Memorable moments/stories/funny things/happy things

- The cockroach incident: Ohhh boy let me tell you. I. hate. cockroaches. There’s no living creature that scares me more. I’ve had a roach problem ever since I moved in, and I was proud of myself for kind of sort of getting used to it…. There would usually be one or two in my bathroom every time I went in. But I got good at scaring them away before going in, and for the most part they didn’t leave the bathroom. But last month (rainy season means bug season) it started getting out of control. There would be 3 or 4, and it would be hard to scare them all away.. plus I was starting to notice them in my regular room. So when my Senegalese friend told me he sold cockroach killer spray at his store, I was so excited.

- The stuff was supposed to kill them instantly, so when I saw one in my bathroom that night I decided to just go for it. This was such a mistake, because when I sprayed it, it did not die instantly. Instead, it freaked out (naturally…. I’d just poisoned the poor thing). It ran as fast as it could between my legs and into my room…. The first bad sign. But then...... I still cringe thinking about it…… FIFTEEN more cockroaches start pouring out of their nest which was apparently behind the toilet. And they are all freaking out and running around my room as fast as they can. My room is small, so I am freaking out and bouncing all over the place. I would have just run out, but stupidly, I was only wearing my bra and underwear (it’s hot in my room…). So I was desperately trying to avoid the 16 cockroaches while also trying to put my dress on. It was nightmarish, but eventually I managed to get myself out of there, and I stayed out until the next morning (I sleep on the roof). Thankfully, in the morning they were all dead, and I was able to sweep them out. Since then…. No cockroaches, so I guess the spray did its job. Now it’s funny…. But not so funny at the time.

- Rainstorm: It doesn’t happen often, but when it rains in Fanaye, it usually comes quickly, and in force. This particular time I had just gone to bed in my tent on the roof when I started to notice the wind picking up. I wanted to ignore it and just go to sleep, but after about a minute, I knew it was coming, and I had to get out of there. But it was too late. By the time I unzipped the door and stepped out of the tent, it started to pour. And I mean pour. Like, imagine buckets of water being dumped on top of you. The winds were also super strong, so I realized I couldn’t carry my tent inside without my mattress blowing away and vice versa. So I started yelling “wall-am! Wall-am!” (Help me! Help me!) to the other people that had been sleeping on the roof, but nobody heard me. So I was stuck there sitting on top of my mattress and tent in the pouring rain in order not to lose them, and trying to protect my phone from the rain by sticking it under my dress. About 10 minutes later I emerged downstairs looking like I’d jumped in a swimming pool. Thankfully despite having to shower at 1:30 in the morning, and sleep on a sleeping pad inside my hot room, I had a good attitude about all this. I just laughed the whole time.

- Running dance party: I was on a morning run to Fanaye Walo (the next town over) when I stopped by the river far away from any houses. The sun was just rising, and I could see far across the fields. It’s a beautiful spot, and a favorite of mine for dance parties. Life in the Peace Corps is stressful, so I like to dance it off when I can. Nobody was around and I already had my earbuds in, so I cranked up the Justin Bieber and just went for it. You can guess where this is going. Midway through the song I look up and see a farmer walking by. He’s staring at me, not really sure what to do. I just pause, wave and say “Asalaa Malekum” (Peace be with you – a very common greeting). He said the response “Maalekum Salaam” and just went on his way. I waited until he was out of site, and then continued with my dance party.

- Hair braiding: I was having my hair braided into tiny tiny little cornrows for Tabaski (the huge 5-day holiday in September). It was a 7 hour process that I kept leaving and coming back to throughout the day, my hair looking ridiculous in the in-between stages. It was also an incredibly painful process, because my braiders didn’t know how to work with my hair, and thus pulled out LOTS of it with every braid. I think it was about midnight when they only had about 5 more braids. I was absolutely exhausted and just wanted to go to bed, and they had just pulled out another painful chunk, and I just started sobbing. But it was the kind of sobbing that was also half laughing. Everybody was laughing hysterically at the toubab who couldn’t take the pain of getting your hair braided. And I was laughing at myself too. Hair was all over when I eventually took the braids out, but it was worth it.

