Tackling the Development "Boulder"

I know I haven't been updating as regularly as I should be lately, but it's been rather crazy (though to be fair, when has it not? I do live in rural, sub-saharan Senegal after all...). I've spent most of my time lately running around the region (an epic 6 hour trip to go the 250km to Ourossogui, several trips to Podor, and a couple more to Gamadji Sare), avoiding large groups of people during election time (though I did score an awesome campaign tshirt), organizing the office (a constant uphill struggle), entertaining the Belgians (a film crew came to survey for a documentary, as one of their exact quotes was "so you actually live out here?!?"), cooking with Cruger during his visit (I was finally given a hot plate, so we christened it by making some mean pasta dishes), typing up village portraits in french (I have 3.5 books filled with notes from my 3 week tournee), and struggling with a monster of a UNICEF report (due in a couple of days, despite the fact that we're still missing March's statistics). That's a lot of stuff to be juggling on top of the 40+ degree celcius heat and lack of water!

I'm happy to report that while I'm still slaving away at most of the other things (with the exception of the cooking as Cruger had to head back to Linguere), I have just finished my 28 page UNICEF report, entirely "en francais", complete with beautiful pictures from my tournee, a table of contents, a list of abbreviations, and an index with excel sheets. My anal-retentiveness paid off, as my boss said it was the most detailed and thorough report of the region's activities that he's ever seen. While that's at least one task down, why am I starting to feel like Sisyphus?

I Shouldn't Have Made All Those Dune References...

One of the most frightening things that can happen here, other than almost stepping on a scorpion the size of your middle finger, is turning on the tap and nothing coming out. Oddly enough this normally doesn't phase most Senegalese out here in the fouta, but it does scare the you-know-what out of me. I thought that I had left the lack of running water and bucket lugging behind me when I left the metropolis of Ourossogui (population 12,000) for quiet, reliable Ndioum (population 4,000 on a good day) but the water gods apparently had other plans for me. We are currently on day 4.5 of absolutely no water coming out of our taps. That's right, not even water in the middle of the night or the occasional trickle - there has been NOTHING for 4.5 days. It's brutal, and people are starting to smell rather ripe around here (myself included of course).

I helped Ndeye get water today - it took us close to an hour and almost killed me. We had to walk and walk until we reached a well that was still working (that's right - a bunch of them have dried up. WHY IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THIS BUT ME?!?), launch a bucket down a 80 foot concrete shaft (it gave me intense vertigo) several times to fill up our plastic buckets, and then lug those back to the house. I tried to carry one on my head for a while (I singlehandily provided a large portion of Ndioum with its entertainment for the day), but I had to give up halfway as I thought my neck was going to crack under the pressure. Those things are unbelievably heavy! Ndeye, on the other hand, managed one on her head (no hands) and another in one hand - she is my new hero. I've never felt so much respect for someone before, as this is what she has to do coutless times a day during these droughts, and this is what women do on a daily basis out in the villages where there is no such things as running water. I stand in awe of them.

Strangely enough, this whole process has made me love Ndioum even more, as while life here is far from a walk in the park, it is normally a wonderful combination of modern conveniences (that's what I call electricity, running water, the occasional access to cold beverages that come from fridges, having my own room, etc) and rural realities (these include the power/water regularly going out, herds of goats and cattle everywhere imaginable, horse/donkey charettes as the main form of transport, everything stopping during the harvest season, etc). I am forever grateful that I'm stuck out here instead of Dakar, though I'll admit that on mefloquine days I do have very vivid dreams of enjoying cheesy pizzas and ice-cold Sam Adams, only to awake to ceebujeen (fish and rice) yet again for lunch, with room temperature water to wash it all down. Guess you can't have it all...

Here's the dust storm, now where are the Sandworms?

As part of my epic, 4 week tournee to all sorts of remote villages in the Fouta, I often was required to take whatever local transportation was available. This included dugout canoes, motorcycles, old bread delivery trucks with wooden benches in the back, horse and donkey carts, school buses, and finally having to perch on one of four 4x4's attached across the back of a pick-up truck with 15 other people. With 16 (I counted) goats beneath us, nibbling at our feet (they seemed to REALLY like the sunscreen around my ankles). For 1.5 hours. Across the desert. No roads. In a dust storm. Is it weird that I had a blast?

Pictures

Rabbits! I've been out on a tournee for the past week and about to head out again early Monday morning, so I haven't had much time to myself. I did get a chance to upload photos on my Picasa work account, so now you can all see some of the stuff I've been up to in the villages. Just click on "Work Photos" on the side bar or go directly to http://picasaweb.google.fr/volontairematam . I'll try to write more about my crazy adventures when I get back - they involve 55km on the back of a moto, crossing the Senegal river in a wooden dugout canoe with a horse swimming beside us, and dancing "like nobody's business", among other things. It's certainly quite the life here!


PS: I've also updated the Tanzania photos in the "personal photos" section - enjoy!