The End of a [Blogging] Era

Hi All,

We’ve been back in the good ‘ol U.S.A. for over two months now, and I’ve been procrastinating writing this post. How am I supposed to wrap up this experience and provide “blog closure” (I just made that term up…) when I don’t feel like I’ve really begun to process it yet?

The answer is that distilling the experience and the feelings in words (written or spoken) is simply impossible, and recognizing that has been important. I feel a lot of responsibility to thoughtfully share our experience, since that is one of the 3 goals of Peace Corps (the others being engaging in development work, and sharing American culture in your host country), and it’s difficult to figure out how to do this. I want to do Senegalese people and culture, and the Peace Corps experience justice in these conversations, but I don’t want to put people off, or be too intense, or take up too much of someone’s time, or go on for too long so they glaze over and stop listening… But I’m now realizing that in a lot of ways, this is really just the beginning of our Peace Corps service, and just the beginning of these conversations. We have time to figure out how to talk about Senegal and our experience there. Although we are wrapping up this blog, we are committed to sharing about our experiences with Senegalese people and culture with anyone who is interested (or will feign listening), to embracing opportunities to learn about new cultures and people, and to being life-long champions of cultural exchange. 

Me, Peter, Baay and Fallou at Magal, Senegal's largest religious pilgrimage.

Considering all of this, I now have a new goal for this FINAL post: to simply give you some insight into what we've been up to, and how we’re feeling 2.5 months post-returning to the U.S. I also want to include a few photos that I feel sum up the important people/feelings/moments of our service. That’s a bit less daunting, right? I can't promise I won't be all over the place, though!

We successfully finished all of our projects, said all of our goodbyes, and left Guinguineo for good on August 30, 2015, leaving enough time for us to frantically finish all of our seemingly endless “Close of Service” (COS) paperwork in Dakar, and the attend our 3-day Close of Service workshop in Thies with the rest of our stage. It was a whirlwind, but we managed to get everything done (thanks to some awesome Peace Corps Dakar Staff!). The conference felt a bit self-congratulatory and I felt weird that our host families and counterparts weren’t invited or officially recognized, but with budgets and logistics and all that, I guess it’s not really possible (more on that later, though…). Peace Corps staff did a good job of helping us to recognize our accomplishments, and to provide information on how to navigate and utilize Peace Corps benefits (health insurance and medical vouchers, the Coverdell Fellowship program for grad school, non-competitive hiring eligibility for Government jobs, etc) after returning to America.

While it wasn't always the smoothest ride, we are very grateful to Peace Corps Senegal staff for keeping us [mostly] safe and healthy throughout our service.  There was certainly lots of bureaucracy and institutional clunkiness to wade through, but Peace Corps Senegal is staffed by great individuals. We were lucky to have great bosses, and many of the PC staff became good friends.

The Guinguineo Eaux et Forets (Senegalese forestry service) squad, including my Supervisor Boniface Gomis, admiring Makani's tree nursery. He grew and outplanted over 1,000 trees this past summer! Talk about motivation!

Man, I miss this guy! Our working partnership, and our midday chats about life and culture, were one of the most important and fulfilling parts of my service. I know he'll continue to lead his community in agroforestry efforts, and I can't wait to go back and see the transformation in his fields.

Idy filling tree sacks with our friend Mariatou Diallo's womens' group.

Idy leading a vegetable nursery prep training at the home of our dear friend, Lemou Ba.

We flew home to Missouri on September 6, 2015, had a day to do laundry and pack the car, then we set off for California in our new [to us] Prius, with Lisa in tow, via Denver. We got to see our niece, Miss Mira, again, which was such a joy! She had grown so much between June and September, and she was so engaging with everything. After 24 hours in Denver, we left Lisa and the Josts (Carrie, John, Mira and Shadow) and continued on to CA, via Reno (our most shocking cultural experience since returning home- yikes!). We made it to Stanford in time to get the keys to our new apartment, on the last day possible to move into student housing, September 11. Woohoo! We had a week to unpack, move in, and get our bearings before classes started. Oh, and I flew back east for a baby shower somewhere in there. Needless to say, we wouldn’t recommend this tight of a timeline for reintegration to life in America. But we pulled it off and have been sprinting on the proverbial treadmill ever since. Not surprisingly, we are both feeling a pretty deep sense of exhaustion right now. We are really looking forward to some down time, which will hopefully include some time for reflection, during the Holiday break.

Check out our new whip! It's SO clean, and we can control the number of occupants, the music, the TEMPERATURE, and all doors and windows and seat belts exist and are fully functional. It's pretty much heaven to travel in this thing.

