The African Wedding that Went for Days

…literally, days long!

About 2 weeks before the actual event happened, my host family informed me that my 16-ish (age is usually unknown here) year old sister was going to get married. My emotions went in two directions at this point. One – super excited because I get to experience a wedding being held in my own home! Two – bummed that I will witness the reality in my own home of a 16-year old getting married, a very common occurrence in this country.

My family was very excited about me having a traditional appearance for this wedding, which usually includes a complet (the outfit they wear), braids, and henna. So the night before the wedding, my younger sister went to work applying henna on my feet.

The process here involves covering your feet in designs made out of strips of something resembling medical tape and then covering that with the henna paste. Then, you have to sit for a long time to let that sink in, but for whatever reason this also requires you to cover your feet in plastic bags while you wait?? So since it was nighttime already, I ended up sleeping with plastic bags on my feet for a night haha. The next morning (the day I was told the wedding would start), the bags were taken off and all of the henna paste scraped off. I thought this was the end, but THEN they cover your feet with a mixture of something called “manioc” and charcoal powder, which makes the henna black. You sit with that for another hour or two, and then you’re finally done! It’s supposed to turn completely black, but mine turned a combo of black and yellow, so I just looked like I had bruises all over my feet – eew. But my family, and in fact the entire village, loved it! Everyone noticed and was super excited I had henna on my feet. Though most of it has faded I still get lots of comments and I think it’s because my toenails are black right now so everyone knows I’ve had henna recently…

                                        

Look at the beautiful coloration...

The Finished Product!

By about noon no guests had shown up. So I kept asking when the wedding would start and was told “evening”…but around 6pm people just started to arrive, so there must have been some organization or method to the madness! People stayed all evening and we cooked dinner for them in this insanely large pot that the whole village shares for special occasions. Other women in the village came to our compound and were in charge of cooking all of the meals.

That's a lot of rice!

Our chefs

                                     

As the evening progressed, people just sat around and talked, and the young people turned on a radio and started dancing, but no one went home. Then as it got later, it became evidently clear to me that no one was going to leave, but that they were all staying at our house until the next day. So mats got pulled out and people pretty much slept wherever.

The next day, the festivities continued as usual. People sat around and talked, people listened to music, and there was food! At one point all of the young girls gathered my sister’s clothes and went to the well to wash them. Apparently when you get married and move to your husband’s village, you leave all of your old clothes behind and only take new things with you. So we washed her clothes and then left them in the hut.

Carrying my sister's clothes to the well

                                                 

And then it came time for my sister to leave for her husband’s village. I thought there would be some ceremony or event, but the groom didn’t even come to our village for this portion of the wedding. When it was time to leave, a large vehicle pulled up with some of the groom’s friends. The men said lots of prayers and then my sister was loaded into the car with her eyes shielded. They then loaded up all of her belongings, and any of the guests that wanted to go to the groom’s village PILED in (I didn’t go to this part – it was kinda far and my host dad was a bit worried about me attending). From what I understand, the groom’s village is pretty much a replica of what happened in our village: talking, eating, dancing.

My host sister sitting with her head covered while prayers are said

Being carried to the car

People waiting to pile in

So for one day our compound quieted down and then after one day of festivities in the groom’s village, they all came back! The car pulled in again and all of these women, minus my sister, unloaded. They stayed one more night at our house and on the 4^th day finally started to return home. Once everyone had left, the silence was heaven. I obviously stuck out through all of this so everyone wanted to talk to me – my Pulaar got a workout which also meant I was extremely tired at the end of every day!

Overall the experience was not quite what I had expected. The event seemed almost sterile to me because no one really paid any attention to the bride. It was a gathering because of her but that didn’t seem to matter. And when it was time to leave for the groom’s village, neither my host mom or host dad went along, nor did they say goodbye to her. Considering that in Senegal, not a lot of travel happens between villages, even a 10K move can mean months before you see each other again, so I found this particularly sad. My village loved my outfit though and people are constantly asking me why I’m not wearing my complet! 

My host mom and me

It was a great adventure in terms of cultural integration!

