watch out village, here comes amy (part two)...

Dazed and slightly confused about the presence of these 15 odd Senegalese, we piled off the bus and stood awkwardly awaiting further instruction. Without further ado, there appeared a line of these men passing all of our luggage and other miscellaneous objects off of the roof of the bus. Okay, sweet. Then like the herd of toubab sheep that we are, and always will be, we were told to pick up our bags and as many bottles of water as we could carry, and follow them down this muddy, overgrown road path thing. Desperately hoping that we wouldn't have to go far, we walked past some little houses with little kids running out to see what was happening. In five minutes or so we were in the compound of our home for the next four days. Our auberge (a motel type thing), had a total of five bedrooms, a nice little patio and courtyard, a kitchen, and a real toilet and shower :). Our group completely overtook the place and had total privacy there. I took the opportunity, upon arrival to take a nap under a mosquito net in the ridiculous heat. Having to be shaken awake by one of my roomies Catherine, I groggily came to and stumbled out into the sunlight welcomed by many platters of amazing looking food. And it was even more amazing to eat...Maman Honorine's cooks came along for the ride/to cook for us and let me just say that I never felt hungry at all that entire trip. The only damper on the meal was that we were eating with these people that we didn't know yet, and were kind of forced into awkward small talk conversations. But hey, I am all about awkward small talk. After eating, we hung out for a while until Ataaya was served. Ataaya is the definition of the word marvelousness (thank you Jessica). To describe it simply: Tea. But not just your average tea. It is traditionally served in three rounds: Bitter like death, Sweet like life, and Sugary like love (this is roughly translated of course, and the Amy translation is this: strong and sweet, strong and sweeter, strong and sweetest). It is served in shot glasses, half tea half foam. It is so absolutely amazing, and I have enjoyed it many a time here. But this was my first time helping make it. Oh boy. So the actual like boiling of the water/adding tea/adding sugar is really easy, right? It's the foam-making part that's the issue. The technique is basically to pour tea from teapot to glass, then glass to glass, until you have foam. Seeing a Senegalese do this at full speed is awe inspiring. Seeing an American attempt to do it at a decent speed is comedy. I'm still at the point in my Ataaya skills that I end up with a tray full of spilled tea and very sticky hands. But it's worth the mess and grief to drink it.

After Ataaya, we walked to town to visit La Poste de Santé (the local health center). (This is where my friend Eva is going to be doing her internship for the rest of the semester and I am super jealous that she got to see it and her village already) We heard the director guy talk about what they do there and what it's like to take care of public health in a Senegalese village. As you can probably imagine, Malaria is a huge issue (don't worry Mom, I'm still taking my pills). But he told us about how a campaign for the usage of mosquito nets reduced the number of malaria cases tremendously. It was pretty cool. After this little visit, we walked through more of the village before returning to our Auberge.

And then came the bugs.

Our Senegalese friends left for a while to return to their appropriate abodes to shower and change, and we were left alone to do the same thing (two showers for 20 people, you bet we needed a while...). By that time it was getting dark, and most of us were just lounging around outside, playing cards and what not. I don't think I can even find the words to describe what happened next. All of a sudden these little black beetles started appearing around the courtyard. First it was just a few here and there, and then there were enough to be annoying, and then....then there were GAZILLIONS. I'm not even exaggerating. Now, these bugs can fly, so not only were they all over the ground but they were in the air too flying around the lights. It didn't take us very long to realize that they were attracted to light, so we of course turned out all of the lights. This was not before we got to witness a black beetle tornado of them all flying in circles under the light. And the ground was so covered by them in some areas that you couldn't walk with out hearing them crunch beneath your feet. Now would be the time for a gag reflex from those of you who are not so fond of these invertebrate counterparts. Luckily, for some of us, we had kept our bedroom doors shut and mosquito nets in place, so at least my room was essentially bug free. Others were not as lucky....and I remember my friend Mairéad describing it as having to "scoop thousands of bugs from our bed". Oh another characteristic of these bugs is their stench, which smelled something like weird cilantro according to my friend Jessica (be glad you weren't there, Katrina). For the rest of the stay there, we spent the evenings in the dark, no lights except when absolutely absolutely necessary so as not to attract the little stinkers.

Now for a little disclaimer, I have been in the routine of going to bed by 10 and getting up around 6. Decent schedule, right? Well apparently, that's not how things roll on MSID field trips. That night we were scheduled to enjoy a traditional dancing and drumming spectacle, which didn't get going until well after 9. It was fantastically indescribable, even pictures of the event do not do it justice. There were maybe 8 or 9 guys on drums (tamtams and djembes), along with 9 or 10 dancers (of the male and female variety). All of the performers looked like they were doing it with every fiber of their beings. Lots of arm flailing and drum hitting and body movements that I would never be able to recreate in a million years. And to top it all off a guy who eats fire...wowee acha. At the end they had all of us toubabs get up and dance the awkward dances that we dance. It ended sometime after 11, and we still hadn't eaten dinner yet because the general consensus had been that we were way too full from lunch so we wanted to save it until after the performance. So we ate (there were tomatos and cucumbers!!! p.s. I might become vegetarian when I come home just because all I'm going to want to eat are fruits and vegetables, they are so not a regular part of the diet here), and the clock struck midnight, end of the first day.

My other fieldtrip roomie, Christine, and I had cooked up a fantastic plan to beat the shower lines in the morning which we immediately put into action. It was to get up at 5, shower, and go back to sleep until breakfast. It worked amazingly, and so come 8 we were already fresh and showered and ready to start the day. Breakfast consisted of baguettes with jam/chocolate/butter/cheese (of the spreadable sort of course) and tea/hot chocolate/coffee!!! (for those of you who know me in my american life, you know how much I adore coffee...yeah well coming here to Senegal, I subjected myself to going cold turkey and now the only coffee I find is instant Nescafé. So not cool, but the price I am willing to pay for cultural experience) Considering that at my house here I only get bread with butter and tea (not coffee), this made the trip that much better. Our senegalese friends returned to eat with us, and then we were herded onto the bus...

stay tuned for part three to find out where the bus took us...