Hut Life...

Hut Life?

2008-09-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Well, not so much hut life anymore. These last few weeks have been more like expat life. I've been house sitting in downtown Dakar - cooking Indian food, watching CNN world, and using the internet in any room I want. I guess the suffering that is Peace Corps is pretty much over for me. Now its 9 to 5 at the U.S. Embassy working on "Pepiniere du Sahel" ("Tree Nurseries of the Sahel"). And at night, I'm going to band rehearsals with Jac et le Takeifa. The song they wrote for the film is incredible. Its been quite an opportunity to collaborate with Jac and the band and with Michelle Cheng, the artist doing the stills and cell animation for the film. And now its only a week and a half until I'm out of here. I've got some paperwork to do for Peace Corps admin. and a few last minute presents to buy. But most exciting is the first official screening of "Elle Travaille, Elle Vit!" ("She Works, She Lives!") at the American Club in Dakar on Sunday, the 28th. The guest list has over a hundred people already and I'm doing a Q&A after the film. Not going to lie - I'm a little nervous.
My tentaive plan for the states is to fly in to Atlanta on October 1st - kick it in the AUG for two weeks - visit my bro and sis in Saratoga Springs for a few days, and then its off to NYC, the city, the big apple, the capital of the western world... Oh New York. I can't wait for fall, for central park, for hippies and hipsters, for old friends and new connections, for art and artists, happenings, screenings, exhibitions and exhibitionists, for dog parks, coffee bars, book stores and thrift shops.
Hope the States are treating you all well. Take care.

One Month Left...

2008-09-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

Wow - what an exciting two years. Left my cush and comfortable life in America and moved to some country most people have never heard of. I spent two months doing language and cross-cultural training, then moved out to my remote village for three months, then back for another month of training on agro-forestry technologies, back to the village again, then on vacation showing my friend Sahil around Senegal, and now, here we are. Here I am. Its strange to think about all of our lives on such different trajectories. We have all moved forward - we have all had adventures. I used to sit alone in my hut thinking about my friends in New York City, D.C., Boston, and L.A. - What are they doing? Is it cold there? Man, I missed the cold sometimes. I now have only a month left and its going to be busy. I'm in production on another video, this time for creating and maintaining tree nurseries in the Sahel. I'm working with some really interesting people from Michelle Chang, a visual artist at UCLA to Baba Maal, a world famous Senegalese musician. And as excited as I am about going home, I'm really looking forward to making this movie.

So last month was pretty incredible - one of my best friends from college came out to visit. We had such a good time. We went to Goree Island to see the famous slave house and colonial architecture, we spent a few nights in a Gambian village on an desolate island, we spent some unforgettable time in my village (this was the best part of the trip for both of us I think), we went up to Saint Louis to hear live music and relax in our picture perfect apartment on the beach, we spent the night in a tent in the desert eating Moroccan couscous for dinner and riding camels in the morning, and we spent days in Dakar bargaining for masks and indulging in ice cream and falafel. What a trip.
And last Monday in Dakar, every Peace Corps volunteer from my training group met up for our Close of Service (COS) conference. Each day of the conference was based on a theme; the first day on a theme of reflection over the past two years. We mostly talked about our accomplishments and the personal and professional skills we've developed. The next day was about considering life after Peace Corps, jobs, health insurance, etc. We work-shopped our resumes and started our Description of Service (DOS) and Close of Service (COS) reports. And on the last day we gave feedback to the administration on ways to improve the effectiveness of the Peace Corps and Peace Corps volunteers in Senegal. It was nice to get to see old friends and catch up - sad to say good bye to the friends I won't see for a while. The conference gave us all a bit of closure and well, a sense that summer camp is over. One more month exactly and I fly home. Inchallah.

Girls Leadership Conference

2008-07-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

I’m back down in Kedougou this week for a girls leadership conference that a few volunteers have organized. They invited 26 of the top female students from the area. They asked Awa Traore, one of the women I interviewed for my film, to run the conference. First off, Awa Traore is on e of the most passionate and dynamic speakers I’ve ever met. She works at the Peace Corps Training Center in Thies as the Cross-Culture trainer and as the SeneGAD (Gender and Development) advisor. For the past few years she has helped PCVs facilitate girls meetings and conferences focusing on some relatively taboo subjects like Aids, underage marriages, and rape as well as the softer topics like education, self-confidence, and independence. A few of us met with Awa last night to talk about the plan for the conference and it was classic Awa. She had a long list of issues she wanted to discuss with the girls and she noted our suggestions as well but told us that the sessions would inevitably be shaped by the dynamic of the group and the girls’ level of interest in the topics. She told us about her experience doing this in Tambacounda last year with a group of 30 girls where one of the girls told the group she had been raped. In Senegal, this speaking out about sexual abuses is extremely uncommon and is often considered culturally inappropriate. But these are the types of barriers that need to be brought up and discussed with the youth; with the future of this country. These girls are smart and motivated and capable but the system they are working in is flawed. Girls are supposed to go to school through sixth grade while learning how to cook and clean and then they should get married, drop out of school, and start having children. They should not stand up to men. They should be obedient and submissive. Awa has come to show these girls there’s another way. They can make decisions about their own lives; whether they want to get married at an early age or not, whether they want to quit school or not. And so this morning at 9am, the doors of the Peace Corps CTC (Community Training Center) in Kedougou opened up to the 26 girls invited to the conference. It’s incredible to see the change the girls go through from just one day of talking. In the morning, they were all so scared and timid but within a few hours of discussion and activities with Awa and the PCVs, they were pumped up and excited. You could literally see the empowerment happening. This girls leadership conference was an experience unlike any other I’ve ever had. To see these girls be so engaged and encouraged by such a wonderful role-model, you just wouldn’t believe it.