Back to recognizing the Senegalese people in our community, though… With Thanksgiving upon us, it feels like an appropriate time to attempt to express our gratitude. We were happy and productive in Senegal because we had a wonderful support system of generous Senegalese people. Our service was hard and stressful and hot, and there were often language and cultural barriers. But the Diops and their network, Makani and the people of Nguick, and the Senegalese friends we made along the way totally shaped our experience for the better. They educated us and supported us, and helped us to utilize the tools Peace Corps provided. It wasn’t a job we could show up and do between 9 AM and 5 PM. We had to live it all the time, and thus we were constantly asking Senegalese people for things to help us do our work- their time, their knowledge, their patience. Early in the morning, during the middle of the day researched for resting, late at night, and on weekends and holidays.

The Diops on Korite. Thanks, Caitlin Healy, for playing photographer with my crappy camera!

Yaay often refers to our early time in Guinguineo as when we were still breastfeeding, meaning before we could do pretty much anything for ourselves. It’s a pretty accurate metaphor; our community, and our family in particular, raised us from helpless children to effective community organizers in the span of 2 years. I cannot appropriately communicate how grateful we are to the people who helped us, supported us, and loved us during our time in Senegal. 

Casual family portrait, with Papa Gorre in full tantrum mode, standard for the after-lunch hour.

Someone said to me once “Yeah, but they’re not your real family.” I guess I can understand the knee-jerk skepticism, but Peter and I probably spent more time with the Diops over the past 2 years than we have with our nuclear families over the past 10 years cumulatively. We started and ended each day with a series of ritualized greetings, and in the time in between, we all shared space, depended on each other, loved each other, and saw each other at our best and worst. We didn’t agree on everything, but we loved and respected each other despite our differences. If that’s not family, I don’t know what is.

Napping/reading with Fallou after Korite 2015.

It’s hard to be separated from our Senegalese family and friends, and each time we hear of a new atrocity happening somewhere in the world, I want to teleport back to Guinguineo to hold Ouli, Soda, Fallou, and Papa Gorre tight. But mostly, I am grateful for the time we had together. It’s not over, as we plan to go back and visit, and I do hope that we will be able to host Senegalese family members in America at some point in the future, but I am grateful for what a special time it was. I am committed to paying it forward, to opening my home and my heart to people who are trying to make a difference, and to people who need some help. 

Separating moringa seeds from the pods is always more fun as a group activity!

 It’s cliché, but a piece of my heart will always be in Senegal, and I hope I will always remember who I was when I answered to Ndeye Penda Diop every day. 

A selfie with the boys, while Yaay teaches us how to cook mafe, my favorite Senegalese dish.

One of the biggest adjustments has been transitioning from a collective to an individual society, literally overnight. In Senegal, we often longed for a quiet, clean room with climate control and a fully stocked grocery store down the street. Now that we live in one of those quiet rooms, it feels a bit soulless. 

I was trying to describe this to a friend the other day, and the best I could do was contrast the experience of coming home from a day’s “work” in America vs Senegal:

In America, I usually come home from class a little bit tired, and a little bit drained. I open the door, and am greeted by my wonderful husband, and a calm, clean, and climate-controlled space. I get to work on homework and studying, and reheat part of a bulk meal I made on the weekend in the microwave or oven. Or I watch HGTV on Xfinity and dream about owning a house.

Our quiet, clean, and peaceful apartment in Palo Alto.

In Senegal, I was usually pretty pooped after a full day out in the heat, speaking Wolof and holding my own in groups of men (the people I dealt with most often).  I would come around the corner, and if it was the evening, the kids would usually be romping and playing games in front of the house while Baay at in front of the grill,  getting it started and making his special sauces and seasonings for the dibi. The kids would start screaming and chanting “Ndeye Penda’s home!” while running toward me. “Stop and look before crossing the street!” I’d usually have to yell. I was greeted by endless hugs and stories about their day at school, and what I’d missed at home. Then I’d greet Baay with a handshake and a curtsy- “Ndeye Penda! How was your day?” he’d always say. “We missed you! You’re such a hard worker! Kids, leave her alone- she needs to go rest!”- before going inside to greet Yaay. She was usually in her kitchen or the backyard, making fatayas or heating up the kids’ dinner. “Ndeye Penda! I was so lonely today! I missed you! You look tired- go clean up and rest. You work so hard! Oh, I saved a bowl of lunch for you. Idy has it inside for you. I’m glad you’re home.” Then I’d continue on to our little apartment. Greta usually greeted me before even getting inside, bounding up from the garden when she heard me come home. Then I’d meet Happy Cat on the porch, purring and demanding attention. Inside our kind of dirty, but perfectly livable apartment, my wonderful husband would usually be listening to a podcast and getting dinner started (usually some sort of sandwich, pasta, or egg dish). He’d give me a big hug (or if it was really hot, just a kiss on the cheek), and we’d chat about our respective days. Usually within a few minutes, the kids would start to trickle in, to ask if they could work on their coloring books or help us cook dinner or watch a cartoon on the computer.

