It seems that October has come and gone, along with the cooling rains. The dry sahellian wind has returned to my village, but with a slightly colder edge. The nights cool off, and the days are hot, but not blistering or humid. My throat and lungs are having a hard time getting used to the sudden dryness. The days too, are shorter, the sun rises about an hour later and sets about an hour earlier….much like Fall in the States. 
The millet harvest has finished up, and so have the last of the peanuts. Everyone is preparing to sell and hoping for higher market prices than last year. Since Senegal exports most of it’s agricultural products, the small farmers make hardly enough to live off of, and large co-ops and unions have not formed to fight for better price security while foreign imports of rice and wheat flood the domestic market. This is the plight of the third-world farmer all-over the world, and even the small farmers in America face a similar fate.


I spent the first 18 days of this month traveling to and from meetings, appointments, and fun days with my stage-mates.  We now have the tradition of renting our trusty beach house before any large event, and as such did so the first weekend of October. It was calm, and not too hot. We went for our night swim around midnight and were blown away by the bioluminescence. We had seen it before, but it was especially bright and dense this time. Some of us stayed out there for 3 hours, just floating in the tepid water surrounded by  pearls of light.  The next day we headed up the coast to Joal for our meeting.

Example of Luminescence 
Wikepedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence


All of the health and environmental education volunteers in the country had a ‘summit’….basically it was a 2 day open forum for sharing ideas, problems, stories, and ideas about how to improve and modify the current programs and projects.  It was the first time the first and second year vols had been together in a place to exchange information. I felt relieved that like my fellow volunteers, I was facing adversity and malaise when trying to start projects, and comforted by the second years who said, in most cases, all comes with time. 


I am finally at peace with the pace of my work, partly because of the reassurance from my family that the village only expects that I set up projects for the next volunteer, and that I can get people thinking about ‘health’ as more than just illness and medecine. I still occasionally get ‘where is your money for us’ or ‘why don’t you farm or plant trees’, but those comments are slowing as the idea that I will be here for the next 1.5 years and working with the health hut sinks in.


After the summit, I went to Dakar,  always a nice getaway…I forgot how exhausting the stimulation of the city is. There were nights when all I wanted to do was hear crickets and see starts, but in Dakar, those things barely exist. One night a group of us went to down to the beach where some very smart Senegalese men have set up a maekshift tikki bar with a generator. We paid in advance and they had a donkey cart bring the beer to the top of cliff, and it was carried down to the tikki hut. We swam, had a beer, and chatted until it was way past dark, then headed of to a BBQ at one of the third year volunteer apartments. At times like those, it is hard to believe that I am living in western Africa, and can go from barely having electricity to a life that is the picture of a 20-something in America.


On the work front:
I am constantly in the process of procuring supplies for our health hut, as it is severly lacking. A few NGO’s furnish health facilities for free, so I am trying to get one of them to come out and do an evaluation. In the mean time, I have basically been begging anyone I have contact with for things: a scale, medicine, patient logs, pharmacy requests, etc. I also am trying to rally my health committee to start meeting once a month. I want them to try and find someone in the community who can be trained as a health educator, and can volunteer their time at the health hut when the guy who runs it is out (which is often).


I participated in a vegetable pepinere training in the next large village over, and started intensive moringa beds in the health hut. I eventually want to train the midwife to take care of the moringa, turn it into powder, and then sell it for profit so the health hut has extra cash to either pay a full-time employee or subsideze the volunteers.
I came to the realization however, before any of these things happen, I have to get the health hut functional and organized. I gave a calender to my counterpart, so he can mark important events, as well as anything that is regularly occurring (such as vaccination days). He also is learning, however slowly, to keep track of  who comes in, for what, where they are from, age, etc. I made a makeshift log book until I can get an official one for him. I try not to get frustrated by the fact that this is all so basic, and is part of the training they receive when they agree to work at clinic…but often it just becomes a medicine dispenseray and nothing more. 


