Blog About Malaria Month  BAMM!

Hey guys!  It is Blog About Malaria Month and I'd like to tell you about my experience discussing malaria prevention with my host family in Bayakh, Senegal!

My name is Christina Bryant and I am from Rockville, MD USA.  My Community Based Training site is in Bayakh, Senegal.

My family lives in a compound with 5 rooms and they have mosquito nets for each sleeping space in the compound.  However after asking them about their use,  I found out they only use them during the wet/hot season, June through November.  I suggested they put them up during the remaining months but they reported that it is a hassle.  Instead I discussed with them about the care of mosquito nets and it turns out they were very knowledgeable about them.  They knew to wash them 3 to 4 times a year and to dry them in the shade.  I asked if they knew how to make a princess net which is a net that hangs from one point in the ceiling instead of from 4 posts.  A family friend said he had heard about it and told me he knew how to make them.  Then I shared with them tips on how to wash the mosquito nets.  I told them that it was alright to use soap but that they should not hear the infamous Senegalese "squish" noise while washing them; otherwise, the chemicals might wash away completely.  I asked them how long viable mosquito nets should last and they guessed one year.  It turns out the nets may last up to two years! 

Here is a picture of me fixing the hole in my net.  I did not want to undo the ties from my posts since they were tied pretty tight but I invited my family to come and see the technique I used to sew up the hole.

 

 So lets spread the word and Stomp Out Malaria!!!!! Use those nets and make sure to properly care for them!!

 

 

www.stompoutmalaria.org

 

World Malaria Day: April 25th

 

Greetings ladies and gents!

I am now back from my volunteer visit at site and am feeling pretty good.  I love the Kaolack region and am super happy I am close to the city of Kaolack.  It is so down to earth and African!  It has character and a sweet market so I cannot wait for installation because I get to buy supplies and furnish my hut which is almost (not quite) but almost like furnishing an apartment.  I can make it my own and that is comforting while living on another continent.

So my town is a small town but near the main road so not hard to get to.  There is a dirt road I could follow into the bush to explore which I will be doing pronto.  My family is the coolest family in town and have a huge heard of cows!!  Fresh milk everyday which I could not be happier about.  What you should be more jealous about is that I got to milk a cow the other night after guiding a bunch of baby cows to their mommas.  I had so much fun because the little boys of my family were running all around me and they are adorable.  I rode a donkey cheret to the field which is a small wooden platform on wheels pulled by a donkey.  The donkey had an adolescent and a baby which trotted alongside.  It was a bumpy ride and cow slop was splishing on me the whole time but seriously, I could not believe I was getting a peak of my life for the next couple years.  Dogs and puppies were following and playing with each other, the scenery was gorgeous and he sun was setting.  I am told the cow fields are basically fields of endless watermelon in the rainy season so that is pretty awesome.  Baobab trees and meem trees line the horizon and you can see the surrounding area for miles.  Another cool thing is that there is a small covering in the cow field where someone from my family sleeps every night to watch over the herd of cows from the daunting HYENAS!  I was told you can sometimes hear them at night but it is rare to see them and they do not come around too often.  Well the first night my mind ran away from me.  There were all sorts of animal noises throughout the night and some of them I could identify but some of them I could not.  I heard one that I was like yep those are hyenas.  The next morning I asked and my VV host said no they aren’t around often so they probably weren’t around last night  But then a couple days later my host brother said there were 4 about 100 yards from my hut!  EXHILERATING!