Kedougou, the 4th, and beyond…

2008-07-16T04:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, I went down to Kedougou (on the boarder of Guinea) to the infamous annual 4th of July party. Some friends and I actually left a few days early and went for a bike ride out to a village called Segou. We arrived as the sun was setting and talked to the guys at the campament about staying the night. They told us that a few days before, the wind had taken off some of the hut roofs but if we wanted to we could still stay there. We put our bikes and bags away and walked to the stream just down the path. We all waded out into the water to rinse off and cool down. Some of our bike ride had been through the rain but by the time we got to Segou, the storm clouds had passed and the stars were out in full force. We all gathered around the two candles they gave us at the campament and made dinner… Avocados, canned lentils, limes, mustard, and mayonnaise on bread. And for desert we had peanut butter and mango jam sandwiches. So good. That night we all slept great and the next morning we headed out to the waterfalls. We biked about 30 minutes, then parked our bikes and started hiking. About 15 minutes in, there was this beautiful pool where we stopped and swam. We passed two more swimming holes on our way up to the falls. When we got to the falls, there was already another group of Peace Corps volunteers there. They had stayed at a different campament about 20k away. We all scaled the rock wall a few meters up and jumped into the deep pool below. It was incredible. Of course on our way out, as we were all drying off, we saw two water snakes on the rocks nearby.
The party itself was fun. A giant piñata full of pints of whisky, cigarettes, and candy. Horse shoes, bocce ball, and beer pong for the more athletic types. And fresh palm wine out in clay pots. The music was good (if only all the speakers worked). The food was great – vats of humus and babaganoush. The dance party wasn’t quite the sexual frenzy it had been the year before but it was still fun. I got a chance to stay in a hotel for the weekend and that was incredible. A giant hut with a shower, air-conditioning, a ceiling fan, comfortable clean beds… what more could you want. Oh, and there was a pool. So sweet.
These days I’m in Tambacounda working on my next film, “Tree Nurseries of the Sahel”. I’ve asked fellow PCV Caitlin Givens to come on as the producer. I’ve written a script and had it translated into French. I’ve drawn up the story boards and cut out and organized the collage materials. Caitlin is writing a proposal for a small grant from the US Embassy in Dakar to cover our costs and we are still looking for local music. I am also hoping to reach the artist in Dakar about doing some of the cell animation of trees growing. If all goes as planned, it will be done and on DVD by the time I leave.
Of course, I am also very excited about the arrival of two of my friends, Duncan and Sahil. They are coming at the end of the month and they’re staying for 3 weeks. I’m going to show them around Senegal, take them down to Kedougou, bring them to my village… I can’t wait. I haven’t left on vacation my whole service so I’m treating this trip as my vacation. Just traveling around, doing the tourist thing a little bit. I’m also interested to see their reactions to things I’ve become accustomed to. And as it turns out, I think I’ll be saying good bye to my village the days that Duncan and Sahil will be there. So that will definitely be interesting. Then, once they leave, I’ll be in Dakar for our COS (close of service) conference and then I’ll stay in Dakar to work on the tree nursery video for the month of September. Then, October 1st, I fly out – to Fatlanta – to my friends and family – to breakfast burritos and IBC root beer… Inchallah.

