After the Sunset

It’s been almost two months since I left Senegal as a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and a final wrap-up post of some kind seems long overdue.

For some people, serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer is a childhood dream, infused with the same sort of magic and optimism usually associated with moon-landings and spiritual quests. That was not the case for me; I became a PCV because professionally and personally it seemed like my best option at the time, and because my application went through so quickly I didn't have much time to start job-searching. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a valuable and challenging experience. With the exception of my relatively unhappy Mephaquin stint, throughout my service I felt like I was putting most all of my previous endeavors and experiences to use – backpacking at Camp Unalayee was excellent preparation for rural life; studying French and Art and International Studies and Global Health all turned out to be quite helpful; working with small children was good practice for dealing with irrational drivers and cranky bureaucrats; working at a bookstore was great preparation for being broke. In addition to feeling well-prepared, I was very, very lucky in a number of important ways – with my site, with my health, with my host family, with my PCV neighbors, with a wonderful World Wise Schools correspondence match, and with having supportive friends and family back home. Many thanks all around! 

Now, after what was quite possibly the best vacation ever, I am in Conakry, Guinea, preparing to start a Peace Corps Response position. If you’re interested, my new Guinea-focused blog is called The Kankan Express ("kahn-kahn") and will be doing my best to keep it up-to-date.

Whether you’ve just skimmed a few photos or have been following my adventures with intense scrutiny, thank you for reading, and I hope you found it worthwhile. Merci beaucoup et à la prochaine! 

West African Sunset 

Only Until Next Time

The morning I left Salémata I didn't take any photos. The night before, Jackie, Jubal, Katie O. and Katie W. had all spent the night, and when we woke they went to the garage to see about bean sandwiches and a car as I started to clear out my hut.

I stacked my water filter and trunk outside, set aside the furniture and gas tank for Katie W., and gave most of my clothes and buckets and tubs and miscellaneous things to my host family. Mariama Kesso brought Fatou in and helped me to stack things and divide up the photos and cards and t-shirts. She had the kids bring the buckets and things over to my host father, to be distributed later on. The older kids stopped by to say good-bye; they were stoic and so was I, but when Mariama Gaulo gave me a long, tearful hug, a bracelet, and a beautiful letter, even Mariama Kesso started to well up and I started to sniffle.

Her little brother Mamadou also gave me a heartfelt farewell letter, and all the women, Mariama, Kade, Hassanatou, and Saliou Njan, couldn't look at me without crying. Earlier, Sada, my host father, had presented me with six meters of gorgeous, costly indigo fabric as a gift from the whole family, and my host mother Mariama had given me baobab powder and shea butter. They both said wonderful things, about me and my family and my time in Senegal, reminded me to call when I got to America, and wished me well. I haven't cried so much in a very long while, and certainly not in public. Painful as it was, it was good to know that I'd invested in my life here, that I built relationships that were worth missing, and it was good to see that they cared about me and would miss me as well.

When the time came everyone gathered under the mango tree, Sada and I both made short farewell speeches, and there was not a dry eye on the compound. He finished by remarking that "People say, when they see a good person, that they came from a good family. You came from a good family, and we thank your mother and father. Wherever you go I know that you will do well, because you have done well here and you are a good person. May God bless you and your family, may God grant you good health and good luck, and may God make your road smooth. And this, today, this is not "good-bye," this is only "until next time." Adama, we will see you next time."

Then everyone rose, and picked up my bags and my trunk and my boxes, and we all walked down to meet the car. I didn't have anything to carry, so I carried Fatou, who happily tugged on my braids and poked at my glasses and ate the cookies that a shopkeeper offered me as we walked past. Everyone thanked me, and blessed me, and shook my hands and I did my best to return all the gratitude and well-wishes. My host family made sure we all got into the car, which took awhile, and waved goodbye when the car finally pulled out. I put on my sunglasses to shield my red and puffy eyes, put on my scarf and bandana to keep the dust out, and then just sat there, was so very glad that Jackie and Jubal and Katie O. and Katie W. were wedged in beside me.  