 

So I am now coming back to this post on a word document and it has been a couple weeks since the first half of this post.  I have been extremely busy and never spending two nights in one place.  We were at our host family sites for a while and it went by superfast.  I guess cause we had lots of “Homework”.  E went to the Poste de Sante de Bayakh for a baby weighing and vaccination day.  That was interesting and there were babies EVERYWHERE.  We have had a bunch of writing/essays to write including our readiness to serve assignment.  A BIG DEAL. We also had a quiz about Islam and some journaling to do.  Pretty much busy bees last week.  But it was okay because we went to the BEACH last weekend.  Popenguine.  AWESOME time to say the very least.  We arrived after much anticipation to a wonderful water front mansion!  It was like an MTV house.  Real World Senegal version.  We rushed to choose our beds as we got there and I got a sweet bottom bunk in an upstairs room (didn’t sleep in it that night but that’s another story.  Ended up sleeping in a tent that I was three feet too long for.  Anywho the house was great! Full front porch with gorgeous scenery of nothing but ocean and beautiful flowers.  I can only hope I took enough pictures cause I was so anxious to get down to the beach that I kinda got swept up in the excitement.  We went down to the beach and immediately jumped in the ocean.  We took over the beach which was great.  We swam out pretty darn far cause the current was strong and enjoyed the freezing water.  Then an innocent game of touch football ensued.  Seriously a wonderful day!  Afterwards we climbed on this very large rock down the beach a ways and I scaled a sheet rock wall but totally worth the scrapes and risk cause the view was PHENOMINAL!! Took lots of pictures there.  I’ll put some up next time.  Afterwards we ate a nice beach side lunch at a small French restaurant that ran out of eggs and complained that making half of their drinks on the menu would take too long.  Kinda ridiculous.  But still my vegetable crepe was divine.  Then we went to the Toubab market to buy some wine and treats.  When we came back the fun started! I played DJ and we just chilled on the porch talking and reading magazines.  Then we made sangria. Drank it. Then decided to make a trip for more wine.  So that’s what we did but we had to run so we would make it back in time to climb the rock before sunset.  We ended up making it just in time but then some clouds ruined our fun.  We still chilled on the rock for awhile and I got brave enough to climb down to this teensy ledge over the ocean.  The rest of the night was filled with dancing and group cooking of spaghetti, salad and garlic bread, eating the spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread, more dancing and a whole lot of fun!!  The next day was more hanging out on the beach although I got the sunburn of a life time.  Am currently feeling the effects of that UN fortunately..

Okay I’ll wrap this up cause it seriously is on the long side.  Just got back to the training center from a stay in Bayalh.  We did our fake language assessment and I’m good to go at the level we need to be at for swear in!  YAY!  I’ve been doing much better at speaking with my host family and my neighbors in Bayakh which makes me feel a lot better about swearing in in less than two weeks!  Tomorrow, were having a thank you party for our training host families and my lovely mother had a dress made for me!!  Shes the greatest and I am so pumped to wear it tomorrow.  We also get to go to Dakar on Tuesday so definitely a full schedule in front of me.

Love you all again and more pictures will be coming.. especially of the sansee beach house J

 

Until next time,  Peace!

 

Health hut that is currently more built than this but I found this picture online!!.  This is the health hut currently being built by my ancient, her family, and the wonderful village of Thiawandou!!  It will be not 400 yards from my family's compound!

These are pictures from Kayar, the fishing village where we thought pierogies are made.....turns out a pirogue is this colorful fishing boat.  There are zillions lining the beach before you get to the smelly fish market

These two are from Bayakh,  my community based training site where I live with a wonderful host family and learn Wolof for Pre-Service Training.

 These are sheep on the beach.  Sheep and goats are more prevalent than people around these parts lol.

 

My language group!!  Were about to find out where in this country we will be living for the next two years!! Freaking exciting!!

Senegalese Independence Day spent at the Reserve de Bandia. 

Wish it lasted longer but saw tons of cool animals.  More pictures will come later!  After the mini Safari, we were welcomed to the restaurant with a free locally made liquor tasting!!  pretty amazing and they were quite generous on the tasting part...

So I am feeling way to tired to write a whole post but this has been my last couple weeks in a small nutshell.  a word document is being drafted with some more juicy deets so hold tight!!  I came back from my Volunteer Visit a couple days ago where I visited my service sit and was shown around by my "ancien" (the person I will be taking over from).  It was amazing!!! like seriously amazing!  I had fun and really enjoyed this "demystification" as they call it.


