Senegal Nice, Life Takes VISA, and WAIST

I apologize for my blog neglect over the past month, but be assured that I used the time productively to learn new things about Agroforestry, take a short course in Pulaar (another language spoken in my area), socialize with my friends from training, and play some "serious" softball - details to come.

Now that my training is finished and I have "entered my community" from here on out it's just hard work. I get started as soon as I arrive in my village and won't stop until I get home in two years (except for my daily nap, of course).


Senegal Nice

While the Senegalese people can sometimes be aggressive and demanding for cadeaux (gifts), I have had two experiences over the past two weeks that attest to their honesty and hospitality.

Story #1: On my way from Kedougou to Thies for my In Service Training, I stopped to spend the night at the Peace Corps transit house in the city of Kaolack. My friend and I got a cab from where our car dropped us off to the house with all of our luggage. We unloaded everything at the house, but as the cab pulled away, I realized that I had left my day bag - with my iPod - in the back seat. My attempt to flag him down failed so I trekked back to the garage (car hub) and tried to find him again. After an hour of waiting around and talking to the other cabbies without any sign of the driver, I gave up and went back to the house.

At about 3:00 a.m. I woke up to the ringing door bell. Somebody shouted that a man was at the door for me. Groggy-eyed, I stumbled to the front of the house where the cabby stood and said, "I got all the way to my village, 35km away, and found your bag. I remembered your saying in the car that you were leaving first thing in the morning so I drove back to make sure you had all of your things."

Everything was still in the bag. I thanked the man and gave him whatever cash I had in my pocket. He humbly accepted the small tip and drove away.

Story #2: A couple weeks ago, thirteen of my friends and I took a quick one-night trip to the beach in Mbour, which is close to Thies. We arranged to have a house that would fit twenty people for the night. Upon arrival, though, we met the man with whom we had arranged lodging who showed us to the bedroom he had prepared - with a single bed. After a brief argument and a dramatic walkout, we had nowhere to stay. A few of us went to the grocery store to find supplies for the night while another group tried to find somewhere for us to stay. They wandered from hotel to hotel, asking about prices, but everything was either full or too expensive.

Then a man approached two members of our group and said, "Are you looking for somewhere to stay tonight?"

"Yes we are. We lost the house we had planned on staying in."

"Well you can stay in my house. I'll only charge you 100 dollars and I won't even be there, just my two nephews."

"100 dollars is way too much, I won't even consider it for more than 60."

"Deal."

So, while it seemed a little shady, we checked it out and were pleasantly surprised. The man had a brand new house that was completely gated in. In the backyard was a pool, and the back gate opened directly onto a sandy beach of the Atlantic. It seemed too good to be true. We went inside to a tastefully-designed living room and kitchen with cushy couches, a TV, and original pieces of artwork on the walls. Upstairs, a row of bench seats with pads bordered a hexagonal loft that opened to a westward-facing balcony. We put our beer in his fridge, cooked dinner in his kitchen, and had a happy hour as we watched the sunset over the ocean. Meanwhile, he went to Dakar for the evening, leaving us to the charge of his two nephews. One of his nephews was a professional djembé instructor (African drum) and gave a couple of us a lesson.

We spent the next day swimming, lying around, and throwing a football on the beach until we had to leave in the evening to make it back for training the next day. It amazed me that this man left 14 young Americans in his house to party and enjoy it, and for about 4 dollars a head.


Life Takes VISA

You may have seen a recent ad campaign from Visa with the slogan, Whatever you want to do in life, life takes VISA. I was going through a magazine with a teenager in my village, showing him the pictures, explaining who people were, etc., when we came across one of these ads. It had a picture of a vending machine with different countries' flags in the place of candy bars and chips. I translated the slogan to the kid and explained the concept of the ad. He's a smart kid who goes to school and so could grasp the idea, but he had one question: "What's Visa?"