Cute Overload

So, maybe you thought that just because I'm single and childless I wouldn't be churning out look-at-this-baby posts, but I'm here today to tell you about Fatou. Fatou is adorable. That is just a fact. She’s chubby and boisterous and as gregarious as a person can be without being able to actually talk yet. Now that she’s old enough to not forget me every time I leave for a few days, she likes to come over stand in the doorway of my hut, waving "bye-bye" and chattering away in baby Pulaar.

A few weeks ago, at the Tuesday lumo market, her grandmother bought her a new complet outfit and her mom, Mariama Kesso, bathed her, dressed her, doused her in baby powder, and brought her by for an impromptu photo shoot before she had a chance to get it all dirty.

Look how cute this baby is. Cute and smart and sassy. She's got the adorability trifecta going on. I cannot even handle it.

Costa Rica comes to Senegal

Nisha finished Peace Corps in Costa Rica and then came to visit her sister/my friend Emily in Dakar for a few weeks. While she was in country she caught a ride down to Kédougou and I had the pleasure of showing her around Salémata. The ride out was dusty and slow, but we made it, and after a crash course in Pulaar greetings I put her to work painting names on bowls for my host moms. 

We spent a lot of time comparing Peace Corps service in Costa Rica and Senegal, and there were a striking number of similarities. For instance, the roads are terrible, public transport is difficult, host families can be wonderful, acronyms abound, and you eat the same thing every day.

Candid under the mango tree

We spent some quality time with my host family, took the obligatory snapshot in front of the absurd castle that a creepy French man built, had much with my friend Maimouna, and threw rocks at trees in a middling attempt to knock down a few mangoes. 

Having just done her own Close-of-Service, she was really understanding of the miscellaneous loose ends I had to wrap up and gamely hung around during my last work-related meeting. I'd asked my host father to call the meeting so that I could thank everyone who'd participated in the latrine project, solicit feedback and suggestions, and distribute the bars of soap and plastic screening that I'd purchased with the last bit of the project money. (The plastic screening was to replace the metal screening on the ventilation pipes, which already seemed to be rusting on some of the latrines; the soap was a last plug for hand-washing and a token of thanks for all their hard work.) It also gave me a chance to start my good-byes, explain how I would be replaced by another volunteer, and talk about what an honor it's been to spend these last two years with the people of Salémata.

The next morning we day-hiked out to Ethiolo, a nearby Bassari village, and walked around, greeting people, stopping in at the Health Post, and hanging out with RPCV Tatiana's former host family. They invited us to stay for lunch, and then we stayed for tea, and then we stayed to sample some of the local palm wine. Nisha scored big points by offering a giant cup of palm wine to two older ladies on the compound, and then we headed back to Salémata to check out the market.

It was a Tuesday, and Tuesday is Salémata's market day. Everyone comes out for the market, and we ran into all of my host moms, including Mariama, who was selling vegetables and palm oil. 

I feel like Nisha got a really good sampler of all of the things that I do while in village. It was really fun to have her around, she was up for eating out of a communal bowl and carrying water on her head, and really nice to have PCV there for all the acronym talk about COS forms and DOS reports and SPA grants and getting NCI and being an RPCV. There was downtime, day-hikes, work stuff, market day, lunches with friends, and little kids piling in to my hut to ask for photos and band-aids.  

Sajou Ba gets a band-aid for a small scrape on his head. 

Afterwards, I realized that taking her on a tour of all my favorite parts of my life in Salémata was also a really wonderful way for me to revisit the things and people that defined and enriched my Peace Corps service. It was lovely to take some time to really just enjoy being in Salémata before beginning the bittersweet process of saying my final good-byes and I'm so glad that her visit gave me an occasion to do so.

Cups and Kettles

Diabou is now the second-youngest kid on my compound. She’s taciturn, obstinate, and small for her age. She doesn't like new people and refused to acknowledged my existence for my first three months at site. She has a big head and little arms and thick, slightly bowed legs, like a tyrannosaurus. She understands things just fine, but frequently pretends to have not heard when people tell her what to do, and she doesn't speak very often. When she does talk, it’s in this raspy, high-pitched little mouse voice, like a gravel-filled squeaky toy come to life.

