Christmas!

In the middle of a brief stay at site, I though I'd update everyone on Christmas. About 20 of us arrived in Saly (a small touristy town next to Mbour) on the 23rd, where we had 3 apartments. We spent the next 4 days enjoying the beach, mocking the sleazy french tourists (is that redundant?), and eating great food. Ironically, being Peace Corps volunteers, we are usually on a somewhat restricted budget. So while everyone else was eating at beautiful restaurants with oceanside views, we scurried around the back of these establishments to eat at "Ceeb shacks" (Ceeb meaning Rice in Wolof), where the average price of a large meal was about $1.25 when converted.
The highlight of the trip was when we ran into some french people at a Ceeb shack. Talking with the cook in Wolof (and even a little Pulaar), we simply blew these tourists away. They were, to say the least, utterly speechless that a bunch of white kids could converse in such strange and exotic languages. One man told us that he had been coming to Senegal for 18 years and still didn't know a word of Wolof. They were so enamored with us that they even started taking pictures of us ("Les Americains qui parlent le Wolof!" they proclaimed). All in all, it was a lot of fun, especially since the locals there are very appreciative of people speaking their language, since most tourists obviously don't bother to do so.
As for Christmas...well, it was different. At around 5AM Christmas morning, I realized I was very far from home as the call to prayer roused me from a deep sleep. It was nice, however, to be in good company. My friends were able to cook pancakes and make hot cocoa, which was definitely a welcome treat from my typical breakfast here (bread with butter). On Wednesday morning I'll be heading off to St. Louis to enjoy New Years with many of the same people. So Merry belated Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Years in advance! Ba suba ak jamm.

Day 100 in Africa

Today marks the 100th day I've been in Senegal. Time has truly flown by. Everything that has happened here since September 11th has been a complete blur. I keep having to remind myself to slow down and appreciate things out here because I'm sure that before I know it, I'll be flying back home. I went to Dakar last weekend to get my fix of Americana (softball games, volleyball games, and beer by the pool...how difficult a life I lead). Since then, it's been a fairly slow week. I've been going to a local shoemaker and helping them account for the sales they made during an exposition to Dakar a few weeks ago. They'll be going to another artisan exposition in Dakar in January, and they've asked me to tag along, which I will gladly do. Since there's not too much going on in my life here, I figured I'd give everyone a glimpse into my daily activites out here:
8:30AM- Get up, eat breakfast with family (bread with butter and coffee while the 1 year old drools all over me or tries to walk between my legs)
10AM- Go to either Maire's office to study Wolof or shoemaker's workshop to help with accounting.
12:30PM- return to house, relax until lunch
1:45PM- Lunch
2PM- Relax, nap, free time...
3:30/4PM- Go to Maire's office for Wolof lessons... where I am usually stood up (more on this later)
5PM- Usually work out around this time. Running through sand is ridiculously tiring...
8:45PM- Dinner with family.
9-15PM- Hang out with host siblings/Go for walk with host siblings/watch movie with said company (we watched Hotel Rwanda last night and Hitman 47 tonight...)
11:30PM- Retire my room. Use the internet for a bit and then off to bed.

As you can see it's a pretty laid back day overall. Not only is time flying by, but I find myself very happy here. The little work that I've done thus far (more will come soon, which I'm looking forward to) has been very enjoyable and my work partners (the shoemakers) are great. I'll probably start working with the basket weavers in the near future which should also be a great experience since it will have me going out to the villages and trying to coordinate orders for thousands of baskets.
I would say my only truly negative experience here has been with my Wolof tutor. I was assigned to him on the first day I got here, so I had little choice in the matter. Simply put: He's awful. In my 3 lessons thus far, we've spent 1 hour on the days of the week and the months of the year, 1 hour on VOWELS (are you serious?!?), and 1 hour learning that just like in French and English, sentences in Wolof begin with a capital letter! Not only is he a terrible teacher, he is also fairly disrespectful. He's stood me up 75% of the time, and has cut class short the other times. Hence, today, while listening to vowels in Wolof (guess what...vowels in Wolof are: a, e, i, o, and u...strange isn't it?), I had an epiphany. I decided that I'm going to stop trying with this gypsy and get another tutor. There are hundreds of friendlier, more qualified people in this town that would kill to get 15,000 CFA a month to speak Wolof with me. I'm done ranting about this, but once I get back from Christmas and New Years, finding a new tutor will be my 1st priority.
Speaking of Christmas. I will be leaving on Tuesday to go to Saly, a town right next to Mbour. It is on the ocean, and a group of about 20 of us have 3 apartments rented out. We'll be there for 4 days, at which point I will come back to Ngaye. As for New Years, not quite sure yet, although I'm leaning towards going to St. Louis. Anyways, I'm off to bed, but I hope everyone back home is enjoying the cold weather and holiday season. A plus tard!
P.S Picture is of my house from down the street.

Tabaski!

