Lamal, Lambal, LAABAL. It's Laabal Dindefelo, you know?

Laabal, in Pulaar, means cleanse or clean-up.  But because Pulaar is not commonly written and has only in the last decade ever been written, it's spelling is up for grabs.  Thus, when I arrived in Senegal with T-shirts sporting the waste management logo I designed, accompanied by the words 'Lamal Dindefelo,' there was some conspiracy.  A Senegalese friend originally instructed me to spell lamal this way.  But in no time, people came to me with aggression towards my "mistake."  I corrected it along the way according to their advice.  So, on our waste management T-shirts, you'll find lamal.  On our education brochures, you'll find lambal; and on all 100 waste bins, you'll see laabal.  We've settled on laabal, officially, in case you're wondering.  

Although I am uncomfortable with the consistency of the spelling, I am choosing not to look at it as unprofessional, and instead as a reflection of Laabal Dindefelo's infancy.  The inconsistency symbolizes the newness of garbage consciousness, for lack of a better term.  This project only a loose beginning and will hopefully take many forms in its lifetime--from simply consolidating trash, to recycling and composting, to reducing and repurposing waste.  And the variety of spellings of Laabal symbolizes the way in which we move the project forward: listening to the counsel of many voices and accepting the help of many hands. 

Lakeside (Seattle, WA) students, a crowd of curious kids and me

Mi new os

Today, Peace Corps Salone announced where we will be living for the next two years. After a long and agonizing day of waiting, imagining, and hugging dear friends to whom we wish to stay close, we were given envelopes each with a puzzle piece. We were to find other volunteers with pieces that fit. Once the puzzle came together, we were guided towards a teacher who handed yet another envelope to us. Inside, the long awaited name of our new homes. I will be living in a very small rural village (approximately 1000 in population) called Bandajuma in the southern most district called Punjehun. Bandajuma is about 30 miles south of Bo (the second largest city). There are small daily markets and a Sunday Trade Fair. My school is a Muslim JSS School called Ahmadiyya Junior Secondary (The equivalent of a U.S. Middle School). I will be the only Peace Corps Volunteer in my village and the only volunteer within a 20-30 mile radius. Next week, we will be going to visit our sites. I cannot wait for the adventure to continue! A tel God tenki!

Persons of Bo, Sierra Leone

Me: Wetin na yu gladiest tem na yu lyf? - What was the happiest moment of your life?

Samura Conteh: Wel, di gladiest tem na mi lyf na we a hep misef fo do somtin gud fo di futur. A don dicayd fo lan job we we go mek a go kam sefrilayant in da futur. Mi na ka oprator. Mi na driva. - Well, the happiest moment of my life was when I decided to help myself do something positive for the future. I decided to learn a job so I could become self reliant. I am a car operator. I am a driver.

Street Art Steals My Heart

I don't know what it is.  Perhaps it's the beauty alone, perhaps it's the beauty in the rebellion.  I am a big time fan of street art, which is a lot harder to find here in Cape Coast.  A couple weeks ago I found this piece on a walk back from the post office in town.  Talk about eye candy.

Mi Ticha Bob

Throughout our PST (Pre-Service Training), we are immersed in language classes. Upon arrival, our training began. We have started with Krio, the most widely spoken language in Sierra Leone. A conglomeration of English, Portuguese, French, and local languages, my mind often struggles to comprehend the complexity of letters which now consume my life. Facilitating this learning experience is my LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) Bob Conteh; A native Sierra Leonean, teacher by trade, and wise man in his early 70s. Each day, Bob and I sit underneath a mango tree speaking and learning Krio with a few of my fellow volunteers. He brings with him a well worn chalk board on which he writes Sierra Leonean proverbs, conversational queues, and Krio phrase after Krio phrase.  

One morning in our early days of training, I asked Bob “Monin-o! Ow di bodi Bob? Ow yu slip?” – “Good Morning! How are you? How did you sleep?”

Bob: “Oh Molly, A no slip fayn. Mi bodi no wel. A git Malaria” – “Oh Molly, I did not sleep fine. My body is not well. I have Malaria.”

