The day I gained perspective…
Postive Notes.
I realized that my past few posts haven’t been that uplifting and positive. And, although, it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns here, I do see rainbows frequently… literally.
Village life is great! What I said before about my “problems” at site weren’t all exactly problems. It was just a misunderstanding of how I portrayed my interactions with the other volunteers in my region and their experiences here. It just goes to show that you can’t generalize any population regardless how close in proximity, shared nationality, religion, culture or tradition. You have to experience it first hand to understand the dynamics of anything truthfully and completely.
I am learning Pulaar with an increasing momentum! The other day a few of the elders told me that I speak my Pulaar from the heart. (There actually isn't a word for “heart” in Pulaar! So many things have a 3-5 different words to say the same thing, and so many things, that I think are very important, including health terms, don’t have names at all! They borrow words from the French language frequently, but then only a few know and understand what those words mean.) Being told that I speak from my heart is a huge compliment. I have to say, I probably speak better and know more vocabulary that the average volunteer at my stage because I literally go weeks without speaking English, so I have to learn quick, and my new normal is Pulaar. I find myself forgetting English words or phrases when I am trying to do any work, it can be frustrating at times. Actually, I had my first dream in Pulaar the other day! It is weird for me to remember my dreams to begin with, so when I dreamt, remembered it, and realized it was in Pulaar, my mind was blown and I had to reflect what that meant for my language level. Don’t get me wrong.. I still don’t understand a lot of what a lot of people say because the verbs or so specific that it would take me more than my two years of service to truly be fluent in this language.
Maimunna is back! My second dad’s wife that had the miscarriage finally returned to village! It is customary for the woman to stay away at a different relative’s house until she is “healed,” which takes a lot longer here than you would think. She was gone for over a month. But, she isn’t allowed to do any work, not even cook, for a year, and not any fieldwork or water pulling for around three years. So, she is afraid that her husband is going to get another wife because she can’t fulfill her duties and her kids aren’t old enough to do most of her work. And, of course, her husband shouldn’t be expected to pick up any slack because he is the man. But, yay! She is back. I finally have my bestie at site around again. She is two years older than me but has a completely different life than I do. She has four kids, is married, and is illiterate, so sometimes it is hard to find a common ground to really connect on, but we make it work. She understands me almost as well as my counterpart does, which makes conversation easy.
My youngest of the teenage sisters went on vacation a few weeks ago, so I have been having to befriend my other two teenage sisters since Maimunna was gone. It has been hard having Tida away, but it has given me a chance to connect with the other two girls. They have been spending the evenings in my room for dinner and hangout sessions the past few weeks. But, out of the blue, my second youngest teenage sister (I say teenage, because I have a lot of younger sisters, but I don’t hang out with them because they are too young and.. annoying.) told me that she is going to her future husband’s village for the next six months to prove to his family that she is worth her keep and is auditioning her cooking and cleaning skills for a marriage next year. Even though her husband lives and works in Dakar and won’t even be living with her at his family’s compound. (Obviously she didn’t use that terminology but, it is exactly what she is doing.) So, I am down to one teenage sister, and her Pulaar is so fast and unclear that I can never understand what she is staying, and I am pretty sure that is a two-way street because she always has a confused look on her face when I say anything to her as well.
My work has finally started and I am extremely busy. PECADOM +, an integrated malaria program, is in full swing since we are in the wet season, aka, malaria season. I have been attending trainings and workshops to make sure everyone involved knows what to do when they are out in the field doing their sweeps through the villages. It is a lot of work and is hard because we don’t have cell phone reception to confirm schedules so it is hit and miss with the trainings. We will be having a five day long session after Tabaski and the next vaccination sweep at the end of the month. I just finished up a baseline survey, where I interviewed every compound in my community asking upwards of fifty compound questions related to their health and health knowledge. It was a great way to understand the problems my village has under the surface and better gain perspective of what they need from me, even if they don’t realize that they need it yet. Baseline surveys are great Needs Assessments, and thankfully it is a reportable task for evaluation, monitoring and reporting purposes. I know a lot more people in my village now. I think at the beginning of this month, I might have known around 15 people’s names, now I know upwards of 50 and growing. As soon as I get everyone’s picture I can really start to learn names and faces better.
