Happy Holidays

Well I am back in Kaolack again for the Holiday and you know what that means...Hamburgers. More importantly I get to see my friends and take a break from my life in the village. Thing have started to settle in a little more for me the last couple of weeks. People in my village are warming up to me and i am warming up to them. My Wolof is coming along and it is easier for me to converse. I am getting used to everyday life in the village. It is kind of like camping. I go to bed early and wake up early, cook over a gas stove and sit around the cooking fire with my family to keep warm in the mornings. It has been getting pretty cold at night dont know what the actual temperature is but once I get a thermometer I will let you know.

Ok well the last two weeks...My days look pretty much the same. Dont do a whole lot. I am assured by other volunteers that will pick up in the spring. They did let me go out to the fields to gather peanuts one day. It is not fun and I really dont need to do it again but I definitely appreciate all the work the do just to get those peanuts. I went out with my mom. She has this little hand hoe thing that she uses to dig up the ground a little bit. All the greens have been removed and the peanuts are left in the ground to be gathered. The ground is pretty much dry, hard sand now. The women and some of the kids go out in the fields and bend over and hoe and pick up the peanuts one by one and stick then in a bucket or in a fabric pouch thing that they wear around their waist. Of couse I was the talk of the field when I went out with my hat and my water bottle. They questioned my ability to dig for peanuts. I did just fine. I did leave the field early because all the women didnt want me to get hurt or tired. When i got back to the compound my 21ish year old brother (who mind you had been laying around in his room drinking tea all morning) gave me crap for coming back early. I said some stuff in English that he couldnt understand. It is very theraputic to talk in English.

Last Sunday I had the chance to go to the big weekly market in Berkilan. I went with 4 other women in the village who bought and sold peanuts there all day. For the first 3 hours I was there i just sat there and watched as they did there thing. They were buying smaller quantities of peanuts from people in the market for 250cfa per kilo. then they would fill up large rice sacks with about 30 kilos of peanuts and sell them to someone else for 300cfa/k. it doesnt really end up making them that much money because each rice sack costs 100cfa and the round trip travel costs were about 1000cfa. they each probably only sold 100k. i dont know you can do the math. plus they were in the market so they had to buy things like fabric and food. It was kind of like spending a Sunday at the mall in the states. you go cause you need one thing but you end up eating lunch there and buying those new shoes too... spending mre money they you were expecting. This market day was particularly crazy because the big islam festival, tabaski, is coming up.

Tabaski from what i understand of it is celebrated for the profit, Abraham. He did not have children so he asked god to give him some so god agreed only if Abraham would sacrifice one child to him. So Abe had a bunch of kids and when it came time to kill one he went out to the bush to do it. He had his eyes closed because he didnt want to watch, fortunately god stepped in and switched the son with a sheep so abe killed a sheep and not his son. So each family kills a sheep on the day of tabaski (which this year happens to be new years eve) and eats it. We also get all dressed up and the girls do thier hair and henna tatoos on thier feet and hands. It is a rather extravegant event from what I hear. Should be interesting. I have no idea where they get all the money to do this because it is not cheap. I expect they blow a lot of the money from their peanut harvest now instead of saving it for later on in the dry season when food harder to come by.

As for Christmas...Well I am headed to the bach tomorrow with 17 other volunteers from the region. We will be there for Christmas eve and day. Christmas night I will be back at the house in Kaolack where i am going to eat canned ham and instant mashd potatoes so kindly sent to me from my parents. Let me tell you it doest feel like Christmas at all. I did buy a present today-we are doing a yankee swap type thing at the beach. And the other day I decorated a small fake christmas tree also sent from the states, but I was alone in the hut and it made me more home sick really then anything else. I wish I could be home to celebrate with you all.

Right now I do think this is the right place for me to be. I keep thinking about coming home but really what would I do if I left here. I want to be here. I want to do something even if it isnt much yet. I want to learn the language, teach them about life in the US. They all have this desire to come to the US (I know this first hand from the dozens of marriage proposals or people just asking me to sponser them in thier quest for a visa) but they dont really know what it is like. Half of them dont even know where it is. My villagers thought the US was really close to Korea. Thank goodness I brought that pocket atlas.

Aside from geography lessons there are other things in my village that I know right now I can change. We have a well that has not been in use since 2003. I have several rough estimates that it is between 45 and 60 meters deep. It has no cover. Kids run aound it all the time and it is scary. I want to work on getting something to make it a little safer. Trash-things like old batteries and scrap metal are often found by kids and played with or put in thier mouths. Maybe I should start filling the well trash. (just kidding I know that would contaminate the water supply and create a bigger problem). I have the knowledge already to help them with all these little things. I am slowly building trust too so my villagers are gaining some confidence that I do have a brain and can help them. Ndank ndank. Little by Little.

Ok well I am going to sign off here but before I do I want to wish you all happy holidays and thanks to those who have sent me stuff in the mail. I do greatly appreciate it. Emails too are still great I like to hear about what you all are up to! Love you!