are you sure we're still in the same country?

sorry it's been a while since i've written a post. an eventful month has passed...

a month ago, i celebrated my 24th birthday in country and my friends threw me a bah mitzvah. no crazy camels got involved but then we went to st. louis for the jazz festival. st. louis was beautiful. the people are more laid back, less conservative, overall more care free. if only the rest of senegal is like this as well. we listened to a little jazz but i guess in the end, it was just another peace corps gathering - which are always a lot of fun. that and some beach time and food!

we always find these crazy shirts for $3. the real question is where was that shirt made? it was clearly imported from somewhere and made with intention. a dress with marilyn monroe's face on it (in sequins too!) is absolutely a purchase must. there was also another one with jennifer anniston's face and one with madonna. fashion is so ridiculous and i love it.

we got to eat real vietnamese food and real moraccan food which was a treat.

this restaurant was named after our region. except nothing about it represents linguere at all. we have nothing that's on the menu.

i think another part of the draw of st. louis is the architecture. didnt get to take too many pictures of colonial french streets and sidewalks but it was a really pretty island. though it was sad to hear some of the older folk say that they never shouldve kicked the french out. was it really better then than it is now?

ocean sunsets are just so beautiful. you dont get that in new york. maybe i really should move to the west coast...

when i went back home, i discovered that my drivers actually put up the gifts i gave them! they love obama here. so how appropriate it was to get an obama bobble head doll (thanks cat for the find!) and place it in these abominations that they call vehicles (take note of the windshield... yeah pretty much says it all). i used to think bush transportation was fun but now i'm kinda getting sick of it. it's a terribly uncomfortable 3 hours each trip and it just sucks the life force out of me.

finishing up the last couple of round 2 causeries. my work is so vague and random but at the same time, unique and not quite quantifiable. it's gonna get a little vulgar here so skip this paragraph if you dont want to hear about unsanitary health practices. in the last couple of conversations, i've been learning a lot about... customs. things that really arent talked about but really should be. during training, we heard whispers that women sometimes put soap "in there" as lubricant but i never thought it would be brought up during my work. they also put a lot of other things up there. like mint candy, or honey, or a little bit of hot pepper, or tiger balm. i guess these things are all natural but still, im pretty sure there are complications for putting things that dont belong in there, in there. they like the sensation, it's a little bizarre. but if you really think about it, we also have westernized equivalents - condoms with warming sensations or minty condoms that give your love life that extra kick. there are so many parallels in our lives, so many universals albeit slightly different methods of carrying things out. then it's just pounding it in over and over again how women should stop cutting umbilical cords themselves, let alone with unsterile blades. you risk infections and blood loss. so many complications.

there have been multiple times now where older women would get up and leave the talks because they feel uncomfortable with the topics. one village insisted that HIV/AIDS and other STDs absolutely do not exist in their village and therefore we should not talk about it. encountering resistance was expected but i'm still taken aback sometimes.

my friend Kim came up and helped out at a few of the talks, since a lot of the villages im working with are pulaar and she actually speaks pulaar. we did female and male condom demonstrations and a lot of the things that we thought were obvious and general knowledge, are actually not. women asked if they could wash them out and reuse them. others wanted to know if wearing 3 or 4 or more would protect you even better than just wearing one. disseminating knowledge, that encapsulates what we do. kinda...

my village went through a really hectic phase with all these obnoxiously large bags of peanuts. apparently the government is selling to the villagers peanuts and there's a rush to get them because they're not that pricey. what i dont understand is 1. my village farms peanuts. at the end of the harvest season, everyone is selling their peanuts. now they are rebuying peanuts. why not store some for seeding every year? are you telling me that these government peanuts are a hell lot cheaper and thus you're actually making a profit? has any even tested the germination rates of these peanuts? my family tells me that at the end of this next harvest season, the government will buy back the peanuts at a higher price. but that's if they even come out at all. host dad says these peanuts suck. maybe people are getting jipped.

i have new pulaar neighbors. the little boy, samba, is cute. his 1 month old brother gave me a fright the other night. around 1am or so, i am woken up by this horrible sounding stream of coughing. mind you, ive become pretty good at blocking out loud noises at night, but the hacking was horrendous. i do a little research and i really thought the baby had all the symptoms of pertussis, or whooping cough. there are occasional cases in this region so it's all quite possible. the mother was dumping oil down the baby's throat to "soothe the coughing" but i dragged them all to the health post and woke the doctor. turns out the doctor just thinks it's a regular cough that dad (who's been coughing for months now) gave him. so that was that. the obnoxious coughing continued for a few days but then it went away (the baby got some antibiotics). guess we'll never know if the doctor had been right or not...

the government agents that work with water and forestation management all carry large rifles. very peculiar... there's nothing to shoot out here. just people...

work wise, 1 more village to have a talk in. then it's rest for the rainy / harvest season. we'll continue again once people are less busy. the michele sylvester scholarship is complete, interviews done and whatnot. submitted a project request for the women's garden - waiting to hear back from admin. all that's left is building that health hut, and bringing an ambulance. sigh. big, hard things...

anyway, so that's how the month of june came and went. then we went on an epic bike trip going all the way down from linguere to kedougou. did a few site visits for potential volunteer extensions and also visited our friends down south. all in all the trip was around 500k or roughly 300 miles in mixed terrains. we were averaging 45 miles a day or so. take note of the landscape and as you continue to scroll down, observe the transformation - greener and greener.

