasis on the first syllable –thank’s Mike). It is a big honor to be named after my mother and have her be my tokora and I could tell she was happy about it as well. In pullar, they call the namesake a tokora and often address people as such. Later that day, the kids started calling me Toulaye and it sounded very cute when they said it. It feels great to be welcomed into the family like that and I can’t wait to get there and become a part of the family and community.

Mosquito Net Distribution:

My ancienne, Annicka, has been working on a massive mosquito bed net distribution in the Kolda region for the past few months and holding causeries, or information sessions, on malaria and why mosquito nets are important. There is a massive push in Senegal to provide bed net coverage for everyone in the country to reduce the spread of Malaria. Peace Corps, along with NGO’s Malaria No More, World Vision, and Youssou D’dour, are working to execute the distribution of nets to every bed in Senegal. As a result, Senegal was divided into a series of distribution points where Peace Corps Volunteers and local branches of NGO workers would show up, provide information regarding Malaria and distribute the nets to the population. Peace Corps and the other NGO’s surveyed communities within the divided regions and found out how many nets each household head needed. The nets were then labeled prior to distribution with the household name, quantity and date to keep track of when to replace the nets. Moreover, local police were informed to watch for illegal net sales and health posts were encouraged to send local volunteers to aid in the distribution.

One of the days during my volunteer visit, Annicka had Mike and myself come and help. We hitched a ride from Peace Corps and went to the city of Diaobe. Fun fact: Diaobe has the largest weekly market in all of West Africa. Every Wednesday, people go to Diaobe to sell everything imaginable, from car radios, to goats, to food, and a massive influx of people flock to the market from Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, and from every reach of Senegal. It is an incredible sight. Anyway, back to mosquito nets. Our distribution point that day was a section of Diaobe quartered off by NGO workers that took the initial census of people living in the city. Unfortunately, the way they divided up the distribution points was not by neighborhood but by name, a fact which they failed to tell us before hand that needless to say, caused quite a bit of initial confusion and frustration when trying to hand out the nets. When we got things slightly more organized, we began our work. Before handing out the nets, a causerie was held. A causerie is basically an educational session explaining whatever it is that needs explanation. In our case it was educating people on Malaria, how it is caused, why it is important to protect yourself from it and how to protect yourself. Annicka held the 30-minute causerie to a group of people waiting to take their nets back to their families and held it entirely in Pullar. She talked about how the malaria parasite is passed from one person to another through a mosquito (and not by the sun, or by eating a mango, as many people believe), how to protect yourself at night from getting bit by sleeping under a net, careful instructions about the use and maintenance of the net, and the importance of universal coverage and how it can reduce the ravaging disease. We then passed out the nets and, inshallah, people will use them properly.

The most important part, however, will take place about 2 months after the initial distribution. Local health post workers, NGO’s and Peace Corps Volunteers will complete a massive follow up, visiting every single home and looking at every single bed to see if the mosquito nets are still being used or if they are still there. This should happen right around the time of my installation at site so I am sure I will be one of the people going from hut to hut checking in. Welcome to grassroots.

Thoughts:

After the volunteer visit, I am incredibly excited to get to my site, Coumba Diouma. I am more motivated to learn Pullar and am excited that people actually speak it at my site. I can’t wait to get there and become a real volunteer! Hopefully they will like me and I will have an incredible experience living, learning and working there.

Sadio Diallo

2010-07-20T14:10:00.000Z

Sadio Diallo:
Sangalkam, Senegal
April 5, 2010

As I said before, I am named after my “mother” in Sangalkam, Mariama Saido Diallo. She goes my Sadio and I go by Mariama. Sadio is deaf and communicates through animated signing. Despite her handicap, she is incredibly easy to understand. She has the biggest heart and takes pride in taking care of me. She cares for me as if I were her own daughter and cries when I leave as much as my real mother. She understands how much I work and study during pre-service language class so she insists on always doing my laundry, Alhamdulilah (praise be to god). It smells fresh and is pressed and folded upon return – take notes for when I come back home, mom and dad. She also found out how much I love eating salad for dinner. Consequently, I eat fresh lettuce from our market with sautéed onions, hard-boiled eggs, shaved carrots, juicy tomatoes, and diced potatoes, with savory Dijon vinaigrette. It is this thoughtfulness, consideration, and respect of a different culture that makes Sadio an exception.

On the surface, Sadio is fun–loving and carefree. She takes excellent care of her two children, Isotou and Ibrahima, and is the best cook in the compound. But it took a while for me to find out her real story. I knew she had two kids but I was not aware of any husband or lover. Toward the last days of my homestay, over preparing ataaya, Sadio told me her story. She had been married off at a relatively young age, I believe 20, but possibly older. Her husband used to beat her because she is deaf and was frustrated easily by her. She explained how she would try to fight back but he was bigger so it got her nowhere. She told me how she tried not to cry in front of her kids and how she didn’t know what to do since there was no one for her to turn to seek out help. One day, her husband hit her in front of Isotou and Ibrahim. They both started to cry feeling fearful and betrayed. For Sadio, that was enough. She left that very day, took the kids, and went back to her family house two towns away. Her husband tried to force her to come back and she refused. In protest, he tried to move in to her family’s compound, but the family fought back and protected Sadio. Shortly after, she divorced him and has lived with the rest of her brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces since then, working together to support the family.

