A Christmas Blasphemy

December 24th, 2012

"Adam: What's at Catalina?
Me: Pizza
Adam: I can't believe you didn't have chinese for dinner. You are betraying your ethnic heritage
Me: Yeah it's embarrassing, it's because we had Asian food last night
Adam: You couldn't see Christmas coming?!?! You might as well have gone out and staged a mock crucifixion.
Me: I tried to tell dad last night but he was determined to go to the Japanese buffet even when mom and I were adamant about not eating buffet last night as neither of us wanted to stuff ourselves."

*Side note: We did stuff ourselves at the Japanese/Chinese buffet. This seems somewhat unavoidable with buffets, hence the problem.

December '12 Update

Herb and Barb at the Festival flee market, Pompano Beach, FL. December '12

instagram makes everything look more interesting but it's also sort of ridiculous. Have you seen?: http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6853117/look-at-this-instagram-nickelback-parody

Over the past many months I have thought about writing blog entries several times. Because this blog isn't really about anything and I never know what’s blog worthy, and because I’m lazy, I've let it slide off into the oblivion. But I want to start posting more regularly soon.

Some of the things I've thought about writing about: First, there was my “I now know why they call it ‘Nap’ town” article. I ended up in Indianapolis on a business trip with nothing to do one night earlier this year in the summer. I randomly scanned the radio while driving and heard a Pacer’s-Heat playoff game. It took me a few minutes to connect to the fact that I was not only in the town where this was happening but just a few blocks away. I parked my car in a minute (easy) and found the stadium not from the noise of thousands of noisy cheering fans and street vendors outside as one would expect near a game like this, but with my Iphone. There was one hot dog vendor on the block outside the stadium, I repeat ONE hot-dog vendor. The fact that I could walk in for $40 (the game had already started and I do realize others had paid much more) to an NBA playoff game last minute, let alone against Dwayne Wade and Lebron James of the Miami Heat, at that price and that quickly, is astonishing. Indeed, it’s a sleepy city.

Second, I am on vacation right now in Florida spending lots of time with my folks. Over the years I've written a few entries titled “the Herb files.” My dad has more neuroses than Michael Jackson hit songs. One of them, as I was reminded last night at dinner, is my dad needing to smell everybody else’s food at the dinner table. He won’t actually take you up on a sampling offer; he just wants to smell it. According to Herb, by smelling any food (beverages included) he can tell if it’s one of quality. This might theoretically make some sense but it’s weird to have people putting their nose over your matzoh ball soup at dinner. Another example is Herb refusing to touch alcohol. Last night he told the story of his students taking him to a bar, one of the few times he’s been in a bar in his life: “I went to a bar, it was about three years ago when some students brought me to ra-ra’s (I think he meant RiRa in Burlington) and it was horrible! We've never gone to a bar to have a drink!” I've always enjoyed pronouncing things incorrectly myself (the prudential in Boston is not the Pru it's the Prud), but sometimes I wonder if my dad started this same way before he became him, and that does concern me some...

I don’t know who reads this blog anymore and I’m not really interested in just writing for others anyways, and I've realized lately that looking back on this blog decades down the road will be more of an interesting window into who I am than anything else. My life has been so static lately that I haven’t felt like there was that much to write about really. But now after 5 years of working at the same job, I am making a huge life change and picking up and moving to Uganda.

I've accepted a job offer at Fenix International, a Silicon Valley start-up. I’ll be starting the first week of February and will transition from EE in the next few weeks. My new job will allow me to get on the ground floor of a social business start-up that specializes in small scale alternative energy systems targeted for rural villages in developing countries. I can’t wait to be off for a couple of weeks beforehand – it will be the first time in 5 years, because when you take vacation from a job, it’s not like you really are ever truly away, since you know you’ll have even more work to do when you come back. I feel accomplishing some huge feet, like biking the Pacific coast, or saving a polar bear in the Canadian arctic, but I’ll probably just take a bus to NYC to visit some friends and get some immunizations before returning back to Africa.

Mounties
Been awhile since I posted but I got a couple of things I've been meaning to write about. The most recent is from my trip to Minnesota for my 5 year Macalester reunion.

On my way home I was getting a ride from a friend/co-worker who was driving just a bit too fast and we ended up getting pulled over by a horse! Well not exactly the horse itself, but a cop riding on top of it who signaled us to pull over. When the cop came over on his horse to the car, we could not see anything but these massive legs next to us and the head and enormous teeth of the horse coming down above us. It was the most frightening thing ever. The ticket wasn't so bad but it was definitely strange as this has never happened to me before!

fat stereotypes

Here is the classic baby and mom Africa shot taken during a training on my recent trip to Senegal – I was obliged to post this (straight out of “Stuff White People Like” – “culture, study abroad, etc.”) but forgot to earlier.

