Marie's Adventures

Marie's Adventures
LONG TIME, NOT WRITE
YAAAAAAAFFO, in Pulaar, excuse me
i dont even know WHERE to start!
well
i left THies and made the trek, 14 hour trek, to the northern part of senegal, better known as the Fouta. I arrived to Medina Ndiathbe on the 17th of May, which is now my home. The arrival was of course akward and overwhelming, but surprisingly went well. It went kind of like this...
Me and another volunteer and a peace corps worker arrive in a Peace Corps vehicle filled with my belongings. We find the health post, because that is where my counter part is...and I am nervous and excited and want to cry and can only think about how HOT it is and how sweaty I am and how I dont know PULAAR...but I get out of the car, which I feel was an accomplishment in itself...
and there are hundreds of foreign people waiting to greet me and shake my hand and im trying to take it all in stride and smile and regurgitate the few pulaar phrases I had learned. We then dropped my luggage off at a house, note it was A house, not MY house because MY house was not done yet. But I cant complain...the house was this two story, clean, fully accomodated home, so I am thinking...HELL YES. I was quickly told MY house is NOTHING like this one...regardless i was thinking this is a nice way to transition.
After dropping my things, we returned to the health post where we had lunch...mainly we ate while everyone watched the white girls eat with their hands and tried to speak pulaar. THere was also an introduction of MEEEEE and they welcomed me, and I thanked them, etc...
I then retired to my room where I tried to regroup and hold my sanity. And although it was ovrewhelming and I had a MILLION things running through my head, it was the NExT morning that really had me in a bind...WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF? I am so used to structure, class, a schdule...I had NO plans and was fretting over communicating....needless to say, I left my room rather than staying there and crying, and it has been smooth sailing ever since.
First, I will tell you about MEDINA NDITHBE
Medina is a small town, about 15000, which has its pluses and minuses. I can get ANYTHING I need there and every Saturday there is a HUGE market. I can go to the tailler, the Post Office, etc. It is along the river, which considering the desert surrounding, the river provides the most beauty AND resoursefulness for my community. While I find the river to be refreshing to look at and walk along, the river to most provides food, water, a place to bathe, wash clothes, among other uses I am sure...
It is HOT. And I cannot even find the words to DESCRIBE the heat. Over 100 degrees...as in I dont wear earrings because if they touch my neck they are SO HOT. Luckily it is a dry heat and when there is wind, it is pretty bearable. I cant deny that when I first arrived I thought I would NOT be able to handle it, and several nights, as I lay DRENCHED in my own sweat, fighting tears and searching for some rest, I thought I was going insane. Needless to say, I have either adjusted or the weather has not been as bad, but I am coping fairly well. AND, I cant lie...I have it pretty good considering I CAN buy ice and there are homes with refrdgerators, etc...but that is taking a chance with ameobas...Ill take ameobas and a lil diarreah if it means I get some relief, not gonna lie...
The homes are mainly concrete with tin roofs, some are actual houses, on the outskirts of town there are what we would consider huts, cicular clay homes with thatched roofs, but medina is mainly buildings.
Being that Medina is fairly large, it was a tad overwhelming at first for me. My first home, Galle Baba Diallo, was close to the Health Post and my other counterpart, Ramata Talls, home...needless to say, I saw one part of the town for the first two weeks...I REALIZED quickly that I needed to branch out to ALL of Medina...LUCKILY my ROOM at Galle Amadou Baidy Ndiath, Chef de Village, finally finished after 3 weeks. This move has opened my eyes and the experience for me.
Let me recap my stay at Baba Diallos home
I had a room to myself on the second floor. Bathroom, shower, running water. They were very well off and in fact, on the verge of snobby perhaps...But they were very kind and generous to me. There were LOTS of little boys that went to school and spoke French and wanted to help me learn. My meals were gourmet as far as it goes here. They realize the value of vegetables and protien. And while I knew this was great hookup, I felt like I was imposing and knew it could only last so long...
My other home, at the village chiefs home, I knew would be different when the first night I arrived and our meal was beans and lacceri, lacceri being a pounded corn couscous. Id equate it to cornmeal. And there are 5 buildings all within close quarters. MY room is fairly small and not new, but it works. I have done little work on it, needless to say. My family consists of...My father, my mother, her two daughters, a grandson, and another son. A second wife, three sons, a daughter, twin grand daughters, and some others that come and go...
I can tell a difference in their economic means, and they do not speak French which makes it all the more challeneging because it is Pulaar only...and the INITIAL adjustment was hard, and NOW I had to READJUST to a new family, routine, way of life...but I like to think that it is coming along!
I have grown accustomed to my home and my family and I have minor accomplishments everyday...ex, if my sister asks me to go along somewhere, or I have a conversation with my father NOT about visas to the United States, and it is these little things that are making my world go round at the moment. I have YET to save my part of the world, but I am definitely learning to love and enjoy it and become active within it.