In Senegal, while divorces do occur, they are rare. And being considered second-class citizens, the power to walk away is extraordinary. Moreover, familial support in this situation, where marriage of a woman is emphatically valued, is, frankly, astonishing.

Sadio’s handicap alone is difficult to over come. But the strength she showed when signing to me her story and resilience in overcoming deafness, an abusive husband, breaking societal norms by leaving, refusing a man, denying remarriage, and raising two children on her own is simply phenomenal.

My host mother Sadio is a rare exception. Too many women do not have rights, feel helpless, isolated, and lack the strength to stand up for themselves. Gender equality is a very different concept here and for her to battle and overcome what she went through is truly remarkable.

School Visit

2010-07-07T09:52:00.000Z

March 25, 2010
Sangalkam, Senegal

Senegalese School System:
College (Junior High) and Ecole Premier (Elementary School)

Early Monday morning, I walk into the hazy classroom. Streams of light filtered through the shutters illuminating the dust and sand blowing through the room. The room is hot and crowded, filled to the brim with students awaiting the days’ lesson.
Escorted by the teacher, I walk to the front of the class as 56 students stand in unison and shout, “Bonjour, Madame”. The teacher explains in French that I am a Peace Corps Volunteer observing his class to see how the Senegalese School system is conducted. Then he switches from French to Wolof in order to avoid being understood by the outsider, however the meaning is not lost: “be on your best behavior and don’t make me look bad” was the essence of his message; this is later confirmed by my language trainer who had been standing outside the door unbeknownst to the teacher.

I walk to the back left corner of the classroom and pick a spot next to three teenage boys from which to observe the class. They study me as I take my seat, taking in every movement and gesture. In all likelihood, they have never sat next to a white woman before. The teacher cracks the yardstick on the front desk indicating the start of class, commanding attention. The kids straighten up, raise their hands, snapping and shouting to be chosen as the demonstrator.

This is the beginning of the first of three Senegalese classes I am to observe today.

Students form the ages of 13 through 16 cram together to fill every space afforded by the tiny room. Three or four students squeeze together at one desk for prime seating while the stragglers are left sitting around me in the far back corner; the view of the blackboard is dimly visible from the layers of chalk indelibly inscribed by past lessons. The teacher writes the problem set in French cursive and I struggle to read the questions. The students have 10 minutes to solve the five problems written on the board. There is no instruction, no equation written by the teacher, nor any help given to the 50 plus students in the room. They are on their own and if they don’t understand the assignment, they must either wait for their peers to go to the board and solve it, or, more often than not, they will never learn it.

One child, an African albino, is a little overzealous in solving the 4th problem. He stands up, snaps his fingers while shouting to be called upon. Apparently he is too close to the teacher who slaps the back of his head. The student retakes his seat, his head down in embarrassment. Immediately after he slaps the child, the teacher turns to me and shoots me a glance to check my reaction. I can tell he knows what he did is wrong and the self-aware eyes give him away. Yet it will make no difference. He will continue to hit students that annoy him.

This is a typical scene, if not less crowded, for a Senegalese junior high, or College. The age range is so vast due to a lack of organization at the lower levels of schooling. In Senegal, Primary education usually beings when a child is 6 years old. However, there is no set age for kids to start kindergarten and it is up to the parents to decide when their child is ready to begin schooling.

Elementary school is a basic tutorial in counting, the alphabet, introductory French, and introductory elements of science, history, geography, hygiene, and appropriate social and civil behavior. Upon completion of Elementary school, or the equivalent of 6th grade, all students must pass the CFEE grand examination at the end of the year in order to go on to College. The test is a major review of the full year. In fact, 2/3 of the school year is dedicated to passing the test alone, similar to how AP classes in the U.S. are conducted. As a result, most of the “learning” that goes on in the school system is actually memorization and not what us Americans would call learning. There is no room for thinking outside the box, nor is there any encouragement for learning how to think, in fact it is strongly discouraged. Because the class sizes are so large, there are not enough resources to go around. There is only one book for the entire class, which is kept by the teacher, and there is only one teacher for 60 or more students packed like sardines in one tiny, hot classroom. As a result, individual attention to students, or any kind of one–on –one help is simply not afforded. Moreover, and the most heartbreaking aspect of this experience for me to witness, was that some of the teachers either do not care enough about their craft or their students or get paid enough to want to stay after and provide individual attention. As a result, many students end up failing their CFEE and fail out of school for life. There is no second chance.

