8-21-95

Things are okay here.  I hope to get my moto in 2 weeks when Betsy gets brought to her site.  These filters are really becoming a pain in the butt, and I don't have pipe for my pump yet, but those things should soon change.

I haven't gotten much mail lately.  I hope that changes soon.

I'm waiting here to go to NKC.  It's humid, and it must be about a hundred degrees.  After my last trip to NKT where I almost died from Carbon Monoxide exhaust poisoning, this time I wanted to be sure I got a decent car.  There were two cars almost full when I got here.  I picked the better one, but the guy taking money wouldn't take mine unless I got in the shitty car.  I said no.  He told me that the old car was leaving first, and that I would have to wait before it filled up.  Fine, Around here, if you're in a hurry, you're putty in these people's hands.  A few minutes later, one of the rulers of the world, a white moor, started to get in the car I wanted. I went to go buy my ticket, and the guy handling the money, another ruler of the world, informed me that the car I wanted to get in was now full.   Gossaramorak.  May God shorten your life.

I waited on the side of the cars for a few minutes, and then another guy came up to tell me his car needed two more people.  I paid him and got in.  Twenty minutes later, after I watched the original two taxis leave plus two more, we started going.  We got up to the highway (yeah, right!, a highway!) and some woman walked up to the car.  She talked to the driver for a minute, and the driver turned around and asked the only non-African in the car if HE would please get out because his wife wanted to ride to NKC. I explained that NO, I did not want to because I had been waiting in his car while I watched several others leave.  Of course, as I was explaining this as he was coming around to open my door.  Screw it.  I walked back to the taxi garage and now, 20 minutes later, I am on my way.  It is a decent car, and I'm sitting in the back with two skinny white moor men, so it is fairly comfortable.  The engine will probably blow up on the way.

It didn't.

9-8-95

Life has had its ups and downs here, as usual.  I just got back to my village after a week and a half in NKC, and I must say, I prefer it here.  I am on pretty bad terms with the Peace Corps bureau now, so I am just going to stay away from them.  The attached letter was something I had written to put in our newsletter for the other volunteers to learn about what had happened to me in my village (the article was a summary of my Tale of Woe.)  My APCD, Carla Hunt, had asked me to do it.  Just before it got printed, she called me into her office and told me that I had not notified the bureau in advance, and that I had left out that we had consulted a previous volunteer who, according to her, "Helped out greatly with the situation."  Bullshit! She told me that if I submitted it to be printed, I was leaving out some important facts and was therefore lying.  After attempting to explain that I was not trying to put down the bureau, I was only trying to tell the other volunteers what had happened with me and how I felt about it, I pulled the submission.  I didn't really want everyone reading about my deeply emotional experiences anyway.

At least things are going better for me here in the village.  I've got my pump working and now I'm just trying to figure out what to do with it.  I've got lights in all of my rooms now, and I've added a few books to the French library.  And, grass is surrounding my house right now because of the rains.  Betsy, the new volunteer, said the other day when she saw my house that "I want to live here." I've definitely got one of the best volunteer village houses in country.

9-9-95 (To Mom.)

I'm looking for some funding and am wondering if you might be able to help me out.  (In organizing it, not necessarily in funding it, though you can donate some!) Some ideas I have for the village are: I'm looking for about $500 to fund gas stoves for villagers so they'll stop burning up all the trees around here, a solar panel, and/or windmill to provide lighting at night, when the kids study the Koran-about $700.  They are burning up tons of wood just for light, and this place is already hot enough.  That's it for now, I'll come up with more later.

I've got diaper rash on my arm, chest and back.  How many giggles will that get back home?  Otherwise, I've been pretty healthy for a while now.

Believe it or not, I am doing okay.  I'm happy with my house and I'm getting to know some people who want to do good work here.  This place may work out okay after all. (Oh, and I still don't have a moto!)

9-9-95

I have been in NKC drinking, eating, going to the beach, and trying to pick up chicks.  I wasn't successful. (With the chicks!) I got in an argument with Betsy in NKC when she told me that I was making it up that White Moors here are prejudiced towards the blacks.  These new people just don't have a clue.

I still don't have a moto.  It looks like I'll be getting the best of the bunch, a bad-ass Kawasaki, but I don't know when.  Hopefully within the month.

I've got lights in the kitchen and other rooms right now.  I've got those mats out the butt, too.  There's grass all around the house right now. (and sand spurs!)

9-11-95

By the time you get this letter, I'll have been gone a year.  Gosh, that's hard to believe.  I've certainly experienced more than enough here for it to be a year of my life, but in some ways it doesn't seem like that long ago that I left you guys.  I really miss you all.  I was pleasantly surprised that Wes hadn't changed too much.  By the time I see him next, he'll have gotten taller and his voice will be deeper.  I dread it.   VOA (Voice of America) sucks.  They give all the scores for pro football and baseball, but all they've said about college is that Lou Holtz had back surgery and will be out 4 to 6 weeks.  Please guys send me football stuff: I miss the 'Noles too!

(My mom sent me a picture from the Blountstown newspaper of a baseball sponsored by Billy Carr Chevrolet.)  God, Mom!  What a scary picture.  Twelve people wearing shirts with "Billy Carr" emblazoned across the front of them.  I hope they have "SUCKS!" written across the back of them.  I wish you had sent me a lot of them.  I'm going to send them out and humor my friends.

