And the work comes rolling in!

Ne zabre!

So I haven’t talked too much about the projects I see myself being able to do in Silimidougou so I think I will do a little update on that. As most of you know, I am a rural development agent volunteer which is under the DABA program here. My work is supposed to entail mainly agriculture projects while also doing projects that are environmental based and entrepreneurial based. All volunteers in Burkina are also supposed to do some youth development projects and health projects. So as Dad said, “You can do anything and it will count as a Peace Corps project.”

My agriculture projects I think will be pretty vast. I am supposed to be getting a model garden once the gardening season starts (probably in November). I think this year it will be mainly a tool for people to see new techniques since that is what they said that they wanted. I may be setting up a compost pile there, cover cropping, intercropping and pest protection since those are all activities people have seemed interested in. I’m also working one on one with some farmers right now. Dominique is a great subsistence farmer that has four generations of his family in the fields. He grows millet, corn and has started planting mango trees to have a harvest at another part of the year. He’s a really sweet man and his son is really competent and hard working. It was his ‘brother’ that gave me my bunny – who is now dead (don’t worry I got two more that will hopefully have offspring soon). Omar is my farmer who is actually a businessman in Ouaga but is from my village so he continues to have a field that he cultivates. Two years ago he made half of his land a plantation of bananas and papayas – luckily for me I get a good share of this when I visit so no scurvy for me! So far, everyone has a keen interest in composting and water sources. The composting projects I’m already really excited about because people have a real understanding that their land is tired and needs to have a better soil quality to continue to be productive. Composting seems like a pretty great project that fruit farmers are interested in but also subsistence farmers so can be used with everyone to different levels. On the water front, I did not have a lot of feasible ideas – my thoughts always go to drip irrigation but the problem here is water availability, not water efficacy. Luckily for me, the agriculture agent that lives ten kilometers from me has a very interesting program for building miniature lake-esque that also receives a little bit of government funding so I think the water projects are also pretty possible.

As of right now, the environmental projects are the ones that are not materializing as quickly, very few people see planting trees as a top priority in the community. So I hope to be learning more about the needs and wants of the community before I get too stressed about this. I’ve met a lot of plantation farmers for tree planting – I guess that will count to some extent or another.

On the enterprise side, there is of course a lot of interest in the community. The challenge that I started with a lot is that people believe that the way to business development is to be handed money to start their business. So for a while the discussion was on starting small to build up their capacity themselves. I think there are a lot of people that are really excited to hear from someone that they can actually take the reins and create a profitable business. The word profitable is not a word here that they use very much. Everyone wants to make money but very rarely are people thinking about profits in their business or even breaking even. I have not met anyone in my community that does accounting but people seem interested in the idea of profits and inventory control. So far it seems like it will mainly be with younger men (I’ll be talking a lot more about them in the youth development section) and a few little boutique owners (male and female!). I’m hoping that once my Moore gets better I will be able to have a better relationship with the ladies that work in the marche and then I will be able to work with them too!

The health projects that I can be working on easily are HIV/AIDS projects, sanitation projects and malnutrition projects. An HIV/AIDS project would not be a project that would be at the top of the community’s needs. This is because thankfully Burkina has a relatively low HIV/AIDS rate and my village seems to have an even lower rate. A sanitation project at this moment I think would be because I am disgusted with human feces, not because the community wants it. So I plan on holding off on it for now – though watching people of all ages poop on the soccer field I play on each evening grosses me out and smelling human feces almost every evening is not what I call delightful. Malnutrition, as of right now, seems to be the most important community need when it comes to health. Babies, children, young adults, and the elderly all seem to be in dire need for nutritional attention. I have been invited to work at my community health center every Thursday morning to weigh babies, measure their heights, write it down for the health center (called a CSPS) and the mothers’ personal records, and then help with immunizations afterwards. It is really overwhelming but everyone puts in the time and effort to record all the information so it is doing something! The program could really expand though since right now there is no feedback to the mother of whether or not her baby is in good health. There is also, from what I can tell, a lack of information for the mothers if they are looking to get information about nutrition or other infant health information if they wanted it. I am really excited about being invited to do this and I really think it will be a great opportunity to get the next generation in great health!