This brings me to my next anecdote (which I hope to convey at least 1% of the emotion I felt when I experienced it).

There is a young boy, about 8 or 9 years old, named Mouhamed Gayu. He has just received his corrections from the test the week before. Curious and not knowing any better, I ask to look at the student’s exam. It is all in French so I don’t understand much. But the part I do understand is the 0/10 written in red ink on the first page. I turn the page, another 0/10. I flip through the pages in the rest of his test book and see 0/10 on nearly every page. I realize that this is not just the test results from the last week but the year’s worth of tests to date. Every page I look through I see 0/10. I hand the test back to the student who flips to the last page. He see’s a 0/10, closes his book, and begins to cry.

He is one of 66 students in the class. And his shame and helplessness are overwhelming. He is sitting in the back of the class with his head down between his arms. Tears silently roll down his cheeks hoping to remain unnoticed. His peers sitting at the table around him are rambunctious and show little support. The teacher has her back to the students and continues to lethargically hand out the rest of the tests.

Normally failing a test is not the end of the road. But in Mouhamed’s case it is. This lackluster education is all he has. If he fails the end of the year exam, he will not be allowed to move on to the next grade level. His education will be over and he will literally have no future outside of his town of Sangalkam. What is worse is that he already knows it. And the weight of each tear he sheds breaks his heart and mine.

The education system is Senegal, as stated before, is a nationalized system. It is run by the government and embodies the French style of education (i.e.: strict, strict, strict). Because it is nationalized, there is a set curriculum for every school. There is no room for an elective or “fun” class nor do the classes themselves seem very fun – in terms of my own Americanized standard. There are also not enough schools, not enough teachers, and not enough resources. In the school I visited in Sangalkam, the town I am currently living in for my homestay, on average, there was 1 teacher for 76 students (the kindergarten/ecole premier and 1 teacher for 87 kids).

During Mouhamed’s class, the elegantly clad teacher came up to me to greet me and welcome me to her class. Her purple complet was immaculate and it was clear she spent time on her appearance. I was still trying to clear up my own tears after seeing Mouhamed’s reaction and I did my best to put on a smile. Mouhamed’s head was still in his hands as she stood towering over him and me. I glanced in his direction to see if he had stopped tearing. He hadn’t. The teacher took note of my concern and casually with pomposity in her stare, “oh, don’t worry about him, he’s the worst in the class”. Her dismissive comment made my jaw drop. I just couldn’t, and still can’t, understand how anyone could be so blasé about a failing student.

Wanting to understand better, I politely asked questions about her class, her students, which subjects she liked teaching, the usual introductory questions to get a feel for who she was as a teacher. I also wanted to know, since I will be working directly with the school in my village when I install, what resources she needed to be a more effective teacher and what challenges she faced within the school system and her school specifically. Her response was that she hated teaching, hated the students, hated the school she worked at, hated the town she lived in. I asked her why she became a teacher if she disliked it so much. She responded by saying that she only became a teacher because the economy was bad and couldn’t find work elsewhere. It was a means to an end and she said she was only willing to put in as much effort as she got paid to do. In terms of resources, she said she needed motivated students, because the ones in her class were lazy and didn’t want to learn. There are 66 plus students in her class. She also wanted more books and smaller classes because it was hard to teach unmotivated students with only one book and one classroom.

While there are many teachers in Senegal who are good and motivated and invest in the success of their students, her situation and reaction are by no means uncommon. A serious problem here is that teachers do not get paid enough but they are always in demand. Often times, teaching serves as a steady paycheck until people can find work elsewhere. And simply, the craft of teaching is often not understood like it is in the U.S. Memorization and repetition are the skills taught in school and critical thinking, analysis and questions are strongly discouraged (this is a polite way of saying that students that ask questions will either punished with a head slap or shame for not understanding what the teacher said the first time – even if it is unclear or incorrect).

The Senegalese school system, as well as most of the nationalized school systems in West Africa, is funded by outside businesses, the World Bank, for one, being the largest contributor. As a result, the main concern is basic literacy and the process of thinking is not addressed. Moreover, to help save on cost, the exams at the end of the year serve to weed out the students who aren’t as quick to memorize and are not given a second chance.

While it is still early in my service, education is something I am already driven to work on when I get to my site based off of this experience. And though it this is a tough reality for me to face, I am hopeful that I can contribute even in a small way.

Garden Sangalkam

2010-07-07T09:36:00.001Z

Garden Sangalkam:

As a requirement for all PCT’s in Senegal, we have to plant and tend to a group garden. We chose to plant our garden at the local school in Sangalkam hoping to inspire the children to participate and even take full responsibility in watering, weeding, planting and maintaining it in full, Inshallah, or ‘God willing’ in Arabic. The site we chose, however, is in straight sand – like legit beach sand, with no clay or even simple dirt to work with. We knew for certain nothing would grow but we did our best to prep the site for our garden, anyhow.

