this past weekend was me and sarah's girls leadership conference. and it went awesome! we held the conference for sixteen girls and their parents. the first day we had awa, one of our staging coordinators, talk with the parents while we did activitites with the girls. she discussed with them the importance of keeping girls in school and the obstacles that they face. then we watched a movie with girls, they got to spend the night, slumber party style. (it was really really sweet to see the girls push all their mats together and giggle late into the night)the next day we had six women from the area who have important jobs within their community (nurses, school directors, secretary, teacher, etc) and talk about their experiences, challenges, and why they chose to stay in school. the talk was really great for the girls and they really really enjoyed talking with the women. i think that both the girls and the parents got a lot out of the conference. as did i. it was a lot of work to organize but i'm so glad that me and sarah were able to do it. having extra volunteers their to help was also really nice and beneficial. hopefully we'll be able to do another conference like this one.
cheers,
jaime
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
who needs tv?
when deprived of the usual forms of enjoyment and a sofa and a fireplace and a spot to snuggle my feet, i get my kicks where and when i can. so in place of television i have made a few of my own shows...
er: watching my uncle demba dig an inch long thorn out of my brother hamadel's foot while my two cousins hold him down. yea the tears were real.
man vs. wild: each week i take on a new area of the fuuta; the podor garage, the taredji market, the sept place from dakar to ndioum...i share my tips on surviving through each of these situations. sometimes questionable food is involved (meat in a bag anyone?) take that bear grylls!
cheers: yea, wherever you go...EVERYONE is going to know your name. and say it over and over and over again.
house: with a handy little health guide you too can attempt to diagnose your mystery rash, explosive diarrhea, or a sneeze that has gone on for months. pop your multivitamins like they were pain killers.
tour de france: i race charettes and trucks every sunday. have yet to win the yellow jersey.
lost: on a good day i feel like i survived a plane crash and am stranded on an island. on a really good day i'm one of the oceanic six and i DON'T go back.
friends: each night i get to watch my eight closest friends hang out but instead of a coffeeshop it's my bathroom floor. and instead of jennifer aniston it's toads and a lizard. please don't judge me. my ipod died and i need to save my sanity.
and let's not forget the hundreds of reality shows that my life seems to mirror everyday; survivor, amazing race, the real world, candid camera...
stay tuned for the emmy's. i guarantee you no nph, but you won't see anything like it!
cheers!
jaime
er: watching my uncle demba dig an inch long thorn out of my brother hamadel's foot while my two cousins hold him down. yea the tears were real.
man vs. wild: each week i take on a new area of the fuuta; the podor garage, the taredji market, the sept place from dakar to ndioum...i share my tips on surviving through each of these situations. sometimes questionable food is involved (meat in a bag anyone?) take that bear grylls!
cheers: yea, wherever you go...EVERYONE is going to know your name. and say it over and over and over again.
house: with a handy little health guide you too can attempt to diagnose your mystery rash, explosive diarrhea, or a sneeze that has gone on for months. pop your multivitamins like they were pain killers.
tour de france: i race charettes and trucks every sunday. have yet to win the yellow jersey.
lost: on a good day i feel like i survived a plane crash and am stranded on an island. on a really good day i'm one of the oceanic six and i DON'T go back.
friends: each night i get to watch my eight closest friends hang out but instead of a coffeeshop it's my bathroom floor. and instead of jennifer aniston it's toads and a lizard. please don't judge me. my ipod died and i need to save my sanity.
and let's not forget the hundreds of reality shows that my life seems to mirror everyday; survivor, amazing race, the real world, candid camera...
stay tuned for the emmy's. i guarantee you no nph, but you won't see anything like it!
cheers!
jaime
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
would you rather?
would you rather fly or have lightning speed? would you rather lose an arm or a leg? would you rather marry FDR or teddy roosevelt? would you rather get a job after college or spend two years living in a mud hut eating rice?
so the other night, this question came up to my family. it was night time and as usual i was sitting on a mat chilling with the bros when my sister binta starts screaming and runs out of the house. turns out there was a toad that hopped in after her and scared, she ran away. so now there is a toad in the house but no one will go near it. as it happens, everyone from my siblings to my host mother and aunts and uncles are afraid of toads and frogs. my tocaram asks me if i'm afraid-i say no, it's a toad. so i go into the house, pick up the toad and walk outside. i chase my brothers around for a bit until they start to wimper and then take the frog over to the livestock area and put it down. i come back over to the mat, wipe my hands clean and pronouce "there, it's over". the rest of the night all my host moms and aunt could tell me was how brave i was.
