Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Nomads and Camels - Kind of

We started teacher training this week and that seems to have taken up most of my time. Sorry for not posting in a while.

Last week was good. Friday we took a trip to Thies to exchange some money and take car of a few things. This was a good start to the weekend, but nothing compared to the rest. Saturday morning, we got up early to head out of town again, and I have to admit, I left town with a slightly different idea of the trip than was actually true.

Our friend Masar, who we hang out with at our mutual friend’s hut on the beach, is from Mauritania. He speaks at least 7 languages and has been to most countries in Africa. What does he want to do the most? Walk around the desert – he’s a nomad. He talked about it a lot, saying he planned to join some friends in Mauritania again soon.

Devin, the peace corps volunteer here, had a goal of riding a camel before he left here and had yet to accomplish this. Since I’ve never ridden a camel, this seemed like a good idea. We talked to Masar and he said he could help us take care of this.

What I thought when I left: We were going to meet some nomads, ride camels for longs ways, and see something real authentic.

What the reality was: We went to a French tourist destination and our friend Masar was the only African that didn’t work there.

Still, it was pretty cool and the weekend cost about $40. We took a few separate car rides out to this small town about 4 hours from M’boro – where I live. Then, we talked to this old man in a little grass hut and got a truck to come pick us up. We sat in back as he raced through trees and over sand dunes, unable to slow down without getting stuck in the sand. Needless to say, we moved around a bit in the back.

When we go out there, we walked a few hundred feet to the edge of a dune before we looked down the hill to see the other, 100 foot dune that our tent was in front of. Cool place. It was just like a bowl in the Rockies, but made of sand.

There were camel rides involved – but again, less than we expected. It consisted of the five of us going less than 3k with the guide leading the way at a safe pace… no camel racing anywhere along the way. This was a disappointment, but considering how uncomfortable the seat was, I guess it was ok. They were a far cry from the camel-mounted couches that Masar described himself riding on.

That night we had a great dinner and met some cool people while others played drums and danced, and then a number of people sat around the fire for a while. Me, Devin and Masar took a walk out into the desert to sit under the stars for a while. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Milky Way before – which I feel like is not normal for my age – but I certainly got a good look that night. The only obstructions were the bats that flew overhead and sounded like distant helicopters.

To wrap the weekend up, we arranged to go back on a one horse, flat-bed cart. 40k along the beach is a bit more direct than our previous route, but three hours on a wooden cart is a bit more taxing. We had him drop us off at our friend’s house in the shore and took a swim before heading home.

We had to go to school once back in M’boro because there were still about 60 laptops to charge for the teacher training and first day of student training Monday. This took a bit but wasn’t to bad. The weekend turned out well, as all have so far. I feel a little foolish for thinking it would be so much more, but it was actually plenty – just different than intended.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Monday, July 20, 2009

Life is but a dream

Ok, really, I can’t complain. I manage to a lot, but it just feels good. In reality, life is going as well for me here as anywhere else I ever am.

The teacher training can be frustrating – “Click here…No, I said here... Yes, but now click… wrong button, it’s ok, go back…Too far, uhm… right, ok, now click here… I know you already clicked there, but really you need to move the mouse down about a millimeter and then click… yes, the hand, once it makes the hand.”

But really, the teachers are doing well and progressing much faster than I thought they would. They are kind and patient, even though communication can be an issue and what they’re dealing with is stressful for both them and me. Come to think of it, working with my parents and neighbors in the past has been a good introduction to this – we deal with just about the same problems.

People will get it. For the most part, they want to. For the other part, they have to. They realize that too.

It is a bit sad for me to think it, but people who can’t use computers are at a great disadvantage when compared to others in the world, not socially or culturally, but just in terms of job opportunities. Even in Senegal, ten years from now, when these kids – god willing – graduate high school, it seems like the only options available for people without computer skills will be mango sales and taxi drivers.