Just went to the Doctor's yesterday back here in the States. Not moving for two weeks and eating a lot apparently I am now finally for the first time in my left susceptible to weight gain. Up to 145, I am fat now (at least it's not in my face. But I was 130-135 only a month ago or so I think).

Doc. Say’s I got to leave this new leg brace on a whole month! But at least I got something a little more comfortable and lighter than the hard cast I got in Senegal. The doctor also asked me about how I showered with the old cast on in Senegal and I told him it was hard. He then made a comment about how you don't "need" to shower in Africa and made a hygiene joke which sounded pretty racist. It's like my friends who told me both before Cameroon and Senegal: "watch out, don't get aids. Haha" Ugh, not sure how to react to this...

Home

Yaguemar (the volunteer coordinator and me with broken knee and hard cast)
Training
Shot from the road
Traditional tea making
The ever ubiqitious Nescafe, ruining coffee since 1938
Cool tree outside one of the villages
A Foulani herder shoed us away thinking we were government taking "evidence" of his crime: letting camels eat some trees that were not on his land. Don't worry sir, we don't have the GPS coordinates of this tree (and I don't work for the Senegalese government)

I was sad to have to leave early but sometimes things like violence during a presidential election are outside of your control. It’s not easy to get to Senegal and missing out on good travel is unfortunate but I had a good experience in just two weeks time. The trainings with the farmers went pretty well and helped me gain some real confidence, but whether any of it helps the farmers I’m not really sure. But maybe that’s just the nature of development work and why it’s so hard. I did have several people ask me after the trainings if I could hire them for Equal Exchange – I told them I wasn’t the one making decisions around that, ha. But if you told me going into this trip I would break my knee, actually to some decent presentations in French for about 4 hours every day, and eventually have to be pulled out of the country early because of rioting I would never have believed it.

Interesting nonetheless to learn about new cultures – people snap when they want attention here, they drink a super surgery tea all the time and random people come in during meetings to offer it (and I never see money exchanging hands, I guess it’s just custom?), you give a koala nut to a girl to get married here, learning that it’s illegal to talk on the phone and drive in this country, smelling the odd burning smell throughout the country that reminded me of Cameroon, that type of thing, it’s just interesting to learn about and one of the reasons I like travel so much. I’ll miss not being able to really “know” Senegal but leaving home also makes you remember all the good things you have at home too – like good coffee

Chariots of Fire

the infamous baobab tree of Senegal

Things have started heating up here in Senegal with the election getting closer. So not only do I have to worry about this broken knee, I have to worry about what I’m going to do if there’s a riot near me and I have to run. All of that until today actually, when I found out from NCBA (the National Co-operative Business Association -the people that sponsored my trip) that I am being pulled from the country and need to get out Friday before the election Sunday.

For some reason a bunch of people have the Chariots of Fire Ring tone, all the news stations and radio continually play Chariots of Fire. I’m pretty sure they have no idea that it’s from the film and it’s even more funny when you understand that apparently this is like the country’s theme song whenever tension’s are arising (I can’t tell if it’s a joke?) But even in Kaolack it's been getting ugly.

A few nights ago I went to a political rally of one of the leading candidates (this was a stupid idea given the current state of affairs and my non-mobile self). Riots were also happening and it was kind of a crazy seen. People had lit some tires on fire and blocked road access, as several people had been killed by the police earlier in the day. Meanwhile the political "show" or rally was happening and the crowd was enormous, people running in every direction and I really had no idea what was going on. It was still cool to witness this cultural event though at least of the procession of speakers, dancers, music, and Macky Sall speaking

The other funny thing, is amiss all of the rioting and violence there’s been here, you still see two men walking down the street holding hands, which really is just a difference in our respective cultures, but it’s still hard not to imagine this being a very peaceful place as a result, and it is usually people tell me. If shit goes down Sunday (Election day) Senegal will lose it’s status of being one of the few African countries that has never had any truly violent transitions of power since the age of the colonial powers (I put some links below here about the news).

On very unrelated notes, I keep forgetting to give my key to the front desk when I leave the hotel. Not only is the key huge, but it took me 3 days to figure out that the cleaning people had no way to get into the room if I took the key! I've also been eating lunches in the villages where we are doing trainings (more on this and some pics to come soon) out of one large bowl together and using your hands (and people ripping larger pieces of meat with their hands for the group) - which doesn't bother me that much, but I think it would for a lot of Americans. Ok that's enough non-sequitur stuff, I'll post again soon before they ship me off hopefully.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17107167

http://www.usatoday.com/video/senegal-police-teargas-dakar-opposition-protest/1465565739001

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/audioconsole/?stream=africa_mix