So yeah more to come later.  Back to Bayakh tomorrow to practice my WOlof cause if there's one thing I learned from visiting my site....its that my WOof must improve ASAP.  also that I will be learning Pulaar since my family is Pulaar and they are convinced they will be teaching me...yikes!!  SO off to get my beauty rest!!

Still, I miss you all!!  Enjoy and Yaangiy ci jamm!  (Have Peace!)

T

Blog number two.

 

SOO found out my Peace Corps SITE OF SERVICE yesterday afternoon!  Officially will be working and living in a village called Thiawando in the Kaolack region.  Smack dab in the center of Senegal... right outside of the city of Kaolack.  I recently heard there is a lot of cool scenery and some animal reserves since there are rivers and nice fertile land in the area.  I really like the fact that I am located in the middle of Senegal because it means I will be able to do a lot of traveling all over the country in a shorter amount of time.   This is also god since we have officially been told we are not allowed to go to all surrounding countries except the Gambia.  I am also not far from the Gambia which would be a great little vay kay when the time comes.  CBT this past stay was good.  It was our longest bout but had some fun adventures and got much more adjusted to being surrounded by a language different than my own.  We got our first language assessment out of the way which was wonderful because that means only one more left and hopefully I can expect nothing but improvement from here on out.  Some bad news from two weeks ago is I sprained my ankle.  Thought it was severe but then it turns out it wasn’t.  However, it gave me the nickname limpy and I became handicapped for the rest of the week.  I still can’t run which is sad cause I am dying to run.  I don’t know what it is about being here but I have intense motivation to run most mornings and or evenings.  Maybe because the weather has been cool and breezy and it gives me a chance to think and get out of my head when I am feeling inadequate from speaking Wolof at a three year old level. 

Easter was a fun experience.  We went to thexdsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssscccc   (ß that business was courtesy of Sir Paws Café… one of the Training Center cats.  He is extremely people loving, for a nearly stray cat)  anyways where was I?  Easter.  We went to the Monastere Ker Moussa near our CBT site in Bayakh. It was neat because it was a pretty and neat compound, for its location, and there were fun African paintings.  It was a comforting experience because it reminded me of my big old extended family back home and going to church with them at various points of my life.  Even though the songs were in French, Latin and Wolof it was fun to try and sing along.  We talked with a girl from France who was volunteering in Thies with her cousin for a health program.  It was neat to practice my French a tad.  Funny story,  I actually later saw her (yesterday) in a fabric store at the Thies market near the training center!  Anywho after Masse we weren’t  sure what to do so we started walking.  Eventually a car picked us up…cause that’s how you travel in Senegal. You either go to the nearest “garage” where cars are waiting to fight for your business to take you places or you just hitchhike.  But its normal.  Traveling in Senegal is a whole set of novels on its own.  I cannot possibly describe to you the vehicles used here in this country.  In America when people say their car is dead, or “on its last legs”, they just have NO IDEA.  All cars or buses for public transport look like they belong in a demolition derby and the doors don’t shut quite right and the windows don’t go down or up in some cases and the dashboard controls/odometer/other dials don’t work and the windshields are severely cracked and the trunks are gutted and the car rattles so loud you can’t have a normal conversation.  Seriously the list goes on.  Its amazing and surreal cause I never thought my life would involve experiences such as this. Driving in cars that I would have normally thought should not at all even be used for parts….  I hope to take pictures to illustrate this phenomenon.   Anyways. Back to Easter. I keep getting sidetracked.  So we ended up spending Easter with our LCF (Wolof teacher).  Quite a fun day with bunnies and painted Easter eggs and great food!  Got back to my CBT site after my curfew (woops) but my host mom was in Dakar so no biggie.  That night my host sister showed me pictures of her wedding day which was soo great cause she had a zillion and I was able to get a better idea of who is who in the whole family and who lives in Dakar and who lives elsewhere.  Additionally, if there’s one thing you must know about Senegal, its that they go all out when pictures are being taken.  Dress suuper fancy and put on crazy makeup.  Also they include these fancy borders or add-ons on the corners and edges of the photo, I guess to snaz them up a bit.  Appearance is EVERYTHING in Senegal.  One of those important cultural things we’ve come to learn well.

