Chinois? Non, Americaine!

I was planning on writing a funny post regarding my ethnicity and how it has affected my service (actually, it's partially written), but recent issues have arisen within the Peace Corps Senegal community that compel me to write a more serious post. I may post the original idea at a later date, but this is a pressing issue.

Recently, a new PC Senegal trainee ET-ed (Early termination of service) after a month of being in country and brought up feelings of alienation and intolerance based on race. She begins the entry by saying that ET-ing is a taboo subject, which is changing among PC Senegal. People that I talk to agree that you have to do what's best for yourself and if that includes terminating your service, we will support you in that decision. Reading her blog and the subsequent comments, I felt that a lot of valid points were made on both sides of the debate. She doesn't say that PC Senegal is racist at any point, but she does write, "Peace Corps Senegal was completely inhospitable to Americans of color," in addition to various other blanket statements. The words she chose and the tone that emerged was one that was slightly accusatory and to me, implied that PC Senegal is racist.

I don't discount her experiences and her feelings because we are all entitled to our own opinions, but I would like to share my experience as a non-white (aka Chinese -American) Peace Corps volunteer. The first topic I would like to address is the use of "white person" while referring to ourselves. I understand that in training sessions, especially the volunteer led cross cultural sessions where they share their experiences, that the term "white person" may come up fairly often. In this culture, foreigners and wealthy and/or well educated Senegalese individuals are referred to as "Toubab". Our translation of that in our community is "white person", even though it encompasses all skin colors. In sharing our stories, we refer to ourselves as white or asian or black just as we refer to ourselves as female or male. Yes, we can be more careful in our language and refer to ourselves as Americans, but it's not as easy as it sounds. Many volunteers, especially those involved in trainings have been living in a village for one or two years, surrounded by little kids and adults alike calling them toubab- not exactly the most politically correct atmosphere. As a coping mechanism, many volunteers, myself included, joke about that fact and begin calling each other Toubab. It helps to laugh about it and to make fun of that fact in lieu of getting upset. If I were to get upset every time someone called me "toubab", "chinois", or "ching- chang- chong", I would have to be a masochist to stay here this long. To get back to my point, we share our own experience and ours alone. I can't relate to what a white or black volunteer feels, just like a male volunteer can't relate to my experiences. I do want to address the use of the N word in a joking manner. This trainee had an experience where this occurred and she writes "...justifying the use of the N word in a joking context because we are all 'liberal.'" I am shocked that this occurred because I have never heard the N word uttered in Senegal by a fellow volunteer.

The second topic I would like to discuss is the involvement of PC Staff. She writes that after having meetings with our country director and training director about various incidents that "response has been that although it is not technically excused, it is understandable and okay in this context, because my white peers are racial minorities for the first time." This makes it sound that our administration condones racism and dismissed her feelings and concerns. She mentions that she had contacted other PCVs of color and found that others also felt ostracized. Then she writes that she "found it appalling that the Peace Corps Senegal country director said he had no idea how pervasive these issues were." I honestly think that he didn't know. Unless multiple PCVs inform him that they feel alienated, how is he to know how they feel? He knows a lot, but he can't read minds. Personally, our country director has asked me if I had any specific issues within Senegal due to my ethnicity. This was back in May, and I told him that I get called Chinois and Ching- Chang- Chong in addition to Toubab, but I can usually laugh it off. I don't think I am any more vulnerable in Senegal because I am Chinese, than if I were white. He brought up the topic and I answered him honestly. She writes that she has heard of no changes being made. Change is a slow process and this is a fact that all volunteers are faced with. A large part of our work is to implement behavior change (for example, washing hands with soap and water). Look at our history, change is difficult and not instantaneous. I can say that change is beginning to occur. The country director and training director had a discussion with the third year volunteers addressing the issue of language. They then had a talk with volunteers interacting with the trainees, myself included, about being aware of our language and being considerate of other volunteers. Change is occurring. Slowly.

I think that she raised an important point and it needs to be addressed. However, it sounds like an attack on our character and although she doesn't say it, it seems as though she is calling our program racist. My initial reaction is defensiveness and I want to yell that my fellow volunteers aren't racists. With a little bit of reflection, our language is not the most politically correct and can be construed as non professional. However, this is the culture of peace corps- we have no separation of work and personal life. Our life is our work and our work is our life. I'm positive that when we are among friends that we aren't always politically correct, even in the states. Here, our friends are whom we work with and we lapse into that mode, specifically when we are out of village. I'm not trying to justify that behavior because we should be more conscience of what we say, but there is a reason behind it.

She has started a dialogue among PCVs and staff alike regarding issues of diversity. It is important and because of it, we are all more aware of our own behavior and language. It also forces us to examine why we may come off as insensitive to race. In my opinion it is the experiences we have in this country that forms our language and our approach to life. We joke and make fun because it is a way of preserving our mental health. I respect her decision, but I truly believe that she has not spent enough time in country to adequately understand volunteer culture.

Peace & Understanding

C.A.M.P. CAMP!!

I know I mentioned ages ago that I was working camp. I didn't only work one camp, I worked at 2 different camps that spanned a total of three weeks. I was in camp counselor mode for the month of September. The first camp was a USAID sponsored summer camp and the second was a US Embassy sponsored English camp. It was a whirlwind adventure to say the least...

USAID summer camp was held in various locations throughout Senegal. There were two in the region in Kolda- I accidentally signed on to be the point person for the one in Sare Bidji, a village located 6 kilometers west of Kolda. SO...what did it mean to be point person? I went to camp everyday for two weeks (actually, i didn't go one day, story to come) and pretended to know what I was doing. To summarize camp, I biked across an airport runway twice a day for two weeks, I fell off my bike twice in two days, I came home and cried once, I taught 75 kids how to make a paper crane, taught 150 kids about various health topics, and washed a lot of hands. I will elaborate....