First stop was the house that sells manure. It has a rust red gate but you can find it using your sense of smell alone. We took our wheelbarrow and shoveled it full of you know what, joking the whole time how we didn’t realize we were joining the Peace Corps to shovel s*@t – it is actually a regular occurrence and should be taken into consideration if you are thinking about joining. Also, side note, I strongly recommend NOT wearing flipflops when scooping manure off the ground. Pretty messy. Not to mention smelly. And it lingers no matter how hard your scrub. Totally worse than goalie glove hand stench; at least that’s macho and you know where it’s been. Ok, back to the point. So, we filled our wheelbarrow to the brim and wheeled it on over to the school as the kids we pass by giggle, hold their noses and great us with a nasaly toubob shoutout.

To prep our garden for planting, we measured out our plots for our two big gardens, a site for our tree nursery, or pepinier, and a place to transplant our trees and whatever else grows. We hoed our manure and sand, dug our plots and watered. For the next two weeks, we watered to prep our soil for planting and watched as nothing grew – not even weeds. We went back to Thies for a three day technical training session knowing that our garden would either be destroyed by kids trampling it, goats feeding on it, or would have reverted back to sand.

When we returned, however, to our surprise weeds had sprouted everywhere and it took us over an hour to clear site for seeding. This was very encouraging for us as we were to plant our garden the next day. We planted okra, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beans, hot peppers called Kani, onion, and Morenga tree seeds in our pepinier. We watered twice a day for a few weeks and watched how everything began to sprout. The best part was we were able to get some of the students involved in the seeding and transplanting process and there were a few kids genuinely interested in the fundamentals and maintenance of gardening. For the next several weeks the same few kids would come with us every day to help water and weed the garden. They made sure the other kids around didn’t step in our beds and didn’t uproot our plants. Two weeks ago, we left Sangalkam for 8 days for training in Thies. The school director and his family assumed responsibility for the garden while we were gone and we instructed him on what to do and what we planned to do when we returned. He had to water twice a day, morning and evening, weed the garden, and make sure there was enough space to transplant our growing cabbage, carrots and Morenga tree pepinier somewhere in our fenced enclosure.

Our first day back in Sangalkam, we were blown away that our garden had not only exploded in growth and green but the school director and some of his students had taken the initiative to dig and manure more garden beds to transplant the growing veggies, had transplanted most of the plants, and had lined the fence with our Morenga tree pepiniers. We couldn’t believe how much time and care was put in to the garden and how incredibly well it was maintained. Our lettuce and Morenga trees survived the transplant and are growing strong, and we are now sprouting unbelievable amounts okra, peppers, carrots, cabbage, onion and beans. Apparently the school director wants use the garden as an incentive for students to work hard in school. The students who perform the best in class will get to water and help plant and weed, etc and the students are really in to it. The garden will also be used to talk about nutrition, as it is full of veggies and healthy Morenga. The director was very grateful for the garden and is excited to have more Peace Corps trainees come through Sangalkam and help out the community. It’s amazing to think that something as small as a garden could have the potential to help a community grow.

Here are some pictures of our garden. It’s interesting to think that you don’t always have to have the perfect environment to make something grow. Sometimes all is takes is sand, a little bit of poop, water and patience.

2010-07-07T09:04:00.003Z

Pre-Service Training: Continued

2010-05-13T22:27:00.004Z

Pre-Service Training: Host Family Set Up

2010-05-13T21:37:00.003Z

Pre-Service Training: Life as a Trainee

2010-05-13T20:59:00.003Z

Talibes

2010-05-12T08:56:00.002Z

Senegal’s “Talibé”
Everywhere Senegal
May 5, 2010

Walking down crowded streets, on rural road stops, or even barging into a home, young boys in tattered clothes, dirty and undernourished, carry a large tin can filled with rice and sugar incessantly begging for food or money. These young boys, or Talibe, are forced to beg to survive.

In 2004, a UNICEF study estimated that about 100,000 children – approximately 1% of children in Senegal – were working as street beggars. The vast majority 'work' as talibés, young boys forced to beg under the guise of Koranic education.

In Senegal, especially in rural areas, there exists a cultural tradition of sending young boys to local or even far off Marabout, Koranic teachers, to study Islam. In recent years, however, this tradition has transformed into exploitation and brutal child abuse on the part of the Marabout and most of the Islamic schooling has since been abandoned.

Since the 1970’s, poverty has been a driving force behind the increase of Talibe throughout rural and urban settings. Rural parents, who cannot support their children, resort to sending their sons to Marabouts either locally or in cities. Run-down shacks with patched tin roofs and crumbling cement double as Koranic schools and homes for the Talibés. In return for lodging and schooling, Marabout, many of them also struggling to make a living, exploit their students by sending them to the streets to beg. If they don’t deliver an adequate amount, they suffer the consequences. Regularly, they are beaten, abused and starved while the Marabout pocket the meager earnings.

