Sandstorm over West Africa
Update
Morning!
It’s freezing in the North of Senegal! I’m writing from the inside of a huge University of Vermont hoodie and soaking up every glorious shiver of the all-too-brief cold season. So my motivation for blogging is waning as homecoming nears but I figured the least I could do is post a link to a buddy’s blog (who isn’t quite so lazy)
The photos are from this past WAIST- West African Invitational Softball Tournament in Dakar-
And a link to what’s going on politically here (I could not be safer)
Ev
Bakel Eye Clinic!
Hey all,
Back from the eye clinic after a somewhat torturous 17 hour trip home yesterday. The clinic itself was held in a town called Bakel, which isn’t too far from the Mauritania/Mali/Senegal crossroads. Bakel is known as a backwater of sorts in the PC Senegal community mainly because the volunteers who get placed there are the most isolated in country, and about as far as you can get from Dakar and decent medical services. The town itself however, is by all accounts an incredible place. The land out there is not really any more vegetated than in the rest of the North, but the hills make a world of difference. It almost reminded me of Israel in places, or what I’ve seen in pictures of Morocco. Lots of rocky hillsides leading down to the green Senegal River. There is an old French fort perched up on one of the taller peaks looking out over the frontier with Mauritania, and on top you can see what appears to be a roaring trade of Senegalese people taking boats across the river and buying stashes of tea and sugar which are both cheaper in Mauritania.
So, as I mentioned in the previous post, Peace Corps Senegal teams up every year with an organization called Right to Sight, which both performs eye surgery in developing countries and teaches doctors on the ground how to perform the operations. In order for the doctors to see as many patients as possible and dedicate their time to surgery and teaching, we were responsible for many of the other aspects of the clinic.
The way that it worked: Spence and Jillian bravely faced crowds of hundreds of people and organized them into groups, those who had come in for Post Operation screening, those who were in line to get consultations to begin the process, and those who had no ticket, no appointment, but were nonetheless demanding eye surgery asap. Once someone’s name was called for their first consultation they were sent back to me. I did a vision test with them and picked the better candidates for surgery. They were then sent to one of the doctors who would check their eyes further and determine whether they would receive the surgery. If they had glaucoma there was nothing we could do, and we were so inundated with potential patients that by the end of the week the only people getting surgery were those blind in both eyes. Mostly what we were checking for is cataracts. The vast majority of the surgeries were cataract extraction and replacement. If the doctor determined that the patient was a good candidate, they would go over to Maddy who would use machines whose purpose was always a bit unclear to me, but very definitely involved having to poke the patient’s eye repeatedly with some sort of electronic stick. The process gets a little murky to me after that, and I’ve got considerable doubt that anyone is that interested in the step by step description, so we’ll move on.
My work mostly consisted of vision tests, dispensing glasses to those that needed them, doing post operation instructions for those who had received the surgery, and translating between the doctors and patients. This often created a very strange day of emotions. When translating for the doctors, it was mostly our job to give bad news. If someone had glaucoma for instance, or if their cataracts were inoperable, the doctors couldn’t simply explain that to anyone except for volunteers. It then became our job to communicate to people that the doctors couldn’t perform the surgery (which more often than not meant that they wouldn’t see again). As you might imagine, I’ve had more fun in my life, especially because no matter how good I am at Pulaar, I don’t think I can truly articulate something as sensitive as that. At the other end of the spectrum was the profuse thanks we received over and over again as peoples bandages were pulled off and they were able to see, sometimes for the first time in many years.
Things were otherwise pretty chaotic, as per usual in a situation like this in Senegal. The police had to be called on multiple occasions to keep the crowds at bay, and at one point they were overwhelmed rifles and all. I know I’m not doing such a great job of explaining the clinic- pretty beat up at the moment from travel and all- I hope the photos make up for it a bit.
Also! I know 2 years ago around this time (after I got my invitation to Senegal to serve) I was wildly searching blogs from PC Senegal volunteers, trying to find out as much as I could about life here. So if that happens to be you then welcome! We are psyched to have you all coming in- PC Senegal is an incredibly supportive and upbeat community.
Also also! Happy Holidays to everyone! I’ll be in village for Christmas, which will be a bizarre change from the normal Zelie-Spark-DePass celebration, I’ll miss you guys!
Ev
What’s Coming
I’m writing from an empty Ndioum house, a far cry from the Thanksgiving celebration that marked the last time I was here. I’m passing through on my way to Ourossogui and then out east to Bakel (right on the border with Mali) where Peace Corps volunteers are/will be working with a group called Right to Sight http://www.righttosight.com/. For a week a group of us will be translating between American surgeons and Senegalese patients, helping out in the operating room and pretty much whatever else needs doing (I refuse to touch anyone’s eyeball though, gross) . When I’m passing back through I promise photos and stories but for now I’m off to bed. Oh! If you’re interested check out Maddy’s account/ photos of our trip to Kedegou a few months ago http://maddyandpaulinsenegal.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/exploring-kedegou/
Back in a week-
Ev
October
Hey all,
I’ve had some time to relax and get some sleep since my last post. Ndioum has been a necessary stopover on my way back to site, as a place to recover from the last few weeks of travel. As you may have guessed travel in Senegal is not quite as simple as hopping a train or car and going. Cars are often held together with spare parts and sometimes need a bobsled style push from 10 or so people to get started. Roads are spotted with crater sized potholes. Goats get stacked on top of cars. Goats urinate on top of cars. That urine sometimes leaks into the car causing a small bit of chaos among passengers. And so on. So with that in mind, I’m going to try and recap the last few weeks here.