The Fabric of Amadara

2008-06-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

It’s a hot world out here in the bush. The wind blows every now and then but when it does it brings lots of dust. Not just a little bit of dust to be rinsed off at my evening bucket bath but what would amount to be mountains of dust. This past month, that dust has crept into every crevice and nook available. And when there is liquid involved such as sweat or a cup of water left uncovered, well, you can start to collect your own little mountain of dust. A few days ago, my throat started feeling scratchy and in no time at all, I lost my voice completely. I was literally whispering greetings to my villagers as they looked at me with sympathetic eyes. I thought it was the cold that I’ve had for the past week and a half but my Tokara told me it was definitely the dust. And its crazy to see the dust funnels come sweeping through the village. Yesterday during my bucket bath I looked out over my grass fence and saw an enormous, well, what looked like a tornado. It was taller than the tallest mango trees and wider than a hut and it was moving so much dust around it was unbelievable. I watched as it moved down the main path in the village just beyond my backyard. It was picking up trash and leaves, even corn stalks. It went through a group of donkeys and they all started braying uncontrollably and eventually it spun down toward the river bed and outside of the village.
The wind does give a break from the sort of calm that usually persists. It adds excitement to an otherwise pretty boring environment and you can feel the electricity in the air. I’ve had some days recently where I would just sit in my hammock and let the wind storm blow all around me (I usually have to close my eyes though). But now I’m in Tambacounda, trying to get better. I’ve had headaches and body aches for the past week. And all of those kids constantly coming into my hut… well, I felt I earned a little time in front of a fan. We’re having a regional planning meeting this weekend to talk about region wide initiatives and projects in and around the city of Tambacounda itself. We had a neighborhood park clean up last month and it was a lot of fun. And I’m hoping to pass out a few trees this year to the compounds along our street (dirt path).
On Friday, my Agro-forestry boss is coming to see my tree nurseries so I’m going home after the meeting to get these last 200 cashew seeds in the ground. I’m having the farmers that want cashews either in their compounds or fields, dig the holes and prepare the soil. My counterpart told them that I would only give them seeds for the holes already dug. Hopefully my village will be full of half a meter in diameter holes when I get back. Inchalla I guess.
Also, I’m participating in a few meetings this week. A few of us from the Tambacounda region are meeting with Tostan’s volunteer coordinator to talk about what sort of collaborative projects are possible. Tostan (http://www.tostan.org/) is an NGO that works in rural education outreach by assigning a teacher for two years to each village they work with. The classes are held a few days a week (under the big mango tree in my village) and they teach Pulaar literacy, Senegalese civics, and health and hygiene practices. Then I’m meeting with a group of five pre-med students from the States that are in Senegal for a month to help out with mosquito net distribution, some primary care at a village hospital, and a new HIV testing center in Kedougou. They’ve just arrived in country and the med student they are being chaperoned by wanted us to speak to them about Senegal, the cultural do’s and don’ts, what our most common concerns are within the health field, and our ideas on improving the health issues like malaria and infant mortality in the bush. Then, in a few days I have another meeting, this time with the other volunteers from the Velingara area, a few people from Peace Corps Staff, and the head of World Vision in Velingara. Currently, Peace Corps Senegal is trying to make working contacts between volunteers and every major NGO in country. I think it’s a great idea and I can’t wait to see the results of these meetings. Hopefully it will help us as Peace Corps volunteers have more concrete plans of action and help the NGO’s in bringing their proposed projects to more remote villages. Of course, all of this is to help the Senegalese people. We are going to develop the shit out of this country.
Well, enjoy the summer in Amerik (or wherever you may be) and I’ll talk to you all soon. Ajarama e yeho e jam (Thanks and go in peace).

Elle Travaille, Elle Vit!

2008-05-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

And it's over... The movie is done minus the subtitles - but I'm done. Feels good to save it for the last time. These past few weeks in Dakar have been great though. Seen a few concerts, caught an awesome contemparary art exhibit downtown, had lots of happy hours, found some hip shirts at the Fuggi Jai (the Shake and Sell market), even spent two free nights on the floor of L'Meridien thanks to a friend of a friend of a friend. I've been working at the US Embassy training the AV specialist on Final Cut Pro during the days and working at a local documentary filmmaker's house, Cheikh Darou Seck, at night.
Dakar is amazing and all but I’m glad to be back in Tambacounda. The slow pace of life and the big kitchen at the Peace Corps regional house – Yesterday I made a huge pot of veggie chili and then for dinner we did spring rolls with fresh mint and red beans. Incredible. Today I’m just doing some last minute interneting from looking at jobs on idealist.com to emailing my boss my quarterly report and vacation request forms. Its been probably 6 or 7 months since I’ve really spent a lot of time in my village what with the movie and all but now the rains have started and its time to put some trees in the ground. I talked to my family in the village and the boys, Ibou and Malick, have been watering the tree nursery every other day. I’m planning on giving those trees out mostly within my village but in another month or so, when the Forestry Dept here starts giving away trees, I’ll be showing up there with a donkey cart to bring more out to the neighboring villages. I’m excited about trees this year because I feel like I’ve learned so much from my mistakes last year; namely that I will have to make each farmer protect each tree they plant. And it looks like I only have about 4 months left in Senegal all together. I’m applying for a few jobs in Dakar but my guess is I’ll be home sooner rather than later. A lot of volunteers from my stage are planning on extending a third year either at their sites or in Dakar as admin assistants but my student loans are hovering over every decision I make about the immediate future. I’m trying not to spend my last few months in country thinking about being in America but its hard. Who doesn’t think about air-conditioning and ice when its 100 degrees day after day? I just don’t want to regret spending my last months thinking about the future when the present is so cool. I mean, I live and work in Africa. And not only that but I live in a small, remote village and I communicate with the villagers in their own language and I am doing good work that will hopefully have lasting effects. My life couldn’t be cooler right now (except in degrees celcius). I can’t wait for these next few months what with my vacation plans starting to take shape. Both Duncan and Sahil (my buddies from college) are planning to come out here. We’re thinking about either doing a big loop through Mali or heading up through Mauritania and Morocco. We’ll see. Ok, I’m off. Hope the all of you are doing well and I hope Obama wins. Peace and Lots of Love,
BP

Trees Please...