This is what I miss the most. Oh, what I'd give to teleport back, hug the kiddos, snuggle Happy Cat (RIP), and throw a stick for Lady O (I hope she knows we think of her often, and send her lots of love at her new home)!

Which scenario looks and sounds better to you? I guess the takeaway is that we need to either move back to Senegal, or start creating a family of our own (once we’re out of campus housing, in 2017, of course). 

The gardening squad.

 In an attempt to quell some of the loneliness we’ve been feeling, we got a dog! Meet Desi, our new baby. She has truly been the best medicine in this transition, helping us to meet and bond with our neighbors, to get outside more, to run and play, and to have more compassion and patience for ourselves. It’s hard to stay down or stressed (about school, life, yourself, or anything, really) for long when you get to come home to Desi’s unconditional love and never ending excitement. It’s contagious. If only the Diop kiddos could meet her! 

Desi and Peter at Half Moon Bay, CA.

A prowling beast, on the lookout for crab shells to eat! Sound familiar? Yeah, she reminds us a lot of Tybee, who is happy and healthy at home in FL with my parents, who refuse to give her back.

It's probably worth mentioning that we're both really enjoying our respective academic programs (Civil Engineering- Sustainable Design and Construction for Peter, Environmental Horticulture and Landscape Design for me). We feel so grateful for the opportunity to be students again, and we are so incredibly excited about the kinds of opportunities our respective studies will open for us in the coming year or two! Desi is the perfect study buddy in the mean time.

We have been calling family and friends in Senegal every two weeks or so. I am so grateful for Viber, and for the old iPhone Alex and Jake gave me! It’s hard to have a meaningful conversation over the phone, because of Wolof phone culture (it’s a lot of ritualized greetings rather than real talk), shaky phone connections, and our slipping language skills. But, I try to remember that the important thing is that we are reminding each other that we are thinking of each other, even if we don’t know everything that’s going on in each others’ lives. 

Yummy macaroni lunch, with "salad" and fried eggs (all in one bowl), cooked by my wonderful husband!

Our replacements have been selected (congratulations, Molly and Meg!) and will install in Guinguineo and Nguick, respectively, in December. We’re hoping that they will be willing to keep us updated on the big stuff happening in the Diop and Tall families, and around Guinguineo in general!

Idy making hilarious faces from behind the camera...

In other big news, Peter, or really Idrissa, has a turundoo, a namesake! We’ve explained in previous posts about the importance of naming in Senegalese culture. Most Senegalese people have namesakes, who are sort of like Godparents in Western (or Christian?) culture. Our dear friend Lemou Ba gave birth to her son, Idrissa Ba, on November 4, 2015. His ngente, or naming ceremony, happened last week and apparently it was quite the social event! We talked to Baay on the day-of (we couldn’t get ahold of Lemou, understandably) and he said he could hear the music blasting at our house (about 3 city blacks away). Oh, how I wish we could have teleported to Guinguineo! 

Peter, Lemou, and me in our garden, on our last evening in Guinguineo. Baby Idrissa's in there, too!

Thankfully, part of Guinguineo came to us last week! One of my favorite days recently was hosting a Senegalese friend, Yatma Diop, for dinner at our apartment in Palo Alto. Yatma grew up in Guinguineo, and was friends with the first PCV couple in Guinguieo, Chuck and Paula (coincidentally, he is also related to Lemou). They have stayed in touch, and Chuck and Paula encouraged Yatma to swing by our house in Guinguineo to say hello when he was home in Guinguineo for a holiday. We got to chatting, and learned he’s working on a joint Stanford-Tostan research project, and would be coming to Palo Alto in November. He’s currently here, and it’s been a huge treat! The week he arrived, we were enjoying happy hour at the campus union when Peter said he saw a guy dressed in Senegalese clothing. I went over to introduce myself to the guy, and it was Yatma! He had sent me a Facebook message that morning, but I hadn’t seen it yet. So serendipitous! It was the occasion I’ve been waiting for to get my butt in gear to cook mafe. Remember the video we posted of Yaay teaching me how to cook mafe in our last post? Here it is again:

 I’m kicking myself for not filming/photographing the process for making crock pot mafe in America! You can imagine that it was really easy, and I did not need to stir the peanut butter with my hand. Yaay would be absolutely flabbergasted at how easy it was! Granted, my mafe was not Yaay’s mafe. It was not as good, and it was missing something I couldn’t put my finger on (aside from a mother’s love, that is). I think it will be a staple in our house for years to come, and Yatma gave it his stamp of approval, so I’m happy. When I spoke with Yaay earlier this week, she was so happy I made it. I told her it wasn’t as good as hers, and she said she didn’t believe me (although I think she was being nice; she really didn’t like any of my cooking in Senegal, except mac n cheese!).

