As the title suggests, this post will cover a mighty swath
of time, from mid-March to this very minute.
During this time, we were lucky enough to be visited by our good
college/Frisbee friends Schwinn and Wonder.
They were to be our third and final set of visitors, following
relatively quickly on the HamFam’s heels.
Having our families here was absolutely delightful, but having a grand
total of four young people allowed for more flexible travel planning than our
travels with an age-diverse group of six or eight. For this reason, we diverged from the
Guinguinéo-Toubacouta-Dakar circuit that served our family trips so well. Instead, after a few days in Guinguinéo, we
headed to Saint-Louis, and then on to Lompoul before looping back to Dakar.
Our time in Guinguinéo looked similar to when our
families visited. Honorary names were
given: Schwinn became Mbayan Diop (named after Baay’s little sister) and Wonder
became Djiby Samb (named after her husband).
The kids put on a show, “Look at me, Djiby!” “No look at me!” “See what I can do?” “Mbayan likes me better!” Everyone enjoyed hours of soccer, tag, pretending
to be a monster, and general rough-housing.
We took the same afternoon trip out to Nguick,
on the same charette, to chat with Kait’s work partners. I mention it was the same charette because
the tire problems we faced with the Hammersleys were put to shame after we got
two flats, and then an almost dangerous case of
wheel-falls-off-while-driving. There
were no injuries, aside from the sunburn and slight dehydration resulting from
spending about two more hours in the full sun than anticipated. Fail to get me to Nguick once, shame on
you. Fail to get me to Nguick twice,
shame on me. Were we to host any more
guests, we would certainly be going with another charette.
Schwonder’s visit was also different in that
they got to go to Sidy’s first child’s ngente (naming ceremony). When we picked them up from Dakar the morning
they arrived, we beelined back to Guinguinéo for the party. After about 20 minutes of rest and some cold
water (at times our guests seemed more resilient and up-for-anything than me!) we put on our nice clothes and headed over to
Sidy’s house. It was quite an affair and
served as a cultural trial-by-fire for our guests who’d been in country for
about 3 hours. They were champs. Sidy was so happy that we were able to come,
and even happier that we brought our guests. Everyone had a great time.
Although Kait and I love Guinguinéo, and showing people we
love how we live, nothing brings out a thirst for cold beer and a little down
time quite like hanging out with dear friends from college, so we were chomping
at the bit to hit the road for Saint-Louis.
Five uneventful sept-place hours later, we pulled into the beautiful St.
Louis.
Wonder, who grew up in StL, was
especially excited to see the Senegalese city that everyone knows was named for
his beloved St. Louis, Missouri. Missourians
rewriting history to satisfy our delusions of grandeur?... Not a chance. Our time in St. Louis, Missouri, Senegal can
most accurately be described as brief walks between restaurants, bars, and
restaurant/bars as we endeavored to sample a beer/drink and snack/meal at every
establishment of which we’d heard good things.
Even just limiting ourselves to the old city (an island in the middle of
the Senegal River) this took up nearly all of our time in St. Louis. The girls found some time to shop, the boys
found some time to sneak in a few bonus beers while the girls shopped, and we
all found time to do the Lonely Planet self-guided walking tour of the
island. Other than that, it was food and
drink, walk two blocks, drink and food, walk 3 blocks, food and drink. All while wandering about and into beautiful
buildings that were hundreds of years old, in temperatures that required long
sleeves most days! It was a magical vacation.
With heavy hearts, we left St. Louis after a few short
nights. We headed south towards Dakar, but planned a layover first at Zebrabar,
a campement in a nature reserve, and then in Lompoul, where one can experience
the novelty Saharan-caliber sand dunes as far as the eye can see, without the
need for that annoying trip to the actual desert. Zebrabar is the standard terminus for crazy
people who drive their cars across the Sahara, get this… for fun.
There were plenty of interesting people, but
even more interesting crabs literally covering the beaches. The more densely populated stretches we
called Crabtropolis, Crabbysburg, and Pinchsville.
Lompoul was undeniably beautiful, and
undeniably isolated. Luckily the company
was good (and pretty much limited to us).
The camp (i.e. cluster of canvas tents) we stayed at had super-fun mini
snowboardy things for riding down the dunes.
It also had a bocce ball set, which enabled us to play arguably the best
game of bocce of any of our lives. So
much topography and varied terrain, but all sand.
We rode camels, which is a little scarier and
a little less relaxing than it sounds like, but now we can check it off the
Animals-Ridden Bucket List. What fun! Also, as a result of its isolation, the
stargazing was top notch. However, after
the endless fun options of St. Louis, Lompoul felt a touch claustrophobic and
isolated, so we were glad to be moving on after only one night.