puzzled as to why exactly my family, and in fact a lot of pulaar villages that i know are afraid of toads i asked my family. everybody it seemed had their own reason, "their eyes are weird, don't look at them in the eye", "they only come out at night and make lots of noise", "they hop everywhere, they don't walk", "they pee on you". so all of that may be true, i said but they eat bugs like ants, termites and the stupid little ones that have no name but dive bomb into your eye at night because of your head lamp.
so, i asked would you rather? would you rather have a scorpion in your room or a toad. a resounding "scorpion" was the answer. this flabergasted me. "so let me get this straight, you'd rather have a scorpion-something that could give you excrutiating pain, that hides under things so you can't see them- than a garden toad?" "yea, banel you can kill a scorpion." apparently toads are immortal, something i have yet to tell the many toad corpses in and around my village. "okay, would you rather get stung by a scorpion or peed on by a toad?" "stung." "STUNG?!" "yea, toad pee is very bad." "you're crazy!" "no, banel. toads are very bad."
they may be bad, but my hut's been free of bugs for a month. plus, i'd get peed on everyday before i took a sting to the foot. that's my rather.
cheers and happy toad hunting!
jaime
so the other night, this question came up to my family. it was night time and as usual i was sitting on a mat chilling with the bros when my sister binta starts screaming and runs out of the house. turns out there was a toad that hopped in after her and scared, she ran away. so now there is a toad in the house but no one will go near it. as it happens, everyone from my siblings to my host mother and aunts and uncles are afraid of toads and frogs. my tocaram asks me if i'm afraid-i say no, it's a toad. so i go into the house, pick up the toad and walk outside. i chase my brothers around for a bit until they start to wimper and then take the frog over to the livestock area and put it down. i come back over to the mat, wipe my hands clean and pronouce "there, it's over". the rest of the night all my host moms and aunt could tell me was how brave i was.
puzzled as to why exactly my family, and in fact a lot of pulaar villages that i know are afraid of toads i asked my family. everybody it seemed had their own reason, "their eyes are weird, don't look at them in the eye", "they only come out at night and make lots of noise", "they hop everywhere, they don't walk", "they pee on you". so all of that may be true, i said but they eat bugs like ants, termites and the stupid little ones that have no name but dive bomb into your eye at night because of your head lamp.
so, i asked would you rather? would you rather have a scorpion in your room or a toad. a resounding "scorpion" was the answer. this flabergasted me. "so let me get this straight, you'd rather have a scorpion-something that could give you excrutiating pain, that hides under things so you can't see them- than a garden toad?" "yea, banel you can kill a scorpion." apparently toads are immortal, something i have yet to tell the many toad corpses in and around my village. "okay, would you rather get stung by a scorpion or peed on by a toad?" "stung." "STUNG?!" "yea, toad pee is very bad." "you're crazy!" "no, banel. toads are very bad."
they may be bad, but my hut's been free of bugs for a month. plus, i'd get peed on everyday before i took a sting to the foot. that's my rather.
cheers and happy toad hunting!
jaime
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
in the sa of sahel
quick geography lesson. northern senegal is part of the sahel of africa, a band of semi-desert that goes from the antlantic to indian ocean. the sahel is very end of the sahara desert to the north before you get to some pretty awesome jungles and plains. for the most part the sahel is dry and arid and hot, aka the "hell" part of sahel. when i came to senegal everyone kept talking about this rainy season where the sahel grows grass and becomes a savanna, aka the "sa" in sahel. last year during our rainy season i went nuts because it turned green. but by green i mean that it turned puberty green. just a little peach fuzz to show off to your friends. after spending what seemed like an eternity in nothing but sand just this little green was enough to make my day.
this year the rains came late. at first i figured that this meant that it wasn't going to rain as much and that we were going to have a drought. well, the opposite happened. they were late, but man they raged. as i've been told by many reliable pulaars this is the worst rainy season in ten years. it never just rained. it rained, sandstormed, and winded (is that a word? wind blew i what i meant) all at the same time almost every three days for about two months. lesson: be careful what you wish for. i wanted the rain to come and yea, it came.