3 Diops in America: Peter, Yatma, and me!

With an experience like Peace Corps, there is the expectation that it changes you. Several people have asked if/how I think I’ve changed. To be honest, I’m not really sure yet. I guess I feel slightly more competent. I know I feel more compassionate. Now more than ever, I feel that family and community and love are the most important things in life. It’s been difficult readjusting to American life in the midst of so many polarizing events, both domestic and international. I feel like I have come back with a more open heart, and I see and hear many people around me beginning to close off out of fear or misunderstanding, or a combination. Looking at my Facebook news feed is an emotional rollercoaster ride…

I am buoyed by successes like the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold marriage rights for same-sex couples in June (It was about damn time! We were SO proud to be American on June 26, 2015!), but saddened and upset by the racial tension across our country. Mostly I just feel frustrated that I don’t know what to do to help. I am hopeful that as a country, we can acknowledge the systematic oppression that still very much affects the lives of people of color in America, and work together to break down this system and build up a culture of tolerance, love, and acceptance. As a white person, it’s hard to know how to be the best ally, so for now I’m simply professing my support, taking opportunities to talk about it, and urging advocates onward in their struggle for equality. It’s been really inspiring following the advocacy work of DeRay McKesson, a friend and fellow Bowdoin grad, and Peter’s freshman year proctor. It gives me hope.

I am also encouraged by the news that the Ebola outbreak is almost over, after almost 2 years of unimaginable upheaval for many West African countries, and over 11,000 lives lost. Guinea’s last known Ebola patient was discharged from a treatment center last week, and Liberia and Sierra Leone are Ebola free. Alhamdoulilah! But I am deeply saddened by the recent large-scale terrorist attacks in Lebanon, France, Nigeria, and very close to home, in Mali. What is honestly more upsetting, though, has again been watching the news and my Facebook news feed react. So much fear and hate and distrust. I am so sad about how much these recent terrorist attacks affect the lives of Muslims (here in American and abroad), who are being treated with suspicion and fear, and sometimes hate, as a result of these extremists’ actions. I am bewildered that anyone could group our Muslim family and friends (American or Senegalese) with extremists terrorists, just because they are apparently of the same Muslim faith (although Baay, and any Senegalese or American Muslim I have spoken to about the issue of extremist terrorists, would be quick to tell you that anyone who kills or harms another person in the name of Allah is NOT a true Muslim). Please join me in sending love and support not only to the victims of these terrorist acts and their families, but also to our Muslim brothers and sisters who are unfairly bearing the brunt of so much misplaced fear and anger.

The Nguick guys. Samba "Bacc" Ndoy, who came into town with Makani to help unload our stuff from the Peace Corps car when we arrived, Baay Modu Ndiaye, my host father in Nguick, and Makani Tall, my BFF, Counterpart, and he most important person in my service outside the Diop family.

 I am so sad that the desperate refugees fleeing this kind of horrible extremist violence, most of whom are coming from Syria, have become scapegoats and pawns in political games. They are real people, whose lives and futures now depend on the good will of our world. Most of us cannot imagine our country becoming such an ugly and unsafe place that we decide to risk our lives to leave, in hopes that we might find resettlement somewhere else, eventually, in a place that will probably have a different language and culture and geography. That is not something that one signs up for unless they are utterly out of options. I hope that more people from more fortunate countries, first and foremost America, can find the compassion in their hearts for these people, and instead of reacting out of [misguided] fear, welcome refugees into their communities and homes. Love is the answer, and I hope that Peter and I have the opportunity to house and help and guide people new to America, as so many Senegalese people helped us.

I want to end by expressing gratitude to you, our family and friends. We LOVED sharing this experience with you, and we really appreciate all of the encouragement we received for the blog. Thank you for reading, for caring, and for supporting us in our Peace Corps adventure. Your love and support was also an important part of our success and happiness in Senegal. Your cards, emails, phone calls, care packages, and donations to Girls’ Camp and MSS meant more than you will ever know!

We’re wishing a happy holiday season to all, and sending love you way.

Jamm ak Jamm,

Kait (and Peter)

p.s. If anyone reading this blog is debating whether or not to do Peace Corps, DO IT! (But be ready to be self-sufficient.)

In With Rainy Season... Out With Ndey Penda and Idrissa

Hi All,

It’s hard to believe that our service is so close to its conclusion.  With well less than one month left at site, I’ll admit it’s impossible to synopsize how we feel.  Kait and I have both been paralyzed by the prospect of blogging. There is just so much to say, it’s difficult to know where to begin.

Part of the reason is because we’re still desperately trying to wrap up all of our projects, or at least get them to a place where they can weather the three-month gap between our replacements and us, which limits our time for reflection and/or freaking out. 