2008-04-13T03:25:00.000-07:00

Over the past week or so my tree nursery has really started to come together; about 600 strong and growing. And now that I’ve relocated it to a more easily noticed place in the village I’ve been peaking lots of interest. Last year my backyard seemed like the most logical place to put my tree nursery but barely anyone came back to see it. I also worked on some larger seed beds in my family’s garden down by the river and even less people saw that. But over the past few months, my Tokara has been building a dead fence around a fairly large area right next to our compound. Eventually, he wants to be able to build a batiment (a building) for the whole family inside this new area. Of course, until then, he’s using this newly fenced off area to have a garden and tree nursery. Mangos, cashews, eucalyptus, shade trees, thorny trees, orange trees, jatropha, nebadaya… I’m hoping that within the next two weeks I’ll be able to put in at least five hundred more sacks. The proximity to a well is unbelievable. I bought a water bag, 10 meters of rope, and a pulley to do my daily watering. Before I was having to bike to the water pump, fill up a 20 liter jug and bike it back to my backyard twice every morning to water my tree nursery. Now it only takes me two minutes to fill a watering can and bring it to the nursery. I’ve got old mosquito nets up to protect the saplings from frogs and lizards and birds. I’m trying to promote using mosquito nets for the other farmers doing tree nurseries in their own compounds since they are relatively inexpensive (they are sold at cost) and they should be replacing them every year or two. We’ll see if it catches on. Primarily I’m working with the four schools in the neighboring villages this year. They all need more shade outside for the kids so I’ve sectioned off 100 tree sacks specifically for them. I’m also working on a giant wood-lot with a group of farmers from Nemetaba, the bigger village nearby. We are planning on out-planting 250 eucalyptus trees in a field just outside the village. Eucalyptus is great where I live because you don’t have to protect the baby trees once they’ve been out-planted. Nothing eats them. The only concern is that cows don’t trample on them. And my Tokara is really making out like a bandit on this one. I’m using his fenced off land as a model for live-fencing (Jatropha), intercropping, and grafting mangos for the whole village to see. I can only hope that after I leave, someone will plant a few trees next rainy season.
And this week I should have some extra help in the village. A study abroad student is coming to spend 5 days in my village. Last year I hosted two guys, both Jewish, both surfers, and both from places not necessarily known for having lots of Jews or surfers: Mexico and Vermont. It turned out great though. They were happy to get their hands dirty and being mango season and all, who wouldn’t have fun. And as much as I appreciate the beauty of the bush, its nice to be reminded of the beauty that is the village routine.
Ok, hope all is well Stateside. Happy Passover on 4/20 ya’ll.

Round 2

2008-03-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

Its 6:47am… I can’t sleep. I’m back in Tambcounda and its sort of feeling like Round 2. I finished a rough cut of the film and now its out of my hands. A little anti-climactic to have my last day of editing spent on trying to make space on the computer to export. But I’m done for now and getting excited to go back to the village. The next few days I’ll be down in Kedougou at the Agro-forestry summit getting seeds and tree-sacks, discussing past successes and failures, and deciding on future tree related projects. Since AgFo is the best sector in Peace Corps Senegal I’m sure it will be fun. And the area around Kedougou is always fun. Bike rides into the now dry bush, hikes through tranquile riverbeds with the occasional pool to swim in, and waterfalls (though during the dry season they do leave a little to be desired). Its been a long time since I’ve been down in the southern half of Senegal, I almost forgot how hot it gets. In Dakar, a city surrounded by the ocean on three sides, there is always a breeze to balance the burning sun. But here in Tambacounda, the air sits, dry, and very still. Every once in a while you might get a gust of wind but you immediately close your eyes, your mouth, and try not to breath in. The wind is more like a hot dust and debris cloud making sure to dirty everything and everyone in its path. The dust does help to see the movement of the wind. Its not uncommon at all to see funnels of brown wind spiraling down dusty streets, sucking in bits of paper and plastic from the ground and spitting them out in every direction. Yesterday, the temperature here was 107 degrees… And March is only the beginning of the hot season. Last year on more than one occasion the thermometer went over 120 before the rains came in June. The whole way down from Dakar, I was reading this book, "An African in Greenland" all about the lives of villagers living on the other end of the spectrum. At one point while reading, my whole body soaked with sweat from sitting in a tightly packed car, a gust of wind came through the window giving me chills. For a few minutes I was there, in the arctic, surrounded by snow. Of course, you can only trick yourself for a few minutes. Ok, I’m off. I’ll write more soon. Hope everyone’s doing well. Peace and Love ya’ll.