PS this reminds me.  I will start to make a small list of small things that are typical and staple symbols/isms about Senegal because there are definitely quite a bunch and I believe these would be the things I would enjoy reading most several years down the line after I have ended my service.  Senegalese photos would be one of these “isms” but I think I would need to provide an example or a picture in order to really remember this inexplicable Senegalese tradition.

 

SO now I can talk about today.  Today was Senegalese Independence Day and we had the day off from all Peace Corps requirements and engagements.  I went with a group of lovely peeps to this Animal Reserve in Mbour called Reserve de Bandia, which is only about an hour away.  It was like a little mini Safari and my only complaint was that it was a 45 minute long tour.  That being said.  We saw giraffes and zebras, a ton of monkeys, horse antelope, impalas, other antelopes, kudoo looking antelope, a lot of ostriches, and a handful of rhinos!  Oh and a good bit of funny little Pumbas (warthogs.as if I need to explain) and a hyena by his lonesome. It was awesome to drive around in a safari vehicle and the scenery was divine!  No trash and plenty of cool neato trees!  Afterwards we were driven back to this pretty ritzy looking area with a nice restaurant by a really peaceful looking lake.  However, in and around the lake, there were a BAJILLION crocs!  Seriously MY FAVORITE PART! And what I have been wanting to see since I found out I was going to Senegal!  So “check!” one thing off the Senegalese bucket list!  Another thing I want to make J

SO I shall wrap this up soon because I think this is a long rambling post.  I think I’m forgetting some things but I’m sure it’s bound to happen no matter what.  The rest of Senegalese Independence Day was followed by a lovely and relaxing pizza lunch at the restaurant and we came back to the center, after some difficulty with the transportation.  We got to all sit down and exchange hard drive movies, music and TV shows which is SO EXCITING!!!!  Especially after finding out our site and knowing we will very much enjoy some movies and entertainment in the nearer than ever before future! And then we had a bonfire! (shredded my toe with some thorns) and had s’mores with roasted marshmallows  (not like American S’mores but whatevs)  Then we had an Easter Egg hunt (delayed from Easter) the eggs were so cutely decorated with pictures of Africa and batman and dinosaurs and flowers and Eastery designs!  I didn’t find any cause I was busy hunting for my cell phone instead of the eggs (big surprise)  but still really cool.  Now some fireworks are going off!!   Took some videos.  Apparently neighborhood kids were scared… but Yeeeaaahh theyre pretttty fun.  We have our volunteer visits starting on Saturday which is when we go to our region where we will be staying and get shown around by the volunteer who we are replacing.  My volunteer seems pretty damn awesome and gave me pictures of my family and compound to give me a sneak preview!  I am pretty excited that I get to be shown all the cool stuff in the area and meet everyone I will be working with just about!  Also I was told to bring a watermelon, cheap rose wine and a pillow.  I mean really doesn’t that sound like just the greatest possible time?!  So yeah more logistics next time.  Its just so much more fun to talk about the mundane silly little things.  Like I bought some beautiful bracelets and earrings from an artisan women who set up shop at the training center yesterday!  I love them all!  Also love the bracelets my host sisters gave me!  Definitely need to get them a gift in return.

 

So again sorry for this long update but I guess since I’ve only done two in a month, you all will have to deal!  Oooo just remembered I got a skirt that I need to pick up from the tailor tomorrow! Pumped J  I need to start making moves with my decision and purchases for a swearing in fancy pantsy outfit!  Any suggestions???  I’ll be waiting J

 

Enjoy! And I miss you all bunches!!  Mwuah Mwuah!