9-19-95

The Bachelor Pad in Breun

Wow, where do I start?  It has been nearly a week since I've written in this so-called journal, and much has happened since.  Actually, for once, I've been working.  Because Peace Corps has got money they're trying to get rid of before Congress takes it back from us and these people badly need a better method of water transport and irrigation, I've been working almost non-stop for the past week putting together a project proposal.  To sum it up, PC will donate up to $5000 for a worthy project if the villagers will donate at least 25% in cash, labor and materials.  I figured it out that if everyone that wants it can donate 7000 ouguiyas (about $50-$60), I could maybe get about twenty pumps, with pipe and a one hundred gallon cistern ta' boot.  If it works out, there'll be some real happy people around here, but undoubtedly it will mean a lot of work and hassles for me.  Oh well, such is the life of a development worker.

I've still got this damned diaper rash all over my body.  I wonder if it will ever go way.  My chest and back are now covered with painful red dots.  They itch, they hurt, and they're ugly.  I spend most of my time without a shirt on.

A week or so ago, Bayfara, my little brother here, came late to get me for lunch, about 2:30, and as I had been starving from not eating breakfast, I had already eaten, so I told him "No thanks."  The next day, anticipating that lunch would again be late, I ate a fair amount of Jif peanut butter at 11 am.   The kids came to summon me at 12:30.  (Bayfara wasn't with them-I'll get into that later!)  Again, I explained that I was full, no thank you.  About an hour or so later, a kid came back and said that I should come, that Khady Fall wanted to speak to me.  I almost said no, but I thought better of it and went.

"Yes, what is it?" I asked.

"You don't know the people here." Khady replied.

"What do you mean, what are you talking about?"

"You don't know the people here," again.  "You should tell the truth.  Either you eat with us, or you don't.  You haven't been here for two days.  It is best to be honest."

I HONESTLY replied, "I'm sorry I haven't come for lunch for two days" and then I explained about the mix-up in eating times.

Khady said, "You should be honest.  You don't know the people here."

I vainly attempted to retell my story.  Khady has the annoying habit of walking off to do something or shouting something at the kids while I'm struggling to explain myself in French or Wolof.

"You don't know the people here."

What in the hell is she talking about?  I repeat my reasons again, and again she gives the same response.  Frustrated and confused as usual, I ask why she thinks I am not being honest, and why is she mad at me?  She says, "If you let these people here do it, they'll finish you off.  I was very happy before when you said you were going to work together with the people of both villages.  And now, you have deceived me, and I don't care if you leave for America."

What in God's name is this woman talking about?  Just when I'm starting to get a little more settled in here, this shit comes up just from me not eating lunch with them for two days?!?

I say, "I've deceived you and now I can go home and I'm not working with the people of both villages because I didn't eat lunch here for two days?"  God, I'll never figure this place out-I might as well go back home.

"No.  This morning, you were up watering (somebody's) field with your moto-pump.  If you water one man's field, you water everybody's, and there's no way you can do that, so you can just go home."

Now, let me explain something.  A moto-pump is a diesel or gas pump that puts out a ton of water and costs a thousand bucks or more.  I didn't remember having had one, much less watering a man's fields with one.

"I don't have a moto-pump!"

Khady: "It is best to tell the truth!"

Ugh. What an interesting life I lead here.  She explained that she knew I had a moto-pump, because I had been telling everyone about the one I brought back from Senegal.

"That is not a moto-pump!  It is a treadle pump.  You pump with your feet.  I couldn't water some guy's field with that!"

Khady, "I got up early this morning to go walking with Bayfara (who had just been circumcised!) because he was hurting.  I heard the loud sound of a motor.  I asked a man what it was, and he said:"

"That's Cheikh Diagne (me!) watering so-and-so's field."

"I was so mad with you I couldn't even eat breakfast."

I had heard the moto-pump early that morning as well.

"My treadle pump doesn't make any sound. (Not that much, anyway.)  It doesn't have a motor.  That was not me!"

"The man said it was you."

"Well, he was mistaken.  It wasn't me."

I repeated myself several times, and I don't think she ever really believed me until she came to my house the next day and saw the pump.  She later told me:

"I saw that man that said it was your pump.  I told him he was a liar!" (Heavily emphasized.)

Now, in my mind this man just made an honest mistake.  One that took quite a bit of explaining on my part to avoid being thrown  out by the family I was closest to in the village.  Is this place exciting, or what?

I was indeed in trouble for not having come around, since Bayfara had gone through the experience of being circumcised.  He is seven years old-they do it up to age twelve or so here.  After the fun operation, the kids wear a special robe until they're healed.  In Bayfara's case, about two weeks.  They just threw away his robe today.  When the boy is (almost) healed, they throw away the robe-his was a plain black one, and the mother washes him.  The women have all thought it is a wonderful topic of conversation, hence they bring it up everyday at lunch. (I've done my best to avoid the topic, but these women go on and on about it!) They've told me that if a boy isn't circumcised, he can't have children and he'll turn into a girl.  The truth seeker that I am, I told them that no, this wasn't true, and that there are lots of men whom are uncircumcised and still are men and have kids (I have no idea how many, or exactly who they are.) All explained to no avail, I should say.

Glossary

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