Consider Me Demystified

After weeks of putting clues together and guessing, our permanent site for the next two years was finally revealed to us trainees by blindfolding us and placing on a map of Senegal painted on the training center basketball court.  We are heading to the southeastern region of Kedougou, to  a town very near the border with Mali.

Gou Crew

The day after finding out our placements, the 9 Kedougou trainees piled into a Peace Corps land cruiser for a 10 hour drive to go on what is known as "Demyst", a five day voyage into the life of a current volunteer (in our case, the volunteer we are replacing).  I think we finally have a sense of what the next two years will look like.

Kedougou is known for several things: heat, proximity to the national wild life preserve, being the poorest region in the country and also for being the only region in Senegal with any topography (namely mountains and waterfalls).  Non-Kedougou volunteers are typically jealous of this last feature.  Saraya, however, does not have mountains or waterfalls, which was a bit disappointing after all we had heard about the beauty of the region.  I felt better about this when one of the volunteers who demysted in the mountains had an incident with a python in his hut.  Also, I'm just dang excited about Saraya as a site, regardless of its flat and dusty nature.  

Saraya has a population of about 6,000 and is growing every day because of two factors: the discovery of gold in the area and the completion of what is known as the Mali road, which connects Bamako (the capital of Mali) to Dakar.  There are some very interesting parallels between this population explosion and what's going on in Eastern Montana/Western North Dakota. The BBC did an excellent photo essay on Senegal's gold rush that you can see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14837204

Leah, the volunteer we are replacing, thought that her hut would be too small for two people so she arranged for us to rent a large hut near her host family, but they will still take on the role of host family for us.  In my view, this is the best of both worlds.  We will have a family but also have a bit more privacy and freedom to cook our own meals for breakfast and dinner (lunch is the biggest meal of the day, which we will eat with our family).  Our hut is still being completed, so there are still a few unknowns, such as the source of our electricity (apparently the guy building it suggested to Leah that we could just steal electricity from another family's compound?).  

Here are some pictures of what will soon be home sweet home:

We will live in this hut longer than we've lived anywhere else together.

The beginnings of our latrine.

Our host family's compound.  Our mom, Sadio, is on the left, and another trainee, Chrissy, is on the right.

It was so exciting to finally be there, to finally meet the people we will be living and working with, and to finally speak the language we have been learning (which is referred to as Malinke in Saraya) with everyone we meet.  I had been planning on requesting to keep the name Fanta  because I really like it, but Leah informed me on the drive from Kedougou to Saraya that my host mom has been waiting for years to have a female volunteer that she could name after herself.  (Leah already had a name when she moved to Saraya from a neighboring village during her second year to replace the first volunteer there who had apparently been such an incredible volunteer that Peace Corps didn't think a new volunteer could keep up his momentum.  This makes it a little daunting to go there as a new volunteer, but I think that helps explain why they placed two people there.)  When we pulled up to the compound in the land cruiser, our mom came to us exclaiming, "Ntoxoma, ntoxoma, ntoxoma!" (My namesake).  I knew then that Fanta would have to be laid to rest.  My permanent Senegalese name will be Sadio (prounounced Sah-joe) Tigana.  Pat is named after our host dad: Iburahima Cissokho.  Our new family seems like they will be really great, but we are definitely dreading the day we will say goodbye to our training family in Mbour.

After meeting our family, we walked around and greeted people and got oriented to who the important people are (chief, women's group president, tastiest bean sandwich vendor) and who had been the most helpful to Leah during her year in Saraya.  We took a special trip to the hospital, where I will be working most of the time.  If anyone has ever read Cutting for Stone (and if you haven't, I highly recommend that you do), the hospital environment reminded me immensely of Missing Hospital.  The staff there are all part of what is called the "affecte" system, which sends people educated in Dakar to places like Saraya for five year terms of service.  They seem like quite the tight knit community.  One interesting thing is that they don't speak Malinke, so that's why they needed a French speaker for this placement.  Maybe I'll learn some Wolof too!  We met everyone and then were weighed by one of the nurses and informed that we will be weighed each month to make sure that we gain weight (I'm sure our host family in Mbour would do this too if they could).

That night was the hardest night of Peace Corps thus far.  We were sleeping in the twin bed owned by our future sitemate, an agroforestry volunteer named Frank.  It was way too hot to be so close to another body, and trying to move away only got you a face full of dusty mosquito net.  It may have resulted in minor panic attacks from both of us.  Since we will be arriving in Kedougou right in the middle of hot season, I hope that this won't be a trend.  I think it will be ok since we'll have a bed built for two people plus we will figure out a way to hang our mosquito nets outside during hot season.