WAIST

After completing my three weeks of In Service Training I went directly to the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST). Over 500 expats and Peace Corps volunteers from all over West Africa participate in the WAIST tournament, with both a competitive league and a social league. Festivities center around the American club, where players can swim, drink beer, and eat hot dogs between games. At night, parties and dances are planned, with a banquet and ball on the last night. It's the only time of the year that we get the chance to truly feel American. Americans living in Dakar put up the PCVs in homestays. I stayed with the Director of USAID with four other Senegal volunteers and five Gambian volunteers. He was incredibly welcoming and opened his home to us, even when we asked him to open it at 5:00 in the morning.

My team consisted of the volunteers from the Kedougou region and from our neighboring Tamba region. Historically, our team has not taken "winning" the tournament seriously, and has instead had some serious fun. Most teams wear T-shirts for jerseys. Our jersey theme this year was short jean shorts / red-neck. I can't help but say that we looked amazing (see pic at right), and even won our first game in four years. We rotated in new players every two innings to make sure everyone got a chance to play, bended the rules as often as possible, had a tunnel gauntlet for the opposing team at the end of every game, and even had a spontaneous dance party on second base in the middle of a game.

One volunteer referred to the day of our last game as "one of the best 37 days of my life," while others said it was the most fun they had ever had. In any case, we created memories that I will never lose. Only 358 days til next year's tournament...


Wolof Lesson of the Day

Wolof is the dominant language in Senegal. That said, with its speakers' exposure to western culture, a few English words and many French words have managed to sneak into every-day vernacular, particularly in the cities.

A phrase that embodies this melange of languages is "Dafa nice quoi!"

Dafa is a Wolof word meaning that is in English. Quoi meaning what that the French use at the end of a sentence to accentuate it. You all know nice. So a three-word phrase spoken every day in the urban areas of Senegal and understood by almost all of the urban inhabitants contains three different languages. I like that.


This entry will be the last you hear from me for a couple weeks. I'm headed out to the village until our regional retreat (all Kedougou volunteers get together to discuss our goals for the region) and an AgFo summit (all AgFo volunteers from Senegal get together to discuss strategies etc.) that are conveniently back-to-back.

Keep commenting, y'all've been slackin lately. And if I don't know you, definitely comment, I'm curious to see what kind of people are reading this.

Peace and Love,

Andy

How to Make a Fishball, No Better Way..., and Dangerous Culinary Endeavors

Quick Update

I have officially completed my "Community Entry" phase and so will be headed back to Thies for more training tomorrow morning. Although I'll have plenty of internet access there, I'll be incredibly busy with training, so this could be the last entry for a few weeks. That's why this one is so long.


How to Make a Fishball

- Boil some peanuts, let them cool, and shell them. This should be done ahead of time, preferably the day before.
- Put the peanuts in a massive mortar and pound them with a princely pestal. These are generally hand made from wood. You can hold the pestal with one hand and alternate if you wish, but two hands provide more power. While the pestal is on the upswing, briefly let go and clap to add flare.
- Sift the peanuts into a bowl and pound the larger parts again until all is well ground into a powder. Remove and set aside.
- Place one chopped onion and salt into mortar and pound into a paste.
- Add one tray of small, catfish-looking things and pound until of goop consistency, gradually adding the ground peanuts and some millet flour (also make earlier by pounding in a similar fashion to the peanuts).
- Mixture is finished when you can't see any recognizable part of a fish. Remove mixture, roll into balls. Fry in oil.
- Eat and enjoy. Bone crunching is optional, but I prefer to remove them as I find them (left hand only).

These are made on the special occasion that we have fish around, and served with our normal meal. The bones really bothered me at first, but I got used to them, and have even started crunching some of the smaller bones. I figure the calcium won't hurt.


No Better Way...

