Two Weeks In

Its hard to determine where I should start trying to describe the last two weeks in my village but I guess it makes sense to start from my install. I arrived in my village to the entire school gathered in the courtyard singing, which has to go down as one of the most surreal and overwhelming experiences I have ever had. After a few brief speeches in one of the classrooms we proceeded to my family's compound in the form of a mini parade. Again surreal and overwhelming. I am living in the compound of the village chief and it was he who gave me my new name (Mariame Niang) on arrival to the compound. My hut is pretty big by my standards (ie bigger than either of my rooms in Montreal) and came furnished with a double stick bed, a trunk and a shelf courtesy of the previous volunteer. My bathroom is attached to my hut and while my village is lacking in foliage I have a large neem tree growing out of the wall of my bathroom.

I've spent most of my time in the village trying to get to know my new family which has about 20 members, spending time at the school, and hanging out with my counterpart and his family. What this translates to is a lot of sitting around on a mat, drinking tea and eating a lot of rice and couscous. Throw in some time spent swimming in the river and a couple of afternoon naps and you have accounted for about 95% of my activities here. While it can get frustrating sitting around talking about how hot it is (ina wuli jaw is my most used pulaar phase next to mi faamani (I don't understand)) I have actually gotten out and gone to a wedding (which required a canoe and a horse cart to get to) and spent a night in my nearest town with the teachers when they were proctoring an exam. I have also started thinking about some projects I could work on and learning about the problems my village is having and yesterday I started my tree nursery with the help of some of the kids in the village.

I think I am going to leave this post with a few of my favorite things seen and heard in the village:

Favorite article of clothing: While the guy who was wearing a Texas t-shirt, a pair of pants with the French flag on them, and a pair of sandals with the Union Jack comes in a close second the winner of this has to be my counterpart's 8 year old son who was wearing a pair of jeans with a picture of Ahmandihijad on them. When I asked my counterpart if who knew who that was he responded by saying, "yeah, the terrorist."

Favorite reason for wanting to go to America: the winner of this one goes to the 20 year old guy who hangs out at my house. I have a really hard time understanding what he says normally (I have a hard time understanding what anyone says) but I was glad I caught this. He would like me to take him to America so that he can go to 50 Cent's house (who apparently lives in Washington) where they will eat meat and drink milk.

Favorite thing seen: Donkey Jail. On a walk to go see the fields I noticed a chain link cage containing a donkey. Now donkeys are everywhere in my village so what was more shocking was the chain link fence which seemed like a bit of an extravagance. Since fencing in all the fields is not really an option, people are responsible for keeping their animals out of other people's fields and if you catch an animal in your field you can bring it to the cage where the owner comes to bail it out and if no one bails it out it is sent to the regional capital.