the life of a teenage boy in Senegal

So on the flip side the life of an average teenage boy in Senegal. Senegal culture is male dominate and I am not going to lie there is spousal abuse, as well as a lot of harassment. Boys grow up thinking that they should have at least have two wives if not four and if they don’t it is an insult to your manhood. Men view themselves as the providers and in most village settings they are the ones who “go out to seek money” then give what they want to their wives.  In this society you can do anything you want as a male and nobody will care, minus the obvious religious laws that you should not break. Of course with great power comes great responsibility, one that most men in this country abuse. Growing up you look at you’re elders sitting under a tree drinking atttya and doing nothing all day you start to think that it is acceptable. Of course since you are higher on the food chain this means you can assert your dominance over anyone younger and all females.  I have known several instances were younger males will just sit around and in the hot part of the day, then go play soccer when it cools off.  Through in some catcalling and discussions about music and who has the biggest butt in the village and you got a day. Also another disturbing aspect of this culture that I have found out is the conceptions that if you have trouble with your wife you don’t work it out you get a new wife.  Add to this trying to study by flash light and if someone needs the light then they will take it from you leaving you to study in the dark.  All of this puts a lot of demands on the boys to fit into the society’s norm and to study really hard in school.  Like I said before humans are diverse. My brothers will sweep their room, do laundry, ect. As well as my village has a very equal guy and women’s work.  Men take care of the animals, make fences; make huts, do home repair, go fishing, prepare the fields, and plant the fields. Women do the rest of the work mention in the former post. There is not giant movement to facilitate change among the boys in Senegal because everyone is focused on girl’s education. For me my work in this area is very informal. Most of the time the boys in my village will ask me why I don’t have a wife this opens the door for discussions on how you could help your feature wife, for example collecting fire wood for the day. We talk about some traditions you should break and the others that don’t really matter. At the end of the day, just like with all my work, you cast your idea into the moment in time. All you can do is hope that the ripples will catch on something or be noticed when they wash up on the shore.

in the life of a teenage girl

I figure since I have been here a year I should start in on some cultural aspects of this culture. First up what it is like to be a teenage girl in this society. First off this is a male dominated society and some women are subjected to harassment on a daily basis. The women do all the house work from cooking to cleaning, doing laundry, taking care of the kids, pulling water, and other miscellaneous tasks. As you can imagine this is hard work. Cooking dinner alone is over a four hour process. With all this work it leaves no time to study for school and no free time to yourself. Add on top of that some men will be very insensitive, to making bad jokes, catcalling you, making you fetch them a glass of water when all they are doing is sitting under a tree drinking attya. Plus add the fact that once you are married then school is over and you are to work in the house and have babies while your husband works for money. It is no wonder that most of the girls in the villages over here never get passed a middle school education. Yet life is life so what are you going to do but put on a smile and keep trucking. As the human race is a diverse population this is not the case across the board. For example my village is very progressive. My brothers will do their laundry if they need it the next day or if their soccer gear is dirty they will wash it. They clean their room and are respectful by telling my younger brothers to get them stuff instead of my sisters. My village doses wait to marry their daughters off until they are 17-18 years unlike some more remote parts that practice 12 year old marriages. To offset this problem we do a lot of women’s education, for example we in the Kaolack region are putting together a girls camp. This is weeklong leadership camps were we teach the girls about gardening, the environment, women’s health, business, and have motivational speakers throughout the week. All in a camp like setting at a hotel in the delta outside of Sokone. As you can imagine we could always use donations use the link below to navigate to the web page. Yet that is not all that we do. In my village I do my own laundry, talk to the young men in my village on what they can do to help their future wife. In my opinion this is the only way you can change things you have to get people thinking about what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes only then can you slowly get things to change.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-198 

Poop and dirt

So the work has been going slowly and the large dent in my hut wall has been growing steadily, as well as my head concussions, I also know I complained about this before but you will hear it again. The women in my village decided to ask me for my help so I did a couple of demonstrations on proper gardening techniques. Of course when the day came all the women were shelling peanuts and refuse to go. So I had to strong arm 7 women into coming and after words they decided that it was too hard and got an "expert" from my road town who knows nothing, yet of course all the women listen and do what he says because it is easy. Witch this is the hardest part of my work people don't want to do what I point out, for example why are you not taking your baby to the health post, oh you don't have the money because you just bought attya, well then maybe you should not buy it. Apparently that is just crazy talk but this is just the difficulties of the job. Of course over here you find the little things that are funny like watching your little brother running over to me with cow poop in his hands asking if it is good to put in your garden bed. Or feigning ignorance when my brothers are pantomiming the french word for kissing, turning down my grandmothers propositions for sex by saying she dose not have a big enough butt and she needs to eat more rice before she comes back, or learning my counterpart is an evil genus by giving me my own plot in the women's garden so I can rub the better gardening practices in their faces. Either way it is all about the little things in life, you could dwell on the negative or translate Sir Mixalot in to Seereer and let them enjoy.

all I want for the elections is peace

First I would like to state that I am fine. I know that things have appeared in the news paper but all the riots are in Dakar and nobody cares in the village. The only thing we have is occasionally giant buses will come through my village blaring music and campaign advertisements, which is annoying if I am trying to get to sleep. Other than that work is going slowly as normal. I have started working with the women's garden trying to teach them new gardening techniques that they find hard so they don't want to do it. Instead they went to my road town found someone who will tell them what they want to hear and then do that. Although on the plus side they did give me my own space in the garden, ironically or my counter part is way more sly than I thought she was, because when all the women make their area's the easy way I made mine with the techniques I know. They did not want to go to the demonstrations on gardening I am bring it to them. this way I will have a good garden bed and better vegetables. Other than that I have been sitting around talking with people and reading the more finer points of the toughest job I ever loved.

