Chased by Kids

I am officially done with mandatory Peace Corps training! I just spent 3 weeks in Thies learning about tree grafting, raising chickens, fruit drying, gray water usage and other such things. Training was fun… it was nice to see all of my friends again and to compare stories with them, but I must admit that the technical training itself was not very in-depth…in fact it was, dare I say, often disappointing. For example, when we were taught about fruit drying, the actual lesson was rushed and lasted only about 8 minutes, and then we were given mangoes to “dry”. But as there weren’t any working fruit dryers at the training center, we simply cut up the mangoes and “dried” them in our belly’s. All good fun, but hardly a professional training session that one would expect from the Peace Corps.
Another aspect worth mentioning about my training in Thies was my return to my first home-stay family. We as volunteers were not permitted to sleep over at the training center (apparently it‘s too costly to feed 34 volunteers), so we had to live with the home-stay family again. This was one aspect of training that I did not preview as something that would effect me. After living with my patron family in Sokone (my host brother there owns an ipod…enough said) it was eye opening to return to African poverty. I observed that there were no mosquito nets in the compound, that food was scarce and basic; we always ate rice mixed with dried fish and beans, and there often wasn’t enough of it for everyone. The kids clothes were torn and dirty (very unusual for a Senegalese… they are usually very proud of their dress), and I was asked on a daily basis if I had gifts for them (they demanded things such as warm clothes for the evening, radios, and flashlights). Being with them inspired me in many ways… sometimes, living in Sokone I feel like Senegal is already well on it’s way to development and that there is little that I can do to improve their lives. But now I can better understand that many areas of Senegal still could use help at the grassroots level.
It was great to spend time with them though, and I’m really going to miss my cute little host brothers. As a gift before I left their compound for the last time, I bought a soccer ball for the boys (I had previously bought a plastic ball for them, but a teenager kicked their ball too hard, and thus made it pop). I also had some photos of my host sister printed up for her to keep (she’s a beautiful girl, and she knows it, and loves to look at pictures of herself). And I brought my host parents a mango tree transplant. I figured that the mango tree would be beneficial to them in the long run… in about 4 years it could possibly be a source of income (but my fathers second wife confided in me after I gave them the tree that my host father actually would have preferred a box of tea and a kilo of sugar. Oh well, you can’t please everyone).
After training was over, there was a big party on the beach in Mbour. A big house was rented out, and the theme was “Vegas nights”. At first I dressed up in Toga (think Caesar’s Palace), but then I changed into a dress after an hour. The party seemed doomed at first, the power was out for about 2 hours… but as we’re resourceful peace corps volunteers, we made the most of it with a few candles… and then we found a generator somewhere, and that solved all our problems. The night was filled with dancing … it was a blast!
The next morning was probably one of the most interesting mornings I’ve ever experienced in my life. Me and a few of my friends were walking down a street in Mbour looking for a restaurant for brunch. We turned a corner and two Senegalese “adults” stopped us and told us to wait because there was the concurrant down the street, and that it was very dangerous. As we didn’t really know what a concurrant was, we thought they were saying that the currant (electricity) was cut, or that a power line was down. We looked down the street, and all we saw was a big mass (hundreds) of children between the ages of what looked like 7 and 13, parading down the streets. The two “adult” Senegalese then told us that the concurrant was very dangerous, and that sometimes people get killed and raped. By this time, we were very confused… was a power line cut? Or were they really saying that these kids had the potential to kill and rape? We waited for about a minute, then we proceeded to go towards the mass of children (the numbers were beginning to dissipate)… we were hungry for some brunch, and the restaurant was just past the children. We walked maybe 50 yards towards the children, then a few of them yelled out “TOUBAB” (which means White Person), and a few of them began trickling towards us… then there were more… and then more! We turned around and began walking quite fast away from them (we were giggling at this point), then we turned around and saw that several of them were actually running towards us! At this point, we stopped laughing and took off running away from them as fast as we could. We looked up and a man in a 2 story building told us to enter into his house… so we ran inside and shut the door behind us. We went up to his balcony and looked down, and several of the kids surrounded the house and were looking up at us… Our hearts were racing!!! But after only a few minutes the kids left, and we were once again on our way to the restaurant for brunch. Once at the cafe, all was fine until about half-way through our meal, when the concurrant began to make it’s way back to where it originated from. This time, all the kids passed the cafe without so much as glancing at us, but such was not the case with a group of boys who were about 19 or 20 years old. They came right to the gate of the cafe (it was outdoors), and they began to wave big sticks (about 20cm in diameter) in the air at us, and they were yelling profanities at us in English. The café owners actually ran to the gate and shut it (the gate was only hip-level), and they told the boys to be on their way. And after a few more seconds of calling us vulgar names, they were on their way. SCARY! I just tried looking online to see exactly what a concurrant is, and nothing can be found. Perhaps I'm spelling the word incorrectly, I don't know. But from word of mouth, a concurrant has something to do with male circumcision... and a BIG man is dressed up and carries knives and he acts as a sort of Senegalese boogeyman. All the children are scared of him and run from him... if I find more information about this tradition, I will write about it in the future.