So WHAT do I do you ask??? That, my friends, is a GOOD question...
I am really at liberty to do as I want as far as my work. There is nothing I HHAAAAVE to accomplish, but figuring out what I will be engaging myself in for the next two years has stumped me. But I think everyone feels that way at this point. The frist three months I am to be learning Pulaar, learning the community, observing, and thinking about how I can be of use. In August I go back to Theis for 3 weeks of training, when I return, I will realy begin some work. So, my daily routine seems to be...
I wake up around 6 or 630, well, I wake up at 5 when the mosque beside my house has the first call to prayer, which is loud enough to wake EvERYONE in medina...literally but I fal back asleep, not being Muslim and go out to have breakfast with the fam or go for a run. Breakfast is a small peice of bread, made in the village, and I can HONESTLY say that the bread I have had in Africa gives ANY bread I have had in America a run for its money...and we have coffee. Let me just say that the Senegalese LOVE their sugar and I am trying to get out of the coffee...It is mainly sugar and a LITTLE coffee at my house...and it is KILLIN my teeth.
After breakfast I always sweep my room and shower, considering the SAND factor, I have no choice. My room is continuously dusty and sand covered, but that means that there is WIND so I cant complain.
Then I shower, which means I take a bucket bath, which I have grown to love and be good at. I then usualy go to the Health Post, as that is where my counterpart is, and I spend a great deal of time there and the workers there have grown to be friends and my support here. I am really lucky to have a counterpart that cares, yet sometimes I question my work at the actual post and where to begin. Am I just sitting around? Other days I do laundry or, my favorite, is going to peoples homes. As dumb as it sounds it makes me feel productive and challeneged. Every day people invite me to their home for lunch, dinner, tea, etc...so I have been trying to make an effort to visit new homes and practice my Pulaar. It gets very easy to talk to the same people and never branch out, but it makes them happy if I come and I KNOW it is good for me to be out meeting people and expereincing as much as possible. On random days there are other things I have experience but not routinely. I go to baby weighings, vaccinations, etc. I went to two weddings, which were utterly stressful for me, but again, it is all about the expereince and I am glad to say I went.
I go to neighboring villages every so often. My friend Kate lives only 4k away and I LOVE her village, Arame, and it is nice to have her nearby. This weekend I went to my friend Jennys village, Sinchu Mbal. Currently I am in Ourasogi, which is 4 hours away, but that is if your vehicle is up to par. We, Kate and I, of course, turnned it into more of an adventure. We walked 6k to the road from Kates village. Had it NOT rained all morning and night, this would have been not a problem. WE TRAMPLED our way through the mud to the road. Quickly put out our hand and got a car. 2 hours into the ride, our tire is flat. We stop for an hour. Luckily it had been rather cold due to the rain, and we stopped close to our friends village, so she biked in and we grabbed lunch and she decided to come along. 40 minutes in, another flat. We patienly waited, and arrived a sweaty mess at our friends village after 7 hours...
Speaking of RAIN...We are approaching the RAINY SEASON here in Medina, again, this brings the good the bad and the ugly. It is GREAT because people farm here and because if the rain comes, so does some chilliness! yay. the bad is that the BUGS come, which means mosquitoes, and malaria. And the UGLY is that it creates muddy smelly living conditions. The actual rain, toobo in pulaar, is INdescribable! The first time it came was the MoST overwhelming. It was an exceptionally swealtering day in Medina. It was after lunch, and the fam and I were taking our daily rest, 2-5 no one does anything bc of the heat, and the kids say, SALIMATA, a yii? A yii toobo? Which is, Salimata, do you seen the rain? And I am like, see WHAT. All I saw was what I THOUGHT to be black smoke, so I was rather confused. THen ALL OF THE SUDDEN the wind picked up and everyone raaaaaaan inside...and this wind was not ORDINARY WIND...It brought with it so much force that things were flying, everything went from clear to red to gray to black...and as it died...raaaaaaaaaain came and it came in BUCKETS. As I lay there sweating all I could think was how I wanted to do run naked through the compound till I was covered in goosbumps and my mips were blue, because believe it or not, this rain seemed COLD. Even if it was 80 degrees it seemd FREEZING compared to the usual...It was like out of a movie and I have never expereienced anything like it. What got me was how NORMAL everyone found it to be...just part of the rainy season. And while I see the aftermath as a pain, water to clean up, mud everywhere, sand in every crevice...they just set off to get it all done...which seems the attitude for everything...where I find difficulty they find everyday life. The rain has come a few times since then. I have mixed feelings on it and I am anxious to see the effects of the rainy season...Ill keep you posted.
Ah, sehilaabe am, I have to go...the internet time is limited and as you can see scarce....SO
WRITE me an email, or better yet, a letter
Salimata Ndiath/Marie Steiner
BP 16
Medina Ndiathbe
Senegal, West Africa
Par Avion

LOVE YOU ALL
Miss YOU TONS
your favorite senegalese sweetheart