The youth development aspect I think will be a great source of entertainment, opportunity but also frustration. The ‘youth’ here actually is defined as 20-35 year olds which then equates to solely 20-35 year old males. Let’s just say the first meeting I sat in on was a bit of a surprise but it does open new doors. About fifty percent of the male youth here ends up doing gold mining – the majority work independently and create their own mines. They are by far the youth with the most money but it is an extremely dangerous job. Most of the youth really want to start businesses and help strengthen their community. I am really looking forward to working with them but it will be a challenge as a young girl that in their minds is marriageable (I’ve been told I’m a bit old but still in the right range) I know there will be some barriers but I’m optimistic all will go well!

I am really excited about all the things I may be able to do. It is nice being in a community that is so motivated in so many directions! I am really happy and cannot imagine doing anything else right now or being anywhere else – though I do miss my friends, family, and food with true sustenance! 

Life in the Big City

Ne zabre m zaka ni m zwa!

I am in Kaya, my regional capital visiting Zach so I thought this would be a good time for an update! Kaya is the big city in my world. There are more fruits and vegetables at one stand than I have ever seen in my entire village. There is also great yogurt and peanut sauce kebabs on most of the street corners. Last night we went to a French restaurant where I had a steak (no cows are slaughtered in village unless they have already died). The restaurant is a partner with an orphanage that teaches the children technical skills. So there are some of the older kids that wait the tables and others that cook there. It is a remarkably brilliant system and when talking to one of the waiters I learned that they get really wonderful jobs in the capital since they have more experience and are harder working than most of their peers. Really shows how projects here can build human capacity to help people get to the things they want to do. There are also all kinds of NGOs and government organizations that I think will be great to work with in the future. I am getting really excited about all the partners that I may be able to find!

I got here yesterday and helped Zach clean up his computer lab. It is a mess and has obviously not been given any real love in a long time. Luckily, the school put in a lot of work in the past to make it a good computer lab so there are nice wooden tables, real glass windows to reduce the dust in the classroom (though it has not been swept in a very, very long time), and a lot of computers. I think it will be great but Zach has a lot of work ahead of him and all I can really do to help is do cleaning – not computer repair – so he will be doing a lot of work there. It was also nice to see how quickly at the school are willing to help out and very quickly we had seven kids with brooms sweeping!

The difference between life in the big city and life in my village is extreme. The people in village love to have me be a part of their life. I am always warmly welcomed by everyone – of every age group – to sit, to chat, and to eat. People in Silimidougou are always respectful and kind. The kids are ‘bandits’ but they mean well, though I wish they would stop going through my trash and started coming at more normal hours.

Life in the big city also means that Zach has electricity and running water at his house. That means that there is a fan and a shower. Still no toilet (just a hole in the ground) but it is such an extreme difference from my life. That being said, there is still the shadow of downfall in the infrastructure. There is still no way to know when the electricity will cut and blow out whatever is plugged into it. There is still no actual promise that the water will be on. The entire city of 50,000 people may be without any water source (all running water and pumps can be cut) for two or three days. This means most people have emergency water sources (40 liters of water in plastic containers that they refill from time to time). The city is booming and vibrant but there will always be more work to be done.

On another note, I have spent the last two days painting Zach’s walls. They look awesome! There is a lot more to do but it will look great when we are done. Hopefully, sometime soon my walls will get done as well. 

First notes as a PCV

Yibeeog kibare!

