ramadan - fiji water sounds amazing right about now...

ramadan has only just begun - not more than a week and a half ago - and already i am tired of it. literally. physically exhausted. it's not really a fast but more like changing your eating schedule and habits. every morning, i would wake up around 5am and have either leftovers from dinner last night (which is usually something rice based, no surprise there), or this millet porridge with yogurt (which is quite good if i may say so myself), and tons of water. let me go back to the yogurt. so you're probably wondering how i have yogurt in the middle of a desert. well, 2 factors: one, being that it's rainy season right now and it actually does rain here, the rains have seriously changed the landscape of my area.

it looks more like a golf course than anything else. i got home after training and didnt recognize it at all. it could almost be country side america, no?

going along with the first factor, there's plenty of vegetation (i cant say grass because it aint grass - it's more like spiky weeds) so the cows or eating well and producing lots of milk. so how do the pulaars turn this milk into yogurt? i honestly dont think they buy yeast cultures. what more likely happens is they just leave the milk out a few days until it goes sour and voila! yogurt! add some sugar and chill it a bit... pretty much the same... right? haha, anyway back to drinking water. all eating and drinking stops at 5:45ish and then it's back to sleep. i'll wake up around 7:30 or 8 because im used to it by now, water my garden, and then go back to bed, to get up around 930 or so. then my long day begins of no eating or drinking until 7:35pm at night. surprisingly i dont get that hungry, and im thirsty, but not that thirsty. but this, i think, is largely due to the fact that i dont do much all day. i mean, how could i? everyone else isnt doing anything, except feeling miserable, and no one has the energy to do anything. everyone just sits around, takes naps, chats with each other, plays homemade board games or cards, or if lucky and there's electricity, watches tv. tempers are shorter; i find even myself snapping a little at kids who are being too loud or obnoxious. i went to my health post a couple of times and the doctor was just sitting with his kids watching tv or taking naps. ramadan really isnt the month to start projects. what bad timing for us... on the bright side, farming has to continue so sometimes i go with my dad out into his fields to weed or repair the live fencing. we work slower and dont really exert ourselves because we know we cant drink water or eat so we shouldnt overly tire ourselves out.

the field is amazing. it's massive and things are actually growing wonderfully. no wonder people laugh at my garden and my incompetencies. theyve been doing this their whole lives. i never saw myself living on a farm, which is kind of really where i am. there's livestock everywhere and fields of crops... im in farm country. weird...

anyway, back to ramadan. since i dont do much all day, i spend it all, mostly reading or hanging out with the family or someone else in the village. just from a week and a half, ive done a ton of reading on gardening and also literature relevant to my project - but ive also done a lot of leisure reading as well. when you have like 12 hours to kill everyday, that's a lot of books after a while. currently im blasting through anna karenina. by 5pm, i start feeling the effects of thirst. i cannot tell you how much more i appreciate drinking. even warm, not so great tasting water (think of evian but much much worse). some 2 and a half hours of waiting around later, which is occupied we finally break fast, and for the first few days, i couldnt stop smiling at this time. it is such a magical experience to quench thirst and satisfy your hunger after a whole day of abstaining. we break fast with a cup of coffee, some dates, a cup of bissap juice, and bread with some spread inside (onion sauce, homemade mayo, butter, or if lucky, this onions meat french fries thing). then sometimes around 8:15, we'll have pre-dinner, which is usually some sort of pasta - but this doesnt always happen. then we get dinner around 9:30/10 which is usually rice with other things. once done, you repeat... for 30 days. i eat slightly less than pre-ramadan but theres no significant difference in intake (although my sister says i will get really skinny after this month, which i dont know how that's possible but im starting to see the effects... i am getting skinnier, if that's even possible). it's just the timing of intake as well as my sleep wake cycle that's throwing everything off and making me so tired and exhausted and energy-less all day everyday. my body is dying... i already dont sleep well with my malaria meds, and now ramadan. just great. i seriously look forward to my first peaceful, wakeless night of sleep in america 20 months from now. it will be glorious!

my garden was practically non-existent when i came home - except for my tree pepinieres, and even so, not so great. apparently there must have been numerous sand storms while i was away because my garden looked pretty flat. the moringa aka nebedaay (or cleverly coined "never dies" because apparently they dont) were massive and the roots were extending into the ground so i had to move the tree sacks. 2 days later, i realized that moving them this late, and breaking the roots, i killed them. i killed my never dies. how pathetic. well, ok maybe not killed them completely. they just got really weak and lost all their leaves but some of them are growing back now, yay! those mystery seeds that i planted were flamboyants - really beautiful trees. much needed in this area though i dont know how well they'll grow in deserts. i also brought back a mango and papaya tree to plant on my family compound. the papaya didnt survive the journey but the mango is doing pretty well. in a couple of years, maybe my family will have mangoes and think of me.

