Hello. Sorry I haven't written in literally six months. I would leave site to come into the regional capital city and relax then leave without having worked on writing. I took some videos of a brush fire moving toward my village but my computer won't recognize the file so I can't upload it yet. In the meantime we can just review some of the other things that have been happening.
I spent several days in Dakar while doing a short medical evaluation. Nothing wrong in terms of health but did get a cleaning done at the dentist. Ordered a fantastic goat cheese and honey pizza and ate it with rootbeer. Good pizza and rootbeer are unavailable in the part of the country I live in, and I only make it to the capital city once or twice a year. I almost cried because the food was so good. Bought some clothes too. Buying clothes has always been a 'I'll do that later after I lose a little weight', but I wait so long that I only end up wearing ratty stuff. Purchased some new stuff and actually felt presentable for once, it's a nice feeling. Saw big box jellyfish in the Gambia River, neat. Haven't been ill, also neat. Hot season has come and is now even on it's way out getting replaced soon by rainy season. It's no fun to be unable to fall asleep unless you are outside because inside is too hot. Upon returning from Dakar which is on a coastal peninsula and excellently chilly I was dehydrated for days until I realized that's what my headache meant. Then I spent a few days consuming liters of oral re-hydration salts before 11am. I don't remember much memorable happening up until the last few weeks, but I've been working and trying to get stuff done like a demon now.
With rainy season on the approach farmers should be planting trees and letting them grow a bit before moving them to their future homes in fields during the rainy season. So I've been going around asking people if they want cashew or mango trees (because those seeds are available), and then helping them get started. Step one is to ask who wants them, then I'm telling them to gather the dirt. If I see dirt I'll give tree sacks and show them how to fill them. If they are filled upon my next visit I give seeds. This is necessary because last year many people wanted seeds to just throw in the ground after rains start, but then they're too small to survive the dry season. So I'm running around biking to a neighboring village 3km away every several days. The people there seem much more motivated than those in my own village though, not sure what the presence of a volunteer does but it seems to detract from people's motivation the more people think they have access to you.
Been pushing the moringa still, the healthy tree. Had Scott Le and Randi Rumbold come through my site to do a demonstration and education lesson for moringa. Then only a few days ago I brought my village workpartner and three women to a training on commercialization of moringa powder. I'm hoping to do what I did last year and dispense a great quantity of moringa seed. I tried to give out a lot last year but much of it was put in places that goats and chickens and sheep just killed it. So this year I'll make sure to avoid that and some other problems.
Worked with my new sitemate(person whose site is nearest your own) on doing a girls scholarship program. Met with teachers and nine girls from 13-16 to write short essays on the roles of women and ask questions about home and school. Hopefully when school resumes in October they will each have the ten dollar yearly school fee covered and be given ten dollars worth of notebooks, pens, school supplies, and a backpack. Girls are chosen if they have good grades and a financial need.
My language has gotten better. I think it's because I've been in site for almost a month without leaving and coming to the city for long periods of time. I feel comfortable talking to people about most stuff and if I don't understand I can ask and follow an explanation. Feeling competent in a second language is really an amazing feeling. It has helped me greatly with work and explaining why things should be done and how. Last year I'd say we should do this or that and someone would reply 'nah I wanna do it this way', and I didn't have the depth to convince them otherwise.