The main cause is that because our emotional state at any given moment has little to no bearing on our emotional state 15 minutes later.  The emotional roller coaster of the past two years continues with the same amplitude, but a much shorter wavelength. (Pardon the mixed electro-magnetic/theme park metaphors)  One minute I’ll be walking to buy phone credit and get accosted by children (or worse, adults) and aggressively asked to offer them everything from money to a soccer ball to a plane ticket to America, thinking, “I sure won’t miss this stuff in America…”  The next minute I’ll get back to the wonderful sanctuary of our home, greeted by Papa Gorra and Fallou screaming excitedly and asking if we can go into the garden and work, thinking, “I’m really gonna miss this stuff in America…”

I find solace in how I reflect back upon challenging and formative events/times in my past.  The hard, painful or sad aspects fade with time or get romanticized and recalled as much less difficult than they were at the time.  The loving, wonderful, and satisfying aspects tend to not fade.  We will always love the Diop family and will continue to be involved in their lives, despite the distance conspiring against us.  Furthermore, I firmly believe that as time passes we will only increase in our knowledge and appreciation of how profoundly formative our time here has been, both for us as a couple, and as individuals.

Anyhow, enough of the reflective stuff.  No time for it anyway! 

This morning, sitting with the family drinking coffee, I noticed something a little strange.  The bread came wrapped in a torn British newspaper page.  I first observed that sadly the crossword was IMPOSSIBLE.  (Apparently my handle on British idioms, puns and pop culture isn’t what I thought it was.)  Then I started reading aloud to the kids and Yaay, which they thought was the FUNNIEST thing since “Who’s on First?”  (which might, now that I think about it, be extra confusing in Wolof because the word for “Who” is also a common last name).  After I read aloud all the paper had to say, which was, other than the crossword, the beginning of a book review and the end of an article about the resurgence of a species of Kite in Wales, Yaay gave it a go.  She can’t read in the strictest sense… or at all, but she’s a hell of a faker.  Hearing a Wolof pretend to speak English is simultaneously offensive and hilarious.  She sounded like a mix between Beaker from the Muppet Show and a drunken goat with a head cold… except somehow even more nasally than that.  Every so often she would throw in a nasalized “thank you very good,” as it is the only phrase she knows in English.  It makes one wonder why Senegalese venerate American culture so much when they think we sound so, so very horrible when we speak.  I guess perceived extravagant wealth gets you forgiven for sounding like a distressed goose.

Storm rolling in above our house.

The rainy season is fully here.  Everything is SO green!  Granted most of the green is weeds, but it’s still such a wonderful change from the brown/tan of the nine dry months.  Our garden is taking off in the best way.  All the perennials and trees bounced back so fast.  It’s a little sad that we’ll be gone before we can harvest any beans, okra, bissap, sweet potato, or melon.  Luckily the family has shown such enthusiasm for the garden, we have every reason to think they’ll continue to maintain it and they’ll certainly gladly harvest its bounty.  Kait’s even been taking our siblings into the garden and teaching them species names, so they can orient our replacements.  Even little Papa Gorra can spout off a pretty impressive list of species/varieties.  The little horticulturalist even seems to have given up his nasty habit of ripping up plants when he tantrums.

Our banana area at the beginning of the rainy season

Our banana area ~1.5 weeks into rainy season.  The Italian basil and sweet potatoes are exploding

Unfortunately we have another plant-ripping-out problem plaguing us, and you can’t get them to stop destroying everything by shaming them in front of their siblings and kicking them out of the garden.  You may have actually seen news of this little turd in various media of late…

PCVs call them cat rats (because they’re about that size) and in Wolof they’re called kaña.  Here, they thankfully don’t have any mines or tuberculosis to sniff out.  Unfortunately, this means they get their super sniffers to work on our garden.  They like the way roots smell… and taste.  Funny thing about plants: they need roots to live.  Ever since Lady Obama went to live with her new family, the cat rats have taken over the yard under cover of night.  We wake up most mornings just hoping they didn’t dig up anything we’re especially attached to.  Most people here, when confronted with a kaña problem, just leave out poison, usually dissolved in water.  Neither one of us really has the heart for that, though.  Especially in light of the fact that they’re so dang smart, despite their appearance.  Also we have way too many cats in and around our compound for leaving any poison and not fully expecting to also take out a couple cats and/or kitten, which wouldn’t feel super-great.  So our solution is to fill in the burrows that they dig (and pour gallons upon gallons of dirty dish/laundry water in them) and cover the things we want to protect with thorns from the desert date tree (they grow up to six inches long and are mean as hell). 

Aloe looks like a tentacled alien when looked at from above.  We brought this specific aloe from America and it was about 3 inches tall, now it’s mighty enough to
devour a platoon of Space Marines.

Other than that little (giant) rodent-monster mucking up our work, our garden has been a delight.  The rainy season this year is shaping up to be better than last, which means the garden is pretty self-maintaining.  This is especially true because instead of seeding the free-standing bigger plants (okra, bissap, hot pepper, etc.) we just grabbed them from where they naturally germinated, and transplanted them where we wanted.  It’s indicative of how much we grew last year that we were leaving fruit on the plant long enough to dry, and drop its seeds.  The rain does mean that we have to weed, but it means that everything is SO green and happy.  It’s a fun time to be a gardener here.