I went to visit a farmer in his orchard last week that the girl I had replaced had worked extensively with. When I arrived in his village, the kids told me he was out at his orchard, which is 3km from the village, so they showed me the way. He was excited to see me and show me around his orchard and then gave me a stool to sit on in the shade. Then we shared a snack: There is no better way to eat a Papaya than moments after a Senegalese farmer has picked it from his orchard and cut it up with a handmade knife.

The African Cup of Nations began group play this week, and a TV and generator miraculously appeared in my village. I had no idea they were there. There is no better way to watch an African international soccer game than crowded with 60 people into the same small hut, sharing a bamboo stool with three other guys, listening to the gentle purr of a generator.

Like many kids, I used to look out the window of airplanes and imagine myself jumping from cloud to cloud, in awe of their majesty.
The chief cash crop in my village is cotton. The farmers sow it, pick it, and transport it 4 km from there fields completely by hand. The only buyer in the area is a semi-private company named Sodefitex. This week, the Sodefitex truck showed up to pick up all the cotton my village had produced. All the men from the village worked from dawn to dusk loading ton after ton of cotton into the tall truck trailer, which was open on top. As half of the men carried the cotton to the truck and threw it on top, the other half stood on top and walked around on the cotton to pack it down. I helped out on top. Then came break time: There is no better way to take a nap than on a truck load of cotton. My imagination has been put to rest. I have slept on a cloud.


Dangerous Culinary Endeavors

When I was in training in Thies in October, my family bought and killed a goat for the family to eat. The meat lasted us for a couple of nights, but got progressively less familiar with each meal. On the third night I sat down to a bowl of rice with a goats face in the middle, smiling up at me. My host brothers tore whatever they could of the meat off of the skeleton, and put some pieces in front of me. I'm fairly confident I tried eye for the first time, but I really can't be sure.

A goat's face, however, did not trip my stomach. I readily ate everything they put in front of me in Thies. The dangerous endeavor came a couple months later in Kolda at Christmas time.

My friend Jordan and I prepared a meal for the other people in the regional house we were staying in. I prepared the salad, with grated carrots, chipped cucumbers, and sliced tomatoes. Those who know me well are likely aware that although I will cook with tomatoes, I gag at their very smell and have only eaten them raw twice in my life. As I sliced them for the salad I explained to Jordan that they were the only food in the world I refused to eat. He asked me if it was a texture thing or the taste, and I replied that it was neither, that it was more likely a psychological issue. Suddenly, something came over me and I felt empowered. "Listen to me!" I cried, "I will eat the face off a goat but cower in the presence of a small red fruit!" (Or is it a vegetable?). With that I popped a slice into my mouth, chewed it, and even pretended to enjoy it. Yes mom, I now eat tomatoes. Aren't you proud?


Malinke Lesson of the Day

Malinke only has one word that means both "if" and "when": nin. So "nin inaata Thies" means both "When you arrive in Thies" and "If you arrive in Thies." I think the reason behind this is that they put everything in God's hands, and so nothing is certain until it has happened.

This is Andy signing off, I'll try to write a quick post in Thies, otherwise, you'll hear from me at the end of Febuary, if and when I come back to Kedougou.

Love Andy

Wandering Minds and Men, and Wacky Tabaski

Before we get into today's main events, I have a few quick notes.

• Probably won't do a full Christmas blog entry. I went to a different city in southern Senegal and stayed at a house with a full kitchen. Ten other volunteers were there and we spent four days cooking amazing food (all of it from scratch, of course), and relaxing and watching movies. I may write a blog entry at some point about transportation in this country though, because it's not exactly luxurious, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
• People were asking me for more direction on what kind of food I would enjoy. I put a list up as a permanent feature and can edit it as I please. It's all stuff that could eat all day, so don't worry if you're duplicating what someone else has already sent.
• My senior journalism project was published on the BU website as part of a student showcase. If you're interested in seeing what I learned to do in college, check out the link on the right above my list.