we pooped in the wild, ate in the wild, slept in the wild... it was actually an extremely liberating experience. i feel like i can do/tolerate a lot of things now...

we came across this village called velingara, about 50k (30 miles) from any road, and about 100k or 60 miles from a big town like linguere. in a village that generally has no electricity and problems with water, we come across this USAID-built school with... laboratories. there are so many things wrong with this picture - i'll try not to be too critical about this organization that helps people. 1. do these people even know what they're building and who they're building for? the senegalese education curriculum has no room for hands-on experiments. what are they even going to do with this classroom? and with a water issue, those faucets are a complete waste. there are sidewalks linking classrooms and a main administration building with holes in the walls cut out for air-conditioning placement. 2. this village barely has electricity. what are they possibly going to do with air-conditioning? they dont even have a paved road to get to the village! somewhere along the lines there, the priorities are completely mixed up. 3. this makes my work really sad. it's decently hard and it takes so long to request money from usaid to fund my projects that i know the community needs because i actually live in a community whereas, here usaid just comes in and vomits money and builds a school with facilities completely oblivious to the village condition/situation. what is even the point of putting us out in the field then? it really shouldnt be that difficult to spend a few dollars on a women's garden that can improve nutrition for the community as well as generate income for the women. really if youre going to vomit money, at least throw a little this way guys...

anyway, done with ranting. more bush riding!

and sleeping in scorpion pits. we were bombarded by insects the first night. amateur placement of fire and sleeping mat and eating area. my soul died a little that night after being attacked by hundreds of camel spiders.

in the morning, we found even more scorpions nudged into crevices and corners in our sleeping space. crevices like the arch of your back. or annmarie's. shudder...

the women have really hard lives. these wells were soo deep. like somewhere between 50 and 100 meters. thats like 150 to 300 feet. imagine pulling water by hand. sometimes this country makes me really sad and frustrated. you come across this image so often. a well with women working hard pulling water. 50 feet away, the men sit idly under a shade tree, drinking tea, not doing anything. no electricity or paved road or health structure. but a beautiful mosque right behind, another 100 feet away. so beautiful, it could fit somewhere in america. where's the justice? where's the logic and reasoning? there's no money to feed the people but there's money to build mosques. there's no money to pave roads and make remote bush villages more accessible. but there's money to build a questionable monument in the capital city. perhaps i am being a bit harsh on this culture. don't get me wrong, there are so many positive qualities to counteract the negative backwards logic. the hospitality that we received in all the villages along the way was unbelievable, speechless. people would open their homes, share their meager meals with complete strangers. they are some of the best people, and i just have to remember that in the end, all the negative things ive experienced are caused by prior generations of negative western influences and unwanted extreme radical religious influences. we are where we are today because someone, somewhere in the past has altered it so.

ok no more ranting, lol. beautiful scenery! baobob trees really are magnificent.

i got my hair braided for the first time in my friend, anna's village. not quite what i was expecting but pretty cool i guess. hair braiding hurts. and my hair is not fit for braiding. the braids come right out without rubber bands.

maybe parenting fail? that child is like 3 years old. probably shouldnt be on that horse...

when we finally made it to koumpentoum, that concluded our bush road biking. from there on out, paved roads through lush jungles...

we stopped in another friend, amanda's village, which was super beautiful and quaint. a little of my soul also died around there. my body was completely exhausted from all the biking...

but it was so green! kinda reminds me of countryside roads...

this sign was funny. in the national park, there are animals. savage animals....

this is where i physically died. with only 93k (58 miles) left to go, i really didnt think i could bike anymore. the hills were killing me, but i guess in the end, i pulled through.

we saw baboons! they bark like dogs. it was scary.

warthogs are probably one of the ugliest creatures known to man.

we also woke up to monkeys crawling on top of our mosquito net and playing with things tied to our bikes.

they were cute but mischievous. they stole our breakfast!

the lost oatmeal...

and then it got really gorgeous. having been in a desert for so long, i forgot what real trees look like and how a green scenario can make you happy. i couldnt stop smiling... it also crossed my mind that other volunteers actually live here. someone else is actually volunteering in a place that looks like this. talk about cruelty and unfair. i just want some water! or trees! lol

after 7 days and 500 kilometers, we finally made it to kedougou to celebrate the 4th of july.

my friend emily has even more (and better photos) of the bike trip so check out her blog here.

but first, some visiting of waterfalls and lazily tubing down a river, with questionable things floating everywhere. it was really ghetto but hey, we're in peace corps. obviously there werent real tubes to float in. so we found large empty containers in the trash and just floated on them. +1 for creativity. no pictures, sorry!

heading to the waterfalls was magical

another reason why you should visit justin...

and then there was 4th of july. sweet outfits...

pork! we kill everything ourselves, clean them process them, cook them without stoves or gas. yeah... life is awesome

game - nails stuck in tree stump. swing hammer in air and catch it, and without aiming, quickly bang other people's nails. once one nail is completely in, person with longest nail out wins. this game is so (insert adjective)

'merikah! fuck yeah!

we even had fireworks...

anyway, so that's that. working on med school secondaries now. rainy season has started so it'll get pretty here soon. ramadan is also fast approaching. not looking forward to that. i wonder if i'll get to go to the fields and pick beans and peanuts again like last year...