The return of white guilt

view outside the CLUSA office where I've been working

Being stuck at the hotel all the time now because of this broken knee thing I’ve had a lot of time to do things like check email, watch movies, watch the ants come out of my keyboard (?), get to know the hotel staff, and do things like write this blog. A few days ago I spoke with the gardener and x-mayor of Kaolack which was interesting. Besides gardener there’s security people, someone who runs a shop here, bar men, chefs (the food is ridiculously good, and really very traditional though), pool cleaner –it’s pretty fancy, not the situation I expected to find myself in being in Senegal and very different than my study abroad experiences. Anyways, the gardener, who had lost both his parents and was on his own (about my age), told me made 30,000 CFA/Month – which is like $60 and he told me needs probably about $4/day to cover his expenses, you do the math and see pretty quickly that doesn’t really work. Additionally, I’ve been told (since I didn’t pay for it) the rooms here are about $50/night – to think that the cost of me staying here for one night is almost what this guy makes in one month is pretty staggering.

But the thing is, they do seem to be somewhat better off here than what I’ve seen in Cameroon (granted that was like 6 years ago now). I didn't have a smart phone to see where I could pick up wireless and I didn’t spend that much time in cities there so the comparisons about how many real toilets there, electricity/water access, etc. are not really fair.

But some other comparisons that might be fairer are the existence of a real national language here in Senegal (Woloff) where Peace Corps volunteers don’t even need to learn French they can go just straight into Woloff. Cameroon does not really have an equivalent like this. In both places though I’ve found it is impossible to get change. People’s reactions range from annoyed to angry when you give them something like 10,000 CFA – which is about $20. One last remark, they serve an incredible amount of bread, specifically of the baguette type here as well (and I remember them doing that as well in Cameroon) – must be a French legacy

I've fallen in the Egouts and I can't (can?) get up!

pillow/bed where I lay to get the cast (that's the material all of over the place)
Plaster station at the doctor's office

So as always it's an adventure being somewhere like Senegal. The other day I had met a musician who told me he to come to his show later that night and when I went to the club (boite de nuit they call it)la Kaznak not only was he not there but no one was there. I couldn't even find the entrance. Some people laughed at me wondering aimlessly around this building until an older guy came out and unlocked the entrance and asked me what I wanted. Apparently people don't go out until at least 11:00pm-12:00 here in Senegal (it was about 8:30). Feeling embarrassed I told him I'd like a beer (I wasn't going to just turn around empty handed - reminds me of "fishing" in poker). The place was completely unlit and strange on the inside. We turned on a small interrogation light and he gave me the drink while we proceeded a little awkwardly at first to talk. It turns out this guy was Senegalese but had been in Guinea (Conakry) for like 10 years digging for diamonds, and it was a pretty interesting conversation. We also talked about the 4 wife thing in Islam, woman in general, and about happiness in life. Feeling like I had at least accomplished meeting this interesting individual I left and proceeded to go back to my hotel...but at this point I had gained some confidence and felt I didn't "have" to go back to eat like I always do at this same hotel (where I am staying) and decided to turn around and find something else (I had been warned about strolling around on my own at night...although it doesn't seem that dangerous here), but this was a mistake.

As I strolled around in the dark (the streets are not lit here really despite the fact that it's the third biggest city in Senegal) and walked the sidewalk to avoid being hit by a car my mind wandered aimlessly. All of the sudden I took a step forward and instead of feeling sidewalk fell 4-5 ft. straight down into a whole. This took me completely by surprise, I scraped the side of my body badly and landed very awkwardly, but luckily on my feet. I had to pull myself out of the dirty whole (so I guess "egout" is like sewer although that's not really a fair comparison) and tried to walk it off. But there are lots of these random wholes in the sidewalk, I had seen them during the day - I had just not seen it coming. I couldn't sleep later that night because of the pain in my knee and realized it probably was not just bruised.

The next day at the hospital I got x-rays and saw I had fractures (x-rays were about $75 - so strange just handing the doctor cash straight up). The man who built my cast was smoking a cigarette and hardly spoke a word of French. That didn't stop him from saying God knows what in Woloff to me even though he must have known I don't speak Woloff - and the hard cast he somehow built for me in like 7 minutes (pretty impressive!) has immobilized me (it covers my entire leg). So that kind of ruins a lot because I can't swim, walk much, get in cars easily, or go up stairs easily, but it could have been a lot worse I suppose. I've been told we don't even really build hard casts like this anymore in the U.S. The travel insurance company also told me it could be a problem getting on the plane in a few weeks, which is about how long I'm supposed to have it...