Admittedly I had made it a pretty long time in country without having seen the vast majority of Senegal. Up until October I had never been out of my region in the north except to go to Dakar/ Thies for Peace Corps events. So after a year and a half of service, and having caught an enormous amount of crap from friends in other regions, I decided it was time to see the rest of this place and I’m glad I did.
The trip starts in the north. A bunch of friends and I travelled to Saint Louis (a New Orleans-like city on the coast of our region) to meet the new ambassador to Senegal. He and his wife were in our region checking out Peace Corps projects and ushering in the anti-malaria initiative that had just begun. They were incredibly friendly and were genuinely interested in our lives in village. For me, it was a bizarre experience in some ways because I realized how rare it is for me to talk to someone outside of the Peace Corps Senegal paradigm, and the extent to which I take for granted the shared experience of other volunteers. From Saint Louis we headed to Dakar for a SeneGAD meeting at the American Club. SeneGAD is the Gender and Development branch of Peace Corps Senegal that promotes ‘GAD’ activities, sponsors a scholarship for middle school aged girls and such. The American Club is a little slice of home that volunteers are allowed to use for free. There is a pool and veggie wraps abound.
From Dakar my friend Maddie and I took a 14 hour trip to Kedougou which is in the south eastern corner of Senegal right on the border with Guinea. I think I’ve mentioned here before about how dry and flat my region in Senegal is. Well Kedougou is just about as different as you can get and still be in the same country. Kedougou is mountainous, verdant and full of wildlife. On the way down we were completely blown away by the scenery. I honestly did not know Senegal was capable of looking like that, it didn’t seem like it could possibly be the same country that I live in. We explored the “city” of Kedougou for a day and then took a 2 day bike trip to one of the region’s biggest attractions, the waterfalls. We biked maybe 35 kilometers to Dindefelo, through small villages, shoulder high grass and on red roads. Luckily the dialect of Pulaar that is spoken in Kedougou isn’t too far from what we speak in the north so language wasn’t a problem. Once we got to Dindefelo we ditched the bikes and hiked for about an hour to the falls.
After lunch we got back on the bikes and went a few k back to a small village called Segou where we would spend the night. An eco-tourism Peace Corps volunteer had recently been posted in Segou to complete an eco-lodge project there and so we crashed at his incredibly beautiful campement that looked out over hills and forest. The place was unbelievable. It ran on solar power and so had much of the accoutrements that you might find in a much more developed town, except that we were in the bush. The next day was a new hike and a new waterfall. We wound our way through grass that stretched over our heads and rivers that ran cold and almost stole my sandals. After an hour or so we found ourselves with mountains on both sides of us as we hiked up the river towards the falls. The waterfall was as expected, stunningly beautiful and it took a lot of will power to start the trip home that afternoon
http://sites.google.com/site/segouecolodge/
We got back to Kedougou and the next morning made it up to Tambacounda another first. The day after we went to Kaolack and met up with a bunch of friends. The day after was my friends Mikael and Kourtney’s birthday, and found us liquor tasting at Warang- a family run establishment in the coastal town of Mbour. All of the liquor is based on local fruits and as you might imagine, delicious. We spent the rest of the day on the beach and had some of the best pizza you can find in Senegal that night.
Warang-
From Mbour we were off to Thies for a 2 day sector summit for all of the health and environmental education volunteers in pc sen. After Thies I visited my old host family in Ngekokh and then headed back to Tambacounda for Halloweeen. Finally I wound up heading north and am happily back here to stay for a while.
A guy from Glee, a Lebron James Tiger and a Nice Cream lady
The whole shabang in map form-
That’s all for now!
Love Ev
Future of Agriculture?
Hi all,
Just got back to Ndioum from a 3 week trip around the country. Much to tell but I wanted to share this article. Hopefully I’ll get another post up about the last few weeks in the near future.
As for the article, it’s a little light on substance so I’ll try and fill in. The Fouta (where I live) is one of the driest places in the country, BUT we have a huge river which facilitates a massive amount of irrigated agriculture. Land strapped countries in western Europe have taken notice of regions like this one- places that are not incredibly far from their markets, in relatively stable countries and with a whole lot of something they don’t have, arable land and more sunshine than anyone could ever hope for- and started to buy or lease massive amounts of land for various endeavors, mostly bioful projects. It turns out people don’t really appreciate this, especially when the product is being grown in a place that could be provideing sustenance for their family, and then promptly getting shipped out of the country.
http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Wade-regrets-deaths-after-biofuels-clash-20111028
I’m safe! Just thought you’d all be interested. Hope all is well and I’ll post about the trip asap.