Dakar was a whirlwind for everyone. First, we got really lost coming into the
city with our driver who swore up and down he knew his way around. Thank god you can bad mouth people in English
here, because I was saying some unflattering things about his sense of
direction before we eventually found our way to Ngor. After arriving safely, the whirlwind
continued. Maison Abaka was, as always,
a whirlwind of animals. It was a
whirlwind of fabric buying for Schwinn and Kait. I found myself in a whirlwind of reading our
guests' New Yorkers. Unfortunately, Wonder found himself in a
whirlwind of food poisoning. And then,
as quickly as they started, the whirlwinds were over, and Schwonder were on a
plane back to NC. Despite the shitty
(pun?) end, it was a really great vacation, and we wished they could stay
longer.
In pet news… Greta
had her kittens! We initially (and may I
say creatively) named them Blackie (after its black tail) and Other (after its
non-black tail) when we were concerned they weren’t gaining weight fast enough,
and needed to differentiate them for weighing.
Other has since become Ginger, as her tail, in addition to not being
black, is orange. We’ll leave the
creative, probably local-language-using, names to their forever owners, who
we’ve already identified.
Two lucky
new-ish PCVs will be adopting our little kitties in about a week. We’ll be sad to see them go, but happy that
we can go back to cleaning out the litter box a little less frequently.
Speaking of being sad to see pets go… Lady has gone to live
at a campement near Lac Rose. Before you
think, “Hmmm, I wonder if that’s the Senegalese death-euphemism equivalent of
‘sending Sparky to a farm Upstate’?” let me assure you that it is not, you
cynical person! After Lady Obama learned
she could scale the six-foot tall walls surrounding our compound, and gained a
love of playing with poultry… to death, we initiated a series of measures to
keep her from escaping the compound.
This included the Alcatraz-like Pet-itentiary 5000 which in its latest
iteration was legitimately escape-proof, but obviously only worked when she was
inside. We needed to watch her like a
hawk whenever she was out of the kennel, or else she would go over the wall, or
go through the house out to the street. Her antics were really damaging our
credibility, and we knew we could neither bring her home nor saddle our
replacement(s) with her credibility-destroying recreational activities. This left us with three options: put her
down; keep trying to contain her knowing she would continue to occasionally
escape and prevent us from doing our work by destroying our credibility, and
would probably eventually be poisoned or beaten to death by an angry neighbor;
or try to find her a new home that would hopefully give her more space to work
out her energy, more dogs to hang out with, and less of a chance to
escape. We chose option three. She’s now living with Baay’s rich friend near
Lac Rose (the famous pink lake). She’s
only been there for a little over a week, and is still adjusting, but we’re
confident it will be a better solution for her in the long-term. We miss her, but the base stress level has
gone down significantly after her departure.
I’m no longer concerned about who’ll give me grief about our bad dog
every time I leave the house. I can give
the garden my full attention when outside, rather than always keeping at least
one eye on Lady. We miss her a lot, but
life in her absence is undeniably simpler.
The next bullet point in this post that perhaps would have
been more aptly titled, “Coping with Loss” is that my second wife, Kathryn
“Arame Gueye” Harrawood completed her term of service this past month and has
moved on from the torrid love triangle that is the department of
Guinguinéo. We’re now just a boring
little love line segment. We miss her
dearly already, but wish her luck as she begins a new, less-sweaty life
chapter. Her replacement arrives in about
a week, and Kait and I along with the fourth member of our work zone, Tesia,
will be here to welcome her with open arms.
At two different points over the past month or so, both Yaay
and Baay had coinciding commitments that took them away from Guinguinéo. That left big brother Idi and big sis Penda
in charge of the house and all the lovely children therein. Thank goodness the little turds are so into
episodes of Human Planet and Pixar movies.
If not for the magic of moving images to fully engage those little
energy-balls, I’m not sure if I could have kept myself together. Luckily, Kait’s more patient with kid
overload. I don’t know how I’m going to
entertain my own kids when they hit that age, as I’m not sure parenting by
moving picture is super-effective/productive.
Another fun kid event we had was celebrating Papa Gora’s fourth
birthday. The girls fried shrimp
flavored chips, and we had cookies and boissons (cold fruit drink). All the kids put on their fanciest
clothes. Fallou and Gora tucked their
polos into their hiked-up khakis like little dweebos. Kait played DJ (which meant playing Rhianna’s
“Shine Bright Like a Diamond” on repeat).
It was quite a little party.
