Divorced from reality

So, I created the title of this blog awhile ago and have yet to write on it partially because I forgot what I even dreamed about. But with a webpage history search I found the page that I was looking for and the essence of the dream came back to me. Drugs. My dream was about a drug that I had created. What the drug was for or why I even made it I can only imagine. It could have been because I watched a movie the night before and a character was influenced by some drugs. My sub-conscious mind decided that this was something that I needed to dream about. I looked up a google search and what I found through a majority of the searches is that when you dream about drugs you are trying to divorce and delude yourself from reality. Now I know whenever we look at these kinds of things such as dream interpretations, horoscopes etc... we always seem to try and find some truth to it and I say why not. It brings up things that we perhaps have thought about or brings about a different perspective. In my case I did feel like I was trying to take a break from where I am and in actuality that this is how most peace corps volunteers feel at least one time in their service. Perhaps it had come about more so now because of the holiday season also because I have finally come to terms that my host family will always see me as a foreigner no matter how much I try to integrate. Someone not from their world. Is that too extreme to say? Not from this world? Yet, I am not too far from their way of being. Both sides of my family are from third world countries and even though I was sheltered by the way that they lived for most of my life does not mean that I won't ever encounter it. Being here in Senegal has in a way allowed me to understand my families past and present without the emotional connection. Along the way my actual families have also helped me see how hard working we can be when given the right opportunities. What else is making me have such a disconnect? Perhaps it is the constant harassment everywhere I go or the lack of appreciation of your very existence. Sometimes the a way to take a handle on these moments are to take a step back and hide for a while. This doesn't mean hide from the world forever but it's like doing ardha kurmasana in yoga, coming back to a comfortable pose and staying there until you feel energized to come back out of it. Think things through and perhaps you will find something out that you didn't realize before. I know that all this may sound vague but when it comes down to it and it happens it will be so much more lucid.

Romeo oh Romeo wherefor art thou Romeo?

It was just another day in the village until I received a call from my one of my peace corps volunteer friends. They had found four one/two week old puppies at the local Tambacounda bar. She knew from previously that I had lost my first pup and decided to see if I would want to resurrect the experience again. I had a chance to think about it on my bike ride back into town and well when I got to the bar and saw the pups, I immediately couldn't say no. I knew that I fell in love. There were four of them and well I had to just pick one. So, out of the four there were three that looked like my previous puppy and then one that was different. This puppy had a color of dark brown and white fur. His face is black with a dark brown tint, he almost looks like a little bear. I feel in love with him and the name Romeo seemed appropriate. So, so far I have had him for a week now and the first few nights were rough with lack of sleep but now, slowly, slowly am I finally getting some sleep. If you would see the dogs here they are nothing like what you would see in the States. There are few people who own them and if they own them it is likely that they beat the dogs. My host family has a family dog already and if I train Romeo I hope that he can be a good addition to the family when I leave, if he makes it to that age. It is sad to say but it is hard for a dog here let alone a human being. I have yet to experience a funeral but I have experienced a death in the village. 2 months later.... So, I found out that the puppy I got ended up being a girl. I had to do a quick name change and decided that Lola was appropriate. The reason being because "Lola" in Tagalog means grandmother. My puppy was pretty much like an old person, she couldn't see well, could walk very well and didn't have any teeth. Now i'm not saying that all older people have this but it was like the movie "Benjamin Button". Lola is slowly integrating to my village and so are my villagers.

What's on the work front?