The problem of Talibe exploitation came as a result of deeper economic instability in Senegal. Since the 1970’s, peanut prices have fallen - one of Senegal's chief exports, subsistence farming has become more difficult as a consequence of desertification, and increased flight to urban centers has risen where the standard of living is more costly. While talibe are a daily occurrence anywhere in the country, they mostly go ignored and the situation is accepted as part of life in Senegal.

The Talibe in Senegal has gained international attention in recent days as Human Rights Watch published a report chastising the Senegalese government on their lax policies toward the abuse of these young boys.

‘‘Tens of thousands of children at residential Quranic schools in Senegal are subjected to slavery-like conditions and severely abused,’’ reported Human Rights Watch in a recent statement. Human Rights Watch has scolded Senegal calling the government negligent toward the child abuse and has used vicious rhetoric urging Senegal to crack down on the Marabout.

The situation is more delicate, however, as Marabout and Islam play an integral role in the Senegalese government. Mayors and statesmen look to Marabout for support as, often times, the Marabout hold the ear of roughly 90% of the population. If the Marabout disapprove of a piece of legislation, so will the people. Therefore, chastising a government, where the "problem" is deeply intertwined in political decision-making, seems simplistic and short-sided.

Moreover, while it is nice to have Human Rights Watch recognize the situation, hearing it reported on the BBC from a car radio while stopped at a local gas station with ten Talibe surrounding you begging for food or money puts quite a different perspective on the matter.

If interested, you can read more about the Human Rights Watch initiative from the link below.

http://www.jollofnews.com/human-rights-watch-scold-senegal-over-talibes.html

*the information on this blog came from HumanRightsWatch.org, WorldVision.org and my own experience.

Mariam-aaaaaaaah...

2010-04-26T19:21:00.002Z

sad news: Mariama the sheep died two days ago :( the old ladies who owned her said she got a fever and died within three days of getting sick. obviously i am incredibly torn up about it. my namesake sheep is no more. but they tell me that Mariama's mom is pregnant again with Mariama Deux :) i hope its not a boy.

A Toubob's life in Sangalkam

2010-04-13T03:15:00.002Z

Daily Routine, Toubob, Toubob, Toubob!!!:

I wake multiple times a night to many different sounds. The most prevalent I will list: the sound of donkey’s eore-ing, which really just sounds like they’re getting plowed, dogs howling, the rooster that sits literally outside my window crowing at 3 am, my little brother and sister coughing or crying because they have a URI, the Rasta, one of my brother’s, that lives across from me fixing his bike or trying to get back into his room after he’s locked himself out, or, my personal favorite, people having fun with the loudspeaker after the call to prayer has ended and someone forgot to turn it off.

Consequently, I am very tired all the time. Earplugs are a great commodity, here, however, have you ever had a rooster crow three feet from your pillow? Even noise canceling Bose headsets are no match.

When I do get some shuteye I wake up to either my alarm at 7:30 or the sound of Ibrahim, my 2 year-old brother, crying. Sweeping our front lawn, which is actually a sandlot, is also a common wake-up call. I get out of bed, tie up my mosquito net, make my bed– yes, this is not a typo–and tell my mom I want to take a bucket bath, actually she insists upon my cleanliness so much so that she wont let me leave the house in the morning unless I’ve bathed.

My bucket bath is refreshingly cool. The shower area is separated from the douche (toilet) by a thin wall that does not meet the ceiling. I usually hear grunting followed by a large kerplunk while I’m bathing. The smell of roses instantly emanates from the deep as the pipe for my shower and the toilet are one in the same. No one can ever call me high maintenance again.

After my bucket bath I eat breakfast in my room. My mother makes me coffee and can not comprehend how I can drink it with only 1 sugar cube – trust me Americans, one is MORE than enough! She watches me eat thin, cold, cut up pasta with onions and beef bullion cube seasoning. Apparently this is not a typical meal for breakfast in Senegal as no one else in my group has ever eaten this. I finally had a little chat with her and said I only wanted bread to which she put an entire stick of butter on ¼ of a baguette. It’s a work in progress.

I then head to Jeeba’s house, one of our LCF’s teaching us Pullo Fuuta to meet up with Charles and Meera, the two other volunteers in my language group, to water our garden. A little girl names Mamcoumba comes with us every day and always holds my pinky as we walk to the school where our garden rests.

After we water we head to language class for 3 or 4 hours. Sometimes it’s productive, other times…well, you read about how many donkeys wake us up at night.

Lunch is usually at 2 or 2:15. I eat with the women and children separately from the men. Everyone chows down to white rice and the tiniest fish you can imagine. There are between 8 and 10 people crowding around the lunch bowl.