Thanks for reading! Peace & love, Lindsay

The Village Life

Ok, the radio silence is finally being broken! I got installed in my village 5 weeks ago as of this week and can’t believe how quickly that time flew by. At the same time, village life has a very slow and leisurely pace that as many of you can imagine is something hard for my personality. The adjustment process is still ongoing, but there is a beautiful simplicity to the life in my village.

First things first – my new name is Weli (Welly) Kande. In Pulaar, my first name literally translates into “delicious” or “good”, so people usually say something is “weli” in reference to a meal. I’ve never heard this used as a name other than my namesake (my host dad’s deceased mother, and also her granddaughter), so even when I introduce myself to other Pulaar people they laugh…it is a very respected name in my village though and some people even refer to me as Daa which means grandmother.

My new namesake Weli

I haven’t quite completed all of the elements of my hut yet, but pictures will be coming soon! I have 24 people living in my compound including myself. Of these, 8 are between the ages of 0-6, and another 8 are between the ages of 10-16. So needless to say there is TONS of action and energy happening at all times of the day. I really enjoy this aspect of my house and get along with everyone for the most part.

My sister-in-law Aminata and Miriama

Mehta & Ansata

Kumba, Mehta, and Miriatou

Baboyel

My host brother Alfa

Sitting inside during the rain storm

My host sister, also Aminata, and Weli's daughter Kaciatou

My host brother Ousmann

Hanging out at the compound

Everyone in my village is a farmer, so on most days I feel like I live in a zoo. At any given time we have cows, goats, sheep, horses, donkeys, chickens, cats, or dogs in our yard, sometimes all at once! I have come to detest goats the most because they make the creepiest noises that can sometimes be confused for screaming people…it’s really weird! We also grow millet, corn, sorghum and beans.

A man came through our compound on his bike one day to buy some chickens, and I couldn’t resist this picture. Yes, those chickens are still alive!

Yes, those chickens are still alive...

Honestly, though the food is sometimes rough and really repetitive, I do admire the way we live off the land. My family eats meals containing almost entirely things we grow ourselves (and since we don’t have a garden right now that means almost no fruits or veggies). One of their favorite dishes is a leaf sauce, and they literally cut a branch of leaves off of a tree and we pick them off and turn that into a sauce. If I didn’t feel enough like a hippy already this lifestyle makes me feel like hippy combined with little house on the prairie!

As far as amenities go, my house is the only one in our village with some electricity. We have a solar panel on our main building that provides light at night from one lightbulb, and it also serves as a place where everyone in the village comes to charge their cell phones. We also have a tiny TV that gets wheeled out randomly and hooked up with tons of extension cords to watch some burned DVDs. Most of the time they are in random languages and are just watched for the entertainment. No joke, one afternoon we were sitting around and they decided to watch TV, and 15 minutes later we were watching a DVD of Michael Jackson music videos! They were so confused that I knew all of the words haha. It has been fun with the World Cup on right now though because all the men in our village come over to our house and crowd around this tiny tv to try and watch some of the games. I am the only girl that sits and watches with them, and sometimes I get so riled up that I end up yelling at the TV in English, which just results in all of them staring at me like I’m crazy. If only they saw me watching an IU basketball game…

From a work perspective, my first 3 months at site are really meant just to focus on improving my local language. I had a strange realization one day that it had been a long time since I’d understood an entire conversation held in my presence, but I am improving every day. The region I am in, Tambacounda, is also going through Universal Bed Net distribution for malaria nets right now, so I got to go around with my work counterpart and conduct a census of my village and the 4 other villages that report into my health structure. That was a great experience because we visited every single household in each of the 5 villages. As a result, my village learned that they are actually about 200 people under what they estimated, so my village population is only 550 with 35 households. I don’t know everyone yet, but almost everyone knows my name and I routinely have strangers greeting me by name.

