Shooting Stars and Thunderstorms

It's funny how quickly a place can become a home. I now refer to my village and my hut as home. There's something about a place that serves as your home base and where you have a family. When I'm in village, I'm Rouby and everyone knows my name. When I venture out of the safe confines of my village, I am hit with a barage of little children yelling "Tubako" (white person), not acceptable. When sitting under the stars one night, I explained to my group of friends in Pulaar why I get mad when people refer to me as a Tubako (not that they believed that I can get mad...much like some of my friends in the states). I told them that I am a member of a community- I have a Senegalese name, a village, and a family. I'm a resident of the region and am not just a white person. Surprisingly, I was able to communicate this in my limited Pulaar because one of them said, If someone called me "Baleejo" (Black in Pulaar), I wouldn't be happy either.


A Day in the Life of Rouby
Now that I've been in village for a little over a month, I have some semblance of a routine. A typical day in village goes like this...

6:30am- I wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, roosters crowing, and women pounding grain. I lie in bed reading for a bit before I actually get up.

7:30am- I leave my hut after my morning routine and greet everyone in my compound. I sit down with my family and have a simple breakfast of leftover Couscous and Jambo.

** These days, planting/farming season has started, so the men have left the compound to go to the fields and many women go to the rice paddys.

9:00am- I try to get out of my coupound for a few hours at this point. I've walked around my village and started my baseline survey questions. Or I bike to Bagadadgi to greet my counterpart at the health post. Or I bike to my site mate's village to say hi. If I don't do any of the above, I just follow the pack of little children around.

12:00pm- My family returns from the fields and I sit with them. Usually, a couple people from the village will pop over to hang out.

1:30pm- Lunch time!!

2:00pm- Post lunch lounge time. My brother will make tea and the family lies under the shade of our mango tree

3:30pm- I "afternoon" in one of the compounds or people come to mine. I hang out with the kids of my village and I tickle attack them. At this point, I sneak in questions from my Baseline survey.

6:30pm- I waddat esport at this time aka I go for a run (yes...the girl who hates to run has started doing it every day). My village thinks that this is hilarious, but if I go for a run, I don't get harassed about going to the rice paddys.

7:15pm- As the sun starts to set, I take my bucket bath. I also take this time to regroup and to spend some quality time with Wilma =)

8:00pm- I lay on the outside shade structure with my brother, his wife, and their son. A couple of people will come and we'll talk about a variety of things ranging from geography (continent vs. country), to sports (world cup!), to why I'm not married (because I don't want a husband right now....duh!), to whether the Euro or the Dollar is stronger (euro). Other times, it'll be teach Rouby Pulaar time, where they'll point at random things and ask me what it is.

10:30pm- Bedtime. I usually don't actually go to sleep til 11:30 or 12, but I try!


Shooting Stars and Thunderstorms
A year ago, a group of friends and I spent the night on a rock under the stars in Joshua Tree. That night, we saw over a dozen shooting stars and it was a gorgeous site. Here in Senegal, I lie under the stars on a nightly basis and see shooting stars every other night. As much as not having electricity is a slight inconvenience, I don't really miss it that much. I'm reminded on a nightly basis how gorgeous the world is and how electricity takes away from that.

Along those same lines, I'm reminded how scary mother nature can be. The rainstorms here come with a side of thunder and lightening. The flashes of lightening across the sky are like a free light show in a planetarium. However, the claps of thunder penetrate my cement walls and grass roof and terrify me. In the States, where thunderstorms aren't a common occurrence, I loved the flashes of light followed by the low rumbling of thunder. Here, it sounds like the thunderstorm is inside my hut and I'm forced to hide inside my mosquito net with my covers over my head and my ipod on loud. My village finds this absolutely hilarious. I say that the thunder scares me and they laugh at my silliness. This is only the beginning...hopefully I survive the rainy season!


Senegalese meeting
Last week, I was in Kolda for meetings regarding the Universal Coverage Project where the government of Senegal is attempting to provide every sleeping structure with a mosquito net. These three days of meetings were an adventure. First of all, the meetings were slated to begin at 9am all three days- they didn't begin til 11am. I can't say that I was entirely surprised seeing as nothing goes according to schedule in this country. Secondly, the meetings were conducted in French. I can confidently say at this point that my Pulaar is better than my French. Thank goodness that the presentations were in powerpoint format because I can read French better than I can hear/comprehend it. Thirdly, the meetings went on for 7 hours with an hour lunch break in the middle. Seriously!? It was so difficult to concentrate and I was exhausted by the end of it all. I had to focus and then translate the information into English so that I could understand it all.

Good thing though, I know my years of French didn't go to waste. Also, I now am well versed in the goals of the project and am excited to be involved in this endeavor. It's nice to know that I will be doing something more than just sitting around drinking tea. Yay!


Language Seminar
This past week, a language teacher from Peace Corps was assigned to give us a brush up lesson on Pulaar. Three of us newbies convened in Dabo for three days. It was validating to have a teacher here to tell me that my Pulaar has improved. Obviously I can communicated better than a month ago, however, without someone there to assess your language, it's difficult to tell how much improvement has been made. I know for me, confidence is a big hurdle in speaking a new language. When I was learning French, I was great at learning grammar and vocabulary, but so hesitant to speak it. I like to be grammatically correct when I speak, so I would take forever to get a sentence out. Now, I am forced to speak Pulaar if I want to get anything across. I am a lot less worried about being correct than getting my point across. It's amazing that people can understand me. The group I hang out with and children understand me perfectly. If needed, they translate my broken Pulaar into something understandable.


Gender/Age Gap
I find that my friends in village consist of children and boys between the ages of 20-25. Girls in this country often get married at 15 or 16 and have their first child soon after that. As a 22 year old who is a single woman (not even counting the fact that I look different), puts me in a totally different category. I can't relate to any of the women my age. I don't have children and I don't work like they do. I don't mind pounding millet for 10 minutes, but I can't do it for hours at a time. It's a strange dynamic for me because I have solid groups of female friends and have never had trouble making girlfriends.

I've always loved children and I love nothing more than sitting around playing with kids. Also, they don't expect me to know Pulaar instantly or ask me for anything. As for the group of boys that I hang out with, they are the same age group as me and they aren't married and don't have kids yet. They also have the patience to sit around and teach me Pulaar. We'll see whats going to happen in the next two years...hopefully I find my group of girls soon. As much as I like having guy friends, there's nothing like having girl talk.


My mini- America
While I'm in Kolda, I stay at the Peace Corps Regional House- my mini America. Here, I watched the second half of Season 1 of Glee, the US vs. England World Cup Match, and where I can speak English without looking like a crazy person. It's so nice to have a place where the volunteers can go and hang out with each other (the internet is pretty cool too). Village life (as awesome as it is), is really tiring at times, so it's really important that we have this oasis where we can relax and escape a little.


Home isn't frozen in time
As much as I hoped that nothing at home would change while I was gone, so much has happened in the lives of my friends in the three short months that I've been gone. There have been birthdays, graduations, trips, proposals, pregnancies, and life changing decisions. All this has happened in 1/9th of the time I'm away...what's going to happen in the remaining 8/9th of my service?? Only time will tell...

At the same time, I think back to where I was a year ago, at it seems like a lifetime ago. Those were the days when I would take road trips to Vegas with the girls, where my job was to watch a 5 year old, and where I took electricity for granted. Crazy!!

Miss you like crazy and thanks for everything!

--Peace Out