so i re-did my garden, planting tomatoes, lettuce, bitter tomatoes, eggplant, hot peppers, more moringa, watermelon, sunflowers, flamboyants, and other random tree seeds that will be a surprise in a month or so. i also transplanted some mint. i left some weeds to create a more natural habitat and to distract the insects from eating my crops. enshallah, my garden will do decently well this time. ive attracted some natural pest controls - there are frogs and spiders and wasps and birds in my garden. the other day, i even saw a praying mantis! all these great pest control agents!

my mint is doing pretty well as of now...

the eggplant are growing and hopefully will survive much longer than they did last time...

just a shot of the baby flamboyants...

watermelon... (if i ever eat the fruit of my labor, i will die happy)

never dies... hopefully ready for harvest and eating in a few weeks

and my random tree seeds...

some random thoughts that ive had in the last couple of weeks:

1. im sorry i didnt take pictures of these but this may be the most amazing thing about senegal and how our world works in general. you know those old tshirts you donate to good will or the red cross? tshirts from childhood like ps 143 class of 1997, or springfield baseball, or johnson's family reunion, or riverdale elementary school math league? you get the idea. you know where they end up? i will tell you. they end up in senegalese markets in large piles. people pick through them, bargain a small price for these second hand tshirts, and wear em. it's so beautiful. if i ever run into a shirt i know, or even a shirt that ive owned, i dont know what i will do... life works in mysteries ways, you never know...

2. thanks to ramadan, all i think about is food that im missing back in the states. perogies from that one eastern european late night afterclub diner? chicken pot pie? lobster dipped in butter, crab cakes with tartar sauce, ginger ale, spinach and artichoke dip, soupy dumplings, dim sum, budejigae... the list can go on forever. sometimes during the long hours of the day, i get cravings. they are terrible.

3. it hit me why i would crave senegalese food sometimes. weird huh? i should be sick of it by now, the lack of variety, the same greasy oily rice base. but i figured it out. theres MSG in everything. EVERYTHING! they dont know how to cook without it and by now, it's so built into their culture (with commercials advertising its use) that i cant think of a good way to get rid of it (telling my family that it's bad for their health doesnt do any good). no wonder i get cravings sometimes... mmm maafe...

4. flies are unrelenting as always. and thanks to the rainy season, theyre out in full force. my mosquito bites from july 4th never fully healed. theyre open wounds now and thanks to the flies landing on them, they became infected and are now pus-ing. quite pleasant really...

5. the senegalese idea of a good movie baffles me. it doesnt have to be in french, it can be in any language really (it dawned on me that their french isnt all that great and its senegalese french so real french dubbed in movies is quite different - think of brazilian portuguese and you get the idea). if it's a series or tv show, it doesnt even have to start from the beginning. all they care about are fight scenes and the occasional gag humor scene. my brother somehow found a copy of prison break season 3 in french or something and they didnt even start from episode 1. they just started on episode 6 and scrolled to all the fight scenes. what a bizarre taste. i thought bringing pixar movies was a good idea because i'll be with kids and all... NOPE. they only want movies with fighting in it. anything else and they lose interest. the other day when i got tired of reading, i gave in and watched a few episodes of mad men season 3 on my laptop. my siblings came in and asked if it was good. i said it was really good. they asked me if there was fighting. i said no. they looked shocked. they asked me what it did have. i said lots of dialogue and talking. they lost interest and walked away... how did senegalese culture become so obsessed with violence? theyre not a very violent people, but this obsession (they love watching senegalese wrestling) is inexplicable.

6. already i am running into problems with my project. apparently when i was away, my doctor trained a couple of relais in surrounding villages... maybe i'll just collaborate with him and see what he's training them on and extend the training program to more villages and more topic areas.

7. about two weeks ago, i was able to bike 90k (roughly 55 miles) in one day. of course my body died the next day but it's doable. i plan on doing a lot more biking from now on... during the next 4 days or so, i plan on biking about 200k so we'll see how this goes...

8. dont believe people when they say the camel spiders are harmless. i was rudely awoken one night to this sharp pain in my toe and low and behold, a baby camel spider as big as my thumb pinched me hard. theyre just so ugly and scary looking, no matter how small or big...

well i'll write again in a few weeks... i really want to go to shanghai to visit vivi for xmas and new years. i hope i can make it happen. need serious big city therapy...

my grandiose 2-year idea that will probably fail

hi all! i didnt take that many pictures this month so it's gonna be a wordy entry. since july 4th, i've visited Dakar and gone to 2nd rounds of training - both deserve separate entries but this'll have to do for now.