If I were back in California I know that summer would be ending, school would be starting soon and well LA drivers would probably be freaking out because of possible rain (well maybe not). But here I am entering into the cold season of Tambacounda, I was able to survive the rainy season, but have some left over scares and fights still going on. See the thing that you have to be careful with in the rainy season is the endless amounts of sicknesses that you can come into contact with. Let me tell you, I have never known myself to be skin sensitive but I soon found out here I am. I have had a number of staff infections, fungus and rashes. On top of that random fevers, colds and diarrhea. On the work side of things there has also been a good amount of experimentation with the farmers in my village. I was able to extend different variety seed to about 16 farmers in my village. The different seeds consisted of corn, cowpeas, millet, sorghum and rice. This rainy season was a good one yet, depending on the situation some farmers had problems with their seed. I am hoping for a more planned year for me in the area of the seed extension. I really do feel the first year for a peace corps volunteer is a experimentation year and that the projects that were thought of before or haven't been thought of yet will come in the next year.So, there is no need to worry because work will be done. I have found myself to be busy even with other secondary projects such as, latrine training, gardening, international hand washing day, mangrove restoration, English club and future project planning. I am currently waiting on a grant that I wrote for the women's garden so that I can continue to work more in the garden because I feel that the main focus right now should be water resource. It is difficult to garden here if you don't have an easier source of water than trying to pull from a 35 to 45 meter deep well. I know, I have to pull all the time. So, looking forward to the work to come and the people that I will meet during that time.

Stolen money....

Hey all! Sooooo, it has been quite the journey from November to February there is a lot so bare with me. I am going to try and summarize the best that I can, so here it goes.

Lets start off with two quotes:

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.
Oscar Wilde

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
Mother Teresa


This week was going to be spent at my friend Mary's village, Fodebayo, which is in the Southern part of Senegal. I was excited to get out and see what Kolda was all about because I only heard stories from other volunteers of how lush and green it was. Before my big trip I had to get a few things done around my hut. First things first I cleaned my hut and started to pack. If you hate dust and dirt, well, let me tell you, I have dirt up the wazoo! (Fun Fact: Wazoo was first used in 1961) So, I did a little bit of cleaning and after waited for the mason to come and fix my door. The mason that had come was one of my fathers friends from Tambacunda. He came in early mid day and started on the door. While he worked on the door, I had noticed the man on the bike with the fish had stopped in my compound. My grandmother was talking to him and noticed that she had only bought one fish. I quickly asked her how man fish she bought for lunch and it was really just one for the whole family. I told the fish guy to wait. I went into my hut and got some money for him. I bought four fish and gave it to my grandmother. When I get back to my hut with the change my host father had given me a look like he was wondering what was in my hand. I opened my palm and showed him that I had change from buying fish. He then grabbed 200cfa from my hand and bought tea with it. At this moment I was so shocked at what happened I didn't know what to say. To me at that moment just stole money straight from my hand. I knew that he was testing me from the time that I arrived in the village because he had asked me to go and run errands for him but this was by far crossing the line. Since this was the last day that I was spending there I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but it made me realize that I needed to firm up. It's like I try to do something good, by buying more fish yet there is no appreciation and respect to at least say "Thank you for the fish." or at least ask me if I could help buy tea. It was nothing like that. I would say in Mandinka "A maning baing nig, a be karing." Translating to "It is not right, and he isn't respectful."

So, after everything we had lunch and the mason had eaten with us. He finally finished up the last bit after lunch and I was getting ready to pay. I was thinking to myself wondering how much he was going to charge me. The normal price was and friendly price would be around 2,000 to 3,000cfa but the "Toubab" price I think would be around 5,000cfa. What was he going to charge me??? Not too surprised but he charged me for the "Toubab" price. Of course he would, and my father would agree to it. This was his friend and since "Toubabs" are foreigners they think we have money and will charge the highest price they can get. So, I paid him his 5,000cfa. Probably should have tried to get the price down but I just didn't. I didn't want to question the matter. (If interested an article on "Toubab" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maya-lau/what-the-peace-corp-taugh_b_1099202.html by a pcv:Peace Corps Volunteer)

The day went on and I was ready to leave for the language seminar in Mary's village and to explore some during the holiday. The last thing I did in village before I left was play freeze tag with the kids. They had so much fun and I gave all my brothers and my sister a hug good bye. My grandmother wasn't happy to see me leave considering that I was going to leave her there by herself for a while. She was hinting to me that she was going to be the only there to do the work and pull the water because my younger host sister was leaving the next day to another village. I felt bad leaving.