Kait hard at work in the garden.

Happy Cat continues to help us in our gardening endeavors from his special spot in the corner.

When we haven’t been having fun in our garden we been hard at work with trees.  Having completed our tree nursery creation and seeding trainings before we went to America to visit, we’ve just now completed the final loop of nurseries and trained everyone in how to outplant and maintain their precious trees.  Some groups have been more committed and successful than others, but all in all, we feel great about our contribution this year. 

Teaching the finer points of tree transplantation.

Kait’s counterpart, Mackiny, continues to be the shining star beyond compare.  He is so motivated, but also committed to raising up his whole community with him.  He had in his personal tree nursery far more trees than in the rest of ALL of our nurseries combined.  We teased him that he was the Nguick branch of Eaux et Fôrets, the official government tree service.

Mackiny pointing toward trees in his nursery… like a BOSS

Eaux et Fôrets Nguick: Note the child in the humorously numbered jersey.

Kait’s been far more adventurous than me in the past month.  She got weave put in her hair for Korité (end of Ramadan).  It was about a four hour process, but everyone thought she looked so dang pretty and should leave it in for months!

She left it in for nearly a week.  Something about getting heat rash on the back of your neck from the irremovable 6lb hair-pulling polyester fur hat you’re wearing doesn’t scream, “keep me in forever!”  It was a cool look while it lasted.  Even I thought so.

When she went out on tour with Eaux et Fôrets, they came across an illegal charcoal-making operation.  Charcoal is tightly controlled, as it is one of the leading causes behind the rampant deforestation.  It was about a week before Korite, so we can safely assume that after the men got busted, their Korite was ruined.  Sad, but Boniface Gomis, the new commander of E&F Guinguinéo enforces the law with a  pretty iron fist.  It’s too bad the trees can’t thank him, because the people whose charets he impounds sure don’t.  He also gave a huge bag of charcoal to Baay, since Kait took part in the bust.  All she did was tackle and cuff one guy though, so an entire bag was very generous.  I am, of course, lying.  She actually unmasked Old Man Diallo who was pretending to be a genie to scare Eaux et Fôrets away from the operation.  To which Old Man Diallo said, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling Toubabs!”

Bagging and loading the contraband

The saddest thing about leaving so soon is how much we’ll miss our family, and how much they’ll miss us.  For this reason we’ve been spending more time hanging with the Diops than in the past.  We play soccer in the evenings.  We roughhouse after lunch.

We have ugly face contests.  Which I usually win, or mash Papa Gorra’s face all the way into the winner’s circle.

I think the kids will really miss us, but they’re young and resilient.  They’ll latch onto our replacements quickly and hopefully our replacements will be open and quickly accept them into their hearts.  I’m more concerned about Yaay.  She doesn’t really have that much social stimulation.  She goes to the market, and sells fatayas at night, but she can’t really speak frankly in those settings about the things vexing her.  Kait has become a real confidante of hers on all matters: child stuff, health issues, even marital problems and beyond.  I don’t know where Yaay will go for sympathy and commiseration after we leave.  I hope she’ll be able to find another patient ear and compassionate shoulder to cry on after she loses her Ndey Penda.  Time will tell.  Anyhow, Kait’s making an extra effort to make Yaay feel special in this last leg of our service.  Yaay taught her to cook Maffé (peanut sauce that goes over rice) as it is Kait’s favorite dish here, and as any good wife must, she must be able to cook her man some solid lunches once we get back to America.

I think we'll be able to translate her knowledge into a pretty excellent Crock Pot Maffé recipe.

I guess I didn't write anything about our time in America.  Here goes: It was great.  Saw beloved friends in Boston and New York.  Beloved family in Rhode Island.  Met Mira MacArthur Jost for the first time.  Maaaaaaan is she cute!  Didn’t get any spinal meningitis!  Drove a car.  Ate food.  Drank beverages.  Great time all around.  We’re about to live in that country for the foreseeable future, yadda yadda yadda.

This Past Month...

Biggest challenge:  Wrapping up everything before we have to go.  Relationships.  Work projects.  Our lives for the past two years.  A lot of loose ends need tying up.  Not a lot of time left to do it.

Most exciting/best experience:  Even though we saw it last year, so we should be somewhat less impressed this year, seeing the garden explode with green after the first few good rains has been so fulfilling.  All the trees and little perennials are covered in leaves.  Everything just grows with so little effort.  A cat rat hole filled in here… a dozen caterpillars smashed there... is such a manageable price to pay for the level of satisfaction we, our family included, get out of the garden.  To say nothing of the produce.

Thing we are most grateful for:  Wonderful work partners.  Not everyone we work with is a rock star, but some of them really are, and it’s hard to imagine working here without them.  In them, if nowhere else, we know our work will carry on beyond our departure.  Mackiny Tall, Mariatou Diallo, and Lemu Ba:  THANK YOU ALL for being the best!