If you read the other blog, which I know you must, you will have already read this next bit, but Stephanie interviewed the principal here for a class writing-activity. In the interview, he gave the reason why he saw the computers to be important, stating, “Students need to know how to read, they need to know how to write, and they need to know how to use computers.” Later he continued:

“In the beginning, if you want to know how to use it, if you have the desire or drive, then it is easy. The teachers in the beginning were scared, they kept saying I'm going to break it. But, now they are getting it. In the end it doesn't matter if they are scared or not. Come October they have to use it in their classes and teach it to their class.”

Whether here at school or off in the ‘real-world,’ kids and teachers both will need to know how to use computers. It is a hard reality that I am coming to accept – this along with a few others. Still, as Pierre said, they are going to have to use the computers, but they are getting it. The latter part is encouraging. What I am doing here isn’t a waste of time or a forcing of foreign influence. While the foreign influence is certainly creeping in and may still hit them like a tidal wave, I’m simply helping build reinforcements so it doesn’t knock them down.

In the mean time, weekends are still nice to have off. If you can’t tell, I’ve been at the beach a lot. We started off Saturday with an early walk to the shore, leaving town in a different direction, through a more farmed part of the area. It was a great walk and much different scenery than we normally get, but the slightly extra distance meant that my calves didn’t completely avoid the midday sun. None the less, we made it in time for a great day at the beach.

I am lucky enough to have already made friends with someone who has a two room hut right on the water. It’s great to relax under his trees, talk with him when I can, and meet the other people who float in and out through the day – the lifestyle on the beach is incredibly open and communal, minus those trying to rip off the white people.

For dinner, Friday, we cooked rice and fresh fish and then about ten of us, including Eli, from my group, ended up staying in his hut. It was too great wake up to the waves and walk along the beach before taking a morning swim. The entire day I sat thinking about how dream-like life is here and that a piece of property like this costs about $4,000 US.

Ok, that is life for now. I’m trying to stay regular with this blog thing – and supposedly gaining some more readers if you who shall remain nameless are actually reading now. I’m interested to see if they finally tuned in.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Gimme a minute

I have to sit on this for a bit. It has been the first week of teacher training and I thought about writing a few things but I have to phrase this correctly and it takes some thinking. I won't lie - there are ups and downs. At the same time as it is going well, it's still like building a boat in the ocean - you need to start with something firm, some base. We don't have that with any but a few teachers.

I'll get back to you in a day or two after I chew on this a bit more.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Fun in Foundioune

Last week

The teachers went on a small vacation and, since we had nothing better to do in M’boro without the teachers around, we went with!

The bus picked us up at 6AM Tuesday and we were off to southern Senegal. Again, I love driving through places. Even though stopping and visiting would be better, you can still get a little bit out of watching the change of the landscape and lifestyle. A few hours later we got to the ferry which took us to our destination. It wasn’t an island but we needed to cross a river to get to the tiny town we were staying in.

The place wasn’t that much different than where I live now – small town, not a lot going on – except that there were not only goats all around but also a lot of pigs. This surplus meant that we got two for about forty dollars – good deal. Meals don’t generally have that much meat, but vacations and celebrations are all about eating as much as possible and splurging on good food. We had pork sandwiches for breakfast, pork, sauce and millet for lunch, fried pork over an onion cucumber and fried potato salad for dinner. Of course, this was all eaten from a few large platter and mostly with your hand. Meals here are very communal.

Both afternoons we went swimming in the brackish river, which is supposed to be where the salt water and fresh water mix but it seemed even saltier than the ocean. It’s always nice to take a refreshing swim and be covered in a thin gritty film. On the second day they had even arranged a short boat trip through the mangroves in that area. It was a pretty good ride, but someone needed to be bailing at almost all times since our vessel was a well-worn, Senegalese fishing boat, and one of the teachers started crying because she thought we were all going to drown – none of the teachers could swim.

