Home

I went back to village this weekend for the first time since I left. I was so excited for this trip and on Friday, I was bouncing up and down in my office in anticipation. That morning started off different from all the others. It was raining. Rainy season started weeks ago, but it has only rained in the middle of the night and not right when I've had to go to work. I used to love rainy season because it meant that I could hide out in my hut, read a book and enjoy a cup of tea or hot chocolate. I still love it, but when I have to navigate around mud pits, seasonal ponds, and seasonal rivers to get to work, it loses it's charm (I'm exaggerating, but it is difficult). Velingara is disgusting when it rains. It has gotten to the point where I rinse off my feet immediately on arriving home in order to avoiding getting creeping eruption (Google it). So, as I was lying in bed, not motivated to trek through the rain, I remembered that I hadn't packed for village yet (oh, procrastination). I packed, made breakfast and resolved myself to the fact that I had to make my way to work. As I get to a main street, a World Vision car stops and picks me up- Awesome!

That morning was filled with data entry from my project that measures malnutrition using brachial arm measurements. I left work a little early to buy gifts for my family and to get a car. Luckily for me, timing was on my side and my car filled and left within 15 minutes of my arrival at the garage. I get a call from my replacement telling me that the bridge into my village is gone, flooded. Just my luck. I arrive at my dad's boutique and I get a chorus of greetings and everyone tells me that I've been gone for so long. My brother meets me at the boutique and we begin the trek home. We get to the rice fields where the bridge is and it's a river (this time I'm not exaggerating). There is a current and although the deepest point is just above my knees, it's terrifying to cross. I cling onto my brother's arm, unsure if I'm about to step in a hole or about to mount an unseen slippery incline. I tell my brother that if I had known that it was in this condition, I wouldn't have come home. We make it safely across and I'm home.

I miss village so much. I love my job, but it's lonely here. I do revel in the quiet and the ability to do whatever I want and not have to report to anyone, but I miss the community and just hanging out with the family. Thanks to my great timing, I returned to village the weekend that Ramadan started. This being my third Ramadan, I didn't find it too difficult to fast for a few days. At the same time, I will be on a flight home to America in 5 days, avoiding the majority of Ramadan. When I arrived at the office this morning (after trekking in the rain), my coworkers and supervisor noted that I was happier. It's a mix of having spent a great weekend away in village and my upcoming journey.

America, see you in less than a week!

--Peace Out!

Fashion Forward

Keeping up with the latest fashion trends is a lot more difficult when you're living in a village. I cared a lot less about what I wore which resulted in me wearing the same few outfits over and over again (probably for the best, since those items are absolutely ruined). I had village clothes, Kolda clothes, and Dakar clothes- my clothing becoming nicer and less destroyed with each tier. I like options (I know I just told you I wore the same thing over and over again...) and I had a ridiculous amount of clothing that I accumulated throughout the years. I didn't realize this until I was moving and there was so much to sort through. It was funny, the girls in Kolda loved that I extended, but their one comment was, “so, now we don't get your clothes”. I compromised and left a good amount of clothes, but kept my favorites for myself.

The great thing about living in Senegal are the bolts of beautiful fabrics...and the option of taking the fabric to a tailor. I have one of the best tailors in Senegal and he's made the most beautifully tailored to fit outfits for me. I think I spend a lot of my money on getting clothes made, but it's worth it, when else can I get tailor made items for less than $10 USD. I push my tailor's limits all the time and give them projects that they've never done before. For example, I've had them make rompers (trying to explain that was hilarious), a dress out of a scarf, and an evening gown (for prom). There are times when I've had to work with my tailor to fix glaring programs, but for the most part, they are amazing and most of my clothing only required minor adjustments. In addit ion, I was able to get custom made costumes for various themed parties. Costumes in America can be ridiculously expensive and you can't be as creative with them. I'm going to miss this a lot and I'll have to go back to shopping in stores.