This coming month we’re looking forward to…

The last of the tree outplanting, including a municipal tree planting project in which we’ve served as primary coordinators and liaison between Eaux et Fôrets and the Mayors Office… i.e. cat herders.

Continuing rainy season and beautiful green-ness.  Hopefully without the accompanying staph infections.

Maybe a big party for all of our work partners and friends, akin to the party we hosted when team Fritsche was in town. 

All of our final meetings/clearances.  Will Med say we’re healthy?  Will our bosses say we were great volunteers?  Will the grants coordinator say our grant is all squared away?  Will the bike guy say he has our bikes? For all this, and more, (like the results of our poo samples!) STAY TUNED!

COS.  In less than a month, we will be RPCVs bound for America.  Crazy town.

Wish us courage and strength as we close this chapter and get ready for a new one.  We hope to see you soon, those few of you who have actually stuck it out with us, and didn’t quit reading the blog after the first few posts!  Congratulations!  You too should get a cool new acronym to describe how you’ve committed the last two years of your life to reading our blog, even when it was boring or light on visual media.  Perhaps RPCVSTBR for “Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Supporter Through Blog Reading.“  Bit verbose, but if I know one thing from Peace Corps, it’s that no acronym is too beefy for the US Government.  Thank you for your readership.

Love,
Peter

June in Review

Hi All,

May has been a month of life-altering changes. Mostly good, but some very sad.

I’ll begin with the sad, so we can move on to the positive stuff. Happy Cat passed away May 28, which as you can imagine, has been really hard. He started experiencing bladder issues a few months ago. Every couple of weeks, he would be unable to urinate for 12-24 hours. As soon as we recognized the signs, we’d give him cephalexin (antibiotics) and he’d come around quickly. This last time, the antibiotics didn’t help, and he continued to get worse and worse. It was a long, drawn-out, and exhausting ordeal involving many phone calls to and visits from our vet in Guinguineo (whose child was in the hospital with a bacterial infection), a small animal vet in Dakar, and various failed plans to get Happy Cat the emergency surgery he needed. However, one last, honest, conversation with the Dakar vet confirmed what we suspected: Happy Cat was too far gone. His kidneys were failing, and the chances of a full recovery after surgery were slim to none. Surgery would probably just result in prolonged suffering.

In the end, we decided to put him to sleep in Guinguineo, which was an ordeal that took a lot of ingenuity, and of course, help from Baay. Our Guinguineo vet wouldn’t do it, because he said it would be too disturbing for him, but we talked him into anesthetizing Happy Cat at our house before we brought him to the other town vet, who agreed to give him the fatal shot (with a syringe, not a gun). Honestly, the worst part about it all was that once we decided putting him to sleep was the most humane thing to do, it took almost a full 24 hours of bartering, haggling, convincing, and follow-up calls to the vets, who were hours late, through tears, to make it happen. It was humiliating and frustrating to feel so powerless, and then it made us feel worse for feeling so bad, because we weren’t the ones dying. It all sounds very dramatic, because it was. But it ended in the best way possible, and Happy Cat will now forever be the guardian of our garden, his second-favorite place (after our bed).

Happy Cat obviously played a very important role in our lives over the past year and a half. He made our house a home, centered and softened us, and his antics provided levity at all the right moments. Who knew we’d emerge from Senegal as cat people?!

We’re glad we had the time with HC that we did, and once we’re settled back in America, in a place that allows cats, we’ll have space to take in another furry little monster.

R.I.P. Happy Cat

Greta is now queen of the roost. Her kittens have been delivered to their new homes (with other PCVs), and she’s now a free woman (except for the fact that she’s in heat again, so she’s free only inside our apartment, to which she has again been confined)!  We went from four cats to just one in the span of 48 hours. Greta’s a special girl in her own right, but I’ll just say she doesn’t sleep draped across our pillows at night like her late big brother. She is, however, the luckiest cat in the world, as she will be going to live on the Santos family farm in Rhode Island next week!

Yep, we’re unexpectedly coming home to Rhode Island for 11 days this month, and Greta will be our carry-on baggage! We just needed some fam time. It’ll be a whirlwind of a trip, highlights including seeing the Grandparents Gardner, our adorable new niece Mira MacArthur Jost (!!!!!!!!), all of the Fritsches (and former Fritsches, Carrie), the Santos cousins, some Boston buds, and Annah, Will, Alex and Jake in NYC on the way out! Phew! We’ll miss seeing the Hammerheads and Maeders, but at least we’ll be able to talk on the phone for free, or Skype over a good connection!