The amount of guess work they do here freaks me out; how does everyone survive without knowing what is what and when things are supposed to occur?? Not only that, but most fot he people   (men specially) who I have met who work in the health system are not just jerks, but also completely incomepentant and okay with doing the bare minimum. The lack of accountability to human life blows my mind. But, overworked and underpaid will do that to you…right??


Food of the Month: Bush Meat
While I ate like a queen in Dakar (Korean, French, American style Sandwiches, Ice Cream!!!!!), this is not so in the village. We have unfortunately fallen on lean times, waiting for the harvest to sell, and the last of the seasons veggie crops winding down. What do lean times mean in a country where most people subsit off of only rice and millet? It means BUSH MEAT. In an effort to make the bowl hardier than the few beans and plain oiled rice, often bush meat is added (or old salted and dried fish). What exactly is bush meat you ask? Well that’s the beauty of it, you don’t really want to know!!
Lizard is a popular secret ingrediant where I live, since they are enormous and bountiful…no matter the poison. it’s like eating bony girstle. I have seen other types of meat like things in the bowl, and when I ask if it is lizard, the response is ‘no’…and no further explanation. So I don’t really want to know what critters are being consumed on a bi-weekly basis, but if I had to guess I would say rat, dog, and field rabbits are likely contenders.

"Bushmeat initially referred to the hunting of wild animals in West andCentral Africa and is a calque from the French viande de brousse. Nowadays the term is commonly used for meat of terrestrial wild animals, killed for subsistence or commercial purposes throughout the humid tropics of the Americas, Asia, and Africa......"
\http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmeat

So much time, and so little to do! .....Strike that, reverse it.

Back home: leaves are falling, a smell of crisp apples apples is in the air, and jack-o-lanterns are beginning to appear on doorsteps.....

In Senegal: The humidity has no threats to subside, the humming of millet chaffing machines is all around us, and the mosquitoes cling to every surface........ Ahh Fall.


Where has the month gone? It seems like Ramadan ended  light years ago. I forgot how quickly the days pass when people are being active; and how much happier people are with their bellies full (well fuller during the day at least…most still only eat one regular meal a day!)
We had the naming ceremony for my new baby sister. It is the first Seneglese event that I felt truly included in, and excited about! We had so many people running around the compound; I had forgotten how much I loved parties in the states. I invited another Peace Corps volunteer who lives 5k away, so it made the experience that much better. There was music, and we killed a sheep, and everyone was giddy with excitement!! It seems like all we did that day was eat, from morning until about 11 pm… a bit of a shock to my system just one day after Ramadan. 

                                
      I think he knows he's done for....              

Waiting for the Kilifa (religious leaders to confirm the baby name)                                        

When the babies name is confirmed they kill the sheep, and bury some blood for a blessing

             Mom and Baby

My aunt cooking a traditional rice topping Chou....parsnips onions and carrots in a broth

   Notice the HUGE pots used to cook the food

    My host brother and his daughter and me




I am not sure if I mentioned it earlier on, but I am getting new PCV neighbors. 3 will be replacing current COS-ing volunteers, and 2 will be new sites. The volunteers in my region of Senegal had a “Kaffrine Day” where we took them to the market, our favorite juice spot, and showed them the cyber café. We finished up by taking them for a beer and our favorite ceeb shack (lunch hut). It was nice to see the new, fresh  excited faces…I know I have been here barely 7 months, but I am amazed how my attitude has changed to fit my situation. I thought I had good coping skills before I came here, but now, I am hard as a rock. I have also had to change my perspective/reality of what I will achieve here, and what development as a whole can achieve on the small scale community based level. The simple fact is: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and everyone fails at least once (something I was NOT accustomed to back home). If you want to read more about the shortcomings and failures about aid in Africa check out a great book: 

On the work front: 