I had my first Technical Site Visit where my supervisor came and put a stamp of approval on my upcoming projects and work in my village. We had a meeting with all of the people in my village that are important and/or are involved in my work. The discussion mainly was working out the kinks of building a Health Hut. The week preceding the meeting, I talked with the doctor at the Health Post that would be the supervisor of my Health Hut and he didn’t agree to its construction. So, he suggested that we go to all of the surrounding villages and basically start a petition for our Health Hut. We had all of the surrounding village chiefs, religious leaders and health workers come to my village to attend a meeting and get everyone’s IDs for their names, birthdates, ID numbers and signatures. (Most signatures are a doodle because most people are illiterate, so the signature part is comical on my end.) We will be taking this paper to the Regional Doctor and the man that is the “President” of the Health System in our region to get the final approval. I was afraid of the politics involved in all of this, so I was hesitant to pursue the project without talking to my supervisor. The newest Health Hut in Sare Tobo (about 5km away) is non-functioning because of a political matter, a disagreement between the village chief and the ASC, the person that runs the facility. So, I don’t want our structure to end up like that one. If I am going to contribute and have a legacy here, I want it to be a successful, respectable one. But, it looks like everything is good to go and I will be starting the grant in December to start the construction hopefully early next year. I just inquired about educational/technical training for a woman in my village to become a Matrone, a woman that delivers babies, comparable to a midwife, and for my counterpart, Hoyo, to get his training to become an ASC, and I am in the mist of recruiting a person to be a DSDOME, a person who does integrated malaria sweeps through villages. I am also starting on my hand washing station, aka "Tippy Tap," project by installing these stations at every 'bathroom' and eating spot in every compound and community gathering area to make a behavior change shift to hand washing by making hand washing something that is easy, fun and cool to do. So many deaths and illnesses could be prevented by something so simple, that we as Americans take for granted, Hand Washing. It is a huge project that will take up until December to complete because I can’t just install these stations, I need people to take ownership of the project by having causeries explaining what it is, why it is important, when they should wash their hands, what illnesses not washing their hands could cause. Soap is also an issue. Soap is “expensive” when people don’t really have any income, so I am having soap making trainings with the three women’s groups in my village to ensure that their stations have soap at all times. My village chief, so kindly told everyone that attended the meeting for the petition for the Health Hut that I would do the trainings in all of their villages too. Which, I never agreed to, but I will try to figure out how to make time for it, I guess.
Tabaski, the biggest Muslim holiday, is tomorrow! I spent the past two days getting my hair braided with fake hair. My back will never be the same. So much pain sitting like that for that long. But, apparently it looks super attractive, although, I would be the first to disagree. The next time I get my hair braided, I don’t think I will be dong fake hair. Actually, I am pretty sure I cut some of my real hair off when I was trimming the ends of the braids. I might need a different hair style after all of this is over. It was a fun experience with the women that did my hair. We braided, drank tea, and practiced some dance moves. I have to make it a habit to hang out with more women in my village because I just don’t know their vocabulary as well. They talk way too fast and I hardly understand their sentence structure, let alone their vocabulary. I hang out with most of the village elders because they talk slower, are typically more educated and their Pulaar doesn’t have as much Wolof, French or other languages mixed in, so it is traditionally better. But, now that I know sounds and some syntax, I think it is time I push myself with the women. Wish me luck, it won’t be an easy task.
I have made some seriously incredible friendships with some of the other volunteers. It is hard being thrown into this life and no one is truly themselves at the beginning so it is a struggle to find out who you are in this new life and who you can//want to be friends with. I am glad that I know I am not alone in my struggle and that when I have something exciting (like seeing a Komodo dragon, which turned out to be a Monitor lizard) or something dramatic that happened (like having worms crawling under my skin) that I need to tell someone, I just need to bike out to get cell phone reception and hope that they have cell phone reception at the same time to talk about it. I have made at least three solid friendships, all very unique and special that are very precious to me.
Next on my list of Positive Notes……. I am coming home in December!!
I have been waiting to tell a lot of people, but it is quickly approaching so I am letting everyone know now! Yay. I am extremely excited to come home and take a shower in my parents’ new bathroom and know what it is like to feel clean again. I am excited to have to figure out how many layers of clothes I have to put on to be warm, not figure out how I can be nakeder than naked to not feel like I am fire. I am going to have my grandmas take me to get a good steak at the Malibar Inn and eat as much (good, non-rice) food as I possibly can!
Sorry it took so long for an update, I will try to be better from now on. I am starting to get a daily/weekly routine, and I want to incorporate blog writing that routine so you all can get weekly/bi-weekly updates!
Next Blog will be about Tabaski!! (Including Pictures with my new Komplet and my hair!)
