2006: The Year of No Big Macs

Or curly fries.  Or Texas Bar B Q.

 

For, as a drunken first year volunteer shouted in my ear not long after the countdown ended 2005 and rang in 2006 at the Iguana Club in St. Louis, Senegal, this year, 2006, is the year most of us will never see home.

 

That cheerful thought aside, it was as lovely a new years as we could have in West Africa.  Most all the first year volunteers, which includes me and all the poor unfortunate souls who went though training at the same time I did, and a few of the sage second years made our way to the glamorous city of St. Louis ("san louie") in Northern Senegal to ring in the New Year with beach and beer.  It really is a very nice city by West African standards, and after not seeing a sidewalk in 6 months I must confess I was a little baffled by the sheer brilliance of its existance.  There was also an abundance of good food, including ice cream, which was a fortunate occurance, since after staying there a week for Christmas we had left the poor city of Nouakchott completely devoid of a single scoop.

 

But we are all back now, and it seems this desert metropolis has found time to restock, since I saw the Sahara Cafe actually had all three flavors this afternoon.  As we speak my region mates Nicole and Christa are scouring the "toubab stores" for a pint of mint chocolate chip.

 

Little things mean a lot over here.

 

It is two more days of civilization as the new volunteers meet tomorrow to discuss our first 3 months and get another round of shots.  Then all the Agroforestry and Environmental Education volunteers head back down to the village of Dieuk, in my region of the Trarza, for 4 more days of technical training.  One of things we are going to learn about is how to make jam.  That's right  man, I'll be a jammer, I be jamming.

 

After that it is back to the village for a few days, probably just long enough to find out that my students have not been watering their tree nursery and have destroyed 50 perfectly good Moringa seeds before I am off again.  I want to spen Eid Ilham, or Tabaski, the high Muslim holiday, with my host family in Kaedi.  Trouble is, I don't know exactly when it is going to be yet.  Muslims go by the lunar calender, so sometime this week, inshallah, we will know whether Tabaski is the 10th, 11th, 12th, or 13th.

 

I have a new outfit and everything.  Apparantly a new outfit is very important, you HAVE to get one, so I sucked up the pain of haggling in the Rosso market and bought some fabric and went to the tailor.  It is a very pretty fabric, but the sleeves are Wolof style, rather puffy, and I have not yet decided whether or not I will allow myself to be photographed in it.  I feel a little bad about not spending the fete in my village, but I really want to see my family.

 

It probably won't make matters any better that starting in March I am going to be leaving the village every other Friday and returning three days later in order to travel to 15 villages in the region to promote the new healthier and more energy efficient stove developed by Trarza volunteers over the past 2 years.  I hate to admit it, but I like the idea of getting out of the village to go camping in the Trarza every other weekend.  Plus one of the villages is apparantly on the ocean.

 

Water is good.

 

Oh, and before I forget, last week the rest of my region went right back to Rosso after Christmas, but I stuck around with non-Trarza people for two days more in Nouakchott.  The morning we were scheduled to go back to Rosso I got a text from Dan, my Chinese break-dancing region mate, informing me that I had, quote: "enough packages down here to sink the Titanic."

 

I love you.  All of you.  That stack was the coolest thing I had ever seen.  My regionmates were wild with envy.  I hope Peace Corps doesn't make the whole lot of us completely dependent on material goods for happiness, but right now, material goods rock. God bless you, and happy New Year.

 

amy