I have also been making a lot of great contacts. I went to a cultural event with a few of my middle-school aged sisters and met the principal who speaks English very well. During the event, the administration of the school noticed that I couldn’t see very well and invited me to sit with them at the front of the stage area. I felt weird about this because it almost seemed like I was getting preferential treatment for looking like a foreigner, but I think they just knew I was someone “special” for the school. So then out of the blue they invited me up to introduce myself in Pulaar in front of about 200 people! I was SO nervous, and stumbled through it quite a bit because at this point I had only been in site about 1 week, but it worked out ok. Then later during the event, the Principal got up and said that he had a phrase in English and he would give a new cell phone to whoever could repeat it first. He then said “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” I literally busted out laughing, and one of the teachers turned to me and asked me if I knew it. When I said yes, I had some students around me asking me to teach them. A few students tried the phrase and couldn’t get it, so then the Principal called me up and asked me to “show everyone how it’s done”. Naturally I said it flawlessly, but then he tried to give me a tongue twister in Pulaar and I failed miserably. The entire thing was hilarious, and as a result I’ve already worked with that principal on a radio show in English, so I’m excited for the next school year and all of the opportunities that exist!

Otherwise it has just been ridiculously hot here, but rainy season is right around the corner! My compound looked like this after only 1 intense rain, so I can only imagine the scene when it starts to rain every day!

The center of our compound flooded after 1 rain

Thanks for reading! Peace & Love, Lindsay

The BIG Move - Installation Day

Well tomorrow is the big day when I finally move into my permanent village site! I arrived in the regional capital of Tambacounda on Sunday with all of my belongings in tow. Peace Corps has regional houses in many regions across Senegal where Peace Corps volunteers can gather periodically for meetings, use the internet, cook an American meal, and just generally hang out. We have one in Tamba, so that's where I've been for the past 2 nights.

There is one other new volunteer, Dario, installing out of Tamba as well. When we got here on Sunday, we were met by a few current volunteers who have been in charge of taking us around to buy anything we need. For many of you, it will come as no surprise that I've already been made fun of for my incessant list-making: 1 shopping list, 1 list of furniture to get made in village, 1 list of things to do tomorrow, etc.  It has been pretty intense though trying to purchase everything you think you might need for the next 2 years, at least the big stuff. So GO LISTS!!!

Tomorrow morning, a couple of Peace Corps staff members will arrive at the Tamba regional house to take Dario and I to our sites. First we will go around to a number of important members of the Tamba community to introduce ourselves - the police chief, the equivalent of the major, the regional hospital chief since we're both health volunteers. Then it's go time! I'll get driven to my village with all of my possessions, introduced to my family, and then left.

My village is only about 10K from the regional capital, so if I forget something or want to use internet, it's only about a 30 minute bike ride into the city. In that regard, I have it much easier than many other volunteers. Dario is actually based in the regional capital so it's nice to have a friend located so close to my site. In my village, I will finally have my own hut and bathroom. After two months of living out of suitcases, moving around a lot, and sharing all of my space, I am excited to have a hut to call my own. It is in my family's compound, but I can paint it and really nest! No electricity, but my family does have a solar panel (pretty fancy for a village!) so they have a few lights around at night.

I think I should feel more nervous right now than I do, but honestly I am very excited! My language has a long way to go, but I'm a big fan of the immersion technique because I think it works, so I'm confident my language will just continue to improve! Also excited to start learning more about my village and gathering ideas for what I can do to improve the health of my community.

Next stop - Saare Aladji, population 750!

Thanks for reading. Peace & love.

NEW ADDRESS!

Sorry for 2 posts in one day, but I want to make sure everyone has my new address. This is where any mail for me should be sent for the next 2 years :)

PCV Lindsay Swisher
BP 320
Tambacounda, Senegal
West Africa

I've also updated it on the right-hand pane with the rest of my contact information!

Tomorrow It Becomes Official!

So it's finally the end of our 9-week training. I swear in tomorrow as an official Peace Corps Volunteer at the US Ambassador's residence in Dakar. Training has been a very intense time, if nothing else because the schedule is so packed full of sessions, activities, home stays, and tests that you have no time to stop and really process anything. It has been a whirlwind that I have loved.