Amadara; You're a Dara

2008-02-13T06:00:00.000-08:00

Back in my village for a few days and it was nothing short of incredible. My compound has taken in a new person. He’s a Koranic teacher and now, every morning and evening, all of the children in Amadara come to my compound and gather around a huge fire pit to work on reading, writing, and reciting Arabic. They all have these wooden tablets and they write on them with pieces of charcoal. It's cool to see the boys and girls learning the Koran side by side- I didn't expect that. I spent an afternoon with Kante, the teacher, having him help me write out the alphabet.

On Saturday, I got a chance to go to Nemataba for the local soccer finals. The two teams playing were Nemataba, the home team, and Velingara, the team from the big city. I couldn’t believe how many people showed up to watch the match. Hundreds of people from all over the region came dressed in their best clothes and there were probably over 200 bikes strewn about on the way to the field. The organizers set up a giant grass fence to make sure everyone pays the 200cfa (40 cents) entrance fee keeping out most of the children. They were all milling around outside the fence just waiting to join in on the victory celebration. Amadou Sylla, my Tokara, payed for the two of us to get in and slowly, we made our way around the field greeting everyone he knew. Finally, we found a spot to stand and watch near one of the goals. The players were already pouring sweat (it was at least 90 degrees outside) but they seemed happy to be playing such an important match. Velingara, outfitted in green uniforms, were favored to win but since we were in Nemataba, nobody was cheering for them. The Nemataba team, all in white jerseys and blue shorts, seemed to be struggling for the first few minutes. Every time they got the ball it amounted to a wild goal kick nowhere near the goal, as opposed to Velingara who looked patient and well practiced whenever they had possession. Within the first few minutes however, my attention span was already waning. The sun was blaring down on us and the dry air combined with the clouds of dust coming from the field were starting to annoy me. But I had a liter and a half of water and I was prepared to tough it out. Then suddenly, a few players got into a scuffle and before I could tell what was going on, every player started running toward the fight. The three referees were no match for the 20 angry boys and within seconds, people from the sidelines started rushing the field. In less than a minute, the small fight had turned into an enormous mob of people pushing and shouting and after punches started being thrown, the referees called the game. So it was a tie… 0-0 and the game only lasted about 7 minutes. The spectators that hadn’t rushed the field decided they couldn’t be bothered to file out of the small opening in the fence (or maybe they were upset that there wasn’t going to be a game) and they started to push down entire sections of the grass fence to leave. My Tokara and I started walking back to our bikes when the shouting seemed to intensify and all of a sudden, the Velingara team was being chased off of the field and back to the dump truck that they came in on (they really did come in on the back of a large dump truck from Velingara). People were waving big sticks and rocks as they ran after the boys from Velingara and as the truck started to pull away (thank god they got it started on the first try), those people started throwing what they had in their hands at the truck. I couldn’t believe it… huge sticks and rocks were flying through the air. People were shaking their fists and shouting and, well, I had never seen anything like that before.

The rest of the week in Amadara was good. I made a lot of headway with the school teachers in two neighboring villages for the upcoming tree season. I’m planning on helping the teachers teach the kids about tree nurseries and out-planting. Of course, they will also get to enjoy the benefits of the shade and fruits in a few years.
Now I’m back in Dakar though, working on finishing up the documentary. Our deadline is the end of February so we have our fingers crossed that it will all come together smoothly over the next few weeks. I can’t wait to be done with it and get back to my village. It’s been too long.

Back from Bakel.

2008-01-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

For two weeks, 10 volunteers (mostly from Tamba region) spent everyday including christmas day and new years day working on a project a friend of mine set up. Two years ago, my buddy Mark volunteered for a group of doctors and nurses that went to Ghana for two weeks to do catarax removale surguries and to perscribe proper medications for allergies and infections. He invited one of the doctors and one of the nurses (his mother) to come to Bakel, a boarder town to Mauritania, to perform the surguries again. With the help of so many volunteers, the doctor was able to give a small training to every one for the job they were to do for the two weeks. Some volunteers were trained to do the screenings, checking for catarax, vision, and pain. Some volunteers were in charge of more specific vision tests to give out glasses. Some volunteers worked in the the operating room cleaning tools and handling gauze and idoine swabs. The volunteers were extremely organized and some even took the early morning shift to give out numbers to people starting at 6am. All in all, they did about 70 surguries and saw roughly 1,800 people. I made it out there to get some of the clinic on video. I spent 5 days filming surguries, eye charts and eye checks, the "styles and smiles" glasses team, interviewing local doctors, volunteers, and patients... It was really incredible. I could tell from the few days I was there that the clinic was probably the most tangible and rewarding experience that those volunteers had had in Senegal.

While I was there, we all went on walks through the city. We wen down to the fort and looked out over the Senegal River. I got a chance to wander through seemingly endless cornfields and to see Mauritania only a few minutes boat ride away. Bakel was beautiful. It reminded me of Israel. It was littered with dilapidated french buildings and this incredible pink flowered euphorbia. I spent new years there, sort of a mix between your typical Tamba house sexy party and a strange Senegalese dance party. The DJ let us put in our ipods for a few songs and we would all dance and then he would play Senegalese music and we and all the Senegalese people would dance. It went on till 4 or 5 in the morning but I was asleep by a few minutes after twelve. I haven't quite figured out what to do with the hours of footage from the eye clinic but I'm sure I'll think of something. If nothing else for Peace Corps posterity.

