Travels with Tavish

The day before I needed to head into Kedougou to transit to Thies for our 2-week technical In-Service Training, I had the opportunity to spend one night at another volunteer site in the region. As usual on a Tuesday morning, I biked one hour to my luumo (weekly market) town. The only things different about this ride were the (1) I was by myself on the trail for the first time, and (2) I had a backpack and my tennis shoes strapped to the rack above my back wheel with the ubiquitous thin black rubber strapping found on the back of every bike in Senegal. My black tennis shoes with highlighter yellow  accents matched my black-and-highlighter-yellow Eddie Bauer packable backpack so well it looked as if I had planned it. Despite the hilly ride and bumpy terrain, my load was still solidly attached the to back of my bike when I reached the luumo. Not bad for my first abstract strapping challenge. I greeted the teachers at their compound then went to find a bean sandwich for breakfast, o...

Last month I promised a friend in my village named Amadou that I would make "American tea" for him. A couple weeks ago I finally made good on that promise. I brought my glass mug, tea strainer, loose leaf attaya tea, and teapot over to his house in a shopping bag saved from a trip to the market in Kedougou. I sat in his hut as he brought in his charcoal stove full of hot coals. The stoves generally used for attaya in my village are made of intricately woven baling wire. The wire construction leaves sufficient small holes in the bottom of the stove that ash can be shaken out every once in a while while not letting pieces of good charcoal fall through. Amadou brought in a broken plastic laundry benoir to set the stove in and prevent ash from getting on the floor of his hut. He poured a little water in the bottom of the benoir to prevent it from melting. I filled up my water kettle, set it on the coals, and sat back to wait for the water to boil. As I was sitting in my chair ...

Some pictures of my village from January: Approaching my village from the road. My compound is off to the left, not pictured Sunset among the small baobob trees Grass my younger brothers cut for new roofs Cheebujain (rice and fish) in Kedougou. This is a meal I ate often with my CBT family in Mbour during training, but not something I ever eat in my village My host aunt spinning cotton to make rope for a fishing net (3-year-old host brother squatting next to her) Name that tree (#1) Name that tree (#2). If you look closely you can see fruit starting to form Name that tree (#2, larger fruit) Petit pois (legume) tree Soccer game at sunset in the village Cashew trees outside my compound (Name that tree #2 = cashew) My neighbor's compound. Tall tree in the back center of the picture is tamarind Cows wandering around the bush near sunset Typical bush path near my village My host mom's garden. Large...

Below is a baseline survey of my village I conducted during my first two months as a volunteer. The survey includes basic information on village demographics, education, economy, agriculture, environment, agroforestry, animal production Per Peace Corps regulations, I have replaced the name of my village with "Village." Please email me any questions you have about these topics and I will answer them in a future post. Baseline Survey: Village, Kedougou 1. Community Demographics and Basic Information                 About 415 people live in Village. The village is located in the department of Kedougou. Jaxanke (about 80%) and Pulaar (about 20%) people are present in the community. The most commonly spoken language is Jaxanke, though a few people only speak Pulaar. Some younger people occasionally speak French or mix French words in with their Jaxanke/Pulaar. The village chief is my host father, Sedy Trao...

In mid-January I went to another volunteer's site (the other remaining Jaxanke volunteer from my stage) along with my Jaxanke language teacher from Pre-Service Training to study language for four days. I appreciated the opportunity to practice my language, but my favorite part of the language seminar was spending time in another volunteer's site. In my fellow volunteer's village, about 75km (two hours) from the city of Kedougou, the people speak Malinke. Malinke is very similar to Jaxanke; I now am aware that during PST we learned to speak Malinke rather than Jaxanke. Most of the words are the same in the two languages, but pronunciation of certain letters differs. In Malinke, "x" is pronounced as a hard "h" sound while in Jaxanke it is pronounced as a "k" sound. In Malinke, "j" is pronounced the same as in English; in Jaxanke they are sometimes pronounced as a "y" sound. The endings of many nouns are different as well. M...