Obviously, she is my favorite.

After the initial cold shoulder she warmed to me, and now we're friends. She sits on my feet when I'm trying to read, delivers little piles of mango leaves to my doorstep, brings me her peanuts to shell because she knows I don't like raw peanuts and will not keep a portion for myself.

She calls me “Ada” and she's taken to padding into my hut in the early mornings to perch silently on the corner of my bed and watch me boil water, attempt to sent texts, organize the junk on my table, whatever I happen to be doing. Sometimes after lunch I'll let her come in and play around, like this:

She spent about thirty minutes pouring water back and forth, seeing how high she could lift the pouring cup and swishing things around. She spilled a lot, but nothing disappears faster than water off a cement floor in hot season, so I didn't mind. Also, it was kind of mesmerizing, like a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Coloring

No matter where they come from, pretty much all kids like to draw and color, and while coloring they like to say “Look! Hey! Hey, look! Hey, look, look here! Look! Hey! Look!” until you look over and say “Oh, that’s great! Good job! You’re so good at coloring!” Also, there always seems to be a kid who gets all bent out of shape if another kid loses a marker cap or puts the crayons back differently, and there’s always a littler one who sneaks in to gnaw on the crayons and chew off the marker tips.

I really like that coloring has become part of my routine at site. Kids, mostly host siblings and neighbors, show up in groups of three to six and ask for the mat and books and crayons and markers, and then they're usually pretty content to just sit there and color for an hour or so. Then, someone's mom will call them home, or it'll be time to fetch water or help with dinner prep or play soccer, and they roll up the mat and return all the supplies.

All this coloring has largely been made possible by Troll, my friend and fellow Camp Unalayee alum, has been sending wonderful packages filled with band-aids, ointment, embroidery thread, paper, and markers. My friends and American family have sent paper and markers and all sorts of fun stuff, too, and I've given some of the art supplies to my host siblings and their friends, kept some in my hut for the little kids to use a few times a week, and stashed some in my trunk so I’ll be able to give them as a going-away present next month. 

Fatoumata Bineta Souare

While I was away in Thiès and Saraya last month, my youngest host mom, Kade, had her third baby. I knew she was pregnant but hadn't realized that she was that far along, and was disappointed that I missed the baptism. Of course, I still brought some baby gifts over to her hut - a soft blanket, some fancy soap, a pretty new shirt, and a baby outfit in a little purple bag – and she told me that she’d wanted to name the baby after my mother in America, but when she was visiting everyone just called her “Neene Adama,” literally “Adama’s mom,” and so no one was completely sure how to pronounce or write her actual name, so they named the baby Fatoumata Bineta instead. Maybe next time, though, if she has another daughter.

(Father Sadat and big sister Diabou; new baby girl Fatoumata Bineta; mother Kade)

Snacktime for the Kiddos

The kids on our compound are really adorable. Much more so than most kids. They do have their disgusting moments - the runny noses, the peeing on my lap, the grubby little hands trying to shove gnawed-on biscuits into my mouth - but they're funny and affectionate and they listen when I tell them that I'm busy and they have to go play somewhere else. They're also healthy. My host dad once worked as a community health worker and one of my host sisters is training to be a matrone, which is a kind of birth attendant/women's health worker, and I think that helps. It also helps that he's the traditional village chief and the family has enough corn and rice to go around.

Some people in our area have some pretty unsettling ideas about maternal health, such as the all-too-common misconception that pregnant women shouldn't eat too many vegetables and fruits because vitamins will make the baby fat and cause a difficult birth. Very few women go to all four of the recommended pre-natal visits and many don't make it to any at all. Thankfully, while she was pregnant my host sister made a point of going to all her appointments, of drinking lots of milk, and of eating as well as is possible in our area. She practiced exclusive breastfeeding during those early months  (which is particularly important in areas with unreliably potable drinking water), made really nutritious weaning/supplementation porridges, and ensured that Fatou, her daughter, got all her vaccinations on time. And it shows. It really, really shows. 