The second day, we went with Leah in the ambulance to her last meeting of her Peace Corps service in one of the villages where the mining is actually happening.  It was a meeting to touch base with health workers who are working on HIV prevention.  This was very exciting to sit in on, since it was my first taste of actual work in the Peace Corps.  HIV is more prevalent in this region than in the rest of Senegal--the influx of miners has created an influx of sex workers.  The biggest shock of my time here so far was learning about the human trafficking that goes on to bring these women to the area.  Learning about the women who are trafficked from Nigeria felt like getting hit with a ton of bricks.  Sex trafficking is one of those horrible things that you hear about that is almost incomprehensible, and to find out that it is happening in our area was a huge wake up call to the reality of this atrocity. The hospital in Saraya works with them to prevent HIV, and since Nigeria is English-speaking, this work is a good place for Peace Corps to be involved.  I really pray that we will see an end to the trafficking during our two years there, but I'm still trying to feel out what our role in that process should be, since I still don't have a clear picture of the magnitude or of players involved in either the trafficking or any fight against trafficking.  

My other potential work potential work projects deal with malaria prevention, cervical cancer screening, and investigation into a higher than usual number of typhoid fever cases.  Since Patrick isn't directly replacing an Environmental Educaton volunteer, his trajectory is not as clear.  He is also really interested in pursuing projects that have to do with teaching safer practices to artesinal miners who use mercury to separate the gold from the ore, encouraging appropriate technologies such as incinerators that allow for safe burning of plastic, and something called Roots and Chutes that's done with the Jane Goodall Foundation that I really don't know much about. His counterpart in Saraya is the owner of the radio station, and the volunteers in the area have a weekly radio show, which I'm really excited about.

Passing the torch: Leah and I as we waited for the health workers in Sabodala to arrive 

After being demysted in Saraya, we went back to Kedougou to the Peace Corps regional house where we had a gathering with most of the volunteers in the region to welcome us.  Then we headed back for the remaining month of training in Thies and Mbour.  On the way, we took a potty break on the edge of the wildlife reserve.  Upon getting out of the car, we were swarmed by monkeys and a warthog.  One monkey is cute, but thirty monkeys are terrifying.  Several even climbed into the land cruiser and stole mangoes. I may or may not have screamed twice while I was going to the bathroom because in my nervousness I didn't realize there was a bathroom door so I had to try to poop while being stared at by monkeys.  Also, leaves kept falling on me, and since I have had two lizards fall out of trees onto me, I have become even more jumpy than I normally was.  Pat's blog has some great pictures of our monkey-filled pit stop.  http://pldispatch.blogspot.com/2012/04/sub-saharan-africa-sand-heatrivers-and.html

We returned to the training center with sore rear-ends from our ten hour drive, a much greater understanding of each other's embarrassing moments and knowledge of showtunes, and at least a glimpse of what is to come in the next two years.  We were demystified.

Peace Only: Reflections on Learning an African Language

So I may be a bit of a language nerd, and I'm going to embrace that and write an entire post about Jaxanke.

Our language group

Greetings: Get ready for a long handshake

Greetings are an uber important part of Senegalese culture.  Here is an example of a greeting that could occur with practically everyone you meet on the street (with literal English translations because I think they are funny).

Salouma: Fanta, Inin sege! (Fanta, you are with tired!—this is how you say thank you as well as greet people)

Fanta: Ansi, Cissokho (Ansi has no direct translation, but basically means “I am female and I recognize that you have greeted me.”  Cissokho is Salouma’s last name and can be inserted at any time during the greeting process)

Salouma: Sakiliba (The female version of the last name Cissokho)

Fanta: I saxoma (You are the morning)

Salouma: Amba (I am male and I recognize that you have greeted me).

Fanta: Kor tanante? (Are you without evil?)

 Salouma: Tanante (without evil)

Fanta: Heera siita?  (Did you spend the night in peace?)

Salouma: Heera doron. (Peace only).

Fanta: Tanamansii? (Did you spend the night without evil?)

Salouma: Tanawomansii.  (I really spent the night without evil.)

Fanta: I be di? (How are you?)

Salouma: Mbe jan doron (I am here only).

Fanta: Luomo moxolu be dii? (How are the people of the house?)