The two evenings there were spent cooking late into the night, and then, after eating as much as possible, the teachers began to dance. Some of the music and dancing here seems to have no kind of rhythm, but maybe that’s just a white boy’s perspective, because the always manage to find the terminating beat. I just chose to save my dignity and stay out of it. The nights ended with about 20 of us on mats in one room, sweating far more than I ever want to again. They had cabins at the Catholic mission – cheap destination for a Catholic school – but they hadn’t been used in over two years and would have taken more work than it was worth – the mice won that battle.

Highlight of the trip: butchering the pig.

Life lesson: It is always good to find the articulation and make a clean cut around the bone, but when that doesn’t work, just hack through the bone with the machete – people gotta eat.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A taste until tomorrow

So, once again, I have written a few blog posts but between traveling a bit with the teachers, teacher training begining and the power going out for a couple days I have not had a lot of time to post them. Instead of flooding you with all the posts, here is a quick adventure to tide you over - and DON'T FORGET to check in on the other blog for near daily updates of the teacher training and project work - AfricaXO.blogspot.com

The days here can drag a little. We try to stay busy at the school, but with things going so well it gets hard to spend too much time there. Lunch is around 1 most days and then most things are closed until around 4 when it starts to cool down just a bit. It leaves a good space for a nap in front of an oscillating fan that hardly does the trick. After 2 hours of rolling around to find the driest part of the sheet, we usually wake up a bit wrestless.

I got Eli to join me for a walk down to the market with no real goal in mind. After passing a few shops, and struggling to decide if the price of 40 cents which I was quoted for a small mirror was a good price or the toubab (white person) price, we managed to walk out of town town. We stopped at one last mango stand to grab some sustinance before exploring a path through some farms.

Wandering up and down the dunes, our goal always reaching the top of one to pick out the next, we decided to aim for the beach about seven kilometers from where we then were. First, we needed to stop to ask a farmer if we could use some water to wash off the mango juice which had run down our hands and arms. A 'yes' was a pretty safe bet since Muslims aren't supposed to refuse anyone water. Judging from the young farmer's reaction, another safe bet may be that we were the only two white people to ever set foot on that farm.

Minding our way through the patches of cacti and thorny vines, we headed in what we thought to be the right direction. Passing two men, as confused as the farmer by the white people in the desert, we doubled checked... and redirected slightly. Here we met a donkey.

They are all fairly focused in town, always at work, but this is under a cheap yoke and the threat of a whip. In the desert, no one around, he seemed to be quite interested in us and soon became slightly more threatening than those pulling the carts or the one befriended by Pooh Bear. We wondered if this one this was maybe an escaped donkey which now had a grudge against the species that enslaved him. After dancing for a while down a few different paths, a useless, dried vine in my hand, the donkey - which we totally could have taken on in a fight - lost interest and went a different way.

A while later, still not at the beach, we checked our path again with a woman passing by. This time, we were right on course, even after being rerouted by the donkey. We finally got to a strip of pine trees which we assumed signaled the nearness of the ocean. A ways a way, first thinking it was a pack of cats, I got to see my first group of monkeys - I didn't even know they had monkeys in this area. They paused to take a look at us but weren't as interested as the donkey.

Soon enough, we proved ourselves correct and found the ocean just beyond the trees. A part that we had never been to, we used our semi-keen sense of direction - a setting sun on the coast makes North and South pretty easy - to find our way back to a village where we could get a ride back.

We found Stephanie and James in the kitchen helping our land lord, Mohammed, cooking dinner. He had bough some of longest fish I'd ever seen - said it was related to sardines but these were about two feet long, not two inches. Everyone ate dinner on the roof to avoid the heat but eating large hot meals followed by boiling mint tea still takes its toll. We stayed up there for a while afterward but it was almost 11 and teaching began the next day. After staying long enough to be polite, we thanked our host and headed to bed for the secondtime that day.