Last weekend I stayed with my training host family for the last time. It was just a 3 night stay, so the time flew by, but it was great to visit with them again before I move to Tamba. There have been a few times during my stays with them that I get really irritated by the kids because they constantly want to touch my stuff, and a lot of times they do it without asking! But then I remind myself that they are just genuinely curious about almost everything I have because it is so new/shiny/intriguing. My parents sent me balloons to give to my host siblings during my last stay, and I have never seen a group of people enjoy balloons as much as these kids. After we blew them up, they wanted to untie them so they could save them for later. My language skills have been improving, but I had a really hard time explaining that balloons don't really work like that! It was a wonderful reminder to look at the pleasure in even the simplest of things, something this family has constantly been teaching me these last 2 months.

My Siblings and Their Balloons!

Saying goodbye to my host family the morning I departed their house was by far the hardest day I've had in country so far. However, I know I'll come back to visit them as often as I can. It was fun though because that afternoon, Peace Corps hosted a family party where a few members of our host families got to come to the training center in Thies for a thank you celebration. We had a great time eating, dancing, and listening to Senegalese drummers. My family even brought me a very incredible and humbling gift of a traditional Senegalese outfit. I put it on and my mom was so thrilled! I know my family doesn't have much, and this gesture moved me beyond words (especially trying to express gratitude in Pulaar!).

My namesake and me at the Family Party

My host mom, namesake, and me in my new outfit

In addition to saying goodbye to my host family, I also have to say goodbye to my language group in a few days. This may be even harder because I have grown really close with these people and they are my support system in this country that I see and talk to every day. I am pretty bummed to be living about 6 hours on average away from all of them, but it gives me lots of excuses to travel around other parts of the country. We all got matching clothes made that we wore to the family party on our last official day of language training, so I also have a skirt now to remind me of them!

My language group

I can't believe that 9 weeks has flown by so quickly. I'm beyond excited to swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer tomorrow. Of course it's also daunting because, on the 14th, I get dropped off in my village with all of my belongings and that's where I'll live for the next 2 years. I feel like I've done so much already that sometimes it's hard to believe there is another 2 years to come!

Thanks for reading. Peace & love.

My New Home! (for 2 years...)

Well I just returned from a 16-day stay with my training host family sans internet. I actually wrote this post well before then (April 9^th) but couldn’t connect to the internet at our training center so am posting it now.

I did indeed find out my permenant site! While I assumed I would be moving to Kolda, the region in the south of Senegal where most of the Fulakunda speakers live, I’ll actually be moving to Tambacounda, a region in the middle part of the country over to the east. I am the only person from my language training group moving there. Tamba is one of the largest regions in Senegal, but there are only 17 Peace Corps volunteers based there, so there is lots of opportunity for collaboration. The region has 1 economic development volunteer, 5-6 health volunteers (including me), and the rest are all focused on agriculture work.

I will be based in Saare Aladji (Aladji Village), population around 750.  I got to visit my village for one night and meet my new host family. My host father is the chief of our village and he has 3 wives, all of whom live in our compound with their respective children. This will be very different from my training homestay since I was in a 1-wife household then.

In this setting, I will have my own hut within our compound rather than a room within the main building. I still don’t have electricity, though our house has a solar panel so we have minor light in the evenings and a place to charge my cell phone. I can paint my room, so stay tuned for pictures once I move in – I’ve got some big ideas :)

My New Hut - view from the backyard!

Sunrise view from my backyard :)

The Volunteer who has been serving in my village for the last 2 years

I will move into my permanent site sometime around May 15^th, and then the true work begins!

A Life Without Internet...

INTERNET!!! Let me say, this post was originally written on April 1st. Due to internet I'm a bit behind in posting...

First off, let me say that I’m SO sorry for the delay in updates! My life has been very intense lately, mainly due to a very busy training schedule and some home stays with no internet.

A few key points first:

1.     I now have a Senegalese phone number! You can call me at 77-489-0308 (the country code for Senegal is 221). My parents have been buying credit on Skype and calling me that way, but I’m not sure of the cost. I can receive and send texts as well, but probably on a sparingly basis due to cost.

2.     I did manage to keep my cell phone number in the States. I converted it to Google Voice, so if you send me a text or call me on my old number, I’ll still get it! It’s actually really fun to get voicemails because they get emailed to me and I can listen to them :) I can’t call back but I can text back via email.