I feel bad for my friend Jen who has her site in Mbour… Besides all the craziness involved with the concurrant, Mbour is a city known for it’s sex tourism, but it’s not necessarily typical sex tourism. In Mbour, there are many older European women who come and hire out young and strong Senegalese men. I was in Mbour for a mere 24 hours, and during that time I saw many old (and more often than not, fat and ugly) women walking down the street or sitting in restaurants with young and attractive Senegalese men. The sex trade in Mbour is an escalating problem…(and as I’ve heard, it’s an even bigger problem in The Gambia, a country that lies within Senegal).
Upon returning to Kaolack yesterday (my regional house), I did a radio show with a fellow volunteer named Tayo. We did a skit, where I was the wife, and he was the husband, and we were trying to teach people how they can save money in Senegal. It was fun to go to a recording studio and to speak French on a radio station in Africa. And in between “scenes” of our skit, we played some music. The whole program lasted about an hour. Next month I have an appointment to go back and record an emission in Wolof (the national language) about something that concerns Urban Agriculture. It should be exciting!
On my way to the radio station yesterday, I realized how completely disgusting Kaolack is. It is quite possibly the most disgusting city I have ever seen in my life. It was pouring rain, so the roads turned to sloppy mud, and the cesspool/open sewers overflowed. It was disgusting, and I had to bike to get to the radio station, so I biked through 1 ½ feet of flood water that collected around a gas station, my foot sunk about ½ foot into mud when I tried to balance myself from falling over, and I got laughed at by a group of boys, and I had mud (and I’m sure poop and several diseases) all over me. Kaolack is not a nice city at all. BUT, it does have the largest covered market in all of Africa.
(Oh, and this is off-topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning… Kaolack, as well as all over Senegal, has these incredible restaurants called Tangana’s that have these delicious fried egg and spaghetti sandwiches! (no sauce on the spaghetti, just plain pasta) They are a carbohydrate overload, but they are so delicious!)
On another note… either today or tomorrow (depending on how motivated I am), I will be returning to Sokone. I’m excited to begin as a fully trained volunteer, and to start tackling projects. On September 1st or 2nd (depending on the moon), Ramadan starts in Senegal. This is going to be an interesting time to be in Senegal because everyone will be fasting for 30 days. They do not eat or drink anything (or indulge in any worldly pleasures) from sun-up to sun-down. Apparently they wake up at 5am for breakfast, and then around 7:30pm they break the fast with some coffee and bread, and then they eat dinner around 9 or 10pm.
I am going to try to fast with them… at least for a few days, so that I can experience what they are going through. Apparently, people get very lethargic and grumpy and lazy due to the fasting, and volunteers who have already experienced Ramadan have told me that it can be very frustrating to interact with Senegalese people if we do not understand what they are going through first-handedly. I don’t think that abstaining from food will be an issue, the only thing that I worry about is abstaining from drinking water in this heat, but I’ll be smart about it… I won’t let it become dangerous. If I see that I can’t fast for 30 days, I will have to eat and drink secretly and away from anyone’s sight… it’s considered rude to do so in front of them during their fast (justifiably so).