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!