Urban Sprawl

March 26, 2011

Yesterday was Friday. I was walking home from work and afternoon errands, and a mere two blocks from my house I was so overcome by hunger, exhaustion, frustration, anxiety, and nostalgia that I seriously felt I could not take another step. My first impulse was to just sit down on the sidewalk, and, in a moment of deep self-indulgence, I really considered doing it. The concrete seemed so sunny and friendly. Why not just sit there and wait for some kind of solution to find me?

I didn’t sit. I kept walking, mostly because I knew that sitting on a sidewalk would in no way make me less hungry. Nevertheless, I am still a bit awestruck by such an intense feeling of I-can’t-go-on. Part of the problem is that I have started running again, and—out of shape as I am, all the exercise makes my legs feel like they are made of jelly. It was also a Friday, after a week of work at the Talibe center, where I split my time between tedious data entry and feeling deeply inadequate, mostly because of my lack of language. I am throwing myself into learning French and Wolof as best I can, but learning a language takes time and communication is difficult. That morning had been especially frustrating, as I had spent at least an hour watching my boss edit my beautiful, equation-driven Excel spreadsheets with hunt-and-peck typing and a hand calculator. Explaining Excel is hard in French.

The nostalgia is easy enough to understand. I miss Niger, and my friends. (I think about you all the time.) I miss being the pro, the old blood, the wizened sage.

The anxiety stems from a combination of boy-troubles and the fact that, with regular Internet access, I am able to spend several hours a day reading the news. Though there is a great deal of unrest in Northern Africa, things are stable in Senegal, minus a few some anti-government protests. I can’t pinpoint the one crisis that is making me so uneasy, but I’ve realized the single greatest psychological impact the Peace Corps has had on me is that I am constantly anticipating the next disaster: site closure, coup d’état, faulty latrine, crazy landlord, friends dying, evacuation. Things never stay settled for long. We live in a constant state of flux.

Here’s the thing, though: Really, my time in St. Louis is going very well. I don’t LOVE my life here, but, walking around the cute colonial streets, I feel like I really COULD. It’s beautiful, comfortable, and I feel like my work at the talibe center will eventually be very fulfilling. The fact is I’ve been flung back in time to September 2009, when I was first adjusting to my site in Niger. I barely spoke Zarma and really had no idea what I was doing. I constantly questioned my decision to join the Peace Corps, was agonized by the fact my days weren’t caulked full of clearly meaningful, gratifying, baby-saving work.

I’ve forgotten how my first months in Niger were peppered with debilitating frustration and doubt, as well as glorious little triumphs that filled me with such a light of joy and clarity. And now here I am, the new kid again, suffering the same extremes: landlady scolds me + so-and-so doesn’t understand what I’m saying = I have a bad morning and question why I’m even here; later, a cute, so-shy-he-can-barely-look-at me talibe does a Winnie the Pooh puzzle with me + I say something sassy in French = I feel like a million bucks and daydream about living in Africa for the rest of my life.

You’d think that things would be easier the second time around. I think that too, and I think that thinking is making it harder. In other words, as a Peace Corps savant, master-integrater and language learner I wonder: I’ve been here three whole weeks, why are things easy yet? Also, I need to remember I don’t even have the strong support network of volunteers I developed in Niger. I’m sure I will find good friends here too, but I’m just getting started. And until I get to a point where I am comfortable with the language and established in my post, I need to resist all urges to sprawl on the sidewalk and wait for the end to come.

Training, WAIST, Toilet Issues and My New Post (not in that order)

March 5, 2011

Right now I am sitting in a third-floor, sunny apartment overlooking the Atlantic. It’s warm, but not hot; and while the apartment isn’t exactly clean, the view more than makes up for it. I’m in St. Louis (San Louie, in French) Senegal—not to be confused with St. Louis (Saint Louis, in English), MO. Even though I’m sure St. Louis, MO is very nice, I am more excited about things happening here in Senegal—this is my new post.

(It's ok if you're jealous)

First, let me tell you a little about the city I will be living in. St. Louis was the colonial capital until Senegal gained independence in 1960. It is located in Northwest Senegal, where the mouth of the Senegal River meets the ocean. The city itself splits its 200,000 residents between the mainland and an island, reachable by bridge. Several bird reserves and a bunch of postcard-worthy beaches also surround the city.