I take a quick nap after lunch, mostly for a moment’s quiet, but usually get woken up by Sulemon, my dad Ibrahim’s son, sitting in a tree hitting a plastic bowl with a stick.

After that I either have free time to study for the rest of the day or we have group activities like building a mud stove, more gardening and tree planting, community mapping, or mural painting.

That usually goes on until around 6:30pm and I try to go for a run either with the other PCT’s in Sangalkam or with one of my brothers. Recently, I have been running with my 11 year-old brother Sharif who can only make it about 10-15 mins but I make him go for longer. He’s very sweet and supportive and we talk in Pullo Fuuta. He corrects me when I make a mistake and he is very patient with my learning.

When I get back from my run, the rest of the 9 children in my compound run out shouting, “Mariama!!!!! Fait du sportif, sportif, sportif!!!” What they mean is they want to do jumping jacks, push-ups, lunges, squat jumps, or whatever else I do after my run to attempt to stay in shape. Sit-up’s are everybody’s favorite and we count in Pullo Fuuta while we do them.

Then I take another bucket bath and eat dinner. After dinner, my dad, Ibrahim, will sit with me for over an hour and practice speaking the language with me. He is very patient and if I don’t understand something he will say it slower, explain it in French, or if I really don’t get it, he’ll try his best to say it in the English he knows. We usually talk over ataaya, or Senegalese tea, that is minty-sweet deliciousness.

By 10:00pm I’m usually pretty tired and try to head to bed. But the cacophony that is Sangalkam keeps me in a perpetual half-slumber.

Below are some pictures of my room, our mud stove and some more pictures of my family.

Mariam-aaaaaaaah

2010-04-13T03:13:00.002Z

There is a sheep in the village named after me. It is white with 2 giant black spots and baaaa’s more than any other sheep. The old ladies who own the sheep and subsequently named it said it baaaaa’s so much it reminded them of me. Hopefully that is flattery. ☺

:)

2010-04-05T18:33:00.003Z

My lovely tiolet!

March 23, 2010
Sangalkam, Senegal

For Those Concerned About My Toilet Situation (or lack there of):

I woke up in the middle of the night dying to go to the bathroom. I fumbled around my room for my headlamp so I could make the 20 – yard trek without tripping over sand or the mangy, flee-ridden, rabies- stricken dog that likes to hang outside our gate. The sand is treacherously uneven and in the wee hours (no pun intended) in my larium – comatose state I tend not to have proper directional sense. Fortunately, I made it to the douche hut without any mishaps and couldn’t wait to sit down and enjoy a good mid-night pee – until I remembered there is no place to sit! No matter. At least I can relieve myself and enjoy that post – pee elation and go back to bed without further interruption. I flung open the tin door, took my “pee squat stance” (which is different for my other stance – you gotta aim ladies, remember?) and was just about to let it go when I noticed something moving on the walls next to me. Instinctively, I turned, to which my headlamp followed, and to my surprise I found I was accompanied by 8 cockroaches, a giant lizard and a kitten. How I missed them when I entered is beyond me. My heart almost stopped when I fully digested the scenery. And I have to say that it is a pretty weird feeling having lizards, cockroaches and a kitten staring at you with your pants around your ankles. You feel incredibly exposed. I figured I had two options: pee with cockroaches crawling at my feet, a lizard chasing after the cockroaches for a tasty snack, and a kitten meowing out of frightful confusion or get the hell out! Being the hardcore Peace Corps trainee that I am…I bolted! In fact I moved out of there so fast that I almost took out the door of the douche hut. Lesson learned: I don’t pee at night anymore.

2010-04-05T18:15:00.002Z

Grandma: Fatoumata Binta Sow
Dad: Ibrahim Diallo, Mom: Mariama Sadio Diallo (they are actually brother and sister but my mom is unmarried and Ibrahim’s wife lives in Guinea and they don’t get along)

Sisters: Hadi and Katiatou

Brothers: Alhadji, Mamadou Diao Diallo, Mamadou Lamarana (he is the Rasta), and Amadou Tidiane

My little sister: Isotou, who actually lives in a different house. I didn’t know she was my sister for three weeks. I just thought she came over a lot.

All the little kids are considered to be my children so I have 9 of them: Sadio, my mom, has two kids, Isotou and Ibrahim. Isotou is 4 and Ibrahim is 2. Hadi’s kids are Aminatou, 2.5, or Ami for short, Mamadou Sharif, 11, or Sharif, and Alhadji (petit), 7, Katiatou’s kids are Mariama Julde, 9, Ramalitou Laye, 5, and Moutar (??), and Ibrahim’s son is Sulemon, he is 8 and always gets in to trouble. Here are some picts of my family and my compound.