Not everything is peachy keen. I am not a loud person, or confrontational, but I yelled at someone as loud as I could for whipping her son. He'd done something to upset her and she hit him, which is acceptable, but then she called him to come over and eat lunch. This kid is 4, and she told him to sit and eat, another 20 something guy is telling him to listen or he'll hit him too. The kid sits at the bowl and just holds his hand over it. She keeps telling him to eat but he obviously can't eat cause he's crying too hard and people have just been yelling at him for the last 20 minutes. She grabs a little 2 foot stick, quite thin too, and hits him a few times. A 12yo boy that lives with us actually tries to defend him from some of the blows and says it's enough. I agree and say to no one particular that the 4yo isn't going to eat lunch. The mother tells him to get up and pulls him a few meters away and just starts hitting him as much as she can wherever he's exposed(not head though). People start shouting at her that it's enough, including myself. The 14yo girl that lives with us also gets up and takes the kid away from her and brings him to the other side of the compound. Some other people come over and all start telling her that that was too much. I've never really liked this woman, she's always rough towards kids. Once she asked for someone to bring out a complet(set of clothing) for her baby and the child did exactly as asked. She then berated the kid who brought it to her verbally for no reason that I could discover, referencing the clothing and that it was incorrect. Once when a woman returned to the village for a visit I asked why this other woman had returned and she told me, while laughing, that it was because her husband beat her. That's what happens here, if a man beats his wife she returns to her family for a little while, then goes back to his place. The man who lives in the hut opposite mine within our compound is very harsh with his kids. I'm quite certain a large black eye his daughter had was given by him, although she told me she was stung by a bee. He's harsh with his son, who is really a good kid, but on more than one occasion I've seen him very fearful of his father. Not even just people that have it rough. Kids beat animals for no reason. They don't seem to understand that a smack is sufficient. I recently saw a kid take a long stick and do an overhead strike to a young dog that was lying down doing absolutely nothing. Donkey's are beaten for doing nothing at all. Someone had the brilliant idea that if you tied two of a horses legs together, front left to back left for example, that when removed the horse would run faster. All this does however is ruin the hips and kill the animal at least 5 years earlier than necessary. I watched a donkey get hit by a truck last week. Wasn't moving super fast and didn't kill the donkey but when I saw the donkey a few days later its back leg was swollen at the joint. On my way to the moringa training I saw a smooshed dog and ten km later a young dog lying on the side of the road dead. When waiting for the moringa training I saw three dogs fighting, then realized it was two dogs basically killing a monkey. A kid chased off the dogs but when I returned at midday the monkey was dead. The worst thing about any of this is that it is moving into my perception as normality, and I don't want that. Aid workers in other countries often end up so callused and indifferent it becomes hard to care.
Then sometimes caring without being informed just makes it worse. Upon learning that female genital cutting happens in this country I was prepared to inform my community 'Stop or I leave'. But what the hell did I know about what actually was going on? Nothing. Turns out there are tons of LEVELS to female genital cutting. The demonized version is a removal of all external parts; labia, clitoris, everything, and then sometimes the hymen is sown even more shut to discourage sexual behavior prior to marriage. The thing is that this is what we westerners think ALL LEVELS actually are, so we try to do everything we can to stop it. But check this, a great woman who works for Peace Corps here and does women's empowerment training and such gave us an insight. When she was a young woman all the older women would exclude her and say 'no you aren't part of our group'. So she tried and tried and eventually the older women said 'very well how would you like to be part of our group'. She and several others were initiated with a ceremony that (PAY ATTENTION) made a small cut on the clitoris and took a drop of blood. Then she was educated briefly on sexuality and what would happen upon marriage and invited into this women's group where should could ask questions and learn about being a woman. Since the west has begun it's uninformed zealous attempt to eliminate all forms of female genital cutting many groups have simply moved all such practices to very young girls, babies. This is more dangerous for the child and also means that all the education and background information are never brought up. Without the foreknowledge and zero organized sex education young girls are quite frighteningly vulnerable. An older male invites them into a room, offers money, it is accepted and then the male asks what he may get in return. What arguments can a poorly educated 14 year old girl make to a older male, especially in a culture which puts even male children above adolescent women, making it very disrespectful to decline requests. Certainly there are bad things that happen, but we have to be careful about how we deal with them.
I have five months left here. I don't know if I'll come out the kind and caring Dali Lama kind of person I was hoping to become, but for better or worse it's coming. I just read an exquisite book by Barbara Kingsolver called The Poisonwood Bible. HIGHLY recommend to anyone with a little free time. It's an easy to get through fiction about a family that goes to the Congo in the sixties to do missionary work. Tons of parallels to my experiences here. One of the characters simply doesn't feel that she can return home because it would all be so false and ignorant about how much of the world lives. I wonder this for myself sometimes, will I be able to reintegrate to my old lifestyle knowing what happens 'out there'. I'm sure I will because I have video games and friends that will help me to not think about it, but is that what I want, to just not think about it? I'm a pretty clever person so I don't anticipate any huge problems, but I do expect to have lingering side effects. Five months... Just do my work day by day and try to make the attempt to offer informed help. Get to know people in my village better, that kind of stuff. My most excellent work partner who does exactly what a work partner should and is the nicest guy and smart and everything, a few days back his mother passed. Was only last year that one of his wives passed. It's real though. Real isn't only what's real for you. There are other realities out here too.