Dakar was... amazing. it felt like being a little kid in a candy shop. perhaps Dakar is no different and not more special than other large cities but i guess i just forgot what it's like on the other side of the atlantic. i forgot what being in civilization feels like - my small village of 300 in the middle of a desert doesnt quite resemble anything back home. i forgot that tall buildings actually exist, that electricity can be had consistently, that water actually runs and you can choose hot or cold, that people actually own air conditioners and nice cars, that people dress up and go out. i forgot what its like to have choices in what you eat, not even just cuisine but what specific meals you want. i forgot what its like to be able to grab a cold refreshing beer, or ice cream, or even fresh fruit. i forgot what supermarkets and cafes looked like. it's these small, almost insignificant experiences of life that really make me appreciate what being an american and living in america really means. there were many a times when i didnt understand just how prosperous our country is and how lucky we all are to have the freedoms and opportunities, things that weve took for granted. it takes experiences like these to really comprehend why americans really do have it all. finally after 4 months, i have had real chinese food. real... chinese... food. food made by people from china who couldnt really speak french, definitely didnt speak any of the local languages, and the only way to communicate was in chinese. how bizarre is it to find a group of americans in a chinese restaurant that only speaks chinese... in the middle of senegal? case and point. so what do a group of deprived americans do when theyve been in rural villages for 2 months? they go wild and eat everything! lol, we had chinese, american, italian, french, thai... next time we're doing indian and korean. there were even pastry shops and gourmet chocolate! you dont realize what youre missing until it's gone.

ive never had desperados beer before even though people say you can find it in the states. it's like a corona-y beer, with tequila. pretty good actually.

hanging out with our teacher and her friends during a christian holiday (celebration of st anne?)

ill skip the telling about training part because theres not much to tell. except that we learned all these cool new gardening techniques and ive decided that im going to convert my desert patch into a lush permaculture. and also what my overall project goals and plans are for the next 2 years of my life. but anyway, after training ended, we went to the beach for one last time before heading back to our desert (the complete opposite).

the ocean is just so beautiful. and the sunset. and even better! that night, the power was out so everything was super dark and there were dinoflagellates (word courtesy of jess lee!!) in the water so our bodies glistened with fluorescent plankton. we couldnt get pictures because of how dark it was and the flash not being able to catch anything but it was amazing. it was like glow in the dark body glitter!

now, back in my regional house, as i type this in our hot, HOT (like feels like 115), and humid weather, i plan on going back to my village in a couple of days after i finish a few last minute errands. what will i be doing in my next 2 years you may be wondering. thus far, ive really done nothing except for acclimate and assimilate. which i guess is an important aspect because you need to gain the trust and confidence of your community before you can actually do anything. and find motivated people to work with (lack of motivation is a killer here). now after my 2nd round of training, i have a better idea of the project i want to do...

circumstances:

1. my village counterparts want me to give causeries, in general to everyone about HIV/AIDS, and to women about the importance of pre- and post-natal consultations.

2. after visiting a few surrounding villages, as well as going through the village doctor's consultations book to see where people are coming from and with what ailments, i have noticed a lack of accessibility to medical care as well as to general knowledge on certain prevalent problems of the region.

proposed project:

because my village health post is in charge of roughly 15-20 villages (probably more... 30?), i want to do a 2 year series of training of relais. relais are the name given to community health workers. they are unpaid, and therefore volunteers, and work out of the goodness of their hearts. i will be going to each village to find the existing relais (who probably hasnt been trained in a very long time) or set up new ones, and each month, one relais from each village will come to my health post, where we will cover a variety of subjects ranging from simple first aid, to hygiene, from how to deal with dehydration, to malaria (and also malaria net distributions after these talks and proper handling and care of the nets), from pre- and post- pregnancy health of mother and child, to child nutrition and vaccinations, from STDs and HIV/AIDS, to family planning. i will leave the HIV/AIDS and family planning and other sensitive subjects toward the end of my service when the relais and myself are more comfortable with each other and the sensitive subjects can be breached. after each session, each relais will go back to their village and find a group of suitable villagers to talk to and we will schedule an in-village causerie to do, on the subject we just talked about. the relais will be doing most of the causerie and im just there to help out. if i teach the relais how to make niim lotion to protect from mosquito bites and prevent malaria, the relais will demonstrate to villages how to do the exact same. in this way, when i leave, the knowledge will be passed down and hopefully people will continue without my presence, or any aid group's presence for that matter. peace corps philosophy emphasizes sustainability and this is the only sustainable solution i can come up with. of course this is just a project idea in the making - thinking about all the details, it will be a logistical nightmare scheduling all these causeries and transporting the relais to and from my village. transportation is already such a huge problem in my area and the concept of planning ahead and making schedules doesnt exist here. how will i carry out my project? this is what i have to figure out.

but in the mean time, i have to prepare for ramadan, the month of no pleasure between sun up and sun down. no one can drink, or eat, or smoke, or doing anything fun or pleasure related during the day. the senegalese value their coffee and tea, both of which are extremely caffeinated and sweet - so imagine the caffeine and sugar withdrawal. compound that to smokers who will have nicotine withdrawal and everyone just being hungry and hot and dehydrated. tempers will flare. bon chance to me...