Wandering Minds and Men

A couple weeks ago I was walking back to my hut having just pulled a couple buckets of water, when a man that I didn't recognize crossed my path. The first thing that struck me as strange about the man was that he didn't greet me. Senegalese people, especially village people, greet evreybody, so when he stared straight ahead and continued on his course I grew slightly suspicious. The next thing to strike me as strange about the man was that he was completely naked.

A few months ago, I may have dropped the buckets of water in shock and told the story for days, but I'm growing accustomed to seeing things I find odd and I simply can't get hung up on them because it happens too often. And nobody seemed to be making a big deal out of it, so I just continued on to my hut to take a bucket shower and didn't really think about it for the rest of the day.

Later that night, though, one of my friends in the village saw me and said, "Did you see that crazy guy in the village today? He was completely naked!!! Everyone was afraid and stayed in their compounds, peeking through the fence. Except for one woman who tried to give him clothes but he freaked out and refused!"

I am reminded from time to time that Africa isn't an entirely different world. No matter where you are, a man walking naked down the road is weird.


Wacky Tabaski

Tabaski is the most important holiday in the Muslim calendar, falling on a different day every year because it's dictated by the lunar calendar. This year we celebrated on December 21st.

The day began as normal with our normal porridge and wearing our normal clothes, but then the fun began.

At about 10:00 a.m. the villagers all put on their nicest Grand Boubous and went to the field to pray (our mosque isn't big enough to fit everyone). I stayed behind in the compound playing with the kids and helping my sisters cook the biggest and best meal I've had so far.

When the adults came back from praying I changed into my Grand Boubou too and at about 12:30 we ate lunch.

First dish: findo (a grain) served with a tomato-based sauce that had vermicelli, onions, eggplant, and cabbage. Then fish balls, which have the same basic characteristics of a meatball, except, of course, for the meat.

Second dish: Millet served with large slices of egg-plant on top and some sort of a bird. It wasn't a chicken, but some sort of poultry they had managed to catch in the wild, maybe Guinea Fowl? I never saw it alive.

Third dish: Rice with a peanut sauce and beef. The whole village got together and killed a cow, splitting the cost and the meat. My family got two kilos.

There were more dishes that I didn't eat. My dad warned me that the stomach can handle three dishes without incident, but four dishes would be too much to bear. I had no reason to doubt him and no desire to test him.

After lunch my dad, brother, and I went to a different family's house where some other Dunfaxas live and spent a couple hours just kickin it there. We went back to the house about 3:30 or so where things were pretty quiet so I took a nap and played with the kids a little more.

Once the morning prayers, lunch, and afternoon social scene are all done, Tabaski is pretty much finished. So we had a pretty low-key meal in the evening and then made a fire and sat around that for a while. My dad and I made some rounds in the village visiting some compounds and saying hi to people, and then I hit the hay because I had to make the trek into Kedougou the next day.


Malinke Lesson of the Day

When a baby is born in Malinké culture, it does not receive a name until its baptism a week later. My sister just had a baby and all week we had to call it "Kéékuta" which means "New boy" because he didn't have a name. ps. African babies are tiiiiiny.


Ok, so that's all I'm writing for now. I have lots of little ideas for stories that I keep in my book, but I don't want to overwhelm anybody, so we'll leave it there for now.

Keep the letters, emails, and blog comments comin'

Love Boubs

Grandma

My grandmother, Leona Jondahl, died a couple weeks ago. I considered leaving it out of my blog, but decided to write about her as a tribute. I wrote a letter that my older sister Michelle read at the service:

Dear Leona, Lee, Grannyma, Mrs. Donald E. Jondahl, Onie, Mrs. J, Mom,

Your multitude of names can only hint at the amount of people - and groups of people - with whom you intertwined your life, your efforts, your talents, and your love. But I can only speak for one, so let me begin again.

Dear Grandma,

I want to thank you.