the river where i used to play and swim and frolic is now a deadly torrent of brown sludge. the bank which used to be thirty feet to the water is now almost overflowing. though watching my bros do backflips into the water is pretty cool. the rice crops were heavily damaged and so the harvest this year is in peril and we're talking the only income many families make (reminicent of wisco's crop loss these past two years). my hut, my poor precious paradise has been beaten badly but is however, still standing (thank god!). although my roof is now sporting grass which is kinda cool. flooding is everywhere and because of standing water the mosquitoes are extra bad this year.
and the bugs. or should i say, the plague of bugs. ever wonder what it's like to have thirty grasshoppers, all about four inches long, dive at you? or look at the floor and suddenly realize it's moving with thousands of beetles? or to put up your bed at night only to be overcome with hundreds of moths, beetles and other critters who find your headlamp irristable? yea, it's sooo much fun. i just love bugs. and i really did until they came in ginormous number.
but it's not all bad.
because of the awesome generosity of family and friends my net distribution is being put to excellent use. my village is putting their nets up early and using them religiously (that's a big alhamdoulillah!) my friends walter, shermann and lilypad are back and they brought two new lizard friends, smithers and gernonimo. hehehe, no more bugs in my room! my tree nursery and trees that i've given out to the village in the past year are growing like crazy. and there is grass...wonderful grass. like full on grizzly adams beard grass. it's so great; the cows and goats are healthy and are able to eat and eat and eat, and the sahel is beautiful. it really is the "sa" in sahel. so right now, i'm enjoying the greenery while it lasts because i know the cold season is coming!!
on a different note. i would love to announce the news that i'm now a grandma. my goat, clementine, has delivered a healthy baby boy, citron. so i'm officially a herder with my own herd of goats. both dam and kid are healthy and will be returning from the island as soon as the river goes back down and is safe to cross.
have a beautiful and wonderful fall, i'll be enjoying the sahel's own metamorphosis.
cheers!
jaime
this year the rains came late. at first i figured that this meant that it wasn't going to rain as much and that we were going to have a drought. well, the opposite happened. they were late, but man they raged. as i've been told by many reliable pulaars this is the worst rainy season in ten years. it never just rained. it rained, sandstormed, and winded (is that a word? wind blew i what i meant) all at the same time almost every three days for about two months. lesson: be careful what you wish for. i wanted the rain to come and yea, it came.
the river where i used to play and swim and frolic is now a deadly torrent of brown sludge. the bank which used to be thirty feet to the water is now almost overflowing. though watching my bros do backflips into the water is pretty cool. the rice crops were heavily damaged and so the harvest this year is in peril and we're talking the only income many families make (reminicent of wisco's crop loss these past two years). my hut, my poor precious paradise has been beaten badly but is however, still standing (thank god!). although my roof is now sporting grass which is kinda cool. flooding is everywhere and because of standing water the mosquitoes are extra bad this year.
and the bugs. or should i say, the plague of bugs. ever wonder what it's like to have thirty grasshoppers, all about four inches long, dive at you? or look at the floor and suddenly realize it's moving with thousands of beetles? or to put up your bed at night only to be overcome with hundreds of moths, beetles and other critters who find your headlamp irristable? yea, it's sooo much fun. i just love bugs. and i really did until they came in ginormous number.
but it's not all bad.
because of the awesome generosity of family and friends my net distribution is being put to excellent use. my village is putting their nets up early and using them religiously (that's a big alhamdoulillah!) my friends walter, shermann and lilypad are back and they brought two new lizard friends, smithers and gernonimo. hehehe, no more bugs in my room! my tree nursery and trees that i've given out to the village in the past year are growing like crazy. and there is grass...wonderful grass. like full on grizzly adams beard grass. it's so great; the cows and goats are healthy and are able to eat and eat and eat, and the sahel is beautiful. it really is the "sa" in sahel. so right now, i'm enjoying the greenery while it lasts because i know the cold season is coming!!
on a different note. i would love to announce the news that i'm now a grandma. my goat, clementine, has delivered a healthy baby boy, citron. so i'm officially a herder with my own herd of goats. both dam and kid are healthy and will be returning from the island as soon as the river goes back down and is safe to cross.
have a beautiful and wonderful fall, i'll be enjoying the sahel's own metamorphosis.
cheers!
jaime
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