Salouma: I be jee. (They are there.)

Fanta: Al ham dillilay (Thanks be to God.  This can be interpreted as a sign that the greeting can end, but don’t pause for too long, because it might start over.)

This is just the standard and can be varied and extended, and any of the greetings can be repeated.  (I have heard “kor tanante” said at least five times during one greeting exchange.)  You can ask about all of the individual people of the house, the animals (the response is that they are there).  Seasonal variations can occur (you and the mosquitoes/rain/heat/cold are together?)  Most of the responses are set, except that you can substitute “heera doron” (peace only) in response to most of the questions.  This applies even if peace is not even there at all.  One volunteer said that she went through a long greeting with a woman from her village with plenty of “peace only” only to find out that the woman’s child had died the night before.  One of my goals is to learn how to say “peace only in all of the languages of Senegal.  When people say things to me in Wolof, my go-to response is “Jamm Rekk”.  They typically laugh at me, indicating that peace only was not the correct response, but at least they know that I’m trying.  We have been told that spending the first few months at our site simply greeting people is the best way to lay the groundwork for what Americans deem to be “actual work”.

Oral Intensity (Sorry…Glee reference)

Learning a language that is not used in writing by those that speak it is a completely new experience.  I am very much a visual learner.  I can’t just hear something and remember it, especially when practically everything starts with either K, N or W.  This seems to be difficult for Africans to understand, since they don’t write things down in the local languages.  I try to keep a notebook handy to write things down in, but there is really no correct spelling of things.  We do have a dictionary which was put together by a missionary group, but almost a third of the words have question marks.  Schooling, and thus writing, is conducted in French.  Our host family is very well educated overall, but they cannot read anything I write in Jaxanke.  They have to ask me to read things out loud in order to know what I’m trying to write.  It’s definitely making me stretch my brain!

Linguistic Colonization

I am fascinated by linguistic anthropology and what a language can tell you about a culture.  The most obvious way of exploring this in Jaxanke is by looking for words that are clearly just French words with an o added on at the end.  These are the things that did not exist in the culture before Senegal was colonized by the French.  For example the verb “to be late,” is “xa tardee”, which implies that the concept of being late is foreign to this culture.

Another example is “neijo” which comes from “neige” and means snow.   While the Eskimoes may have 17 words for snow, the Jaxankes probably have that many ways of saying it’s hot.  My favorite literally translates to mean “The sun is sour.” 

Because of the fact that our language teacher is a farmer and we spend a lot of time outside of language class gardening, an inordinate amount of our vocabulary so far has been gardening/vegetable words.  It is pretty clear that “pomme de terros” and “carrottos” are not native to West Africa.  Peanuts however, hold a special place in the Jaxanke lexicon.  There is a different word for peanuts at all stages of their existence.  The village chief is referred to as the “village peanut”, and the word for rich people literally translates as “things that have peanuts”.  There are also different verbs that mean “to carry” based on what part of the body you are carrying something on, such as carrying on the back or carrying on the head.  Here is an example of “xa bamboo” which means “to carry on the back”.

Pat and I trying our hand at carrying a baby on our backs.  Papa was not happy about having his hands strapped in because he couldn't pull my hair.

Colonization also brought the franc.  Now, the currency is called the Franc CFA.  Because of a complicated economics-based explanation that I did not fully understand, the colonizers wanted the African currency to have a lower value than that of the French franc, and somehow this has had lasting effects in how the values of different coins and bills are expressed.  If I have a 500 CFA (about one dollar), and I choose to say that in French, I say that I have five hundred CFA.  If I choose to say it in a local language like Jaxanke, I divide the number by five and say that I have one hundred dalasi.  This does not make sense!  I do not understand how this started and much less why it persists, particularly in a country where education levels and therefore math skills are low!  If I have two thousand CFA, I don’t want to have to calculate that I have 400 dalasi!  Why not just read the number on the bill??  In whatever language you choose?  I wonder if any postcolonial studies papers have been written on this issue.

