Things that Spread (Names and Disease)

Busy week! Especially for having not done all that much.

I milked a cow. Actually I tried to milk a few, but I only got milk out of one. It’s harder than I expected, even though I didn’t expect to be able to do it right right away.

Time in Kolda was good. We had the house meeting and began our regional strategy, which we realized would take us longer than one afternoon to address, but we got a great start by hearing what people are up to and what they are hoping to do more of. It is surprising how little you might know about the work of some of the other volunteers in the region. I look forward to talking more about our overall goals and aims for Kolda, as well as potential projects that we can collaborate on.

Thursday was the baptism for Maimona Annicka Signate. That’s right. There’s a new Annicka in the village, and I’m so proud. I went to their compound (the school director’s) in the morning for the naming. We all gathered, many villagers and friends and family from out of town, while they shaved the baby’s head, offered a sheep, and prayed over the newly named baby. (Muslim tradition holds off on naming the baby until the baptism, usually 8 days after birth). There was a lot of sitting and cooing and some gift-giving and plenty of well-wishing. Those who were not fasting ate some fun snacks and those who were took a bag of cookies for later. There was some confusion on my part because people (older women) were asking me why I hadn’t brought kola nuts or where the ones that I brought were. I guess as a guest of honor (Annicka, remember… now I’ve got a namesake, a tookara) I should have brought kola nuts. I was confused and a little unsettled by the demands, especially since I had no idea I should have brought them or how to field questions about why I didn’t. After a while, instead my friend showed people the cute little outfits I had brought her for the baby and apparently I had done a good job with picking them out because suddenly it was ok. Kola nuts forgotten (except for one lady who left either still bitter about the nuts I forgot to bring, or just pretending to be), we had a nice, calm celebration. In the afternoon, Handicap International came and hosted a causerie to educate about the importance of equal rights to those with handicaps, especially in schools. Being Ramadan, the feast that usually accompanies a baptism was held off until sunset, so I went home in the afternoon to take a nap and try to escape from the heat and wretched humidity. As the rainy season is beginning to wane, there are more days with heavy cloud cover and high humidity with fewer instances of rain to relieve the oppressive heat. Not my favorite.

I came back to the party for the breaking of the fast: meat with fries and onions… remember that sheep?... coffee, bread, and thiakry. Thiakry is one of my favorite Senegalese snack-type foods. It’s kosan (sour milk… kind of like a yogurty stuff) with sugar and millet in it. I know, it doesn’t sound incredibly appealing, but it’s really very good. After some more hanging out, the women asked me to dance, because obviously I must be so happy about having a new namesake. I asked for someone to dance with me, but since there was no organized dance circle, it looked like it was just me. Plus my six-year-old fan club. So we pulaar-danced and after about 3 seconds the girls were laughing too hard to stay on their feet and the women too hard to continue clapping out a rhythm. It must be really funny to see an American dance like a pulaar, but they loved it. Afterwards, I started getting tired and after holding the baby for a long, long time, I tried to make my way home. Of course, you must wait for dinner, Aminata! What? Didn’t we have dinner… like an hour ago, when we broke the fast? We had coffee and bread to break the fast, then dinner, then dessert, right? Oh no, we’re waiting for dinner now, it’s almost ready. I was already uncomfortably full so I waited a little bit for tea, but as I was falling asleep in my chair I thought maybe I’d better just go ahead home. I was given a boxed dinner to take with me because certainly I must still be hungry. Then when I got to my compound, they’d saved dinner for me as well. As much as I like the dinners I get (both at home and especially at the teachers’ compound), I can’t handle 3. So I passed. And I went to bed, worn out.

My big “event” right now is due in part to the humidity, and in part to something I’ve been working on for the last month… dreadlocks. Yes, it’s true, I am now a nappy-headed Peace Corps volunteer. I’ve always wanted to have dreads for a short period and now seemed like a good time to do it. In Thies, I began dreading my hair, but realizing that the pieces were not as nicely and evenly segmented out as I’d hoped, I had my friend Alexis re-separate the sections of my hair in the back so I could dread them later. I asked her to tie them into pieces with rubber bands, nice and tight so I could take my time working on them without worrying about them falling out or all dreading together. Unfortunately, the little “baby hairs” at the base of my neck didn’t appreciate being so tightly reined-in and mutinied. I made the unfortunate move of picking at the irritated bumps and got myself a classy rainy-season skin infection. I can’t see it well, but in Kolda I had help cleaning it out and had someone take a picture of it so I could see it. It’s pretty! (As far as infections go). Skin infections are incredibly easy to get, especially during the rainy season, and are one of the top 3 things our chief medical officer told us “keeps him awake at night”. Easy to get, not as easy to get rid of. So, now I’m on a strict, soak and clean and take some antibiotics regimen. I have great hope that I’ll be able to keep it clean and on the road to recovery in my village, but if it doesn’t continue to improve over the next few days, I may find myself back in Kolda a lot sooner than I had hoped. I debated putting the pictures up for you to see, but given my bad luck uploading pictures the last 2 months (as long as I’ve been trying to get up pictures of my hut… and not succeeding), and for the benefit of those who don’t relish infectious abscesses, I’ve decided to pass.

Hopefully, the next time I will be in Kolda will be after Korite (the celebration at the end of Ramadan) when we’ll be welcoming the new kids down for their demyst/CBT-type experience. It’s really neat to be able to welcome the next stage (who have now been in country for 5 days) and become a “sophomore” in Peace Corps. Good luck all you guys in Thies and in the surrounding villages. I believe they head out to villages tomorrow for their first village stint. Their training is village-based with their language trainers mixed with a few days at the center in Thies for core training sessions every 10 days or so. It’s new here but more like how they do it in Gambia and Mauritania. This week I hope to help get the school ready for the new year and start making some progress on starting my village projects! And, I have some cucumbers showing up on the vines in my garden! Good stuff to look forward to in the village! Oh yeah, and Saturday marked 6 months in country. 6 Months!!! Wow. Until next time, miss you all.