In the states, I loved to go thrifting and to explore vintage shops. Here, there are Fukijayes, which are giant thrift piles filed with hidden treasures. I love it and everything is so cheap- once I got a French Connection dress for $3 USD. It definitely takes patience to go through the looming piles of clothing and to bargain with the vendors, but there are great finds. It's so much fun to see what you can find- these clothing items come by the bagful from the States and you'll see custom shirts from family reunion, birthdays, and organizations. As a result of this, you see men wearing shirts with sorority letters on them or shirts with a picture of grandma's face. I love this activity so much that one theme party we had was “Fukijaye”, where you were given a $3 USD limit and the goal was to find and acquire the most ridiculous outfit possible. It was fantastic!

Senegalese Fashion is slowly making a name for itself in the fashion world. This year marked the 10^th year of Dakar Fashion Week. It's no New York or Milan or Paris, but it's getting some notoriety. In addition, wax aka the beautiful printed fabric that I love is making it's way into well known collections, including Burberry. I wasn't able to attend DFW this year, but I hope that the timing works out that I can attend next year. Looking at photo's there were classic completes, completes with modern twists, and some truly innovative creations that boldly combined prints and colors.  

 I will not stop loving clothes and I'm so grateful that I've been able to design so many items and find so many treasures here!

Peace Out!  

Reading Rainbow Pt. 2

The nice thing about my new position is that I work, then I go home and have time to myself.  Unlike the village, I'm not "on" all the time and have a chance to relax.  One of my favorite activities is making a cup of coffee in the morning and curling up with a book.  Awesome.  I realized I haven't updated my list of books I've read in a while, so here it is.  The first post is here. 

35) Summer at Tiffany By Majorie Hart

36) The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

37) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

38) A Short History of Nearly Everything By Bill Bryson

39) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By. Stieg Larsson

40) The Girl Who played with Fire By Steig Larsson

41) The Girl who kicked the Hornet's Nest By Steig Larrson

42) The Little Women By Katherine Weber

43) The Four Seasons By Mary Alice Monroe

44) Someone Knows My Name By Lawrence Hill

45) Switch: How to Change things when change is hard By Chip Heath And Dan Heath

46) Paradise By Toni Morrison

47) The Alchemist By Paulo Coelho

48) Catch-22 By Joseph Heller

49) The Pillars of the Earth By Ken Follett

50) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

51) What Looks like Crazy on an ordinary day By Pearl Cleage

52) The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

53) Stiff By Mary Roach

54) Life of Pi By Yann Martel

55) Fever Dream By Preston & Child

56) Cutting For Stone By Abraham Verghese

57) Pride And Prejudice By Jane Austen

58) Northanger Abbey By Jane Austen

59) Five Quarters of the Orange By Joanne Harris

60) A Tale of Two Cities By Charles Dickens

61) A Confederacy of Dunces By. John Kennedy toole

62) Mansfield Park By Jane Austen

63) My Guantanamo Diary By Mahvish Rukhsana Khan

64) American Taboo By Philip Weiss

65) Don't Get Too Comfortable By David Rakoff

66) The Friday Night Knitting Club By Kate Jacobs

67) I've Been In Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots By Susan Straight

68) In Stitches By Anthony Youn, M.D.

69) Jitterbug Perfume By Tom Robbins

70) Chasing Harry Winston By Lauren Weisberger

71) Persuasion By Jane Austen

72) Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates By Tom Robbins

73) Kingdom of Fear By Hunter S. Thompson

74) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test By Tom Wolfe

75) Fast Food Nation By Eric Schlosser

76) Blink By Malcolm Gladwell

77) Chocolate By Joanne Harris

78) Super Sad True Love Story By Gary Shteyngart

79) The Kitchen House By Kathleen Grissom

80) The Feast of Roses By Indu Sundaresan

I can't wait to read more amazing books.  Maybe I'll purchase a Kindle when I'm in America so I don't have to lug so many books around....

Peace Out!