And
now, miracle of miracles, Papa Gora is genuinely acting much more grown-up than
when he was three. He sits by himself at
the lunch bowl. He tantrums less. When asked why, he explains that he’s four
now, and a big kid. Big kids don’t need
to sit in their mom’s lap for lunch.
Duh. Apparently his “terrible
twos” just lasted an extra year.
Kait and I both had our respective AgroForestry and UrbanAg
summits in the past few weeks. Kait’s
was in balmy Thies, where daytime highs rarely crested 90F. Mine was in oven-like Linguere, where daytime
highs always crested 110F. Only 20 degrees,
but it makes a rather large difference in physical comfort and rapidity of
dehydration. I had the added challenge
of being tapped to coordinate my summit.
Five days straight of being “on” all day in oppressive heat was really
exhausting. Luckily, all of my UAg peers
are delightful and an excuse to cross paths with them all was well worth the
required input. The UAg summit went
well, despite an outdoor work-day that due to crossed-wires had us out in the
sunny heat of the day pruning trees.
Much wisdom was passed from 2nd year PCVs to 1st year PCVs, and everyone
learned at least one new thing.
While Kait was at her summit, Guinguinéo hosted a forum
about the economic development of our department and the greater region. Baay got me a VIP admission, of course, so I
got to sit IN A CHAIR underneath a huge temporary structure. There was a huge crowd, all holding signs,
contained behind a parade barrier. The gendarmes
and police working crowd control would occasionally lash out with their batons,
just to keep people in the front row on their toes. The keynote speaker was the president, Macky
Sall, so the security was pretty insane.
Also, despite all the anti-Macky talk in the days leading up to the
event, the most critical thing I heard or saw the day of the event was a sign
that said something like, “The people of Village X would sure like
electricity. Please, if it’s not too
much to ask, Sir.” Very interesting
absence of dissent. The event was
broadcast live, and hilariously, the channel that was showing the event live
was put on various big screen tvs at the front of the “hall.” If I looked back at the camera, then whipped
my head around really fast to look at the tv, I could see my own face on live
tv for a few milliseconds. I’m pretty
famous.
When I was at my summit, Kait took a group of her work
partners to a Create! Demonstration field in the nearby village of Fas. Much like their trip to Beer Sheba, the work
partners could see examples of what could be, with the adoption of some of the
techniques we’re extending. Everyone
enjoys a good road trip, and Senegalese farmers are no exception.
Our primary sector work is a little slow right now. It’s too hot to garden, and people won’t seed
field crops for at least another 45 days.
We are, however, in the thick of tree nursery (peppiñeer as it’s called
here) season. This week we completed a
series of trainings with our work partners within Guinguinéo on how to fill
tree sacks and create a peppiñeer. If
everything goes according to plan, and everyone follows through on what they
learned and fills the tree sacks we’ve given them, we’ll have about 10-12
peppiñeers within the city to follow-up with.
After about two weeks, they’ll be ready to seed, and we’ll do a second
sweep of trainings. We’re both looking
forward to seeing how well tree extension takes off in Guinguinéo proper.
Since our last post.....
Best thing: Schwinn and Wonder visiting! Duh.
It was so much fun to share our lives with such dear friends.
Most grateful for: Refrigerator. It’s that time of year again, when hot
temperatures give way to hotter temperatures.
When it stops being tolerable, even at night. As we plunge deeper into the hot season
inferno, I can’t express how much I appreciate being able to chug cold water
until it feels like I’m dying of brain freeze instead of heat.
Biggest challenge: Saying goodbye to Arame and Lady
Obama. They will be missed. But we miss Arame more because she didn’t
kill as many chickens and only ever left the yard with permission.
Language Factoid: For
lack of a better Wolof lesson, I’m going to share some Wolof proverbs (of which
there are an insane number) that are particularly apt as we start so many
communal peppiñeers…
Soo jiwul doo góob
– If you don’t sow, you won’t reap.
Lu kenn mën, ñaar ak
ko ko daq – What one can do, two can do better.
Or said with more vivid imagery…
Sanqualiñ yu bari mën
nañu watat janax ju dey – Many ants can carry a dead mouse
“Many hands make light work” has never seemed so boring and
PG.
In the upcoming weeks, we look forward to:
Blackie and Ginger going to their new homes!
Welcoming new PCVs to our region/department!
Seeding the peppiñeers we’ve helped create.
Slack time! As it
gets hotter, most days we’ll be sitting in the shade from 11am to 5pm, trying
not to die. We’re stockpiling books in preparation.
Jamm ak Jamm,
Peter
