Although I really don’t want to be negative, I pretty much have no choice because I am basically worn-out. I’ve been at my site for over a month without leaving, and the stresses of daily life have caught up to me. Usually, when people yell out ‘toubab,’ I go up to them and nicely say, “hey, the toubab has a name - it’s Hola - what’s your name?” But lately, ‘toubab,’ which means ‘white man’ or ‘whitey,’ has been grating on my nerves so badly that I have been yelling back at people, “MY NAME IS NOT TOUBAB… IS YOUR NAME BLACK?!” The main reason for this lack of patience is that my life is my work and my work is my life and there is no such thing as relaxing as long as I am at site, so any frustration I have on a daily basis just builds and builds. Besides the fact that I’m always on display when I walk out of my room, another frustration is the multitude of bugs.

Since the rains started 4 months ago, the bugs have been out of control. Every month or so there is a new kind of bug that emerges, and they seem to be getting progressively worse. First there were these little black bugs that would crawl and fly and stick in my hair, and they wouldn’t simply shake out, I had to actually peel them out. Then there were these other little black bugs that didn’t fly but ran really fast and hid in my room in large numbers. Now, it’s the grasshoppers, and they have succeeded in their attempt to be as irritating as possible. There is nothing less fun than dealing with these creatures, which hop or fly in my hair and clothes, before going to bed. Like the other bugs, they are most intense at night, at which time it’s like the plague. I try to set up my mosquito net as quickly as possible, while the grasshoppers are flying at me from every direction, and within minutes the whole net is covered with them. Because I am essentially living outside, there is no escaping these evil pests, and I’m constantly playing field hockey with my broom trying to get them out of my room.

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To top it all off, yesterday was Korité, the end of Ramadan (their version of Thanksgiving, except the food is gross). My host family bought a cute goat (the one pictured below) and had it slaughtered in the back yard. As I was washing my clothes, I got to watch some guys slit its throat, drain the fluids, skin it, and chop up the parts. After I was nice and tired from doing laundry for two and half hours and angry that my host brother played with the goat’s head then started eating without washing his hands (after I specifically told him he should wash his hands – I mean, as a health volunteer, I feel like it’s my responsibility to say something), I went into my room to eat lunch and got a lovely surprise from Mon Ami. I didn’t notice her come into the room, but I heard her crunching away at something by my feet, so I looked down and saw her chewing one of the goat’s bloody legs. Not only that, there were drips of blood all over my room. I told her to get out, and she left, leaving me to take out the leg and clean up the blood.

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One positive thing that happened recently is that I finished a world map mural at the high school. People up here cannot point to Senegal on a map, nor can they point to any given continent. I showed this to a group of girls and they enjoyed seeing where different countries were located.

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Given my current stress level, I plan to spend a couple days at the beach, and hopefully I will return feeling calmer. Until then, enjoy the photos, although I do warn you that there are many of the goat being slaughtered – yes, this is partially an attempt to convert you to vegetarianism.

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