Now I'm down in Kedougou, near the Guinean boarder, filming the last of the five women for the film. Actually today was my last day of shooting and tonight, she invited us over to her house for dinner. Her name is Binta Diallo and she is pretty interesting. She works as a nurses aid at the regional hosptial here, she runs an organization that does rural education outreach on issues of health and sanitation. We filmed her yesterday being interviewed on a radio show about the current situation with rabbies in the area and afterwards she had us follow her to a meeting she was leading. Today we went with her as she dropped off boxes of clothing and food to a koranic school in her neighborhood. The woman was unstoppable.

And Kedougou itself has been as beautiful as ever. I'm sad to leave in a way. I've been in Dakar so long that I missed living life like you're camping. I missed squat toilets and living by flashlight and cold showers and washing clothes by hand. In Dakar, all of those things disappear. But for the sake of this movie and my grad school applications, I have to get back up to Dakar soon. I'm hopeing to be completely finished with the film by March and then its back to my village to start getting people excited about trees. Haha. Can't wait.

Hope the holidays went well stateside.

Peace and Love, e Allah okueng chellal moyyo (and may god give us all good health),

Barry Pousman

Coming Together…

2007-12-21T03:26:00.000-08:00

Back in Dakar and can’t stop wearing my hoodie. The cold weather is really starting to set in and the main advantage is less mosquitoes. I’ve been living at “Liberte 6”, the Peace Corps transit house in Dakar for the past few weeks while working on the film and it has been a wild ride. Every week I get to see a new group of volunteers pass through; some coming back from the States, some about to leave for vacations, a few waiting around to pick up friends or family members at the airport, and I even got to be there when all the Dakar region volunteers had a house meeting slash bar-b-que slash sexy party. I’ve hung out at the Peace Corps country director’s house, spent time with friend’s parental units, been out for countless happy hour excursions, and got to see the national botanical gardens. I interviewed Penda Mbao at her house, one of the most famous women in Senegal, and have spent days in the editing room trying to learn new software and struggling with the French language.
I also had the opportunity to host my own friends for two days in Dakar and while it was stressful having to be so protective and informative, it was also a great time. Olof and Marten, two brothers from Sweden I met in India while backpacking, sent me an email a month ago telling me about their family’s plan to go to The Gambia for a two week vacation. I of course told them they should come up to Dakar and get a glimpse of Senegal while they were here and after a few more emails and three international phone calls, they were getting out of a cab at the hotel we had planned to meet at. The whole family was there; mom, dad, younger brother, younger sister, and Olof and Marten. I took them out to Goree Island (the famous colonial slave market), to a bunch of cool restaurants, and the kids even got a chance to hang out at Liberte 6 in all its broke down glory. We walked through the markets, bought masks, drank local beers and had an adventure trying to get money from an ATM that would take Visa. All in all it turned out great. They had a blast and we made tentative plans for me to come to Sweden and hang out soon.
This past week has been equally as crazy since its Tabaski, the annual Muslim holiday commemorating the story of Abraham and his son. Tomorrow actually starts the holiday but for the last few days, Dakar has become a giant petting zoo with thousands of rams lining the streets. There are surprisingly a lot of Christmas decorations up in shops and along the main streets but my guess is they are for the holiday season as opposed to just being for Christmas. But the crazy part is how many people are in Dakar, in the markets - so much traffic, so many things to buy, so little money, so little time.
As for the movie, yesterday was the first day that the film started to really come together. We took 3 hours of interviews with Awa Traore and turned it into about 19 minutes of awesome sound bites. Today I’ve been playing with the intro sequence and it is starting to look more and more like a film worth watching. I’m going to be working on the film for the next few days and then I’m heading down to Kedougou to do our final interview with a Senegalese woman who does rural outreach education on health and hygiene issues. Then its back up to Dakar until it gets duplicated and distributed.
Hope the holiday season is treating you all well and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Giving Thanks by Drinking Palm Wine and Eating Dried Cranberries…

