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.