So this is my first post since I have become an official Peace Corps Volunteer!!! I was sworn in on August 23rd and I gave a speech in Moore that went really well! I am still impressed with myself for pulling it off so well :-)

I moved to my site that Saturday and since then everything has been a whirlwind of activity! To start with, I live in a great courtyard all to myself. I have two great round houses with two windows each so it is nice and breezy. I am using one as a bedroom and the other as a kitchen. I finally got a table, a bench, a dresser/bookshelf and four chairs! (The transport for the big furniture pieces will be brought up later - the bookshelf is about 40lb). I am starting to feel fully moved in now! I also have a little area in my courtyard to take a shower - with cement walling just there and on the floor - and a latrine which I think has the smallest hole known to mankind. I have yet to miss for a number two and usually celebrate by yelling 'BULLSEYE' every time I make it in.

Biking and I are getting to be better friends. This weekend I biked to visit Zach who lives 40km from me. It was a pretty hilly ride but it was fun. Luckily I don't need to bike too much at site. I had one day when biking to a marche nearby where I got four holes in my tire. Let's say I live in the desert and there are a lot of acacia trees!

So I had spent the first week and a bit at site a little nervous about their whole idea of gardening in the dry season. I kept asking how they got water to the plants and they always just smiled. It seemed like a huge failure. So one day Mousa - my incredibly nice counterpart - told me that we were going to go see the 'pyramids'. So not knowing what I was getting myself into we hopped onto our bikes and started on our merry way. We ended up at a huge river that is dammed at a major road. He then showed me how each plot has a separate pump system and they set up really amazing irrigation systems for gardens. One of the irrigation systems has the power to do gardens for over 1,000 individual gardens. There is also a man that has a banana and papaya plantation! It was so overwhelming and wonderful. 

Two days ago I was given a baby bunny by a farmer. He is brown and adorable. Shortly after having him I realized that he wasn't eating. He fits into my hand comfortably and then it dawned on me that he was sucking on my hand. I was given a bunny that was still nursing!!! So I am now the crazy American girl that is forced to give milk to a baby bunny. The only thing that has made them decide that I am not as crazy as they think is that I promise that when I get him 'bedre bedre' (very fat) I will eat him. I think when I visit Zach he will need to come since I feed him every few hours and I highly doubt any of my neighbors would show him that kind of love. I am still scared he is going to die - so I refuse to name him yet. Start thinking of some good names :-)

The 'main' road in village is pretty quiet all the time. There are a few boutiques and women that sell food. One of the boutiques has a place to charge cellphones so my new friend Madi - he's about 12 - charges my phone and sometimes does it for free! Mariam often feeds me rice (for about 10 cents) when I am too lazy to cook for myself. She has a bunch of naked kids that run around and love to shake my hand. They are pretty cute but sometimes I get tired of them... There are some nice men that sit that like to chat and laugh at my Moore which is always a good time (that may sound sarcastic but I'm kind of serious). On a high note I have been able to get a terrific supply of eggs! Sadly, that is the only thing pretty much I am able to get in village other than okra - who knew that I didn't like okra too much...

I had my first scorpion a few nights ago. He was inside my mosquito net on the net itself when I was about to go to bed. I calmly got up and promptly left my house to go find a neighbor. Of course, I forgot that there was a very high likelihood I would only find people that speak Moore. I was gesturing to two women a scorpion and when they just kept laughing and not understanding I asked them to come to my house. They saw what it was and said how lucky I was that I found it because it was small and it would hurt a lot!!! So that felt like a big win for catching that and now I check my bed a little more thoroughly!

The first few months at site are supposed to be spent doing the 'etude de milieu' which means I am supposed to be doing a community study. So far it has been quite informal with me keeping notes on people I have met and such. I drew a map of my community and the pumps and then got Mousa to make a map as well. I have been keeping notes on what I do everyday and also how much money I spend (which may just be for me). That has been pretty funny since I've noted days I've gone to get water, gone running, visited a cool field, etc. I also am now realizing that a lot of my notes on defining people have not been terrific. The best example was 'the old, old lady, grey hair, nice, has lots of goats, neighbor' - I cannot remember for the life of me which one that is!!

Well that is all for now! Going to make some crepes with Mariko!

Wend na ko-d bilfu,

Burkina Faso #1

Hi everyone! I have now been in Burkina Faso for over a month and I have less than a month of peace corps training left! Sorry for not posting until now-internet isn't very reliable and training has been keeping me really busy.