Chinois- How Being Chinese Made Living in Senegal Easier

A lot of people that I encounter here don't believe I'm American. They comment on how i resemble someone of Chinese or Japanese descent and when I inform them that my parents are Chinese, they think I come from a mixed background. I've encountered several individuals here who call America, “the melting pot”, but they don't grasp the true meaning of what they're saying. To many people, Americans need to fit a certain look and if a person doesn't fit that bill, they cannot be American.

I look like wonder woman....how am i not American?

At the same time, coming from a Chinese family has made certain aspects of living in Senegal easier. In this post, I will outline a few things that made my transition easier. I'm not trying to claim that these items are exclusive to my ethnicity (because they aren't), but they're things I've observed and felt.

First of all, eating rice daily is not out of the ordinary for me. When we first arrived in country, other volunteers would complain about the amount of rice they were eating, but I loved it. Growing up, I ate rice almost every single day of my life, so this was not a far jump. The rice wasn't accompanied by several dishes and we all ate out of a communal bowl, but it was familiar. I remember saying to someone that rice was a comfort and that person giving me a bewildered look. One dish, Gosi, a rice porridge, is a polarizing food among volunteers (either they love it or hate it...most people despise it). To many, it has a weird texture and they can't wrap their taste buds around it, but to me, it's Senegalese congee. Congee, a rice porridge that reminds me of sick days or lazy sundays, was something I would make in college that reminded me of home. One time when I was sick in village, my mom made me gosi and I nearly cried. Rice, it does a body good.

My host mom and my grandmother have similar phone styles. They both talk loudly into the phone instead of speaking in a normal tone. It's adorable and my brother thinks it's hilarious that our mom and my grandmother do the same thing (he comments on it every time she's on the phone). In my opinion (and the opinion of many other volunteers), Pulaar is a much gentler sounding language than Woloof. Much like how Madarin sounds more melodic than Cantonese. When you're in a Catonese dominated dim sum restaurant at the peak of lunch hour, the din often sounds slightly angry, but that's the nature of the language- it sounds harsh and because people talk so loudly, it's easy to misconstrue it as anger. Same with Woloof, what could be a normal conversation on a bus in Dakar sounds like a heated argument between two people. I didn't take me long to make that connection and once I did, I just assumed that was how people talked and wasn't worried about fights breaking out in buses.

I eat weird food, but that doesn't make me weird, it makes me Chinese! Just look at our dim sum carts (if you couldn't tell, i'm missing dim sum)... we have chicken feet (yum!), pigs blood cooked with chives (not as weird as it sounds- it's like tofu, with a slight metallic taste), a beef mixture with mysterious parts (may or may not include tongue and stomach), and you can order a clay pot with rice and frog (seriously, it tastes like chicken). I've grown up with these foods and I guess it has made me an adventurous eater. Nothing really fazes me and I'm willing to try anything once. That has definitely been an asset to me here, especially during holidays. On holidays, the families go all out and cook meat (especially Tabaski aka festival of the sheep). They don't waste anything and that scares a lot of volunteers. I don't love the way that they cook the food, but I don't need to run away from it (that is until day three, when there's still leftover meat and no refrigeration). There is also the case of the salted dried fish. I don't mind it and I think it adds flavor to a meal that is mainly flavored by MSG. Most volunteers in country hate it with a passion and I don't blame them; it's weird if you're not used to it. At home, my grandmother used to rehydrate salted dried fish (yes, it was of a better quality) with a dash of oil and a lot of ginger by steaming it in the rice cooker (so delicious). In restaurants, you could order salted fish and chicken fried rice or have it in your congee- definitely something from my childhood. Lastly, we have the world of volunteers. We go out in Dakar, where I can order sea urchin (it's so fresh here) and the black spikes scare some, but it's such a treat. Or we go out in Thies and I can order frog legs and escargot. Some may find it strange, but I love it!

There are other things like the high level of gossip within families, the large extended families, huge family gatherings for events such as weddings, and highly ritualized ceremonies. I can sit here and draw parallels between a lot more events and practices, but I don't want to bore you. Off to cook some congee!

Peace