He described his situation in a very matter of fact manner. Malaria is a common illness here. Luckily, if you have access to anti-malarial medication, a bed net, bug spray, and malaria medication, one is generally safe form Malaria. And thankfully, Bob has access to malaria medication. A week later he was healthy.

Suddenly all these health issues I had learned about in my honors courses and International studies classes and public health studies while studying abroad are present. These issues are now actively a part of my life. 

As I walk through the streets of Bo, neighbors have learned my local name, Koloma. As you may have expected, I have also sung the "Great Big Moose" song many a time and consequently I am confronted with many a smiling face, voices singing the tune, and little hands making moose antlers on their heads. Mama Salone na mi om. Mother Salone is my home.

Who says pool parties are just for kids?

Last weekend I celebrated my 22nd birthday in the company of all of my future nieces and nephew.  We took them to a local pool to go swimming for the afternoon.  It was pretty awesome.

Croix-Rouge Village Clean-up

On preparations. On leaving . . .

I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May 2013. I arrived in Norman as a classically trained ballerina in pursuit of a BFA from the FINEST ballet program in the country. Coming from Columbus, Ohio, Oklahoma was a very foreign place. I entered the ballet program in the fall of 2010 .  .  . my dream had come true! As I continued through the program, began to take classes in other disciplines, and became involved in student organizations, my dreams began to shift. I no longer saw myself as an artist limited to the physical stage. My stage had expanded. I became an artist passionate about the betterment of humanity, passionate about travel and adventure; Passionate about providing sustainable solutions in a world inherently plagued by disease, poverty, climate crisis, a lack of educational resources, and wicked deeds. I wanted to be a part of the solution, and I was determined to change it with art (in whatever form that art may mold).

My studies took me to Italy with the Honors College and continued to guide me to Switzerland where I worked as a Counselor, English Teacher, and Dance Teacher at the American School in Switzerland. Combining my interests in Public Health, Travel, and Education, I traveled to India, China, and South Africa with the School of International Training's International Honors Program for a study abroad experience. My travels soon brought me to Dindefelo, Senegal to volunteer with the Jane Goodall National Institute. I taught dance classes at a local school and was a student of local dance traditions, alongside my sister, Grace Bachmann, who used art to teach children about environmental issues in their immediate and global communities.

This past year since graduating, I have completed the Physical Therapy admission requirements, worked with the American Red Cross in Disaster Relief, and am teaching dance at my home studio here in Columbus, Ohio. I have since become an avid runner and cyclist (I ran the Columbus Marathon in 2013 and am training for TOSRV - a 200 mile bike race). This year has also been spent closely with family and dear friends as I prepare to leave for Sierra Leone in June for 2 years with the United States Peace Corps. I will be working in Secondary Education and potentially in the health sector. After completion of service, I plan to attend graduate school to earn a doctorate in Physical Therapy traveling to disaster sites around the world providing sustainable healthcare integrating dance into treatment methods.

My Peace Corps journey began long before I applied after graduating from college. The journey to and with the Peace corps has been a series of events, a collection of moments, which have guided me towards service to my country and to people of need. Another dream in the making. Now with just 6 short days before departure, I prepare to leave my family and friends for a world unknown to me with people whom I have yet to meet, eating food I've never tasted, speaking a language I have yet to learn, and teaching subjects I’m not quite sure I comprehend in a school quite different from the ones I grew up in. Yet while so much of this experience is and will be foreign, I know it will become home, my family. It will become my stage. With or without the sequined costumes or the bright lights, the stage has been set. It is a place where all people can become active participants in storytelling, in the birth of imagination and creativity, and in a place where the simplicity of childhood dreams exist.

In the inaugural post written by my sister, she wrote of her fears about blogging; “I feared that maybe I'd be speaking to a nonexistent audience--that I would be writing with the false pretense that my three months in Senegal were actually relevant to other people.” I must say, I have had the same fears, perhaps a greater fear that I may not accurately portray my experiences in Sierra Leone or more importantly, the experiences of the people with whom I interact. Hattie, Grace, and I concluded that we are lucky though. To quote Grace, “We are lucky.  Simply put, we are lucky to have the opportunity to live and work abroad,” and we have to share our experiences. Hattie said it best, “We three are sisters, though only two by blood, from the same town in Ohio who happen to have a thing for West Africa.” I hope we can invite you into that world.

