Mauritanian Snow

Sorry it has been forever since my last entry. I’ve been in the village of Guédé Chantier for a week, which is in the north of Senegal near the border with Mauritania. I was lucky enough to get really sick the night we left, and was just as sick the entire 10 hour bus ride home, which happens to have been my birthday. I’m better today, and I don’t think I have malaria, so that’s good.

There was a coup in Guinea Bissau about 2 or 3 weeks ago and the Senegalese were hardly concerned. We asked about it the day it happened in class, and my teacher said he was not surprised at all, and that it would happen again soon. He made the example of a friend he had there. This friend went to engineering school in Europe and got a degree, then came back to Guinea Bissau and got a job as an engineer at a power plant earning 24,000 CFA a month, which is about $12 US. To put that into perspective, a doorman at a hotel in Guinea Bissau makes 27,000 CFA a month, and a bag of rice that will last a month costs 17,000 CFA. It is just amazing to see how people here are just as complacent about the coup as one would find in the US, even though Guinea Bissau is just below Senegal.

Ok back to Senegal and the program.
Things are going incredibly well in the village with our project in Guédé and it is amazing to see what development really is and to really be here doing it. Everyone always views working for social justice or for development as a really glamorous job, when it’s really nothing of the sort. When it’s not too hot, and when we can find the people we need to meet with, we are usually just talking, although it is really exciting to see people taking the initiative to make change in the village.

When it comes down to it, I feel like our presence here is just as a spark with the challenging of setting up a structure where the fire will keep on burning when we leave. Or even more so, I would like to think that we are just creating opportunity and providing a little bit of motivation and maybe some materials, empowering people to do what they want to do. I think the topic of health is also one that doesn’t need as much encouragement, as it is such an important part of people’s lives, and going along with that, it is the cornerstone of development.

I feel very positive about or project so far, and I’m very excited to see where it goes in the next stage, implementation. It has shifted from creating a health guide for use in the village to creating a some materials for use by a group of villagers we talked to that will sensitize the population about the causes and how to prevent various diseases that are common in the village, as well as contraception, nutrition and basic sanitation practices. These are all things that the villagers have expressed they want to learn and to spread knowledge about. That fact is the most important one to take away from this, we are just asking what people want and then assisting in organizing people to accomplish that. Ideally it would just be that, organizing and teaching to organize, although it is impossible to be completely objective, I would say I am just trying to be very conscious of where I am putting fourth my opinions and making sure it is positive when I do so.

It was a little interesting working in the village this past week, as local elections are on the 22nd of March and many people in the village were attending political meetings most of the time, and it was hard to find times to meet. Campaigning in Senegal is very different from America. You’ll see caravans of about 20 cars with the candidate in one of them standing up through the moon-roof waving to the villagers they pass through a town and the cars behind him will have a ton of people in them and huge speakers blasting traditional music. So the caravan will drive around the desert and go to each village, causing a commotion and such. But it does attract a lot of people here, and when the political caravan comes through town, with that all that funky music playing, the whole village comes a runnin’ out of their houses and my god can they dance. Get out the vote, Senegalese style.

My home life here in Guédé isn’t as good as in Dakar, as not every member of the family speaks French, and most are fluent only in Wolof and Pulaar. They always complain to my Senegalese roommates that I don’t discuss with the family enough, but I only understand a few words in both languages. I know how to say hi and ask for ones name, but that’s about it. It’s a little frustrating, but I’m getting by. However, things are better than they were, as I’m learning about the culture and the language bit by bit. You have to say hello to every single person in the family or they think you are upset with them. However with that, the hard part is that there are so many people in the house, and so many friends and extended family that are always visiting that it has taken two weeks for me to be sure of who is in the family and learn everyone’s name. It’s also something universal in Senegal that the more you shoot the shit and have small talk with someone, the more you care about her or him. So being American, it’s a little difficult, we are very goal oriented and are always trying to go somewhere, and saying hi in passing, rather than stopping and really talking to people. It’s really important, and especially here, to really just be somewhere and to really be there with the people that surround you.

So anyway, some fun Pulaar: “Be careful of me” is “Ray no me” (roll the r a lil bit). One way to say “Hello/how are you” is “mbada” and “jarama” is “thankyou”.

However, one thing I’m learning from being submersed in so many languages I don’t know is that talking smack is universal. One always knows when someone is talking smack no matter what language its in.