Erin’s Sojourn in Senegal

Actually I just touched the soil with my index finger but it was an adventure nonetheless. The biggest thing that’s happened these past two weeks is me working up enough courage to go swimming in the Senegal River. When med came in during PST to talk about the dangers of living here in Africa, they warned us, among many things, not to swim in the river because one can pick up a chronic disease called schistosomiasis.

Two months ago I vowed to be as diligent as possible with my health safety, meaning I would not swim in the river and I would always bleach my water, but that is just not practical. I went as far as to drink water that had ants floating in it the other day because I was really thirsty. I figured I had two choices: swim in the river and possibly get schisto or not swim in the water and possibly get schisto from accidently stepping in a puddle.

Was I afraid? Yes. I was very afraid. I heard talk of hippos being in the water and that scared me a bit, but I had also heard talk of mermaids lurking around so I wasn’t sure what I could believe anyway. The river is 25 kilometers (that’s 16 miles) away from Thilogne and one must travel through the hot desert to get there. I swam across and touched Mauritania and swam back against the surprisingly strong current. The most frightening part was when I saw what looked to be a big pot in the water only to discover it was a dead dog when I got close to it.

In work related news, I finished a mural about breastfeeding. In Pulaar it reads, “During their first 5 months, babies should eat and drink breast milk only.” I’m currently working on a hand-washing mural because absolutely no one I’ve seen washes their hands with soap before eating. Speaking of eating, the dinner menu at my house now rotates between pasta with onion sauce and potatoes with onion sauce each night.

I also spent a couple days at the regional house in Ndioum last week, which was a nice break. We do things there like read, bake, and watch back to back movies. For more pictures, click on “Settling into Thilogne” on the right.

Poetry, as defined by William Wordsworth, is “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings arising from emotion recollected in tranquility.” When I studied Wordsworth briefly in school, I did not fully appreciate his philosophy as I do now, sitting in an air conditioned room, attempting to recount the past ten days at my new site as far removed from my current situation as possible. I am in a city called Ourossogui, about an hour and a half away from my site in Thilogne. Here, positive and rational thoughts can more easily get to my brain, thereby allowing my account to be more fair and objective (for those of you wanting to hear the heat and stress-influenced version, write to me and I’ll be happy to share it with you).

Thilogne is a fairly big city (around 15,000 people) with a small village feel to it. There are twelve mosques, a high school, a health post, a couple elementary/middle schools, and a small market. It is an established and functioning city, and according to the nurse at the health post, it has no major health problems (so why am I working as a health volunteer here? I’ll try to answer that question for the both of us in the coming months). My host family is very nice and hospitable, and though they are always willing to talk to me and take me places, they also respect my privacy.

For the first two months at site, we have to do a few village surveys and collect some data, but our main goal is to learn the language, and that is what I have been trying to do the past several days. Every day, I go out and meet people, I introduce myself and let them know why I am here. Everyone is really open and inviting here, so I don’t have to try at all; in fact, it’s almost impossible to not talk to people every time I leave the house. Imagine that every time you went to the grocery store, you had to say ‘hello, how are you, how are you with the fatigue, how are you with the heat, it’s hot, I’m good, thanks to God’ to every person you passed. That is what people do here - it’s the culture. If I were to walk from my house to the health post and my village were deserted, it would take about ten minutes. Because I have to greet every person I see, it takes about thirty minutes. Oftentimes, people will invite me to have tea with them or eat with their family, so opportunities for learning the language are in no short supply (although I still cannot understand a whole lot of what people say to me).

Let’s now talk about food! For breakfast I eat bread or porridge. In order to get more protein, I cook my own lunches - beans or lentils and one/two of the three vegetables currently available at the market: onion, eggplant, and carrot. For dinner, I eat with the family, and the dish rotates between beans and couscous each night. Food variety will get better in a couple months after the rainy season, inshallah.  Read More »