2007-11-29T03:48:00.000-08:00

My village for two nights; the first a restless sleep punctuated by noises of animals real and imagined, I’m sure, in the dark. The second an early to bed, early to rise affair as I had errands to run before I made my way to Velingara to catch a car headed for Tamba. The first thing I noticed as I opened my hut door was the inevitable thick layer of dust that had accumulated due to my month-long absence. My sheets were gray and my towel smelled like a floor mat. I put my stuff down and proceeded to dole out the presents I had gotten for the family. Two matching winter jackets for Ibou and Malick (my 9 and 10 year old nephews), a wrap for Hawa (the 6 year old), a few bracelets for Jenabou (the 3 year old), a Halloween themed T-shirt for Lama (the 14 year old), a Gomez T-shirt for Garanke, a pair of shorts for my tokara, and plastic jewelry for Swadou and Salimatou. Not to mention the kilo of kola-nuts to pass out unashamedly to every villager I bumped into. Since I’m planning on missing Tabaski in the village, the holiday where gifts are usually given to family and friends, I figured I better give out a few things I’d come across recently at various fuggi jai’s (literally Shake and Sell’s). That first night I enjoyed a cool bucket bath in the glow of sunset and wrote in my journal until dinner. I have a small travel journal for when I’m out of the village but it’s no replacement for the “red monster” that I’ve come to love. Dinner was enjoyable, squash and fish-balls in a watery peanut sauce over rice. It’s been a while since I’ve had to share a bowl of food with six other people. And after dinner we had the usual steady stream of visitors come and greet and ask Salimatou if she had any tea or sugar or candles left for sale. The village looks like it did that first day I moved in, the corn fields all recently harvested and the peanut fields with giant mounds of peanuts still to be separated from inedible plant material (a process which is unbelievably labor intensive and time consuming). The most notable difference was my backyard though. As I opened my back door to get some sunlight in my hut, I stood motionless and stared at the jungle that had taken over the entire area. Before I left I planted a few tomatoes and passion fruit vines but when I got back, the tomatoes had spread like wildfire and the passion fruit vines were everywhere. I had the kids in my compound help me harvest the tomatoes and then clear it all out. I also went around to a few neighboring villages to visit some friends and check up on their trees. Mamadou Ba Kamera was thrilled to see me but I had bad news for him and his village. I had been working on getting his village a PCV and they did get one but during his pre-service training (PST) in Thies, he left the Peace Corps. But he was upbeat about it and said that “inchallah” they will get another one next year. I then went to visit Alexi, a Jola friend who usually is my Palm Wine hookup. Needless to say, I ended up getting 5 liters to bring back to Tambacounda for Thanksgiving. It turned out great but by day three, we still had plenty left over and it was already starting to turn so I gave it to a Catholic friend in Tamba to finish off with his friends. Thanksgiving at the Tamba House was great. Everyone made a dish, I made eggplant soufflé, and there were dried cranberries and smashed potatoes and even squash pie. Actually, since no one made any meat dishes, it was an amazingly vegetarian Thanksgiving. That evening for desert we went over to an ex-pat couple’s house that we’re friends with (they used to be PCVs in the early 90’s in West Africa) and had homemade ice cream and pies galore. Two days later, my producer and I headed back up to Dakar to start editing the documentary. So now I’m in Dakar and I have pretty frequent internet access so I’ll try to keep this site updated. Hope everyone else’s Thanksgiving went well and I look forward to hearing from you all.

makin' movies

2007-11-11T11:54:00.000-08:00

It’s been a month since I started production on this film I’m doing for Peace Corps. I’ve shot three of the five women in their respective homes and places of work and even got a chance to interview Amadou and Mariam (www.amadou-mariam.com). It’s been a blast kickin’ it in the big cities, eating falafel and pizza, swimming, going to concerts. I’m in Tambacounda right now, working on some animation for the film but its slow going. I came back down south to do a shoot in Kedougou with the fourth woman in the film but my camera recently came down with Senegalitis so it’s been sent back to the States for repairs. Don’t know what’s wrong with it, just that it won’t turn on. But really, this break might be a bit of a blessing in disguise for me. I’ve missed my village, my family and friends out there, my garden. Now that the rain has stopped and the fields have been harvested, I’m sure everything looks different. And all those baby trees, I have to talk to a few farmers about making sure they protect them from the animals that are about to start grazing the fields. I do dread going back a little though. It’s just been so long and I know that it will be a big deal when I show up and I have to get gifts (kola nuts, sugar, kinkiliba tea) for everyone. It’s just stressful those first few days back in the village after a long time gone and in this case, I’m only going to be there for a few days until I have to start explaining that I’m about to head back out for another month or two to finish the movie I’m making. I’m not even sure they understand what it is exactly that I’m doing. I try to explain it in Pulaar but they don’t have a lot of words for "makin’ movies" so I tell them I’m "constructing a film" ("mido fewnude show"). Who knows how they interpret that. But I am excited to see how the women’s group’s trees have taken and the Jola family I’m working with in Yero Goli. And I am excited to see if my sister in law, Salimatou, has started the boutique (village store) that she’s been talking about. Oh and one of the kids (one of my favorites), Hawa, should be back by now. She went to live with extended family in a different village for the rainy season but now that school’s started, I’m guessing she’s back home. Well, life in Senegal is less hot these days and even though I still get sick every once in a while, I’m doing great. I miss home, especially with a lot of my friends here going back for the winter holidays, but I think I’d rather spend my vacation on an adventure; whether that’s a family trip to Israel or just me and some friends traveling West Africa on public transportation. Hope all is good over there in the land of AC and TV. Peace Only ya’ll.