Yes, I am sitting

Senegalese culture is a great culture in which to do immersion language study, because it is a cultural practice to continually point out the obvious in order to show someone that you are paying attention to them.  Realizing this was a huge light bulb moment with my host family, because I realized that I could infer what they were saying based on what I was currently doing.  “Fanta, you are taking a shower.”  “Fanta, you are sitting.”  “Fanta, you have come home from school.”  Once I realized that they just wanted me to respond by saying, “Yes, I have come home”, they thought my level of Jaxanke was much higher than it actually was.  (All you do is say yes, and flip the you to I and repeat exactly what they just said.)  Lately, I have embarked into new linguistic territory by pointing out what my family members are doing.  It felt a little awkward to say, “Ami, ibe sigirin!” (Ami! You are sitting!) like it was the most exciting thing in the world, but they were actually pretty excited that I had caught on.

Foot in Mouth

My dear friend Lisa who lives in Norway does blog posts every once in a while called Foot in Mouth, where she recounts funny Norwegian language mistakes.  Here is my best Jaxanke Foot in Mouth thus far:

Mady: Salouma be minto? (Where is Salouma (ie Patrick))

What I thought I said: Salouma be buno xono.  (Salouma is in the bedroom).

What I actually said: Salouma be buwo xono.  (Salouma is in the poop.)

Every Child Deserves a Fifth Birthday

BAMM: April is Blog About Malaria Month.  That being the case, I thought that my blog would be a good forum to share excerpts from my Public Health Analysis (major culminating paper for Tulane) which I wrote on the subject of “Malaria Prevention and Control in Senegal” as I was preparing to leave for Peace Corps. 

As a health volunteer in Senegal, malaria prevention will be a major part of my work.  Kedougou, the region where we will be serving has the highest prevalence of malaria in Senegal (more on our short visit there in the next post). Plus, I have heard that Masters International students will be focusing on the Stomping Out Malaria in Africa Initiative in a health system strengthening capacity, which I’m very excited about. There is a malaria team among health volunteers that I am hoping to join (they do extra training called Malaria Boot Camp and seem to serve as point-people for all health volunteers).   Whatever role I end up playing in the fight against malaria during my service, I think that choosing this topic for my Public Health Analysis will have provided very good preparation.  Here are some snippets from my paper, condensed, reorganized and interspersed with commentary based on my personal experience in Senegal.

Malaria in Senegal:

(We will be serving in Kedougou, which is in the very Southeastern corner of the country.)

Source: World Health Organization, 2010.

Malaria has historically been and continues to be a serious health issue in Senegal, one of 43 malaria-endemic countries in Africa.  In Senegal, the disease is responsible for 32% of all outpatient visits and 20% of deaths in children under five (Roll Back Malaria, 2010).  However, malaria is highly preventable, and these under-five deaths could be avoided.  For example, insecticide treated bednets (ITNs) have been shown to reduce clinical episodes of malaria by 50% and all-cause mortality by 17%.  When a community-level coverage of greater than 60% is attained, non-users receive a similar protective effect as those who use bednets (Thwing et al., 2011).  As stated by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, “Malaria prevention and control measures work, and they produce remarkable results when they are implemented with adequate human and financial resources” (2010).

The fight against malaria in Senegal has come a long way in the past fifty years.  In the 1960s, nearly 50% of children here died before the age of 5 (as shown in the figure below from Trape et al., 2012).  Immunization campaigns and access to chloroquine treatment for malaria during the 70s and 80s drove a large decline in child deaths.  In the 1990s, chloroquine resistant malaria emerged, which created a period of stagnation in the pattern of decline.  An outbreak of meningitis in 1998 created a large spike in mortality.  According to Trape et al., the continued decline of under-five mortality in the 2000s can almost entirely be attributed to anti-malarial activity:

“After a decade of stagnation in the 1990s, a new dramatic decrease in child mortality has been observed during the past few years.  This decrease was temporally related to the deployment of new malaria control policies, suggesting that malaria has both a direct and an indirect effect on overall morality and that MDG 4* can be achieved primarily through malaria control and vaccination in poor rural areas of Africa” (Trape et al., 2012, p 672).

*MDG 4 refers to Millennium Development Goal 4, which is to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015

Under 5 mortality in the Niakhar region of Senegal (Source: Trape, et al., 2012)

Prior to 1997, the antimalarial activities were implemented by the National Department of Major Endemic Diseases, who had a budget of only $10,000 per year from the World Health Organization.  The National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) was created in 1995.  In 1997, Senegal was granted $185,000 from the WHO as part of the first Accelerated Malaria Action Plan.  Following initial success with these monies, Senegal was selected as a pilot country for the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. 