As for weather, St. Louis only has two seasons, the rainy season from June to October, characterized by heat, humidity and storms, and the dry season from November to May, characterized by cool ocean breeze and dust from the Harmatten winds. Basically, it’s great weather year-round, never experiencing the stifling heat of the Sahel.

I look out the window and I can see palm trees, in front of turquoise water and a beautiful sunset.

Also St. Louis

What about my job? I’m going to be working on the island with a Senegalese NGO called Enfance Claire. Enfance Claire’s mission is to provide services to “Talibes" (pronounced tal-EE-bays) Koranic students sent from the bush to study with a marabout (a Koranic authority). As part of their studies, the children are sent to the streets everyday to beg for food in order to learn humility. Unfortunately, often times the marabouts do not have enough money to feed their students at all and the children end up spending all their time on the street begging. In these cases, the children may stay with the teacher for years only learning to recite several Koranic verses, without understanding their meaning. The children rarely learn to actually read and write Arabic and, since they are not home helping their families farm, do not learn any practical skills. After three or four years of studying the Koran, the student may return home to attend public school, but more often they end up as adults without any skills or knowledge to maintain a livelihood.

In other cases, if the marabout is corrupt, he will send his students to beg, and then collect their earnings at the end of the day. Many students are beaten or punished for not bringing back a large enough sum, and so eventually run away. The Human Rights Watch estimated 90% of the homeless children in Dakar are former Talibes.

Talibe in Dakar

It is important to point out that not all marabouts are corrupt. What’s more, in recent years parents have started sending their children to Koranic school only on the weekends or holidays. This modernized system allows children to gain both a formal and religious education. Also, it ends the tradition of sending a child away from his or her family to study the Koran; this way a student still has the support and care of his or her family.

I think this is a very positive change. My language trainer, Sakhir, was former talibe and while he openly condemn the old practices and corrupt marabouts, he is sending is daughter to Koranic school everyday after school. (Girls enrolling in Koranic school is also a recent phenomenon.)

Nevertheless, the problem of marabouts abusing, exploiting and neglecting their students remains. In St. Louis (remember SAN Lou-EE, not SAINT Lou-IS), there are an estimated 30,000 homeless/begging children. So, as I said before, Enfance Claire works to provide these children with basic services. For example, their office doubles as a drop in center where the children can shower and play, but the organization also offers programs to provide counseling, enroll kids in public school, and to provide them with vocational and life skills training.

I’m not sure what my job will be exactly, but I have a meeting with the organization and my Peace Corps supervisor on Monday to figure that out. My best guess is that I will work to improve certain programs, while at the same time trying to provide some over all managerial support.

Housing is still up in the air too, but it’s look like I will have my own apartment. (This is very exciting news.)

In other news, the rest of training went well, largely because Hailey and I discovered a hotel with wireless and a pool mere minutes from our houses. I fell into a comfortable routine with my homestay family: breakfast, class, lunch, class, afternoon walk/run/internet time, dinner, bed. The cement-block house was very comfortable, even if the neighborhood—full or partially constructed homes—gave off a wild-west, ghost-town vibe. We chatted and joked a fair amount, but whenever the power was on, the mother (a widow and her four kids) were always squatted in front of their TV. Also, after having lived with five different families/neighborhoods in Niger, I just don’t have the let’s-be-really-good-friends energy I used to.

I must say, I’ve developed a much stronger dislike of MTV since coming to Senegal. Why does that have to be the one channel broadcasted around the world to represent America? It’s pretty embarrassing to be sitting with a conservative Muslim family while they watch a 17-year-old girl talk about her sex addiction. Granted, this is what the family chose to watch thereby sort of excusing the programming, but I was still embarrassed—especially since the family kept asking if I knew the people on the screen.

Besides MTV, the family’s familiarity with western culture made the homestay easier. In the evenings, I would sit around with the four kids and we would all do our homework together. My host mom was completely understood why I would want to spend entire afternoons swimming and using the Internet. And, I swear to Allah, the family slept in on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Funny how I never noticed my families not sleeping in in Niger, but such a small detail so Senegal makes it seem infinitely more like America. Also, unlike my families in Niger, this family was less timid about interacting with me, while at the same time still very respectful of my privacy. The mother would ask me questions about my life in America and Niger. The kids would correct my French grammar and play catch with me. (The kids here wear clothes and have toys!)