I want to thank you for daring to be an old-fashioned Grandma in the face of the 21st century. For giving me the opportunity to escape to a countryside oasis when the suburban desert just got too hot, and for fighting to your last breath to keep that Big Red Barn as a fixture in the Metro landscape. I know you would never allow me to thank you without giving credit to your partner in farm, so Grandpa, if you're listening, props. Your farm has always been a point of pride and source of bragging rights for me: "Hey. You know that farm by the Carlson Towers and Park Nicollet with the Big Red Barn and all those sheep. Yeah, that's my Grandma's farm."

I want to thank you for making Christmas cookies just the way I like them. Gingerbread cookies with the secret ingredient - duck fat - that makes them sound so gross but taste so good. The spritzers that I could feast on for days without pause or hesitation, or concern for the abdominal consequences.

I want to thank you for fruit jerkey. I am one of few lucky children in the world who has had the dream-fulfilling experience of licking clean a bowl twice his size.

Mostly I want to thank you for your independence, your fearlessness, and your downright stubborness. Although we've found it frustrating at times that things had to be done 'Grandma's Way,' it's that very insistence that nobody else can tell you what's best for your life that I have come to admire in you. As I reflect on our relationship, I see that there might be a little more 'Grandma' in me than I had thought. It's the Grandma in me that led me to a college 1400 miles away, even though Grandma probably wanted me to stay close to home. It's the Grandma in me that led me to transfer 3000 miles to another school, even though everyone told me I was crazy, and then transfer back even though everyone told me I was getting "a little ridiculous."

And it's the Grandma in me that ultimately gave me the courage to depart for another continent, no matter how much I would miss home and home would miss me.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you in your final moments. Family has always been your top priority so it breaks my heart that I couldn't be by your side. But I will forever cherish our final phone conversation, and remember how lucky I am that I got to tell you one last time that I love you, and to hear you say it back.

I love you, Grandma.

Animals That May Eat Me, and Qu'est-ce que Agroforestry?

I would first like to write about some of the wildlife that I've been coming across out here in the bush, and then I will try to explain what my Peace Corps work will include for the next two years, because those are two subjects about which I've been getting a lot of questions. The work description is a little long and technical, so my feelings won't be hurt if you don't read it, but I wanted to have some sort of reference up for people who asked.

Animals

Many of the animals that I've seen have actually been in the road, either during my morning jog or while biking between Kedougou or my neighboring villages. On multiple accounts I have seen small monkeys. Usually you see them cross the road well ahead of you, and then hide as you come. But I usually stop where I see them go into the trees and look for them. Without fail, they have only gone about 10 meters into the bush and then stare at you as you go by, sometimes darting away when they realize they've been spotted.

Also while running I saw a warthog up ahead of me, staring me down as I approached. Showing no signs of relinquishing his position, I considered stopping my run short - I have no desire to wrestle a warthog. However, just in time, a big truck came by from the other direction and honked at the hog to get out of the road. Warthogs are stubborn animals and he waited until the last second to run off into the grass, seemingly pondering a game of chicken or even a tusk-on collision with the truck. I may have to put my money on the hog.

While riding in a station wagon back from Tamba today (I had gone to visit the bank), I saw a whole family of baboons cross the road right behind our car. Mother, father, some smaller ones and a baby riding on the mother's back. I expected them to be black, but instead found a muddy brown.

One of the birds I've seen most commonly in Senegal is the hornbill, ala The Lion King. They're slightly smaller and skinnier than I imagined, but beautiful nonetheless.

At night I've learned to live in harmony with the small gecko-like lizzards that wander in and out of my hut and hang out on the walls. I assume they're eating bugs, and they never bother me, so I generally just leave them be.



Agroforestry

During my two months in Thies I received training not only in my local language, but also in Agroforestry techniques, and I'll return for more 'AgFo' training in a couple months. "But Andy, what is Agroforestry?" I hear you cry, "What exactly will you be doing."

I don't have the text book definition with me, but basically Agroforestry is the use of trees to increase the production from a given field, and the use of trees for many other purposes.