In other exciting news, we have figured out our plans for the upcoming year! Peter will be starting his Masters in Civil Engineering at Stanford in September, and I’ll be enrolling in an Environmental Horticulture and Design technical program at a nearby community college. Peace Corps has very graciously granted us “early Close of Service,” meaning that we can leave Senegal in early September with Peace Corps’ blessing and retain full benefits (we were originally scheduled to finish in November).  We are so very grateful for this, and for the new learning opportunities in the coming year. Both of our programs are just one year, so we’re thinking we’ll move back east in 2016. Until then, we’ll be transitioning back to life in America in Palo Alto, in Stanford student housing (the apartments look like palaces!). Woohoo!

Okay, back to Senegal. Tree pepineering (or tree nursery-making) season is in full swing! Our days have been filled with trainings, and check-ins at the various pepineer locations around town. In Guinguineo, our work partners have created 8 tree pepineers, and over 600 tree sacks have been filled with sand and compost and seeded. In Nguick, over 1,200 tree sacks have been filled and seeded. We’re crossing our fingers and toes that this means this many tree seedlings will be out-planted in and around Guinguineo and Nguick, but there’s lots that can go wrong between now and July/August. Goats, chickens, children, insect pests, and lack or excess of water can all quickly destroy a tree pepineer, so we try to stress the importance of creating pepineers in areas protected from the aforementioned offenders, and always encourage covering the area with a mesh net. This is one of the hottest, dustiest times of the year, but it’s so full of hope as everyone prepares their fields and tree pepineers for the rains! It was this week last year when we experienced the insane dust storm and the first rain of the season. After that first event, it didn’t rain again for over 4 more weeks, but it was still exciting. I find myself wondering often when the first rain will come this year. Will we be here, or in Rhode Island? With the rains come so many possibilities for growth and improvement!

 In other exciting news, we welcomed PCV Meg Niles to the Guinguineo Work Zone in May! She replaced Kathryn out in Ngar Gueye, about 7 km outside of Guinguineo on a sandy little bush path.  We’re excited to have Meg out here, and grateful to share our Peace Corps experience with such great American neighbors.

We’ll end with an update on the Diop kiddos. The boys are growing like weeds! For some reason, I have really noticed in the past month or two how much Fallou and Papa Gorre have grown up during our time in Guinguineo. Soda and Ouli are certainly taller and more capable, and we love watching them further develop into themselves- Soda a creative, and whimsical yet determined girl, and Ouli, a bossy and competent force to be reckoned with. But their physical growth and personality changes have not been as noticeable. Fallou, now almost done with his first year at primary school, is now obsessed with wrestling and physical activity. I still see glimpses of the snuggly, quiet little boy he was when we arrived in Guinguineo, but usually I see a big boy figuring out the limits of his strength and figuring out his interest. Papa Gorre, even a few short months ago, was a toddler, prone to teary tantrums at the drop of a hat, and constantly toppling over as a result of his lack of coordination. Oh how that has changed! There are still occasional tantrums, but usually we can talk him down by asking him who he is and what he’s done with the big-boy 4 year-old who used to live here. He can now carry a tune and remember the correct words to a song, as opposed to the verbal nonsense he used to constantly spout. He’s constantly exploring his newfound coordination by climbing up on things and jumping off, and running and skipping and sort of constantly pirouetting around the compound. It’s all so much fun to watch and be a part of!

Maybe part of it is that we now, all of the sudden, can see the end of our service looming in the not-so-distant future, and our life beyond Senegal. It’s a strange, but good, new feeling….

In May…

1) The biggest challenge we have faced: The death of Happy Cat, hands down.

2) The most exciting/best experience: Being granted permission by Peace Corps to leave Senegal and start school in September.

3) What we are most grateful for: Being able to come home to the U.S. be with family this month.

4) Language factoid: “Dinanu naan boisson ba maandi.” means literally, “We’re going to drink soda until we’re drunk.” This is what people say in anticipation of an exciting holiday or event here in Senegal! This particular phrase came to mind today, as there are at least 3 major events happening around town today (we’re talking rented tents and chairs, sound systems with giant speakers, and hired musicians, mostly drummers). There’s a marriage ceremony happening 2 doors down, and that event’s music, combined with the sound of our neighbor’s metal saw, is just divine… It sort of sounds like a horror concert. There’s a prayer ceremony for deceased ancestors at the Mayor’s house, and another “fête” at a marabout’s house across town, and I’m sure there are other celebrations we have not yet heard about. It seems that everybody’s all of the sudden trying to squeeze their pre-rainy season parties in before Ramadan. There will be lots of rowdy soda guzzling in Guinguineo this weekend!

Have you ever seen a cashew apple? That's what this red fruit is. They're delicious! The cashew is inside the grayish, cashew-shaped shell on the end of the apple.

In June, we’re looking forward to:

- Being in America for 11 days!!!!!!!!!!!

- The beginning of Ramadan

- Coming home to Senegal to see how much the tree seedlings in pepineers across town and in Nguick have grown in our absence.

- The first rain of the season.

Jamm Rekk,

Kait