Yesterday, I woke up after an 8-9 hour uninterrupted hibernation and was unsure if I should push my luck by getting up. After lying in bed and surveying my condition, I courageously sat up and dared to say I was better. I got ready, headed out, my entire compound seemed ready to greet me. Except it was only like, 1/10 of them since they were all at some huge immunization event for meningitis. GO PUBLIC HEALTH! I felt like a completely different person. On my way out, I caught a glimpse of the pump working again and bless the lawds because I was unsure about the well water. A snake-chain of people wrapped around the pump because that was where the immunizations took place. Again, Fuck Yeah Prevention/Public Health!
Anyways, I press onto Ida's and the entire length of the way I'm being greeted and asked if I was doing okay. Apparently news travels fast in the village without Facebook or anything (except for phones... but I doubt they really needed that anyways) but I felt very thankful that they were all concerned! D'aw they cared. But really, it's the culture, you're suppose to always ask/check on you when you're sick whereas in America you kind of want to be left alone to rest. Ida just told everyone yesterday to leave me alone.. Unfortunately, one day off from Serehule totally blindsides my language skills or I just barfed all capacity to speak it. It was nice to know everyone + kids still remembered my name! When I reached Ida's both Elizabeth and Ida were so happy to see me better. Apparently both of them weren't even feeling good yesterday either - they mostly lied down and even had some bouts of diarrhea which is never good. Ida said my family was super worried about me, so cute. We all caught each other up - apparently Ida had a grandchild and I told her about my little impromptu speech. She said ti was my security blanket - that everyone will start knowing me and saying my name just like in Jalanbereh. Also, apparently many of our friends also got sick - one of them actually called us to say her ENTIRE group including the teacher was sick... one of them was sent to the capital... and even the DOCTOR was sick. Damn. So that's why he didn't pick up yesterday! I read Ida the journal entries I wrote or the monologues I wrote in Serehule and realized that one of the prompts I wrote was a response to "What if you got sick, describe your conditions to the doctor" and realized I wrote my own doom wtf, my own downfall! I should start writing my dream life to come true - winning the lottery, having a super successful service, acing the language test, getting proficient in Serehule, picking up another language, kicking ass and taking names etc. So that's exactly why I knew what to tell my family when I was sick because I predetermined my own conditions. I hate myself.
Anywho, Ida and I chatted in English and Serehule until lunch finally arrived. Alicia told me earlier in the morning that she would be arriving in the afternoon since she was traveling from her permanent site visit and mid way through lunch she came! There was much rejoicing. We caught each other up and I found out some more people who were sick and vowed to call them later in the evening to check if they're okay (since it meant so much to me when Elizabeth came to see me). Alicia's story telling is award winning and unfortunately everything that could go wrong did go wrong in the beginning BUT got much better throughout her time there. She is also in the Upper River Region with me, in a town that's past mine but we're pretty much parallel to each other. We talked for a long, long time until Peace Corps staff arrived to do the Mid-Upper Arm Circumference exercise with a group of <5 year olds. This will be part of our baseline assessment in our permanent village. MUAC is a quick measuring method that can determine whether or not a child under five is malnourished. Funny thing is that the tape used for measuring the child's arm in this practice fits around my own mid-upper arm... which tells me I'm equivalent to a slightly obese 5 year old.
We had to gather some kids from around the area and I felt bad because I ripped two kids away from their late lunch to get measured. One of them cried because they were scared we'd give them shots or we're actually scary because we're toubab/foreigners, I'm not sure. Either way, it was very quick and it helped that her father trusted us and brought the two children along. None of them were malnourished and I surprised everyone, including myselef, when I explained what was happening in Serehule. Seth, the Agriculture/Forestry PCVL/RA was goofing off with the little boys who were over 5 but under 10 so they couldn't participate in the practice. He was headbutting small nuts/acorn things at the kids and they were so damn tickled by him while Daniel, the health PCVL, was actually doing his job and helping us! Well, it couldn't be helped since this really isn't Seth's forte.
After the PC staff left, we went to the tailor's to drop off our designs/fabric. It turns out that there are two in town and one of them is literally right behind my compound. The tailor spoke pretty good English and Wolof but not Serehule. There were a lot of nice women who were at his compound - one of them was from my own! She was the one who helped take care of me, Jaara. We gave him our designs and he took a few scraps of fabric, folded it up like origami, snipped away some bits, and showed us a miniature design. It was pretty crazy - like how did he know where to cut?! It blew my mind out of the water. It was getting late so he couldn't get us measured but planned to do so tomorrow morning at Ida's. We leave, I shower, dinnered, and went out to teach math.