Ev
Universal Net Coverage Part 1 Census
Hey all,
Slow internet required me to split these posts up but look below for photos. This past week saw a massive anti-malaria campaign kick off in our region. For more info on the universal net coverage campaign in Senegal check these out.
http://bushkids.org/ my friend Mike Toso’s website that features the campaign this month
http://pcsenegal.org/index.php?page=malaria/index.html
We started things off with a few trainings and then a census that took our team to all of the villages in our health poste’s district. I’m sleepy so signing off for now-
Love Ev
What I get up to
Thumbs up for circumcision
In lieu of something more substantive here are a few photos of the circumcision garb that the boys of Senegal wear (as if it wasn’t emasculating enough, they don milkmaid style bonnets and flowy shirt-dresses). Enjoy and I hope this finds you all in Autumn bliss,
Love Ev!
Introducing Ball-Zo and Baby Sinthian
So I’ve been negligent, even for me, about keeping this blog up to date. Since the last post I’ve been to Spain and back, and hopefully when I get them I’ll have some pictures to put up here. I wrote this post in village and just transcribed it, but I can’t attest to its coherence or quality as I was pretty hungry (last days of Ramadan) when I wrote it.
When it comes down to it I have two good friends in village. While there are a ton of people who I hang out with on a regular basis, these two are in a class of their own.
One of them is a two year old named Sinthian. Sinthian is my host sister Binta’s kid and is absolutely the only thing in my world here that can lift my spirits when the going gets rough. His hobbies include putting on sandals that are 10 sizes too big, taking off his clothes, jumping on people’s stomachs when they’re lying down and pretending they’re horses, threatening adults with rocks or clumps of dirt and pretending to pray next to someone who is actually praying- often naked. Probably one of the reasons he and I are friends is because he can’t really speak yet. To paraphrase a former volunteer’s advice, babies make the best friends because they’re essentially culture-less (which might sound cynical, but when you need a break from Senegal nothing compares).
A normal conversation with Sinthian might go something like this:
Me: Sinthian how are you?
Sinthian: Your mother
Me: Sinthian that’s not really a nice thing to say
Sinthian: Your mother
Me: You’re crazy
Sinthian: Your mother
Me: Okay, Sinthian you must study, all you can say is your mother and your father, this isn’t the way
Sinthian: Your father
Me: ….
Sinthian: Horse!
Which rarely fails to crack me up, although its slightly sad that his first phrase “your mother” is the shortened version of an insult in Pulaar that’s unrepeatable here.
Despite the fact that we’re good friends now, it’s taken a long time to get to this point. When I first got to site, my presence alone was enough to throw Sinthian into terrified hysterics. An unfortunate aspect to being white in Senegal is that my appearance is enough to be horrifying to young children. So we started slow. The family would ask Sinthian to hand me things to get him comfortable and over the course of may months he began to trust me enough to fall asleep on, and pee on me.
Ball-Zo
Thankfully my other friend in village is a grownup. Ibrahim Ball arrived in the village next to mine, Diambo Soubalo, a few months after I got to site, and assumed the ICP position (doctor) at the health center there. Having studied in Dakar, and coming from a very different background than most of the villagers in Diambo, Ball is easily the person with whom I can relate the most in village.
When I was still actively learning Pulaar, Ball would teach me Pulaar while I taught him English. The result is that Ball greets many a bewildered villager with a “WAAZZZUP MAN?” or in an aside to me during consultations “Her baby is …. very ugly.” Ball is into Aikido, 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, cold water on hot days, the Senegalese wrestler Yekini and Baaba Mall. Ball is the person in village that I can talk to about whatever and not worry about whether it’s taboo. Recently we’ve begun working more together, although honestly I was a bit hesitant considering close friends can be hard to come by. Still some of my favorite days are doing roving vaccinations with Ball, handing out deworming meds to kids in some of the rural areas of his health district. This often means taking a boat to the island and walking to all sorts of far flung herder villages to track down these kids and then paddling home by moonlight. Easily some of the most fun I’ve had doing work in Senegal.
The last thing I wanted to fit into this email was the blog addresses of 4 friends who are also in the Peace Corps. Mika is a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal and has a way better maintained blog than mine (not to mention a layout that’s a bit easier on the eyes).
Bart and I were roommates together in South Africa and haven’t seen each other since winter of 2010 when we were both about to leave. BTans is an English teacher in Indonesia.
http://bartthanhauser.wordpress.com/
Tashiya is has been serving in Rwanda since last year. She and I met when we were both studying in Florence our junior year of college.
http://dispatchesfromrwanda.blogspot.com/
Carrie and I worked in the woods of Maine together in the summer of 2009.The Lady Carrie is working in Kazakhstan and is also teaching English.
http://carrieinkazakhstan.blogspot.com/2011/09/it.html
Much love from a very hot Ndioum,
Ev