I spent the first few nights in county in the capital where we were introduced to everyone in peace corps and learned a lot about what peace corps Burkina is. I met up with my friend from Senegal and she rejoiced about the cheezits I brought for her. We also had our language test and I testes out of French! I was placed into advanced low - I'm still excited since it means that once I got my site announced I was able to start learning Moore!

Since I'm sure you are all curious my site is north of Ouagadougou. My regional capital is kaya- which I will be 40 km west of and I will be just north of mane. My site is quite rural and in a pretty arid part of the county. The ethnic groups will be mossi and fulfelde (peul). There have been volunteers at my site before me, but they have all been health volunteers. I'm happy about that because it means that the community will have an idea of what a pcv does but the types of projects I can do will not be limited based on the last person! I have also been told that I will have a two room house that has a 'special grass roof'. I move in at the end of this month-so I will be able to tell you more in a few weeks! The two other pcts that will be near me are awesome. Zach and Mariko are really nice and fun but the are in education - math and IT - so i don't get to see them very much right now.

I am living with an amazing host family! I know that I was worried about that after mu past experiences with that. My host dad is a retired government worker. He is pretty old but he loves just chatting and talking about things. He is a very religious Muslim. He also plays the role of the day care center for all the kids under 10 so he is kept busy with his kids and his grandson. In one of the conversations i explained how strange i thought it was that they spend hours taking the skin off the beans when that is where so much of the good stuff for you is. The next time we had beans it had the skin on it. It was cool to see a conversation that changed a behavior.

I have two host moms here. The one I am closest to is wonderful. She works in the field all day (they are now subsistence farmers) and then comes home and cooks. She speaks very little French so we spend a lot of time attempting to talk but my Moore is not good yet. She spends a lot of time laughing at me though she really appreciates me attempting with the language and with stuff around the courtyard. My other mom is more aloof but on marche days I go sit with her for a few hours. She is a hard worker and quite an entrepreneur!

I have 13 siblings. Five of them are marries but two of mu brothers that are married live in Ouagadougou but their wives and children live with us. Most of the girls are in high school and work around the house a lot. They are really cool but do not have a lot of time for me. It was very recently that i realizes that my 14 year old sister is not only 20 but is my sister in law! The younger kids are crazy but really sweet. Two of the youngest that are school age walked proudly into the courtyard with their final grades. They were both then told but my host dad that one of them was in the bottom 10 percentile - my dad called the school and he wants him to redo the year - and the other one got the lowest grade in the class and is forced to repeat. They were shocked. My nephew here is 5 and I call him bebe cherkh though his name is cherkh Ahmed. They like his new name and i think it's funny. I have a wonderful 12 year old cousin who is in charge of the cattle during this season. He got in trouble for buying a piece of stolen property and now my host dad just calls him the bandit. When i got really excited one evening for knowing the vocab to talk about composting in Moore he walked up and taught me the word for kaka. He now tests me on different types of scat by picking it up and binging it over to me. He cracks me up.

I also have a crazy grandma that sits talking to herself. One i got here she has a little kitten that she would talk to. The cat would come out at night to go hunting. One day i realizes that i had not seen the kitten come out recently and so i brought it up to my dad. He said agreed and had one of my sisters go check. They realized then that grandma had been talking to a dead cat for a while. She is back to just talking to herself. She has never worn a shirt.

I'm going to leave this posting at this point. I am typing all of this up on a phone and my hands are tired. I miss all of you but i am having a lot of fun. I will so my best to write again soon!

Much love,



Sent from my Windows Phone

Tabaski

Hey you guys,

I want to warn you that these are going to be semi-gory pictures. So watch out, Tabaski images are not for the faint of heart! The rest of the pictures are great though, so skip quickly and look at the rest!