PST: Pre-Service Training: Part I

2010-04-05T18:11:00.000Z

March 17, 2010
Thies, Senegal

PST: Pre-Service Training: Part I

On Jaaraama! I think that means, like, a combination of hi, goodbye, god be with you, peace, I’m sorry, etc. I’m still not really sure but everyone keeps saying it to me and it is now past the point of asking what it means so I guess I’ll have to go for a little longer without knowing since the language I’m learning has no dictionary. In summation, the first few days of PST, which consisted of our orientation, stage bonding games, language interviews, technical interviews, language placement and drop off at our family homestay, have been pretty good. I am currently in a village in between Dakar and Thies called Sangalkam. You may or may not be able to google earth it. The area of Sangalkam is quite large but our homestay area is very small. It is a village of about 5,000 people and there are 6 of us, including myself, that are living here and learning the same language. My family is wonderful and I’m loving it. But I’ll get to them in a minute.

The first few days in Senegal were a little anti-climactic – not in a bad way just nothing really happened. Prior to leaving I tried to keep realistic expectations so as to avert disappointment. Also, the promptness of my departure kept things moving at the speed of light and I don’t think it’s hit me that I live in Africa and will be so for the next two years.

We had technical and language interviews to determine where we will be placed for our volunteer service. My language interview went extremely well. Samba, one of the language and cultural trainers (LCF) asked me a bunch of simple questions in French. I understood every one of them and rightly answered them…in Spanish. As a result, I am learning the easiest language in Senegal. It is called Pullo Fuuta and is a dialect of Pullar. It is spoken in the south–eastern regions of the country such as Kolda, Tambacounda and Kedegou. It is suppose to be the prettiest, friendliest and least conservative area of the country which bodes well for this American girl who likes to wear shorts and show her knee caps (that is such a no-no in most areas here). I am the only Environmental Education focused volunteer learning Pullo Fuuta, which actually means nothing yet as none of us have a clear idea of what we are to do during our service. But I am very excited to learn my placement, which should happen in week 4, and am enjoying my time so far with my new family.

We arrived in Sangalkam on March 20 and met our new families with whom we will be staying with for the next 9 weeks. There are 6 people in my group learning Pullo Fuuta and we all live within a few blocks of each other. The people in my group are Mike, Charles, Meera, Eric and Amanda (I’m not using last names because I’m not sure of privacy issues and whatnot). Either way, we all received new names. Respectively, Baba Saidu Diallo, Mamadou Gabi Ba, Fatou Kaitou, Hamadou Joga Ba and Kani Ba. And, again, my name is Mariama Sadio Diallo. I have a huge family and all are incredibly nice except for my sister Katiatou, whom I guess no one likes, even my mother here b/c she said that they weren’t even friends, so no matter. Above is a brief family tree:

2010-04-05T15:11:00.003Z

my first sunrise in Africa

Getting in to Dakar

2010-04-04T21:03:00.004Z

Me and Hadiel in the van on our way from the airport to the training center in Thies

March 11, 2010
Dakar, Senegal

Part I: The Landing

We landed in Dakar early morning on Wednesday March 10. It was dark and hot and the smell of sea salt permeated the air. We debarked the plane on the runway and walked to the gate. We were met by our country director, Chris Hedrick, the associate country director, Mamadou Diao, and a few Peace Corps volunteers who came to welcome us and help out during our first few days of training. Most of us did not sleep on the 8–hour plane flight form DC to Dakar; either we were too nervous or were enamored by the plethora of movies afforded to us on our private TV monitor. I opted to knock myself out and sleep as much as I could, crammed against the window of the plane and the PCT next to me. I woke up an hour before we landed. I took a look out the window and was amazed I could see the stars. It seemed as though they surrounded the plane; I’ve never seen anything like it.

We landed about an hour early, around 5 am, tired and disoriented. We headed for baggage claim and prayed our stuff had made the trip with us. Fortunately, everyone’s luggage arrived and not one thing was out of place. We then headed to customs and immigration. A nervous energy circulated amongst us as we fumbled about with our customs papers and waited in line to get our passport stamped. Our attempt to make small talk distracted us just the slightest from the uncertainty of what we were about to begin.

I stood in line talking to Geoff, a PCT who had gone to Tulane and plays the accordion. He had just celebrated Mardi Gras and the Saints Superbowl victory and was telling me how much fun New Orleans had been before he left. We both filled out our customs papers wrong and were joking about how incompetent we were. What a great first impression of us new volunteers coming to Senegal!

I got to the front of the line, my 2 years worth of luggage dangling from every limb. I stepped up to the customs agent, handed my passport through the glass and gave him a big smile. He chuckled, said Bonjour, and flipped through my passport. He glanced at the picture, glanced at me, turned the page and stamped my passport. As he handed it back to me our eyes met. He held on for just a second as he gave me a knowing look that said, “welcome to the beginning”. I took my passport, put it in my pocket and took my first steps into Senegal.