For example, trees can be planted within a field for multiple reasons: to protect the soil from water erosion, to return nitrogen to the soil to keep it fertile, to drop their leaves to the ground which decompose and provide nutrients to the soil, etc. Often time trees are planted around the border of a field in a "live fence" to keep livestock and or people out (these are usually thick-growing, thorny species" or as a wind break, which are generally tall growing trees that serve to protect the soil from wind erosion, and the crops and or fruit trees from wind damage (a well-protected mango tree will produce more and better-quality fruit).

Which brings me to my next two points. As an AgFo volunteer in Senegal, I am to encourage the production of mango and/or cashew orchards, as these two trees are well-suited to the Senegalese climate. In addition, for trees that have been outplanted in the past couple years, I will show farmers how to "graft" trees, which is basically cutting a branch off of one variety of mango tree and pasting it onto another, by wrapping it with some plastic. The result is a tree with two different genetic maku-ups, and genetic diversity also increases production (this technique is not exclusive to mango trees, but that is the most commonly grafted tree in Senegal).

I will promote the use of all these trees by building a community tree nursery, which I will place in my villages school yard. It will be well-protected there, is close to a water source, and is a good way to get the kids involved and interested in the techniques. In addition, I will give training sessions to farmers and encourage them to build their own tree nurseries (the idea of Peace Corps is sustainable development. We want our efforts to continue to produce results after we leave).

I will travel to other villages in the area as well to promote AgFo practices, particularly grafting techniques.

In addition to my AgFo work, I am also encouraged by the Peace Corps to undertake secondary projects, not necessarily related to AgFo. For example, I plan to help the women with a permanent community garden near a water source so they can continue to produce vegetables (even if only for their own consumption) throughout the dry season. This week, I will be going to a neighboring village with two other volunteers to give a training session on how to build a mud stove (mud stoves are being promoted all over Senegal. They can be produced using locally found free or inexpensive materials, and conserve fuel and cooking rates, allowing the cooks (almost always women) more time to rest - which they deserve - or more time to devote to other productive activities.

So that's AgFo in a nutshell. Hope this makes my life and purpose here a little more clear. Coming into this, I had practically no experience with Agroforestry, and still feel a little clueless, but am using my countless free hours in the village these days to read the AgFo textbook, and manual, and the fruit tree manual, etc. to try to put myself in a position to help these people.

Keep up the love, and thanks for all your comments. Don't be afraid to comment on every blog. It really is encouraging to know that people are reading it.

And continue to send email and letters. When I am around internet I should have a little more time now than I have up until now, because I won't be on such a structured schedule.

Love Boubs

Reading List

I'm going to post the books I've been reading for a couple reasons: a) I don't want anyone to pay to send me something I've already read, b) To give you conversation fodder for emails if you've already read them, c) I want to show off how much I'm reading, because I've already read more than I did in four years of college.

I'll keep this entry updated, so if you're about to send something, check this first.

Hells Angels, by Hunter S. Thompson
The World is Flat, by Thomas Freidman
Paris in Mind, ed. Jennifer Lee
Confessions of an Economic Hitman, by John Perkins
Bastard Out Of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson
Another Roadside Attraction, by Tom Robbins
Jazz, by Toni Morrisson
Dubliners, by James Joyce (in the middle of)
The Last King of Scotland, by Giles Foden
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (in the middle of)
On the Road, by Jack Karouac
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
Beloved, by Toni Morisson
A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking
A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

I'm not on som H.S.T. fix, I just ran out of books in the village and the guy near me had it. Also, note, when I arrived in my village two and a half weeks ago, I was still reading the world is flat. For those of you who know my reading habbits, five books in three weeks hasn't happened since my books had pictures on every page.

Look for the new entry on Weds or so.

Love Boubs

Email Address

Real blog is coming in a couple days, but in the meantime...

If anyone is having trouble commenting on my blog, as many people seem to be, feel free to email me at andrew.jondahl@gmail.com instead.