Prior to camp, I had my partner in crime, Alex (who's fluent in french), touch base with the school director to find out our role in camp, All we got from that conversation was that he wanted at least one volunteer present and that camp started at 9, Obviously from that, I knew exactly what to expect from camp....HA! The first day of camp, we (Jonno, Lisa, and I) biked out to Sare Bidji bright and early, hoping that we wouldn't get lost. That morning, we ran into a herd of cows on the road (which terrifies me and is a blog post itself), and biked blindly to the village, periodically confirming with people that we were on the right path. Just as we get into the village, I hit a patch of deep sand (my biking nemesis) and/or a bump and fell off my bike. I had some very pretty bruises on my right side for about a month. We follow the music to the school and discover chaos. OK....it wasn't chaos, but it was children milling around and the teachers waiting for instruction. Apparently, the curriculum wasn't delivered til the night before and no one really knew what was going on. OY. So we sit around for an hour, then we went over rules and regulations with the students and camp commenced.


We still didn't know what our role would be at this point. The camp director (different from the school director) asked us what our role was.... ummm.... "Support? We're here to help with what you need." It came out that Jonno and I were health volunteers, so we were then given the health section to teach. We were to do an hour long session in 30 minutes without any prep other than several carte fiches (curriculum sheets) that didn't help. Thank goodness for Jonno (he came all the way from the North aka very far away just to help with camp) or I might have walked out of camp. He kept me sane and we came up with a lesson plan. We taught the kids about the importance of hand washing and we talked about malaria. We then assisted 75 children in washing their hands prior to lunch. After camp, we had a debriefing session among the teachers and other members of the camp team. This in theory is a great idea, a forum for the teachers to share ideas and to enlist the help of other staff. Instead, we spent 20 minutes discussing the oil to rice ration of Cheeb (oily rice). We left the meeting early stating that we had to bike back to Kolda. I came back to the house and was literally in tears because I was so frustrated with the day. I didn't expect it to run perfectly, but I didn't expect it to go so poorly. Lastly, a fellow volunteer's puppy chewed through my sandal strap- icing on the cake.

Jonno assists in Hand washing!

Camp did get better, although thanks to cows, I fell off my bike again on the second day. Given time to prepare lessons, Jonno and I were able to maximize our time. We still had to improvise a good part of it, but we brought in props, like pictures of food to place on the food pyramid. It was actually a lot of fun to teach kids. I usually work with women's groups and other adults, so it was a refreshing change to talk to kids! We taught them about microbes with the aid of glitter, how to prevent malaria, how to prepare ORS (oral re hydration solution), the importance of a diverse diet, the wonders of moringa, and how to make neem lotion. I also taught them how to make paper cranes. I DO NOT suggest teaching 75 children how to make paper cranes in Pulaar. Although one of my favorite moments from camp occurred during this activity. A quick side note... the educational system in Senegal is not perfect and there is a practice known as "rebirth", where a student's birth certificate is slightly altered to ensure that he or she is within the age limit. As a result, in the Senegalese equivalent of 3rd or 4th grade, you have an age range of 9-15. Story time... While teaching the kids how to make paper cranes, I noticed that the group of older boys were particularly engaged in the activity. They were excited to show me that they completed each step and when a friend didn't understand a step, they would jump in and explain. This surprised me....I expected this group of boys to be too cool for this activity, for camp in general. They were obviously older than most of the kids and heads taller than the younger ones. At the final step of crane making....where you pull on the wings to complete the bird, the smiles, on their faces were so precious. They were excited and proud that they had created this 3- dimensional object from a square of paper. This still brings a smile to my face. That was week one. Whew...

Kids Love Cranes

Volunteers Do too!!

Week two was more or less the same health topics, with the addition of sex-ed (they were older kids). Sadly, Jonno returned to the North, but thankfully Katie and Sharon jumped in to help. We weren't on the curriculum for week two of camp, but the school director liked us so much that he rearranged the schedule to fit us in. The one day that we didn't go to camp occurred during week two. The reason that we didn't go was that we had a column of fire shoot up from our stove one morning. We had a faulty burner which was slowly leaking gas. We thankfully turned off the gas line the night before or it could've been a lot worse. So, a fellow volunteer was boiling water on a separate burner when the gas caught and sent a column of fire shooting up (well, we think that's what happened). Quick thinking led Sharon to grab the fire extinguisher to put out the fire. And our two wonderful guards came running in with an additional fire extinguisher. So that really didn't prevent us from going to camp, but I needed a break, I was burnt out. Other than that, week two went well, and the school director tried to get me to come back for week three, but for my sanity, I needed to get back to village. Oh, I also got a certificate at the end =).

Katie & Sharon having fun at camp!

I went to village for a week before I had to leave to work English Camp in Thies. I had so much fun last year that I had to go back this year. It was SO MUCH FUN!! I worked with a fantastic group of counselors and we had a great time. We let the kids choose their own "English" names and had some gems including Malcom X, MLK, Hillary Clinton, and a personal favorite, Abby Bieber. We thought that it would be fun to give ourselves new identities also, so Cara and I became Salt & Pepa, while the other counselors were Marc Antony & Cleo, Sebastian, and Bradley. It was funny though, kids from last year remembered Mika and I, and would call us by our real names. The highlight of camp was the talent show and we decided that the counselors should also perform. We spent hours attempting to learn N*Sync's Bye Bye Bye dance, and eventually compromised-learning a part and improvising the rest. We had fun doing it, but it was so amazing seeing out kids take initiative and come up with their own performance. And done with my three weeks of camp.

Yay Camp!

Oh camp. So tiring, but so rewarding.

Peace & Creativity