Afternoon snack for Fatou and Sajou

Fatou just turned one, she's walking (and dancing, in her wobbly little way), and is quite a bit taller and bigger than a lot of two-year-olds in town. People are always saying that she's "all cheeks" because she has such a chubby little baby face, which is exactly how toddlers are supposed to look. In an area where it's not uncommon to see little kids with the brittle, orange-tinged hair that signals chronic malnutrition, she has dark, thick hair that's already long enough to braid. As a Health PCV I could do a thousand talks about proper nutrition and healthy weaning foods and the importance of vaccinations and still not make as convincing of a case for improved nutrition and preventative care and Fatou and her chubby cheeks do simply by existing.

Families in Senegal

Just after Christmas my mom and brother arrived from California. After they landed in Dakar they got to sleep for a few hours before piling in to a "sept-place" station wagon for the long drive down to Kédougou. We hired Seydou, one of the best drivers in town, and shared the car with PCV Ilana and her visiting family, which made for a much more comfortable ride than would have been possible on public transport.

We spent a day in Kédougou, where they got to see the market and the tailor and visit the wonderful Regional House. It was great except that this is brush- and field-burning season and the air was thick with smoke and dust. Then we headed out to Salémata, where I got to introduce my American family to my Senegalese family here, which was really great. We spent time just hanging out on the family compound, played with the little kids and chatted with my host parents.

My mom decided that she wanted to have her hair braided and my host sister Kesso (a professional-level hair stylist) was happy to oblige. I made henna from scratch, for decorating my mom's feet and the neighborhood kids' hands, and by the end of the visit everyone said that mom was clearly African now. It was really good to be able to bring my American family by the health center, to see some of the latrines being built, and to meet my friends around town, to have dinner with my friend Maimouna, and just generally to show them my life and work here. We dayhiked to the Bassari and Bedik villages, tried palm wine, saw monkeys, hormbills, and a chamelon. It was abundantly clear that host family was really glad to meet my mom and brother -- I've never eaten so well in my time here, and when it came time to leave they showered them with gifts of baobab powder, fonio grain, shea butter, and local crafts.

From Salémata we headed back to Kédougou (to pick up things from the tailor, belatedly celebrate PCV Patrick Hair's birthday, stroll by the river, where we saw a monitor lizard) and then on to Toubacouta. While stopping for lunch in Kaolack we had the good fortune to run into PCV Dan, who came with us to Toubacouta, showed us around, and was just generally very good company. We kayaked through the mangroves, walked with the lions at the Fathala Park, had several lovely dinners, and lounged our way through some very  lovely sunsets over the water.

After that it was on to Mbour, where we stayed in a great little beachside bungalow-style hotel and enjoyed more than our fair share of the delicious Liqueurs de Warang - Passionfruit, Citrus, Ginger & Bissap (like hibiscus), Corrosol (soursop), Cashew Fruit, and Creme de Warang (choco-cafe-banana cream). After the beach we headed up to Dakar, which is kind of an awful city for tourism (harassment, trash-strewn streets, grime and noise abound) but visiting Goreé Island with PCVs Nic & Ivy and their visiting family was great, as was rooftop dinner with our friends Rachel, Emily & Xavier at a fantastic Ethiopian place.

We met up with my host brother Saliou, who lives in Dakar, where he goes to University. I'd never met  him before (but I have greeted him on the phone when he calls Salémata on holidays and the phone gets passed around) and he turns out to be smart and gracious and a really good English speaker. As Family Time in Senegal drew to a close my mom, brother and I saw one of the loveliest sunsets ever, just off Point des Almadies (the westernmost part of Africa), and then headed over to the airport to drop our mom off for her flight.

All the translating, introducing, arranging transport, long car rides, bargaining and explaining were exhausting at times but I'm extremely glad that my mom and brother were able to visit. It was wonderful to spend time with them, after I get back to America they'll have a much better understanding of my Peace Corps service than they ever could have gotten from photos and e-mails, and it means so much to my host family and friends that they came to visit  from so very far away.