Part II: Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few from our drive from the airport in Dakar to our training center in Thies.

Since i didnt know this before, the pictures are published above this entry. My bad.

First Blog: Some Random Thoughts...

2010-03-12T21:32:00.001Z

March 11, 2010

Fist Blog: Some Random Thoughts…

Hey everyone! This is my first entry for a blog ever so not sure any of this will end up alright. Honestly, I don’t know what tone to take while writing this blog; I feel as though it should be serious because this is Peace Corps service and the first majorly important thing I’ve done since graduating college but I also want it to be entertaining for you. I realize you can’t force humor and, truthfully, I’m probably not that funny via blog. But hopefully I can write well enough so that my “peppy-ness” and “vivacity” (we had to think up adjectives today to describe ourselves to the other volunteers) can show through. So I’ll give it my best shot.

OK. So, I guess I’ll start by reflecting upon some of the thoughts and emotions that were going through my mind in the weeks leading up to my departure. WARNING: If you are not schmaltzy or if you just don’t care and are secretly waiting to find out how I poop with no toilet paper, skip this entry – I promise I’ll get to that sooner than I would like – I if you choose not to read further I understand and I swear I won’t take it personally…I am assuming that at this point, only my parents and a few board friends are left reading this sentence. So, hi mom and dad! Let’s continue…

If I got a chance to talk to you before I left, you probably know that I actually got a little tired of talking about the Peace Corps and my assignment. It wasn’t that I lacked enthusiasm or didn’t appreciate your support; rather, I really had no idea what I was going to be doing (side note: it’s day 3 and I still have no idea; glad I’m making progress). As a result, I felt pretty useless as an information source and was frustrated that I couldn’t tell you more. Also, it’s tough to keep your smile and vigor when you’re not sure what to be excited about. Consequently, I had some pretty mixed emotions in the weeks leading up to arriving in Senegal (oh ya, I guess I never mentioned where I was placed but I am currently in Thies – pronounced Chez/Chess – in Senegal which is in West Africa and is not, in fact, Saigon, Vietnam, which someone confused and proceeded to tell me all motorbikes and street crossing etiquette). But the one thing I was certain and pleasantly surprised about was that I was not nervous.

If you know me or my family, you probably know how well we conduct ourselves prior to a big event like going off to college or preparing for a big basketball game☺ Us Honick’s are known to be a little high maintenance when we’re facing something huge and I assumed my leaving for the Peace Corps would be no different. But for whatever reason, even when I said goodbye to my family, even when I got to DC, even when I boarded the plane to Senegal, I was not neurotically nervous – this is a good sign that maybe I will end up like my mother after all. Of course I did have butterflies in my tummy but they were more like “yey I’m finally doing something with my life” butterflies rather than I’m scared sh*%tless butterflies. In any regard, I believe that I have never been more ready to tackle uncertainty and the unknown and now that I’ve arrived, I’m ready to start.

The aspect of my Peace Corps experience I am most eager for is learning: learning a new language, learning a new culture, learning how to react in different and difficult situations. I know every volunteer is jumping out of his or her skin to impress everyone else how excited and unselfish they are to help others, and I must admit I am looking forward to that as well. But if I am completely honest with myself and with you, I would have to say that while this was a strong component to my joining the PC, I am actually more excited to grow and change. And I can’t wait to see what kind of person I become after 27 months of continued humbling experiences.

Before we met in DC, all of us trainees (that’s what were called until we pass a bunch of tests and officially swear in as volunteers) had to write an aspiration statement basically outlining our goals and what we wanted to get most out of our service. Not knowing much about my assignment, I had a hard time formulating, let alone articulating, my aspirations. But a couple objectives became infinitely clear the more I dug into myself: I hope my Peace Corps service will provide me with a stronger sense of self and a broader perspective. I hope to gain the confidence needed to handle difficult situations and the determination to solve them. I also hope to have a better understanding of people. Most importantly, I hope to gain a new outlook of the world and be able to understand my place in it.

Hopefully I’m not setting my expectations too high and I hope I also am not underestimating what the next 2 years of my life will be like. Either way, I am excited to get started and to get pushed out of my comfort zone and have an experience that will change me for a lifetime.

Well it’s getting late here, I’m still a bit jet-lagged and there is some sort of loud Senegalese chant-singing at 12:30 am so I need to go to sleep. I will fill you in a little later with a more detailed discussion of what my past two/three days have been like. I hope you enjoy what I share and please, please write and let me know how you are. Just because I don’t respond right away or at all doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you or do not want to know. Trust me when I say that after 6 months of mosquito nets, chaffing, heat rash, and pooping in a teeny, tiny hole, I can honestly say that it will be soooooo refreshing to hear about someone else’s life in the States!

Good night! Miss you all! And thank you for sharing this experience with me. Lots and lots of love!

Rachael
03-11-2010