Ok – now for the fun stuff! Since I’ve last written, I’ve gotten lots of details about my life!

I am officially learning Fulakunda, a dialect of the Pulaar language. I’m happy to be learning a dialect of Pulaar because variations of this language are spoken in a lot of other West African countries.

For 15 of the last 20 days I’ve been doing community based training, which means that we get split into small language groups with 1 instructor, and then taken into villages where we live with host families. There are 2 other Peace Corps trainees in my group, and our instructor is a Senegalese native who is my age, so we all get along really well.

My Language Group! Nathan, Boubacar, and Randi

When I arrived in the village of Samba Laobe, I could speak about 6 sentences in Pulaar, mainly greetings, but was dropped off at my host family’s house. I was instantly greeted with huge smiles and the shouting of my new name, Rama Kande. In the Senegalese culture, it is common to have a namesake, someone in your community or family after whom you are named. So, my namesake is my 5 year old sister, Rama Kande – super cute but comes with a serious 5-year old attitude!

My and my namesake Rama

In my compound, there are about 15 people. I have my own room but share the toilet and shower facilities (which are located outside) with everyone else. The toilet took some getting used to since it’s just a hole in the ground, but there’s no roof, so one advantage of that is getting to see the stars and moon at night while you’re peeing haha. (Sanibel crew – the stars here are incredible and I think of you all often when I look at them! SO bright!)

The experience with my family has been absolutely amazing. Imagine allowing a complete stranger to move into your house, occupy a room, and essentially become a member of your family. Now imagine that this person spoke no more of the language than a 2 year old! This was me just 15 days ago, and the hospitality my family showed to me was without a doubt one of the most gracious things I have ever experienced.

My Neene

My Baaba

My Wonderful Senegalese Family

My typical schedule is as follows:

7:30am – 8:45am Wake up, eat breakfast, leave for language class

9:00am – 1:30pm Language class at my instructor’s house (in his sandy yard that contains about 20 goats and 10 chickens…needless to say a DRASTIC change from my cubicle at Discover)

2:30pm Eat Lunch – I eat every meal with my hands, and I eat LOTS of rice. I haven’t gotten sick of having the same meal over and over yet, but after 2 years I may never want to look at rice again

3:00pm – 5:00pm Relax/Make Attaya – The afternoon is just too hot to do anything, so most people stay inside during this time. They either take an afternoon rest or make attaya, the traditional tea in Senegal. It’s a 3 cup process that takes about 2 hours to complete. I’m learning to master the process, but I’ve got some practice to do!

5:00pm – 7:00pm Either more language class or some Peace Corps activity with the other 2 people in my language group and our instructor

7:00pm – 8:30pm Hang out with my family/help make dinner

8:30pm Eat Dinner (This took some getting used to because I was so incredibly hungry this late at night)

9:00 Hang out with my sisters and practice Pulaar or dancing. They think my attempt at dancing is hilarious, but I’m learning lots of good Senegalese moves!

I have no electricity in my house at all, and no running water. So at night if I want to read or need to study, I use my headlamp (thanks sis – it’s getting tons of use!).  My family usually goes to the well every morning and stocks up on water for the day that we keep in large plastic tubs – I run all mine through a filter before drinking, don’t worry! I have been surprisingly comfortable with this drastic lifestyle change, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a lot of time to even think about not having electricity or internet.

A couple of other pics because they're fun!

Jemmi, Me, and Samba

Carrying our baby Samba on my back

A few things I have missed:

1.     News – I have very little idea of what’s going on in the world and that is a struggle for me!

2.     Broccoli – So weird, but I want some! There are veggies here but I haven’t seen any broccoli yet.

3.     March Madness – Even though my team didn’t make it (womp womp) I still crave sitting with a great IPA and watching some basketball

I am truly loving this experience though and am so happy with the decision I have made to take my life in this different direction. I find out my permanent soon and then will be traveling for 4 days to visit the volunteer I’ll be replacing, so exciting news to come!

Peace and love to all! Thanks for reading.