525,600 Minutes

525,600 moments so dear


So, I’ve passed the year mark now, and I’m having trouble pinpointing where the time has gone.  It seems that the days here are long, but the weeks and months speed by.  I’m sure most of ya’ll are wondering what it is exactly that I’ve done since being here, especially since all my photos seem to be either at parties with a hundred other Americans, or they comprise of several upset-looking villagers huddled into one large ball of Pulaar. As for a heads up, here are a few of the pictures I took while trying to be sneaky, but as for the rest, uploading pictures here takes about a year and a half, so most of my pictures I have taken, I am waiting to upload for when I come home to AMERIK.

First let me explain as to why most of my pictures

 are of expressionless villagers- mostly in large groups, and usually sitting on a bed.  My villagers LOVE getting their photos taken, but their version of a picture, and mine are not exactly one in the same.  Their idea of the perfect photo is one stuffed with as many people as possible, wearing an insane amount of beads, and of course, scowling at the world.  They hate surprise photos, and refuse to ever let just one person in a photo (unless I’m doing it in secret, which happens more often than one would think) Let’s just say they’re not exactly advocates of the candid shot.  In fact, I once showed them a scrapbook that my amazing friends from home made me.  It’s filled with pictures of our many adventures in college, which of course includes costumes, mayhem, and madness.  Well, the whole time as they looked through it, they continuously commented on how ugly I was- merely for wearing a sombrero or a wrestling singlet.  Now that might sound harsh, and in the beginning, I might have been upset, but I have come to understand that our culture and theirs are far from being kissing cousins.  They say exactly what they mean, sparing no details, while Americans dance around each other’s feelings.  I used to dream (well I guess I technically still do) about being in a land so incredibly different than America- maybe travelling to South Eastern Asia, being dropped off somewhere, and not being able to identify with anything- no letters, no food items, etc. That kind of cultural exchange has always enthralled me.  Since being here, however, I have come to realize that Senegal is such a place (minus the French influences).  Culturally speaking, it is about as different from the Western world as it gets. More often than not, it proves to be my points of biggest frustrations, but as always looking back on things, shows how comedic these situations really are.

An example of such cultural differences would be their apathy in name-giving.  One of the responsibilities of the father is to announce his child’s “governmentally recognized” name at his/her “baptism” (technically a name-giving ceremony). Pulaar baptisms occur on the 8^th day after the baby’s birth, so the fathers have more than enough time to think about it.  So many times, the fathers of the newborns babes come to the baptism, looking like they had no idea that were responsible for giving the child a name.   I’m sure many times, it’s just the first thing that ends up popping out of their mouths.   Americans, on the other hand, fret over the names they give their children years in advance (I mean, I’ve had my kids’ names picked out since I was 15).  Pulaars, on the other hand, typically have 2-5 names, which is why they are so easily swayed to name their kids after whatever I tell them (to anyone interested, I'm willing to sell you the opportunity to have a kid named after you..it will kind of be like owning the rites to a star).  One name is given by each the mom, the dad, the grandfather, the grandmother, and possibly any other important person in that family’s life.  The mom will call the child the name she gave, the dad his, and so forth.  This makes it especially difficult to know exactly who is being talked about.  This little tidbit took me quite a bit of time to figure out when I first got to village. It still is, in fact.  Anyway, my point is this, there is now about 3 Penda Sows named after me, and my dad has a little Rick running around.  My newest accomplishment in this sector: Barak Obama.  Baby Barak was born a couple of months ago, and is in good health. Maybe one day, he’ll grow up to be President? If he does, I’d like to think I had something to do with it. 

Besides getting kids named after our president, what do I do for “real work?”  Well that’s hard to say. Nothing I do is all that extraordinary, and I feel like I do it more for my sake and sanity than theirs.  In short, since being here, my views on development work have changed two-fold, but that is a conversation for another time and another place.  Recently, my life has been run over by douches (by that I mean latrines, not some jerky guy). A few weeks ago, I did a project fixing the douches at my school, so that my kids didn’t have to go to the bathroom on the building.  In the next few weeks, I am planning another douche project for the families in my village that have no latrine and who must go to the fields to go to the bathroom.  If you’d like to donate that would be awesome!! Here’s the link for anybody interested. http://appropriateprojects.com/node/624

As for more boring work stuff, I have a geography club that meets (in theory) once a week, where we play games, and learn things about the environment, the world, and different cultures.  I also try to lead sessions in my village teaching women gardening techniques, grey-water recycling, ways to prevent malaria, better nutrition practices and the like. I love teaching the kids English, although it’s never a formal thing, and I usually end up teaching them only things that are funny to me.  Also, recently my region held a girls’ camp in order to promote the importance girls’ education.  One of my favorite things that I do here, thought, is creating radio shows. Peace Corps gets 30-minute shows every week on the Radio Tamba station, which we split among all the volunteers in our region. Typically our shows are educational, covering topics like gardening, nutrition, business practices etc, but ultimately our station gives us complete freedom on what is in our time slots. We get to pick the songs, the topics, the guests, everything.  Whenever I do one I feel like I have so much power.  Don’t worry.  I definitely exploit it.  In my first radio show, what did I introduce them to? ROCKY TOP, of course. You’re welcome, Dr. Jimmy Cheek.