It's Wednesday night around 11:30pm. Yesterday was the gigantic holiday we call "Tabaski" in this part of the world. As I mentioned earlier, during Tabaski, a sheep is slain to honor Abraham's sacrifice. According to the story, when forced to make a sacrifice, he chose a sheep over his son, thus the continuing tradition. However, with my family being quite large (and wealthy), we had two sheep. The volunteer that I replaced (Pete), came for the festivities. Since his new host family in Thies is Catholic, they obviously did not slaughter sheep on this grand day...weird. Thus, at around 10am yesterday morning, the first of two sheep was laid on the ground, facing Mecca. A small hole was dug into the sand for the blood to flow in. Quickly and efficiently, my host father slit its throat, with my host brothers holding it down until the deed was finished. Without any delay, the second sheep was brought in. Once again, a swift slash with the knife led to another dead mammal. Immediately, the family started skinning the sheep, which Pete and I helped with (I had my fancy bubu on, so all I did was hold the legs up in the air while my host brothers did most of the skinning). Within 30 minutes, ribs were cooking on the grill and the only visible remains of the sheep were the skinless heads, with the eyeballs jutting out. I took many pictures of the events, and even recorded one gruesome video, but they will not be shown on this blog.

Having eaten a meal's worth of ribs by noon, we had another lunch made up of potatoes, onions, and yes, sheep meat. Later, around 2, we had another large portion of meat. After an quick nap, another serving was given to us around 4. From 5 or so until 10pm, we walked around to different households, asking for forgiveness (a tradition during Tabaski. You ask others to forgive you in order to start fresh with the new year). At 10, we had dinner. As you can imagine, there was meat, and lots of it. In fact, the meat has been ongoing, as we even ate it for dinner tonight. To sum it all up, Tabaski was absolutely exhausting. Even though my Wolof has been improving, I felt really inadequate at times since every household we went to grilled me in Wolof to see how I measured up to Pete. It really got me motivated to improve my Wolof as quickly as possible so I can actually handle my own when it comes to these events. Other than that, it was a good time and I look froward to next year's Tabaski.

Tonight we went to a pre-wedding dance ritual. During this event, many people gather together to dance and poke fun at the respective families of the bride and the groom. My host sisters asked me if I wanted to go, so i tagged along. It was a pretty big deal, with tons of music and laughing. I was having a great time when suddenly a fairly heavy set man came up to shake my hand. The conversation went something like this:
"Fallou Gallas, why are you here?"
"My name is Fallous Gallas Niang. I am replacing Mustafa here. I am here to watch the dancing" (This is approximately how idiotic I sound in Wolof)
"Something something something...blah blah only women here...blah blah blah men elsewhere"
It was at that moment that I realized that I was the only male figure in the compound over the age of 6. It didn't seem to be a big deal, but there I stood, not having shaved in a month (with my mustache growing like a California wildfire...thus making me look like a creep) amongst a crowd of all women. Nobody else said anything about it, so I just sat and enjoyed the show until my host sisters decided it was time to go home. Now I'm off to get some sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to a shoe workshop to help the owners with their accounting and their order forms. Friday through Sunday I'll be in Dakar. We have a regional meeting on Friday to welcome all the new volunteers to the region, and Saturday we have 2 softball games (I went 3 for 3 in my last game...so watch out!). Until next time, ba ci kanaam!

The Tour de Thies begins...

Well, Thanksgiving came and went. Coming from a severely weird family, I am not all that used to making a big deal out of Thanksgiving. Despite this, I took a trip down to Kaolack for the occasion and got to celebrate it with some fellow volunteers down there. Even with our meager resources, we (myself not included in any cooking activities) were able to cook 2 turkeys and even have mashed potatoes and pie! The dinner was, to say the least, awesome. Before dinner, we even managed to get a small football game in, so it was definitely an all-american day for us. I came back on Friday and have been keeping busy ever since. Tomorrow I will be going to Thies to get an outfit made for Tabaski. Seeing as how 90 to 100% of my recent conversations in Wolof have revolved around the upcoming holiday (Tabaski is the Muslim new year), I feel that I need to look appropriate for the occasion. Essentially, this means that I will be dressing like a donkey in the circus come next Tuesday.

Tabaski itself should be quite interesting. Most families buy a sheep and kill it on this special day. Our family, however (being the "patrons" that we are), will most likely buy two, if not three sheep. The men in the family will help the father cut the sheep's throat, and then it will be eaten in a grand feast. There will most likely be a lot of sitting around all dressed up, and discussing how much food there is and how good it is. It's somewhat strange how quickly I've gotten used to the gender roles here. Granted, my family is about as Wolof as you can get, but the culutral differences are still striking. For instances, the three wives spend the majority of their days cooking meals and cleaning/taking care of the children. During meals, there are two bowls served. One bowl is for women and very small children. Usually, this bowl has around 10-12 people around it. The men's bowl, however, only has 5-6 men around it, and we get to use spoons. Furthermore, when the men are done eating, the women are allowed to come over and eat what's left from our bowl. Just writing that last section made me realize how wildly different gender relations are out here.

I've decided to be somewhat adventursome and bike to Thies tomorrow. It's 45km there (about 28-29 miles), so the trip there should take me somewhere around 3 hours. I'll get to Thies, buy fabric, give it to the tailors with my requests (I'm getting a grand bubu made...aka I will look like a picnic table), and then come back to Ngaye Mekhe after lunch. All in all, it should be about 5-6 hours of biking, so I'll probably be fairly exhausted by the end of the day. So I'm off to get my beauty sleep for now, but hope everyone back home is doing well and enjoying the cold (it still gets really really hot here during the middle of the day...). Ba suba ak jamm!

(Picture is of 3 of my brothers here, Ibrahima, Fallou Gallas, and Ahmet with my A's hat on).