So You Want Something to Read, eh? Glad to hear!

Happy 4th of July!!!!!!!!!!

Hanging out in the Cesspool of Detroit, Senegal, eating fruit and veggies.

Unlike many PC Senegal Vols, I chose not to go to Kedegou for the annual bash, in large part because I’ve been feeling guilty about being out of site so much for my first few months, mainly due to my charret accident, and Kedegou is quite a trek from the Delta. I have mixed thoughts on it. I really miss the kids from my Stage and almost all of them are there, but for the past week or so have been frustrated on language and general integration. There is a list of recommended things to do in your first few months at site and I’m at least a month behind. It’s just been in the past few weeks that I’ve ventured out of my compound alone, to walk even just to my counterpart’s house, and just this past week or two that I’ve been walking around, without much purpose than to greet anyone I saw. These are things that I should have done in my first few weeks, but was a mixture of too overwhelmed and too busy still learning names of people in my compound (still learning…new people seem to show up every week!). I haven’t yet started to survey people much about the community or even health issues, so I felt like taking nearly a week going down to the Gou would only further hurt it. It’s not that I’m not doing anything, but it’s mostly been with my family or with the Vols nearest me, so I’m branching out, a little. A friendly visit to Sally’s compound (Sally from the charret incident) turned into an ambush of questions on family planning (which I cannot yet adequately answer in Serere, fyi) and people’s names. Not quite what I was prepared for.

And, the women want me to host a meeting about Malaria (fr: palaudisme, s: sibiru) before the Rainy Season starts. Fab. Great. Wonderful. The problem: my vocabulary is not yet adequate to host an entire meeting, complete with fast questions and old wive’s tales that I won’t understand. Oh yea, and the Rainy Season basically started this past weekend, so it needs to happen ASAP. Yea…will be talking to Sally upon my return from Kaolack about when, but probably within the next week or so.

Even with my language frustrations, in some ways I have (slowly) been doing a little health-related and community work. Two weeks ago I helped with the Vitamin A (for eyes) and de-worming vaccine plus USAID-supplied mosquito net distribution to children under 5, in my area. It was a stressful several days, mainly because I don’t understand more than a few words of Wolof, I was the only “toubab” and thus became the subject of super irritating “TOUBAB!!!!!!!!!!!!” comments, and even though I was with health workers and Red Cross Senegal people, the marriage offers and general annoyances I constantly receive never stopped, nor did any of my “friends” from the health post help me out when I was being harassed. It was annoying. The good part was that I was able to do a pretty extensive tour of many of the surrounding villages, even the ones quite far away, and now feel like I have a better understanding of the area. Though we went to many Serere villages, the language used was Wolof (bc not all of the volunteers helping with the drive speak Serere), so it was cool to impress a few people with my Serere. I also received a lesson on last names and how to generally tell Wolof/Serere/Pulaar based on the last name (more so than I could before) and the Frenchified spellings of Senegalese first names. However, the man I was teamed up with (We were divided into groups of 2 or 3. I was also teamed up with my nurse counterpart’s eldest daughter, a very cool girl), was ridiculous, condescending, refused to speak Serere to me (he would sometimes speak it to the people in the village), only spoke French to me, and basically treated me like an idiot. I had to remind myself that I work for the Corps de la PAIX (PEACE) and that murder is not really in my Health Vol job description. Anyway, one of the days we got to my village, so it was awesome for people from my community to see me doing some health-related work, even if I didn’t know everyone’s names, lol.

The drive was Tuesday-Thursday ALL DAY, but then I had to go back to the Health Post both Friday and Saturday to make sure the eligible kids in my compound got their nets (coupons were distributed in compounds and then the mothers had to take the coupons to a central spot in the village or to the Post), because nets were quickly running out and I wanted to make sure everyone got their nets. Sometime during the week, however, I drank some bad water or something because Saturday early AM I woke up FREEZING COLD, had to get my fleece blanket from my suitcase and registered a temp of 102.3. Somehow, I (barely) made it to the Post to get my sister one last net, but that’s about all of the work I could do for a few days. I spent the next few days “hanging out” in my douche, drinking water and ORS (oral rehydration salts and Tang, to fight dehydration), barely able to eat from stomach pains, unable to sleep due to terrible headaches, laying on the floor trying to get comfortable, laying in my bed (yes, bed!) trying to get comfortable (not possible, it’s a horrible bed!), and kicking myself for not packing Lipton soup or anything stomach-friendly before coming to Senegal. However, my family gave me a small banana Saturday night with my dinner (ate alone in my hut after refusing to eat lunch that day). It’s probably the nicest gift I have received since coming to this country bc I have NO CLUE where a banana is available in a 20km radius of my village. Maybe someone went to the weekly market several towns over, but no one had mentioned that to me. Anyway, it was possible the best banana I’ve ever had (mainly bc it had been quite a few weeks since I had eaten a banana and was craving one). After several days and probably a few pounds lost, I’m much better and the stomach pains are mostly gone, thanks to Cipro, a PCVs best friend and PCMO drug of choice. However, it’s very difficult as a Health Volunteer to explain to your family why you didn’t visit the Health Post though you are extremely sick, while trying to encourage them to go them for the same reason, or to bring their children with their weird skin infections to the Post for proper treatment. And, Village Med says I got sick bc I walk too much and too fast, worked too hard last week, and mixed water from different villages (not that the water I had was bad, just that it was mixed). Okay.

Spent several afternoons this week hanging out with the two teachers left in the village. They are fun, and I think a little lonely, so get excited when I stop by. They will be good people to work with, esp as the entire Health Program is shifting to working with the schools, which I’m quite excited about.

My goal here in Kaolack this weekend is to rest, get some vitamins in my diet (it’s been about two weeks since I had a veggie that wasn’t an onion…), buy some staple foods for when I next get sick/Rainy Season, get a few more hut supplies, and write an article to the PCSenegal newsletter about Lessons Learned during the first few months at site. A fellow Vol thought I would be the perfect person to write up about some of my experiences already. Lol, but so true!