WAST

With a new year come new challenges. First I got sick of every one saying that I have a lot of money, slightly true but not really. I also got tired of them saying that people just give away new TV’s and cars in America to anyone who wants it. So I have been trying to get a savings program going. How you ask? I have been telling them to put change in a jar and save up to buy the TV or fencing that they want. Simple concept right? I have had problems of them actually doing it because if you have the money at this instant then go buy attya (tea) and borrow money from your friends when you need it. For example I am trying to get my school director to plant the garden to sell off the excess vegetables, or plant some fruit trees to make revenue for the school. Or even better plant the garden during the rainy season, so you don’t have to water it daily and sell of the vegetables that way. Dose not get that concept either but oh well that is half the reason we are here is to educate people on how to provide for themselves. The fun part is for the last three days we went to WAST in Dakar. WAST is the west Africa softball tournament. It is a tournament for all the aid workers in west Africa put on by the us embassy. Fun time all the peace corps teams dressed up in different themes ours being Boy scouts, of course if I had known this I would have brought my stuff from the states. Either way it was slightly unfair for two reasons. One is we all live in villages and are undernourished. Second all the other teams get together on a weekly base to practice. So needless to say all our games were 0-20. Although the last game we played was against another Peace Corps team from Cape Verd. So we both looked at each other and said we are done with softball. So we found a kickball and played that instead. In the evenings we all stuffed our bellies  with good food, mostly of the cheese biased variety, then we went out dancing every night. Currently I am completely sore, who knew dancing for 6hours a night would be a decent workout, but my belly is happy which means I am more willing to go back and eat rice for three weeks straight. 

helping the world dose not take smarts it takes talking like a six grader

I know it is a little late but happy holidays to my friends and family. It was a little weird spending Christmas over here because it was so warm and there was no snow. So me and my friends did the only thing that anyone would do in this situation when they miss snow...head to the beach. We rented out a house in popeguine and spent five days laying around on the beach in good company and forgetting that we were in Africa for the moment. Also Popenguine is a huge catholic town so we were able to go to mass on Christmas eve. Granted I did not understand any of it because it was in french and Wolof, two languages I don't speak, but the cool part was the there was no organ the music was entirely singing and drumming. It was amazing experience. The next morning we did a gift exchange and played in the sand. As for work it has been slow I have been going around to local baptisms and talking with people on daily basis trying to get them to think about nutrition, first aid, and sanitation like washing your hands. Although I have not got my family to wash their hands with soap but they are cleaning their dishes with soap and bleach. so slow steps but on the plus side I do consider myself fluent in Sereer, I speak like six grader but people can understand me so that is all that really maters. I found out some very interesting things for start my dad is a shaman. So him and my brother Mbye know traditional herbal medicine as well my dad can make talismans to ward of evil spirits. The interesting part about this is he became a shaman because he used hunt wild animals. In Sereer culture they believe you have to kill the animal in your dreams spiritually first then you kill it physically the next day. that incite is what people recognize as a spiritual blessing and means you have great incite in to life. So this means if I ever start having dreams about sick sticky children mobbing my village and they only way to stop them is to pelt them with soap, I know that God has giving a gift and my work will pick up. That or the meflquin is creeping back into my system. Either way Waagum fi a fax no safu (I am able to do good with soap).

Back in Action

With the house computer down for a couple of months I have been in the dark on what is happening in the world  but now with full internet capabilities regular post shall begin. I finished up in Dakar and went back to village were I ended the rainy season  with two weeks of never being dry (Yuk). Now that cold season is upon us I am wondering around in wonderful dry heat and 75 degree temperatures at night. Most of my work has been in the schools so far and a little bit in with the women's garden. Although most days you will find me sitting under a tree in my compound reading a book or going out to the fields to help my brothers with the peanut harvest. The harvest in it's self is quite odd it involves pulling the peanuts out of the ground and the putting them in piles, letting them dry and then putting them in a bigger pile, letting that dry, and finally putting them back into little piles and shaking out the peanuts. Why? I don't know but I do find it interesting that that each one of these steps has a different verb describing it. I also now have a good grasp on the language and have answered one of my main questions since I first got to this country, What is everyone talking about in everyday life? Answer the price of rice/peanuts, girls, and who is lazy in the village/si si. Completely mundane stuff that dose not really matter, who knew. Tabaski came and went the exact same way Koritie did only this time we killed a sheep and I stopped eating the meat after two days. It seems to me that all the holidays are celebrated the same way get dressed up eat and greet people that's it. and as soon as I win my battle with thorns attacking my bike tires I will be able to venture out in to the wonderful sand and explore the villages around me with in biking distance.