The food was amazing too! Sorry Niger, Senegal’s got you beat. Rather than just millet pate and sauce every night, the Senegalese eat a lot of fresh fish and vegetables on rice or couscous. They also make an amazing lemon, onion sauce with chicken and an equally amazing peanut sauce on rice. For breakfast, I would just eat a piece of a baguette with Nescafe, but would supplement that with a mid-morning snack of yogurt mixed with grain, which you could buy on the side of the road.

All in all this was one of the best homestays I’ve ever had. The only fly in the ointment was the minor difficult I had with the family’s toilet. Now…after having spent nearly two years in Africa, I can poop just about anywhere, which is to say, I have low toilet standards. So, as I expected, I was perfectly comfortable with the family’s Turkish toilet (see image). That wasn’t the problem. The problem was I kept accidentally dropping things in the toilet, and then being forced to fish them out.

Turkish Toilet
Photo courtesy of Linda Huff Taylor

The first time it happened, I dropped a bar of soap in. I was trying to wash my hands and have the water go down the drain, but this is trickier than it sounds since there is no faucet. So, I had to pour the cup of water with one hand, while clutching the large bar of soap in the other. And, you know, soap is slippery.

I know what you’re thinking: what was so special about this bar of soap that I felt the need to rescue it from the six inches of poop water it rested in. The answer is: nothing. But…if I left it there, my family would surely discover the soap in short order. And I don’t think I would have survived the why-is-there-soap-down-the-toilet conversation. So, I stood there for a moment, gave a grim nod to the toilet and did what had to be done. I laughed about it later with Hailey, but mostly because I told her the story after she used the soap in question to wash her hands.

Funny as this incident is by itself, another bar of soap was down the toilet within a week. And then the cap to my water bottle… But the real winner was dropping my cell phone down the toilet. It fell out of my jeans pocket when I was taking a shower in the next stall over. This was much more traumatic than any of the previous incidents as there was clearly a turd (not mine) floating next to the phone (mine). But that phone cost me money, dammit! So I DID WHAT HAD TO BE DONE. After this, phone went through a very stringent decontamination regiment, involving water, q-tips and a lot of bleach…but I still hold the thing and inch or two away from my mouth when I talk.

Is this all an over-share? This is my life. Plus, Hailey and Sakhir thought it was hilarious.

Other than that, the only really exciting thing I’ve done is to participate in the West African Intramural Softball Tournament (WAIST). This is not just a Peace Corps thing, but rather a three-day event that brings expats, NGO workers, embassy staff, and PCVs from all over west Africa together.

Peace Corps volunteers seem to have a different idea of what the tournament should entail than the other participants…as in they play in costumes and not by the rules, so the tournament is organized to insolate the rest of the participates from Peace Corps as long as possible. Thus, in the beginning PCVs only playing other PCVs.

Since there were only eight of us, Niger Refugee couldn’t be it’s own team. This turned out to be a good thing in the end, because we were grouped with other volunteers from Cape Verde. The Capeverdians were all super cool (they brought capes). Together…we developed an unbeatable team chemistry that allowed us to win our division! Though, as I suggested above, the games weren’t really softball games at all. In our first match, we played a Peace Corps Senegal team dressed up as “Hot Cops.” There was a lot of thrusting. Also, they had at least 20 outfielders, and the hambugler kept stealing second base—I mean, actually picking up the base and running a way with it. Our team was accused of being too competitive, because for our first game we were all sober (at 8:30 am) and actually tried to win with the same effort you might see in a high school P.E. class. Though we did play one or two “too competitive” Peace Corps teams as well.

Note the "Hot Cop" on first

I scored two runs.

Unfortunately, the Niger group couldn’t stay for the last day of games, because we had to return for language classes. This was also a blessing in disguise, as the rest of our team reported to use they were destroyed 31 to three by a bunch of really competitive high school students. Also…our team tried to play the game on three hours of sleep. No problem.

WAIST sounds like a big shitshow…and in a lot of ways it was. But it was also really amazing to see how much creativity PCVs put into their costumes, how much fun PCVs can have together, and to have the opportunity to get to know volunteers from other countries. For all the shenanigans, I had a lot of amazing conversations with other volunteers about the work they were doing, what life is like in their country, and the commonalities of our experience. All in all, it was a good time.