Of course as I'm teaching, I get two calls from men. They had to be men from Kulari because I didn't give my phone number out to anyone at ALL in Jalanbereh. I gave it out to HM, which makes sense because he was my community representative, Wujare, which makes sense because he was leading me everywhere, small Musa, which makes sense because he's a small boy and knows great English to help me along, and this one guy named Malick who is the only questionable guy. He literally took my phone, entered some numbers, and it popped up my telephone number even when I said I didn't know it. He seems nice enough but you never know. Anyways, these two phone numbers weren't in my phone which means I didn't know them and the bad part about it was that yes, they were from men, and it was also like 9:30 at night! I am not happy. I said I didn't know who it was and I saw the numbers call me days prior in the afternoon, I just never answered,. Conveniently, I was sitting around a group of women. I answer, it's a guy, my mom takes the phone and she starts mumbling into it like a prank call and they hang up. ALL the women were laughing. My mom shushed them but seriously, she trolled him well. Literally minutes later, I get another call from a different number and I hand it off to my mom. She shushes the women and straight up answers in Serehule. I'm pretty sure she told him to never call again and take a hike. The guy hangs up. One of my sisters get the number from my phone log and calls back on her phone. Clearly the guy didn't expect it, she interrogates him a little, and hangs up. We all laugh and then shit gets serious. I proceed to get the security talk from the women. I'm amazed that I understand what they're telling me but they basically said, "Men are bad. Kulari's big. Don't make many male friends. Lots of female friends are good. Making friends with little boys is okay. Don't give out your number, say you don't know. Don't answer the door if someone knocks at night."
I laugh because they're truly concerned for my well-being when I leave Jalanbereh and the fact that I'm getting this talk in Serehule and semi-understanding. I'm totally okay with surrounding myself with women and I 110% intend to do so. There are lots of empowerment things I'm hoping to do with the women but I feel like in order to get anything done, the whole community needs to get involved - including the men. Also the fact that men make the last decision in anything puts a damper on my desire to just stay with the women and children, gr. I was touched by their concern and said I understood and promised not to give out my number, ever, and told them I would speak in Chinese if I got another weird call. They told me to tell my Kulari moms about this and they would fix it for me, haha. That was a really special conversation I had with the ladies.
Today was pretty normal. I greeted more family than usual, went to Ida's, I swear I really did vomit out my ability to language because everything to 100x harder. Ida left to go to her granddaughter's naming ceremony after lunch and the Serehule ladies just talked and talked and talked and talked and soaked/cleaned our feet and talked and talked. I finally saw the bottom of my feet! It's a lovely feeling I savor because Elizabeth literally bought a salon with her. We didn't even have to warm the water for our feet because the sun did it for us, that was how hot it was. It was really hot as hell and it's suppose to be cold season!? Balls. After the sun was just about setting, we went home. I fetched water, showered, had reliable tap water now, went out to math after dinner, and the women asked if the men called again - which they didn't! Go mom.
Math sessions are going well but I realized I have to ready problems for the older kids in order to have time to spend time with the younger ones. My closest sister, Numa, is really good at adding whereas her brother, Mohammad, excels at subtraction. They have trouble with the opposite haha. Fatimata, the 16 year old who was giving me attitude before but not anymore after my site visit, is behind them but I know she can do it. She just needs to take it slowly but it's annoying when the kids just throw out guesses out there and they're so damn VERBAL about it, it's loud and it breaks their concentration. No one understands the concept of waiting in line and they just keep on tapping me on the shoulder (I think they underestimate how hard they jab at me because that's how hard they jab at each other when they tap you for something) and I am forcing the concept of waiting on them. The little girl who use to be sassy and spoiled is understanding and I reward her for it. Anyone else who doesn't will just have to learn the hard way. What's also great is that most of them are coughing into their elbows now, and whenever someone doesn't I call them out for it and all the kids call them out for it, too. Slow behavioral changes, slow. I feel very proud when anyone remembers, however. It annoys me the most when I specifically say one person respond but they whisper answers into the responder's ear and it's usually WRONG and it entices the responder to just say what their friend/sibling said. I'm trying to skip the turn of the person who breaks the rules and I think they're slowly catching on. Right now, I'm making the older kids re-write the problems they get wrong and drilling problem after problem into them. If they get a problem wrong more than three times, I stop teaching the younger kids to focus my attention on them and they usually get it right away. For the younger kids, I surveyed their ability to write (which is... they're unable to write, they can't write the letter 2 or 5, and some of them get confused at 4) and backtracked a little to start with simple addition. I'm using peanut shells and asking them to pick out 1-10 in one pile, 1-10 in another pile, and ask another child to tell me how much it is altogether. I figured writing is beyond them at this stage, but it will come with time. I know they want me to write equations for them like I do their older siblings but they're totally overestimating their ability. At least they have the desire to learn.. I just have to guide them realistically. I can see improvement, however, since the youngest know 1-10, they might not understand the numbers completely but that's where the peanut counting is coming in. It's exhausting as hell, especially when the older kids interrupt me when they're stumped or they think they're right but it's actually wrong, or when people come into the compound and greet and greet and greet or someone tries to answer for someone else, ugh. Overall, it's a nice routine, and I think they really appreciate it and I feel like I'm actually getting math through to them!
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