Ramadan

2007-10-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

Ramadan; a time for reflection, a time for fasting, a time to take a lot of afternoon naps. In my compound, I’m up at 5:30, eating a breakfast of bread and mayonnaise with hot tea and drinking cups of water. By 6 am you better be finished, daybreak comes quick. Some mornings I’m able to fall back asleep, ignoring a full stomach, until the sounds of my compound wake me up for good. Other mornings, the book I fell asleep reading is just too good and I lay in bed, protected from the flies by my mosquito net, until I start sweating. School’s still out for the kids but usually they are nowhere to be seen- there is a monkey problem down at our garden so Ibrahima and Malick (the 8 year old and 9 year old in the family) are sent down there at sunrise to guard the garden. Every day, all day, they play in the garden, making sure to occasionally bang on a metal watering can or sing some loud song to keep those thieving monkeys away from the vegetables. My mornings are spent on my hammock, reading or as the case has been recently, studying for the GRE, on my front porch in the shade. I barely think about food until after 2 and by then I always figure that it’s only a few hours ‘til sunset. A quick bucket shower as the sky burns orange and then it’s the buffet of break-the-fast. My family usually makes two or three different dishes (Monie, Tourne, and Gosie), some spicy, others sweet. The key, I’ve learned, is not to eat too much at first because there’s a lot more food coming. After break the fast, its fresh roasted corn and peanuts followed by prayer time. I usually bring out my mat from my hut and go through the motions with them. My older brother, Amadou, leads the prayers and has his mat in front and then his wife, his younger brother, Garanke, and his wife and I all line up behind Amadou. It’s pretty incredible praying out there at night, the wind blowing and the stars so present. Often a storm is brewing and crashes of lighting and thunder punctuate the experience. You know, when they’re doing their thing, mumbling through the Arabic that they learned when they were young, it reminds me so much of praying in Hebrew. And recently, it was Yom Kippur for us Jew-balls. I’ve been doing some reminiscing about Hebrew in my hut as well since I sort of signed on to do a little something for the day of atonement at the Tambacounda Regional House. I put together a small Shacharit service full of short prayers, Bob Dylan lyrics, messages of non-violence from Gandhi in response to the situation in the middle east, and more. The night before the service, we all cooked up a storm: potato latkes, matzah ball soup, home made apple sauce, baba ganoush, tabouli… it was wonderful. At the service, everyone in the house came to participate; we had about 15 people in all and only 3 Jews. I think it was well received and I actually got feedback that some people wished it was a little longer. I figured an hour was plenty to make people listen to me chant Hebrew prayers that I only vaguely remember the tune to from summer camp, but what do I know.
I decided to stay at the Tambacounda Regional House for the Agricultural Summit, three days of meetings, field trips, and paid meals. Not to mention, I got to see a lot of friends from all over the country. I don’t usually work with the farmers in my village on their field crops but maybe next year, I can get one or two of the more adventurous farmers to try some of these new techniques for soil improvement. It’s pretty clear where the soil is degraded by the patches (sometimes large patches) of spindly corn stalks- corn is one of the best indicators of soil degradation, and my village definitely is having some problems with this issue.
And now after a few days in the village I’m heading out again. The documentary I’m working on will start shooting on the 5th or 6th. I’m giddy with excitement. I’ll let you know how it goes. Hope everything’s ok in the States and I’ll talk to you all soon.

Dakar for a Week!

2007-08-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

From beautiful beach parties to stomach pains that I haven't experienced since India, Cape Verdian restaurants to midnight swimming, this week has proved to be quite a break from life in the village.

I came to Dakar for a Senegad (Senegal Gender and Development) meeting to plan for the next six months. The meeting was surprisingly productive and it looks like my Peace Corps service is about to make a drastic change from village tree technician to national documentarian working on a video tentatively called "Women in the Workplace". It will focus on four Senegalese women now living in the Dakar area that have followed their passions including medicine, development work, art, and education. I can't tell you how excited I am to be working on this project- it should be good for me and more importantly, a powerful way to help youth in Senegal.

The COSing (Close of Service) group is having a final conference in Dakar this weekend as well so tonight a few of us are planning to hang out and say our good bye's at their hotel. Its sad to see them go but two years isn't as long as it sounds. Soon enough, I know my group will be staying at that same hotel (inshallah) and saying good bye to all the newbies. Its strange to think that I might be coming back to West Africa for another year (doing a Fulbright in Guinea) while most of my friends here are dying to get back home to the States, but to what? Working at some coffee shop and watching a lot of TV? Doesn't sound much better than keeping the adventure going.

Tomorrow I'm out though, down to Kaolack for a night, then Tambacounda, and finally back to Amadara. I'm hoping that the rains have kept my baby trees alive- I know that I'll be getting dirty these next few weeks as the rainy season comes to an end but soon enough I'll be back up here in the NYC of Senegal to start shooting.

I'll try to keep this blog updated at least once a month- sometimes that's harder than I want it to be but what can you do? Hope y'all are having fun wherever you are and with whatever you're doing. I miss you all.

Jam ak Jam,

Barry P.