Two weeks ago was Tabaski (celebrated as Eid in most of the Muslim world). This is a holiday (I'm not quite sure for what) that people get together to kill and eat sheep. When us Americans got together to discuss it we decided it would probably be the best of Thanksgiving (the incredible amount of food that must be eaten) and Christmas (the sheep are the Christmas trees). It seemed to fit those two pretty well and there was a lot of family and friends over so it really got the holiday spirit going. Of course, the Christmas carols were replaced with recordings of people singing the Koran (which is not the same at all and just makes me miss the Christmas carols more - thanks mom for making me think that Christmas carols should have started up well over a month ago!)

A few days before Tabaski, we got one huge sheep (big sheep go for about 300 dollars). The sheep lived on the patio right outside my window so I heard the sheep burp (yes, burp) all night for just under a week. The Monday before Tabaski we got one more sheep. I then asked how many sheep we were getting and I was told we were getting seven sheep. I know you are all thinking, 'seven sheep?! What do you do with seven sheep?' don't worry, I still don't know what we did with seven sheep! Anyways, Tuesday at around midnight the other five sheep showed up and everyone told me which sheep was there sheep (and reminded me that I was not Muslim so I could not have a sheep).

The morning of Tabaski, the rest of the family went to the Mosque and did their morning prayers, after their second round of prayers ended (at about 10am) it was time to start the celebrations! The sheep came out one by one to the front patio where my host dad (the Imam) got a new set of knives (they have been more knife vendors in the past couple weeks than I have ever seen in my life!) and sliced the necks of the sheep. Baba was in charge of bringing the next sheep through the house and into the patio area. The first few sheep didn't seem to know what was going on but, sadly, the last few sheep were freaked out and knew what was coming. Most people said that at their family's houses the sheep died very quickly, at my house that wasn't the case and they were kicking and trying to breath for about 15 minutes each. I guess that is the problem with trying to rush through killing seven in a row. It got pretty messy.

After that, the dead sheep were moved back into the back patio (which luckily the maids were in charge of cleaning the floor so that there was no more goat poop every where!). We then had two men that we hired and cut up the sheep. The blew air into the legs, pulled of the skin, and then with great order cut the meat. My host mom and her mom were deciding how big each piece should be and if it should be given out to the poor and extended family or if it was for us to keep. We then barbecued the heart and liver and at those with some mustard (not my favorite part of the day).

I then met up with some of the other students in the program that I've in my neighborhood and took some pictures in our new outfits. On that the back story to my outfit is that my host mom (who I don't quite get along with) gave me the outfit the night before to wear. I still have not figured out yet if she made it or just got it made. The material is silky and the colors of Thanksgiving. Just throwing it out there but I thought that it was over the top (and I think nothing is over the top). The pan (skirt) went down to my ankles if it was above my chest and the dress had medieval sleeves which just made me look too cool for school. 

The rest of the day can be summed up with eating a lot of meat. I made a fruit salad and I had a big glass of unpasteurized, just out of the cow milk. Let's just say that much sheep and milk my stomach (two weeks later) has not come back to normal.

Thanksgiving (this part will be short) was great. I played with Serigne's kids - who I had not seen for a long time - and ate lots of good food. They had imported turkey, corn bread (that tasted more like cake), mashed potatoes and gravy, and plantains (just to remind us that we were still in Tanzania). The funniest part of the night though was the music that was being played. We got into the compound and we could already hear the pounding amps. We listened to so much American rap music that none of us knew what to do. When I am eating turkey and listening to the song 'Birthday Sex' there is a problem with Thanksgiving! All in all, a great time, though, missed all the family and the Segelhorsts.

This past weekend the whole class went on a huge trip up north. We left Friday and arrived late Friday to a desert! It was gorgeous and the first time I've seen one. We played around in the sand for hours and had a great time. A delicious dinner of fried chicken, cous-cous and veggies followed. The night ended with a huge bonfire and dancing around it. We slept in tents and continued our trip to the next spot at 6am.

Just over six hours later we ended up at a bird park. We put all 50 of us on a motor boat and went out birding. We saw some wonderful pelicans but other than that there was not a lot to see, since it was 1pm and nothing wants to be out then! It was a beautiful area and had a great time.