I was able to participate in a regional project in the mangroves a couple weeks ago. Mangroves are known as Forests of the Tide, and support more life in their ecosystems than any other system on earth. According to National Geographic "Mangroves provide nursery grounds for fish; a food source for monkeys, deer, tree-climbing crabs, even kangaroos; and a nectar source for bats and honeybees. .. Each mangrove has an ultrafiltration system to keep much of the salt out and a complex root system that allows it to survive in the intertidal zone.  The plants' interlocking roots stop riverborne sediments from coursing out to sea, and their trunks and branches serve as a palisade that diminishes the erosive power of waves." 
We planted mangroves in a delta town called Toubacouta. The place is beautiful…. But the human impact on the mangroves forests over the last 50 years that Senegal has been industrializing is enormous. Where there used to be a network of tidal flats and acre deep forest, there is now just empty sand bars.  
We had a total of 50 community members, in addition to 20-ish PCV’s out in the mud flats during low tide planting mangroves. It was a fun, dirty, tiring day, but by the time we had finished, there were acres and acres of new mangroves seedlings planted in the thick mud.

Mangrove inlet where we stayed

Sorting through the seeds before planting time

Planting the seedlings along the natural water line

The last Friday of every month, my  health hut holds post-natal vaccinations sponsored by UNICEF. I was given a job at the one we had this month…I sold the aspirin and explained the dosage instructions and proper uses. Not exactly the most important job, but I participated none the less. I spoke with the mid-wife in my village, and starting next month we are going to have an information table, covering a different topic each month. I am going to try to get my hands on a baby scale also so I can monitor the children who routinely come through. Hopefully I will have some pictures of this in November.


I also went to an “open field day”… a project held by AgFo and Sustainable Ag volunteers, and part of the region-wide food security initiative. The tour was held in a village at the site of a farming demo plot. The plot is designed to maximize space and food production, while using natural pest management, live fencing, and a host of other techniques. There were tons of Senegalese farmers there, as well as many PCV’s, and our Country Director. Eventually, we want to integrate nutrition and health education into the program, since both play a large role in food security.

                                                       Rice paddy demo plot

                                        The farmers doing a question and answer session


And now for some lagniappe (New Orleans lingo for "a little something extra")


“A Wolof Guide to the Supernatural in Honor of All Hallows Eve"
Since I have been here, I have heard some odd and varied bits of information about supernatural beings and the underworld…although the country as a whole is Muslim, it does retain some of it’s animist beliefs. (There is an ethnic group who is wholly animist, the Bassari, I would love to go to visit a village of this group during a ceremonial celebration!)


Witches: People here talk about witches all the time. 
- If you don’t eat the bitter tomato in the bowl, or you eat it and spit it out, you’re definitely a witch.
-If you ride you’re bicycle in a skirt, you’re probably a witch.
- If the local schizophrenic/fortune teller says you’re a witch, you might not be a witch.


Ghosts: Ghosts are the scape goat for everything, they also serve as reason not to do something.
-If you whistle, you are actually calling the ghosts. (oops! No wonder people give me weird looks when I whistle a tune while I work). This also means you might be a witch, especially if you’re a woman.
- You can’t go into the Baobob forests alone, because ghosts will attack you (this is always the first thing people say, not that you will get attacked by animals, or get lost, but ghosts!!)
- You can’t walk in between corners of buldings and other objects ( ex. Between a house and electrical pole) because the ghosts will get you.
- you can’t go to the well after dark, because there are ghosts
- The most dangerous thing on the bush paths are lions and ghosts (let me remind you there is only 1 pride of lions in all of Senegal and it lives in a protected reserve)


I am sure there are other superstitions, but this is what I have compiled so far…I am totally a witch, and I communicate frequently with ghosts!

The non work related picture of the month:

Kaolack Kitchen Dance Krew...if we aren't busy singing Glee at the top of our lungs, we are cleaning, cooking, and dancing away in the kitchen