Spring Break? What spring break?

Yea, I would love a spring break. A chance to get away from the daily hustle and bustle and to a nicer climate...

Wait a second! Where am I? DC or Senegal?

Yep... well, technically it is the end of a two-week Easter Break for most of the students in Senegal (though Senegal is about 90% Muslim, they take both Muslim and Catholic holidays off, meaning kids are rarely ever in school). These past two weeks found me in the village, keeping busy even though I couldn't do any work that was school related (such as lessons or making a tree nursery, etc).

The week before last, my two future neighbors, Chris and Mary came to visit our area and see their future sites (Chris is replacing Jaime and Mary is replacing Marc). The really cool thing about training now is that current trainees have a week where they shadow a current PCV and for most of them, have a chance to visit their future site if they are replacing a COSing (leaving) PCVs. They met their families, saw some of our fave spots in the area, and had their first interactions with the crazy Serere Saloum language spoken in our villages (as opposed to the Serere Sine taught in Thies). I spent some time with them, helping supervise mural paintings in Jaime's village, filling sacks for a tree pepiniere in Marc's village, and tagging along on a trip to a protected forest/mangrove area that Marc's village, my village, and two others oversee. It was just unreal realizing that very shortly Marc and Jaime, two people I heavily rely on for support and work help, will be leaving the area (Jaime to the US and Marc to Dakar). The people of the area will also miss them both a lot--Marc speaks almost perfect Serere and knows all of these old Serere stories and expressions of speech that I have no hope of learning (his dad is super old and knows a lot) and Jaime is a bubbly personality and due to her Wolof skills, can speak to anyone in the area she wants. I'm the crazy Serere-speaking lady who walks so fast no one can keep up with me, or so I'm told. Haha.

Mary and Chris were also around for the 4th (of April)--Senegalese Independence Day.
The excitement in Djilor was high as random school and culture groups marched down the main drag (ie the only street). It wasn't quite the 4th of July in CL, but still enjoyable. Lots of people and cashew apples (see pic--so delicious and weird!) and salad for lunch, so it was a pretty enjoyable holiday. That afternoon, our Country Director made his first trip to our part of the Delta, checking out all of our sites. He saw my village's school garden and was quite impressed and the other PCV with him (the famous Gallo Ba) made some great suggestions for improving water retention and continuing things with the garden. Fab!

Sunday I rested (Alhumduilliah!) and then spent Monday waiting for a study abroad student to come visit me for the week. She has been studying in Dakar since September and as part of their program, they go on rural visits, often with NGOs or PCVs (though I don't quite see how Kaolack is considered a rural visit...), to see life in real Senegal--ie NOT Dakar. My family and village loved having her around and I'm sure will talk about it for the remainder of my service--we taught the kids the Macarena for gosh sakes! Tuesday, we visited Jaime and helped paint the inside of her hut for Chris and wait on the chickens for a chicken-selling project Jaime started and Chris and I will have to finish (the chickens didn't come until 10pm, long after we returned to my village), cooking lunch (tortellini, thanks Mom and Dad!), and doing some "landscaping" in her backyard. Wednesday, I took her around my village, introducing her (I got some major village points for introducing my guest!) and checking on the progress of the pits for the latrine project Marc and I have been working on (I must admit, he's done a whole LOT more work on it than I have) and surprise surprise, very few had been dug. O ndang oo ndang. Thursday, I took her to Marc's village and to the river, where she met Marc and another PCV, both of whom were tying iron for the latrine project (and I looked like a lazy lady not tying it myself--Marc is a beast with the iron!) and she got to witness a Serere cultural event...circumcision.

Ok, it wasn't really witnessing the action per se, but the "coming out" of the boys after the circumcision (I should probably say "men" since this initiation marks their entrance into manhood, but some of the boys were as young as 4, which I consider far from manhood, whereas a few others were like 12 or 13 and a little closer). The boys were circumcised last Sunday (I believe) and spent the week in a secluded area in the outskirts of the village. During the week, they are initiated into manhood, learning the "secrets of manhood" (I can only imagine...) and other stuff I am not eligible to know, but that I heard a little of through a reputable source. The week of seclusion ended with all of the circumcised men of the village accompanying the "new men" from their secret space into a public gathering with their heads covered in fabric from their mothers, singing old Serere songs, walking around a tree several times (while my village dad and another fired shot guns into the tree?), and sitting down in order to have their mothers approach them (the boys couldn't see anything) and pour cotton and millet on their heads, one by one. The boys sat as all of the older men of the village danced and sang old songs about what happens during the week--or, more correctly, they sing about how they can't say what happened during the week. One of the songs, when translated, goes something like this, "You who have seen, you are now seen. Your mothers see you, so don't say anything. Don't say anything about what you have seen this week." I promise it sounds better and makes more sense in Serere (I had to have a village friend translate the old Serere into new Serere I could understand), but from what I've been told, the initiation involves the 5 senses (hence the seeing and saying part of the song).

The best part for me, witnessing, was seeing the really old men of my village such as my host dad (the chief) and others super animated, dancing, singing, smiling, and acting silly. I seriously had not seen my village dad go that long without sitting or standing (a few hours!), nor did I have any clue he could sing or dance. It was crazy. And then all of the "new men" one by one were unveiled by their mothers, given money and candy, and made to dance in front of everyone--with their mothers and other women then running up to them, dancing, and giving them more money and candy. After they danced, the older men called the women out from the circle to dance, by pointing a stick at them. I purposely avoided eye contact with my village dad so he couldn't call me out and then, gosh darn old man Laity Ndiaye (who I didn't know could smile and was just beaming with excitement all afternoon) came up to me, grabbed my hand, and made me dance in the circle (and the student visiting me came with)--despite all our reluctance and protests. Oh well, got some more village points there--even if I purposely didn't kneel down like the other women did when they were called to dance (cultural respect, subordination, you can call it many different things, but I refuse to do it in my village--but most people are cool with me for that now). The old men sang some more and threatened the "new men" and all of the other circumcised guys once again not to tell anyone about what happens (translated: "what was, what happened last year, and what will happen next year--what is"), or they would be beaten (sticks went flying, guys went running--mostly playful and fake drama, but some of the younger kids were terrified). Then the mothers of the circumcised boys passed out money and fabric to everyone who had helped them cook for the event all week and we went home. It was an experience.

And now I am in Kaolack for Easter weekend. I had really wanted to go and visit my good friend in Joal-Fadiouth, where there are some awesome Catholic Sereres and a beautiful church guaranteed to have a good party come Easter morn, but recently found out that I need to be in Thies next week and so should probably return to site as soon as possible. Basically from now until mid-late June (I will so deserve that US visit come July, Inchallah), things will be pretty ridiculously busy. Between stuff for the garden, the latrine project, Jaime's chicken project, starting a tree pepiniere (nursery) with the school, sexual health planning and sessions with two different middle schools, starting the Senegad (gender and development) scholarship program at a nearby middle school, new PCV Installs (welcome Mary and Chris!), an awesome Serere dictionary with another PCV, and stuff in Thies (evaluating the stuff I've been working on the past 9 months), and some health lessons with the school, plus who-knows-what-else, I'm going to be really ridiculously busy. It's kind of daunting. And then there is the fact that I've been here a year and I haven't traveled east of Kaolack or north of Thies, so I need to get my travel on. Funny how it doesn't matter where one is, time is always an issue and there is never quite enough time to do everything one wants. Please don't think that I'm complaining about being busy--I'm not at all and love having work--but getting everything done while working within an African time frame is a different story. Maybe I'll just save all of my traveling for Ramadan, haha.

And now this post is ridiculously long. Talk to you all later!