Another four hours later we arrive into the most beautiful town I've seen here. Saint Louis. It is gorgeous, the people are nice, the food was great! We walked around and discovered all the colorful pirogues, all the parties to celebrate some women that are going and coming back from Mecca. It was a great time. We had a good night out on the town (in short, a few of my friends went swimming in this not quite clean river). We then learned about the history of the area which is very colonial and makes any Caucasian feel very guilty about that.

After a long long drive home, I got home. School is starting to wind up with school work. There are now a lot of tests, papers, and exams coming up! Means I'm going to be back with you guys in less than three weeks!

All the best and miss you all,

Katie

Rural Visits and a Side of Pictures

Hey you guys!

So here are a bunch of update pictures of family!

Bebe Cher and Baba (my favorite two family members)

Baba and Me

 

My public health trip to Niakhar was a lot of fun. Though, it started off poorly with five hours of traffic on the way down, but once we got there I had my first meal without bones in my meat! Thank goodness for that! While we were having dinner we learned about a special kind of bug found in the region that when it pees on a human cause’s acid burn and, if swallowed, will burn your insides and cause kidney failure. So, in short, not the bug you want hanging around you for long periods of time. Shockingly, this bug is everywhere, flies crazily, and scared the hell out of me and all the other kids in the group! I have never loved having a mosquito net more than I did those two nights!

The next day, we were put into groups of four (I was with Elisabeth, Brit, and Jessica) and we went off to do our interviews in the local village. The interviews were to get information about the rate of malaria and the knowledge about the issue with children under the age of ten. It ended up being very interesting. The families were very nice and the kids were hilarious. At the second house we sat around, chatted, and had just roasted peanuts. The crazy part was while we were at this house her son comes back with a seven foot boa that he is hanging from his arm. He dropped it to the floor and it was only then that we realized that it had been killed. As he told us, it was taking a good look at the sheep (and seeing that it is so close to Tabaski) that is unacceptable and needed to be killed. 

The Big, Dead, Boa

At the fourth house, the kids were very dynamic and the girls taught us some dances and then the boys creamed us in soccer! We then thought it would be a good idea to teach them how to do thumb wars but all that happened was that our hands were covered in scratches and arms bruised because they didn't want to lose. That happens though. Luckily, it was all in all a wonderful time and we really bonded as a class. We also got to learn how funny our professor is, all he wanted to do was diss the physical irregularities of his friends and coworkers (this one is too skinny, this one is very fat) and learned a lot more about his bumb leg. 

Learning a Cool New Dance

As soon as I got back to Dakar I showered and sprinted off to, in my humble opinion, the best hotel in Senegal to meet up with Denyse! I had two of the best dinners of my life, had wonderful conversations about life here and got caught up with the world. We also went off to do a city tour, a little bit of shopping and went to Goree Island (all of which was much better with Denyse and with just a smaller group!). I ended up taking a shower in her hotel room and it was only then that I realized that I was taking my first hot shower and having water run from a place above my head since I have gotten here! It was tough leaving Denyse and the life of happiness but will be back in a month and a half. 

 

My time in Sandiara was incredible! I took a septplace down to Mbour (a pretty large city down south) and then had to wait for a few hours for the Canadian, Joell, to pick me up for a ride down to the village. When we got there he pulled a bed off the roof of the car and that was my bed for the trip - pretty nice! I was given his GPS and I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out the GPS. I wish that he would trust the Senegalese enough to teach Gabby (who is just over 20 and is the local in charge) how to use it.

The Reservoir at the Beersheba Project

Before I continue with these stories, I'm going to try to explain the living situation. I was staying in a house that was being constructed - therefore the floors were covered in bits of cement and rocks and the bathroom had no door! I was the only person in the semi constructed house but in the same complex there is the semi constructed office building which was where Gabby, Nicholas (about 20 and is in charge of some bible study groups in the area), and Khadija (about 15, is Nicholas' wife, and though they kept telling me she is still a student she spent every waking moment keeping the compound clean and cooking for the herds of people that show up for lunch and dinner).