Visa Troubles

As most Americans who have travelled outside of the country are aware, we rarely need visas. I travelled to France, England, Ireland, Wales, and Honduras before I went to Ghana in 2012 and this lovely West African country was the first for which I needed a visa to enter. My then lacking knowledge of the process was a hindrance as a result of a privilege we tend to ignore. I don't intend for this to be particularly political or critical, but I do intend to cause you to ponder this for a second. I am now becoming very familiar with the immigration process within our own country as I met the man I intend to share my life with and he happens to not be from America. We would like to get married and it is an unfortunate truth that we can't simply hop in a car, head to Vegas, and live happily ever after. It is a lengthy and costly process that has changed my perspective on the minor inconveniences I've experienced while applying for visas to his country. Okay, from here on out this blog post is essentially a shout-out and a confession of mistakes.

The visa application for Ghana is an extremely simple, one-page form asking for the basic info (name, birthdate, passport number, dates of travel, etc.) You submit two copies of that form along with two passport photos, your passport, and a money order in the amount which corresponds to the particular visa you are applying for in an over-night envelope which includes another return-addressed, over-night envelope. Slip it in the mail at least four weeks before your intended departure and that's it. Easy. So easy that you very well may forget an essential part of the package...say...the money. Yep. The first time I was applying for my visa to Ghana, I realized a good three weeks after I sent my application, while I was nervous about getting my passport back in time for my flight which was only two weeks away, that I had forgotten to include my money order. Needless to say, I went into a manage-the-situation tizzy which included no less than twenty phone calls (and multiple e-mails) to the Embassy phone (which I have since been informed is only ever used to place outgoing calls) at various points in the day over three days and never getting a response. Finally I contacted someone in the Office of Education Abroad at Ohio University (which was in charge of the program I was going to Ghana with) who had the good sense to reach out to a saint at the Ghanaian Consulate in Texas. Diane spent the better part of the next week explaining the far more complicated steps to fix my mistake and sweet-talking her contact in D.C. I think she even gave me her home number so she could reassure me after hours in her maternal southern drawl. As a result of her efforts, along with the cooperation of the staff at the embassy, I received my passport and visa in the mail one day before my flight and I made my flight to Ghana in August of 2012 and my life has been changed because of it.

The second and third times around, I was much more thorough in my checklisting and I received my visas without any years stressed off the end of my life. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite as well for my brother who accompanied me to Ghana this time. His application was perfect, but his minor error was in sending a priority mailer as the return package when the form specifically requests an over-night, trackable package. He received a call on the Thursday before our Tuesday flight from the embassy that he had been granted the visa but he needed to send a different package so they could mail back his passport. We went to the post office that afternoon and he did as he was told. The package arrived at the embassy by noon the next day and then we never saw any action in the tracking for the return package. After utilizing many avenues, Ben got word from an embassy staff member that the package would be shipped by the end of the day Monday. As it had been guaranteed by noon on Tuesday, we panicked a little less since that would allow at least an hour an a half before our first flight to Baltimore. Tuesday came and no package with it. Our dad contacted VP2Go, an expediting service in D.C. which worked wonders. They sent a courier to the embassy early in the morning who eventually collected the passport five minutes before the embassy closed for the day. By that point, Ben and I were waiting on our second flight of the day to take us from Baltimore to Boston. Our flight had been delayed 35 minutes which meant that there were 95 minutes for the VP2Go angels to get the passport from D.C. to the airport during rush hour. We later learned that it was the owner of the service himself got in his car and drove so that Ben received his passport literally three minutes before we were meant to board our flight. It all worked out so perfectly it was humorous, once we were over the desperation. A staff member at VP2Go named Samantha answered multiple stressed out calls during that day and kept me informed as much as possible throughout. My dad contacted them after never receiving a bill (which we expected to be quite heavy) and was informed they weren't planning to bill. After he pushed them, they sent an invoice that barely exceeded the standard cost of an expedited visa from the embassy. All of this is to say that if any of you is ever in a tight spot with anything regarding visas or passports, I highly suggest you find your way to VP2Go. They work miracles. If not for their efforts, in cooperation with the embassy staff members (of course), I would not have had the chance to introduce my favorite brother to my favorite future-husband and the city I'm finding a second home in.   