- Room dance party: Another dance party……… there’s nothing really special to this story, except that it was the most epic dance party. Perhaps you had to be there to see it. My host nieces (ages 10 and 14) were hanging out in my room and found my ski playlist on my phone (lots of super upbeat pop songs), and we just went wild. Lots of jumping around… ridiculous disco moves…. You name it.

- Jom Toufam: Djienaba Tin is the mother of one of my MSS Scholarship girls, and has somehow found her way to almost all of my trainings. We call her “Jom Toufam” (leader of sugar milk…? kind of hard to translate) because she is absolutely obsessed with Toufam (basically just cold milk with lots of sugar). She gets mad at me if I don’t bring the stuff to make it. She always makes me smile.

- Computer fliers: I dropped off a handwritten flier (I don’t have a printer and didn’t want to make the trek to the regional house) for my adult computer class at the mayor’s office. Later that day, my friend who works at the mayor’s office gave me a set of beautiful printed fliers written in much better French. He just did it to be nice, even though I know he’s super busy and printer ink/paper is expensive. Just a classic example of the kind of people who live in Fanaye.

- Computer class language: One of my proudest moments of service so far was walking out after my first adult computer class. I just paused for a moment and reflected on what I’d just done… and how it had somehow been successful. First, most of the students had never used Excel. A few had only touched a computer a few times. Most were still at the point of learning where copying and pasting is difficult. And then, half spoke only French and Wolof… My Pulaar is significantly better than my French at this point, so for the other Pulaar speaking half, I still spoke Pulaar. So every minute or so I was switching between French, Pulaar, and English (for an English teacher). And I didn’t entirely lose my mind. People understood me. And while, I thought the class was chaos, all of the students were so happy and excited about it afterwards. Soooo success.

- St Louis Food: I debated putting this in here…. But when I reflected on my happiest moments over the last few months…. Eating food in St. Louis was up there. St. Louis is the 2^nd biggest city in Senegal. It’s on the beach, about a 4 hour drive from my site, and famous for its colonial history. I found myself there twice this last month – once for a party to say goodbye to the agriculture volunteers who were going home, and once for a “focus group” to help revamp the economic development sector framework. Anyway, there are many glorious things about St. Louis (pools, beaches, cold weather, etc.), but the most glorious is the food. Crepes, pizza, GOAT CHEESE, Vietnamese food, any cocktail you can imagine, mushrooms, chocolate mousse, tomatoes and lettuce at the market (I really miss fresh vegetables)…. It’s a beautiful place. I’m going back with my besty Mindze in a few days, and the plan is to strategically stuff ourselves with as much food as possible.

- Finishing flash cards: Somebody a year ahead of us made a list of 576 Pulaar verbs (everything in Pulaar is a verb) and my friend turned them into a set of Quizlet flash cards that I have been steadily working my way through the “learn” function for the past 6 months. The moment when I finished them, was quite gratifying. Of course, I’ve already forgotten most of them, so time to start over again.

When Senegal ate all my stuff: This last week was such a strange mixture of joy and stress. I got to see so many friends I hadn’t seen in a while at my gender meeting in Thies, had a mini vacation with my dearest friends in Saint Louis, took Mindze and Ace to visit my site, and I’m so excited for our big friendsgiving tomorrow. But also, within the course of 6 days, my hard drive died (with all of my movies tv shows and photos) my purse was stolen (with expensive prescription sunglasses and my iphone), and my computer died. Each of these came with their own set of stressful tasks to ameliorate…. My new phone for example wouldn’t download spotify…. An absolute necessity for sanity at site. After several hours, we got it figured out and had a dance party afterwards. Through all of this I was just so grateful to have kind friends with me willing to help. The Peace Corps is all about resilience… and your network of people to help you through it.