It's funny learning technical words like cast in French, and that's the nice thing about being in the country and also just getting to see a whole different side too. Obviously health care is not the same here but in some ways just paying $25 for the visit and the cast was so much easier. Although I did feel pretty bad passing all of the sick people and crying babies as the volunteer coordinator's sister-in-law is a nurse at the hospital and just saw me right away (white privilege). I've been told you can wait 24 + hours to see a doctor here. Again, this whole thing could have been a lot worse, I am at least walking

Kaolack

I've been in Kaolack, the main city where I'll based for the next week or so for two days now. After checking the weather in the States and seeing it would be 72/73 and sunny every day in Dakar I thought it would be perfect, but driving just 3-4 hours west towards Mali the temperature went up about 25 degrees, and it is hot! It was 92 at 8:00pm last night. But it's a nice change from the Boston winter, and it's a dry heat, which is much more tolerable. There are a lot of mosquitoes though (so far so no nightmares like in the past from the malaria pills).

Today I took a stroll after "work" and man it was crazy here. There's no big buildings despite the fact that there's almost 200,000 people living here (it's the third biggest city in Senegal) and feels much more like a very very busy town with all of the traffic I saw (I guess it was rush hour) despite the fact that only a few of the roads are paved and there's nothing but dust and sand on many roads even in the center of town (I need to get pictures soon). There were definitely more cars than I remember in Cameroon (in general it doesn't seem quite as "poor" as Cameroon but I really don't know enough to be saying that yet), and lots and lots of moto-taxis and mule drawn rick-shaws along with a few bicyclers. It's pretty sandy/desert-e here and a fair amount of smoginess with not a whole of lot nice things to look at but nevertheless it's still interesting. There was so much activity going on everywhere I looked, peopling hammering away, taking a torch to some mettle, selling some clothing or some small lime by the side of the road, or just generally "stooping." I walked/ran for about 40 minutes until I finally found some people playing soccer, this kind of shocked me (of course the Westerner comes in and thinks there will be soccer everywhere), but there just isn't much green space in Kaolack, and it's been several years since the national team (like the Cameroonian and Moroccan teams they are also called the "Lions) was good. I did see a few kids playing basketball (which is growing in popularity here) as well as some kids boxing and some others doing something that looked like Karate.

I haven't started much work yet but have been preparing some at the NCBA/CLUSA office (the agency I'm working with) to go into the villages to start working with the millet farmers (still haven't had that here - apparently it's the "poor" man's rice). Six of us shared one huge plate (literally we all ate off of it) for lunch and the food was pretty good, a mixture of rice, beef, onions, and some interesting spices I can't quite place my finger on. There was a lively debate about whether kids in Senegal today "owe" their parents anything anymore and what parents "owe" their kids and whether life is really easier on Europe or not. My French is pretty good so I can follow along - which is cool, because I feel like it gives me an entry point into a whole new world that most Americans would not see. The volunteer coordinator (Yaguemar) here told me I was the first volunteer they've had who who really speaks French.

I also have a driver, Paul, who is Christian, which is a little unusual in a country where 97% of the people are Muslims but it's not like I expected. Woman don't really cover up, they can work, drive, play basketball, and although I did hear one woman's cell phone ring was a 10 second clip of a Muslim prayer/chant, Paul told me the Muslims drink more than the Christians in this country. Paul and Yaguemar also both warned me that the woman here were some of the most beautiful in the continent and I should watch out. So going to see some music here now, gotta run, I'll watch my back (white people tend to stand out here)

Senegal

So it's about time I put this blog back to work, god knows it's been awhile since that last stupid post about a mustache, a chicken, and a Yamaka - just kidding, except about the mustache part.

Anyways, I've embarked on another adventure here- to do some co-operative development volunteer work with some millet farmers here in Senegal. Just arrived but some highlights/low-lights:

1. 2.5 hour flight Portland - Salt Lake yesterday morning. 10 + hour flight to Paris overnight, after a 5 hour lay-over there a short 5.5 hour flight to Dakar and here I am, wow that was tiring

2. Besides the normal screaming babies during the flights, we picked up a French Senegalese prisoner in Paris who would not stop screaming "The plain must not take off!" (in French) for the first 30 minutes of being on the plane (made me really want to go to Senegal). He only stopped when he was drugged by one of the five police man accompanying us. Pretty strange right? Apparently immigration was transferring him to a Senegalese prison, I suppose I'd probably be screaming non-stop as well if that were happening to me

3. Leaving Leopold Sedar Senghor airport and having to go through the metal detectors to leave the airport was strange. Then the usual crowd flooding in to grab bags, get you a taxi, and forcing themselves near so even as you walk you can't get away. I looked for someone I was told would pick me up called Yaguemar and of course everyone told me they were called Yaguemar. But which one was the real Yaguemar? The one holding a sign for me of course.

4. Getting in the car that picked me up and getting scrambled radio that somehow resulted in a mash up of "Gangsta's Paradise" and Dido's "Thank You" while riding the crazy streets of Dakar.

I'll fill folks in as things actually happen