On Returning

I recall a letter my godmother wrote to me the first time I travelled to Ghana for a semester abroad in 2012. In the letter, she told me to do everything I wanted to on this trip as return trips are a different thing altogether. I don't think I understood that at the time, but it's becoming clearer on this, my third season of living in Cape Coast, Ghana.

I arrived in Accra a little over two weeks ago along with my brother, Ben, for whom this experience was entirely new. We were met at the airport by friends and my fiance who helped us haul our luggage to a vehicle and piled into the car with us to escort us back to Cape Coast and I overwhelmingly felt like I was on my way home. This time I didn't feel so much like a foreigner coming for a holiday, but rather a friend returning for an extended visit. I know what to expect most of the time. The creative interpretation of traffic laws does not set my nerves on edge anymore. I like to think I've become a master in the art of waiting, a requisite for life in Ghana. As I walk the streets, I am met by people who know my name and who say "welcome back." I'm being called upon later today to show some students from the U.S. around the city by someone who has lived here her whole life and thinks that I'm qualified for the job.

While many things have grown unremarkable to me, I want to strive not to forget what it was like to experience them for the first time. The first time I travelled here, it was about the place. The second time it was equally about the place and the people. This time, my motivation for coming was almost entirely based upon people. (Certainly one person in particular.) For two years all of my travel has been focused on this one city in Ghana and by the end of this summer I will have spent ten months here collectively. I don't want to travel to a place just to leave it behind but I want to have people across oceans I can look forward to returning to. When I leave in August, I may be leaving a place behind but I will look forward to returning to the people.   

Streets

A few days ago, I met up with a friend Fily in the neighborhood that I used to live in.  Like old times, we took the 'transport en commun' to the neighborhood where his family lives.  Transport en commun is not a recommended form of travel for foreigners and not preferred by Dakar's elite.  The van-buses shake and rumble at a moderate pace while guys hang off the back to collect the 25 CFA toll, equivalent to less than 5 cents.  They hop off while the bus is still moving and hustle people on and off.  It's tight quarters inside--a pickpocket's paradise.  Fily suggested I put my fanny-pack, which I had slung over my shoulder, across my chest and under my sweater.  Then he pulled me through the back door of the bus and people shifted to make space for us where there really wasn't.  A man in the corner said to us, this is so much cheaper than a taxi (Fily translated from Wolof).  A taxi costs a minimum of 1000 CFA, two dollars and 40 times more expensive than common transport.

Without Fily, I would never have ventured to take common transport.  In a lecture on security by the Peace Corps Security Director last year, we were advised against it.  But we were also advised against eating street food, and fruits and vegetables.  

'Transport en commun' 

To get off transport en commun, you knock loudly on the roof and the guy hanging of the back yells at the driver to stop--or slow down.  Fily and I jumped off while it was still moving and made our way through the streets, whose breeze carried the smells of fried fish and seasonings, burnt sugar and spiced coffee, and sewage too.  We navigated puddles of waste water, trash-filled gutters, and mounds of sand and fractured cement blocks.  Many of the buildings we passed were unfinished--it's normal to build as soon as money is available, not necessarily when there's enough to finance complete construction.  Store fronts and residences blurred together, and people sat on their stoops or stood grouped around vendors, socializing and watching passers-by.  

As we walked, I asked Fily what he thinks are the biggest challenges for people in Dakar.  He said housing.  It's expensive and it's limited because a third of Senegal's population lives in Dakar.   Fily then pointed to a hoard of little girls--ages 3-10 I'd guess--playing in the sand-covered street, narrowly avoiding the reckless driving of taxi men.  We had passed dozens of similar groups of children, playing with a punctured ball or tousling each other.  Fily cited these children, left unaccompanied in the streets by parents gone off to work, as evidence of lack of economic stability and quality education.   