Senegal obtained its first major malaria-control grant from the Global Fund in 2003.  However, this Round 1 grant received a negative evaluation in 2004, primarily due to weakness in the management of the National Malaria Control Program.  As a result, the NMCP underwent a major reorganization and increased its human resources from 5 to 32 staff members.  A second grant from the Global Fund was then obtained in 2005, and the 2006-2010 strategic plan was created (Roll Back Malaria, 2010).  Since the major reorganization of the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) in 2005, Senegal’s Ministry of Health has shown itself to be a committed and effective partner in the global fight against malaria. Recent policies and interventions have included distribution of Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs), Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS), Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPT) for pregnant women, Home-Based Care, and Rapid Diagnostic Testing (RDT).

The following table depicts the timeline of malaria prevention and control programmatic activity in Senegal from 2006-2010 (Source: Roll Back Malaria, 2010).

Year	Activity
2006	National coverage of ACT; Close ties between maternal and child health programs and NMCP: 89% of clinics evaluated able to provide IPT and ITNs to pregnant women in 2006
2007	National coverage of Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs)
2008	Introduction of home-based care
2009	Launch of national mass distribution campaign of ITNs
2010	“Redoubling of efforts” ·         Extension of PECADOM (home-based care) coverage ·         Availability of free ACTs: All public-sector health centers supplied with ACT and able to use them (free of charge as of 2010) ·         Universal ITN coverage in 4 south eastern regions ·         Artemisinin-based monotherapies banned to fight emergence of resistance

So, where does Peace Corps fit into Senegal’s anti-malaria campaign in 2012? Peace Corps Volunteers have worked on universal bednet coverage campaigns in an effort to protect communities and individuals.  As a result, many communities have reached universal coverage (meaning that every sleeping space has a bed net).  The next step, however, is ensuring that people use their nets.

Behavior change is a difficult process.  While on our volunteer visit, we had a training assignment to do a brief interview about malaria with a family at our site in our local language.  When we asked how many beds in the house had nets hanging, we were told, “For every two beds, there should be two nets.”  When we probed further and asked how many beds were in the compound and how many of those particular beds had nets hanging, the truth came out that only one person had actually slept under the net the night before.  People know they are supposed to use them, but they choose not to for many reasons.   First and foremost, it is dang hot here, and the nets make it even hotter.  Additionally, malaria in Senegal is highly seasonal (cases spike in October and November, toward the end of the rainy season where there is more water and therefore more mosquitoes). People think they’re safe during the dry season, when they really are at risk year round.  This brings about another issue: even though malaria can be deadly, it may not be at the forefront in people’s minds of all of the deadly things that poverty brings.  For example, a full stomach today may trump a fever tomorrow.  Just today in Mbour, I saw some Talibes (students sent to study at a Koranic school) fishing with mosquito nets.  People also use them as netting in their gardens.

Debate exists amongst those working to fight malaria about the best distribution strategies and whether free, subsidized, or full cost distribution contributes to higher rates of net usage.  Is it better to ensure that everyone has access via free distribution or should distributors require people to purchase nets thereby ensuring a sense of ownership? In 2009, Senegal’s National Malaria Control Programme staged a nationwide net distribution (targeting children under five and pregnant women, the groups that are most vulnerable to malaria).  In an evaluation of the campaign (which distributed vouchers for free nets), Thwing et al., found that 77.5% of children under 5 and 60.5% of pregnant women slept under an LLIN received during the campaign.  These lower than desired usage rates may indicate a need for increased behavior change communication and perhaps should lead to review of the effectiveness of the free distribution strategy.  However, of households lacking nets of any kind, 37.1% reported having no means to acquire one (in the lowest wealth quintile, this response was given for 83.2% of households).  This particular finding supports the free distribution strategy.  Regardless of distribution strategy, education and behavior change communication activities are needed to sustainably increase ITN usage.

In their 2010 Focus on Senegal report, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership asserted, “The coming years will be decisive. They will provide Senegal and its partners, if efforts are maintained and well-managed, with a unique opportunity: the chance to roll back malaria on a large scale with unprecedented force.  Senegal could then serve as an example to other national malaria control programmes, sharing good practices and helping them to pave their way to malaria eradication.” (Roll Back Malaria, 2010, p 51).  It is an exciting time to be preparing to swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer working on malaria!

References

Ministère de la Santé et de la Prévention. Plan stratégique de lutte contre le paludisme au Sénégal 2006-2010.