My Room

My days consisted of me going, by horse wagon, 7 km every morning to the project I was working at. On this ride both ways Gabby would beat the starved horse so much the horse would start tripping but he seemed to think it was alright as long as he accompanied it with very evangelical songs. The songs had to involve the words 'blood of Christ', 'for my sins', and other very strong phrasing that made me miss the singing that everyone from Bebe Cher to most peoples' host parents of 'Rude Boy' (if you don't know this song, look up the lyrics and you will be traumatized).

My part of the work was to survey the area and attempt to make a map that documented where all the trees in the project are and the other parts of the project. Once we were there we would go through the high grasses for a few hours where I would get about an average of 15 ticks a day - luckily most of them would just stay on my clothes but once there was one on my eyelashes, so I did the craziest dance anyone has ever seen, trying to get thing away from my eyes! Gabby usually forgot I was behind him and so Acacia branches would come flying right into my face (only once did he notice that he did that so he apologized and went back to doing it!). It was a beautiful and wonderful ways of spending the mornings. After that, we would go back to the village and eat usually two lunches and two dinners. When I was eating I was reading the humorous book 'French Lessons in Africa' (Dad, you should read this, you could beat a lot of these stories!).

The Map I Made of the Project

So due to the nature of the bathroom, I have a few funny stories about it. As I said before, the bathroom did not have a door to it. The only running water in the bathroom was to the toilet (that was pretty exciting). The last thing is that my bathroom was the bathroom for the other three members of the compound, so there were always people coming in and out of there (I think other people liked using it to which is also why it felt so busy all the time). The first story is mainly to show that I am a little bit slow to catching onto problems. After my first day bush hopping I decided I was in dire need for a shower, so I got in the bathroom and decided to use the huge barrel of water that is in there. So I put some in a smaller bucket. The water was dark yellow and putting the smaller bucket in there disturbed about twenty mosquitoes. It wasn't until the third day that I realized everyone else in the compound filled the small bucket outside and didn't touch the nasty water.

The second story is that one night I was taking a shower (aka, pouring buckets of water on me) and I heard the door to the house open. I knew the only reason people ever come into the house is to use the bathroom so I put on my towel and stand prepared. Nicholas comes in, when he sees me he says 'Oh mon dieu' and covers his eyes incredibly fast. After a few seconds of apologizing he realized that I was in a towel and asked why I was showering with a towel on. I said I heard him and he seemed to think that was one of the more brilliant things a woman could do.

The best part of my visit though, was meeting Astou, a '16 year old' (I think she was at least 20), Muslim girl who lived in the village. She taught me how to dance some of their local and national dances. She attempted to teach me how to make millet couscous and some delicious vegetable sauces. Friday night she told me that she had always wanted to braid 'Toubab' (white people) hair. So she had a good time doing that. It turned out kinda crazy but it looks alright. One night, I showed her some pictures of me (and many of you guys) and her two biggest comments were 'your mom is much prettier than you' and 'you look much better fat'. Astou also took me to the big market Saturday morning which was an intense and lively experience, it was interesting to see such a sleepy village wake up so much for Saturday! I would love to be able to visit her and her huge family again before I leave!

My new hair doo!

So this has been another long post, I will try to get one out later this week or early next week about everything else that is going on. Tomorrow is Tabaski. Tabaski is the holiday of killing male sheep over a year old. Supposedly it is good for the sheep because it is the only day that they can go to heaven, so my family is being generous and going to have seven killed! Yikes. The next week is supposed to be pretty bloody and the next two weeks are supposed to be pretty smelly! Alhamdulillah!

Lots of love to all of you!