We passed a crowd of young and old men watching at TV on a hardware store's counter.  A moment later, celebratory cheers rose from the crowd and then entire neighborhood.  Boys in European football jerseys sprinted in front of us, screaming with excitement.  Fily yelled after one of them, who made the goal! One boy turned around as he ran and yelled, REAL MADRID.  

Facets of a Nation

Seydou and Me

Early Thursday morning, two familiar faces greeted me at the airport in Dakar: Hassana Diallo, my lifeline for all things Senegal, and Seydou Diallo, a cousin from Dindefelo.*  Hassana was my Team Leader as a Global Citizen Year Fellow 2012-2013, and he played a key role in helping me develop my Davis Projects for Peace Proposal.***
*Dindefelo--a village of about 1400 people in the Kedougou** region in southeast Senegal.
**Kedougou is also a small city about 35 km from Dindefelo.  I'll travel there by car or bike to buy supplies and for internet access. 
***Here is the link to my project proposal, which I will execute over the next three months.  

Here in Dakar, I am staying with Hassana, his wife Mariama, and Seydou in the home of the Peace Corps Director of Senegal.  In this house, maybe more accurately called a mansion, wifi abounds, boxes of cornflakes line kitchen shelves, and the air-conditioning unit in my room offers complete climate control.  I'm still FaceTime-ing American friends and snapchat-ing things like a Sprite soda can with an Arabic label.  In a way, I feel like I'm cheating because the Senegal I relate to most, where I previously spent most of my time, is more than 700 km away from here in Dindefelo, where I will have little access to the amenities of my life at home.  In Dindefelo, a basic cell phone suffices for communication and the place I take most comfort in is a little, round mud hut.

But, Dakar too is Senegal. It can be as similar to home as watching Sports Center with a gyro in hand (dinner last night) and as different as passing families dining together on the sidewalk while their mothers sell small sacks of peanuts.


Yesterday, Seydou and I went to neighborhood called Medina to find Kedougou youth.  Though can only confirm that this exists for Kedougou, my guess is that there are pockets of young men from different regions in Senegal living in Medina and the surrounding neighborhoods to attend Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), which enrolls 60,000 students from all over West Africa.  In search of friends from Dindefelo, we climbed several flights of dormitory like housing.  We went up and down the stairs half a dozen times while Seydou made phone calls to find them. We finally happened upon someone--Sekou.  I'd never met him but we made the connection that one of his cousins was a student in my art class last year, and another cousin is a good friend of mine.  

We spent a couple of hours with Sekou in the military-stye, bunk-bed configured room.  More Kedougou kids trickled in.  Seeing them all again relieved my exhaustion from the heat (relative to Ohio spring temperatures) and from constantly speaking Pulaar after so long.  

Points of Reference

Map of Africa (mapsengine.google.com)

A Matter of Sharing

We three young women find ourselves in preparation for travel, or in transit to, three different countries in West Africa.  We met up last night for a final farewell.  While Hattie and I will be back for our respective fall semesters in August, Molly will soon sojourn in Sierra Leone for 27 months.

Before parting, we had a conversation on how we should keep up with each other's lives and share stories among ourselves and our friends.  We've all had some experience in blogging and we each planned, in some way, to communicate the happenings of our West African lives.  I asked Molly and Hattie for advise: should I send emails to friends and family, or run a blog or two? How much do I say? Will I want to say anything at all?  I feared that maybe I'd be speaking to a nonexistent audience--that I would be writing with the false pretense that my three months in Senegal were actually relevant to other people.

Together, we came to a few conclusions:
1)  We are lucky.  Simply put, we are lucky to have the opportunity to live and work abroad.
2)  A lot of people will never go to West Africa.
3)  We have to blog.  And maybe we should blog together.

This blog opens up a small portal into West Africa through the eyes of American women.  It's a unique perspective that comes with biases but I think I can say it will also carry the sincerity and honesty of our time in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Senegal.  Here, we're taking advantage of our differing locations, goals and personalities to deliver an amalgam of micro-portraits of West Africa.

So, I blog here as a contributor to that gateway.  I blog to chronicle casual nuances, uncomfortable moments, serendipitous flukes, and the progress of my project.  I also blog out of gratitude for having been afforded the opportunity to return to Senegal.