Roll Back Malaria Partnership.  (2008).  Global Malaria Action Plan.  Retrieved February 29, 2012 from: http://www.rbm.who.int/gmap/index.html

Roll Back Malaria Partnership. (2010). Progress and impact series: Focus on Senegal. Geneva: World Health Organization.

Thwing, J., et al. (2011). Success of Senegal’s first nationwide distribution of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to children under five - contribution toward universal coverage. Malaria Journal, 10(86).

Trape, JF, et al. (2012). New malaria-control policies and child mortality in Senegal: Reaching millennium development goal 4. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 205, 672-679.

World Health Organization. (2011). Malaria country profile: Senegal.

She came bearing mangoes

Sorting mangoes

I mentioned in my last post that we went a few weeks in our training host family before meeting our host mom, Aminata.  She had been in Kedougou, and when she arrived, she came bearing mangoes.  Before this week, I had never eaten a whole mango by myself.  In the US, it was a special treat to even get a few bites of one.  For the past few days, both Pat and I have each eaten a minimum of four mangoes every day.  We are both developing sores around our mouths from the juice.    The entire refrigerator is still filled with mangoes, so this amazing trend will be continuing for at least a few more days.  It is maybe the best thing that has happened to us so far.  Plus, we will be in Kedougou for the next two mango seasons, so we will get to experience this three times! 

Mangoes are just one of the reasons we are really lucky with our host family.  We feel really fortunate to be placed with them.  There are seven siblings in our "immediate family" (this idea seems to be more fluid in Senegalese culture than it is in the USA--for example, Mami explained to me how Kankou was her sister because she was the daughter of her father's brother). 

Salouma is the oldest, and is Pat's namesake.  Namsakes, or toxomalu seem to be a pretty big deal.  Salouma is visiting from Dakar, where he is a university student, and he refers to Pat as ntoxoma, or "my namesake".  Then there's Sega, who also lives in Dakar and is getting a Masters in Chemistry.  We first met him when he came to Mbour to vote, and he is visiting again for Easter vacation.  (They have almost two weeks off for Easter vacation, and it's a 95% muslim country, which is really interesting.  I think we will be back in Thies for Easter.  I have heard that Muslims and Christians help each other celebrate their holidays in Senegal, so it is very exciting to see how that will play out.)  Demba is next in line, and the only sibling we haven't met yet.  He works in the mining industry in Kedougou and is apparently a great soccer player and has played in France.  Mami, the only daughter, still takes on a very motherly role toward us even though our actual host mom is now home.  "Mami" is short for Fatoumata, as is Fanta, so Mami is actually my namesake.  Her husband Cherif lives in Barcelona and has never actually met their son Papa, who is eight month old and one of the great joys of Peace Corps so far.  He is teething in a place where teething toys are not even heard of, and he regularly tries to chew on my face, earning the nickname Bebe Vampire. 

Next in line of the siblings is Bine, who was living with us for the first while, and then we found out that he actually lives in Dakar for school as well.  It's hard to tell since the teacher strikes have prevented any secondary school students from actually going to school.  Mady and Mohammet are the little boys, 11 and 8.  In West African culture, it is completely appropriate to make young boys do whatever you don't want to do, so they spend a lot of time fetching things for their older siblings and anyone else in the house.  For example, when I asked Bine where I could find goat manure for my compost pile, he made Mady go get some for me.  My relationship with Mohammet mostly consists of him growling at me and me growling back. We have two cousins living in the house, named Kamkou and Cheikh, who are both wonderful.  Cheikh is a senior in high school and is very upset about the possibility of not being able to finish school this year because of the teacher strikes.  Kamkou literally falls on the ground laughing at least once an hour, so she is a lot of fun.  When everyone is home there are 16 people in the house, and just one bathroom!  I guess it's a good thing that no one drinks nearly as much water as us. 

Here's some pictures of most of the fam from a night when it was cold, so Papa was wearing a funny Santa Claus coat, which inspired us to get the camera out:

Mami and Papa

Me with Kamkou and Papa

Pat and Cheikh

Pat and Sega

Family and friends 

Pat and Bine

Papa and the ladies of the house

Kamkou and Mohammet showing their political alliances the night of the election in a house divided.  Mohammet's candidate won

Mami roasting corn

After spending two weeks in Mbour, we are back at the Training Center in Mbour for about five days.  Then site announcements will be made, and then we will go on a "Volunteer visit" where we will travel to our region and meet the current volunteers and see their projects.  I'm really excited for this, and to test out my Jaxanke skills in a place where it is actually spoken in the streets!