The Week Ahead and a side of Cults

Hey you guys,

I am about to take part the biggest adventure of my trip! I am leaving tonight to spend three days in the field doing research. This will be with my 'Sante Publique' (Public Health) class! I will be doing research on children with malaria and what they know about malaria. I was in charge of making the questionnaire for the class, so hopefully all will go smoothly! I will be in Niakhar, in the Fatik region, from tonight until Saturday. 

Saturday I have lunch at home and then go out with Denyse Morin for dinner! I'm pretty pumped about having someone visit *note that no one else has visited me*. So hopefully I will be able to see her as well on Sunday.

Then earlier Monday morning I jump on local transportation and go south for a couple hours to Sandiara. There I will be mapping and doing some work on project that works on agriculture and reforestation. I think I will end up doing more in the reforestation but it should be quite exciting and a very new experience for me! I will be living alone but there are a bunch of expats that I will be working with and they will be checking up on me from time to time, so don't worry :-) Their website is beershebaproject.org and is pretty cool.

So a funny story from this week. It was Mohammed (the ten year olds) birthday on Friday. Everyone all week had been reminding me that I needed to get him a present and so each time they asked I would ask them if they were getting something for him and the response always was 'maybe'. So I thought this was the new joke and decided my response should be maybe too. Well I get back home from school on Friday and each member of the family tells me to give him his present, I kept saying that I wanted to wait until everyone else gave him their stuff. Finally, after seeing them set up for a birthday party I decided I better just give him the stuff I realized I got tricked into being the ONLY person to give him a birthday present - was pretty ticked at the family for that move.

Anyways, so setting up for the birthday party was putting amps on the roof (huge amps, Undefined, you guys would be jealous of these guys!), all kinds of mats, at least three goats, and all kinds of other goodies. So I was thinking, well maybe no birthday present because they are going to have the craziest, most expensive birthday party ever. There were ten friends of Mohammed and Bebe Cherkh that helped set up. I also helped, I cleaned the mats, moved things around, and all kinds of other small tasks (was good bonding time with Fanta). Then, when everything was set up, she told everyone to come back at 10pm for the party - kinda late but that is how most things work here. We went downstairs and I was told dinner was going to be 'a little late' - we usually eat at 8pm.

So at 10 all the boys reappeared and we played with the new nerf football that I got Mohammed (went into the neighbor's fortress twice, that is a story in itself). I had decided to get dressed up and wear a cute dress that was a bit strappy but I thought it would be appropriate for a snazzy birthday party. Then all of a sudden there were a lot more adults then kids and women sitting on the side and men in the middle and towards the other side of the roof. The music (which I should have described before) had been blaring someone singing the Koran since about 2pm. A group of men began to take seats around the microphones and brought up their Korans and began singing the Koran themselves. All the men wore prayer robes but a few were 'bayefall' which means they were colorful clothing (yes, more colorful than me!) that are strips of a variety of material (if you want to know more about them, let me know, they have a very interesting perspective on religion). As soon as that happened everyone got very quiet and got out their Korans and began following along. The boys started playing games next to me and they got in a lot of trouble, a couple slaps, a couple 'Allah is not pleased with your actions'. So this continued until 1h30 when the singing ended. This whole time everyone was snapping their fingers when they heard something they found touching and were moving themselves back and forth, hypnotized to the music. A man started doing something that I am going to call a 'sermon' because I have no idea what it was. He talked mainly in Arabic but every once and a while I heard some Wolof thrown in. This continued until 2h30 (just to note, I usually go to bed here at 9pm so I am hungry and tired). The food comes out, people fight for seats around the bowl and the food is gone within ten minutes!

I thought of this whole thing as a semi-cultish practice but quickly realized that it is most likely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that my family is a part of. Though I still cannot figure out how often it takes place (the Imam was not involved at all in the proceedings, he never left his room), the reason it took place, and why they had this event on Mohammed's birthday (I've been told it has no relation). Anyways, I left the whole thing pretty bitter because they tricked me into being the only one to get him a present but they did have a great ice cream cake!

A lot of other stories I would love to tell but I have class soon and want to be able to send this off before I leave for a week and a half!

Love to all of you,

Katie