I Ate Pumba!

The past two weeks have been such a whirlwind of new events and experiences. This post will pick up from after our swearing in ceremony.

October 16th was the date of the ceremony and the following Sunday I left with several other volunteers for Kaolack, which is a large city in the south and also the location of our regional house. Unfortunately, it is three hours from my site, but such is life. The trek there was hell! The Peace Corps hired Sept Place drivers to take us, rather than drive us themselves. My driver was mean and thought he could take advantage of us. After loading up the cars, our caravan of white people took off and got as far as the first gas station before we struck problem. Our driver demanded money and was incapable of understanding that he would be paid for his services upon arrival. He wanted money for gas! One volunteer was given all the money for 5 drivers and was directed to hand out money only once we arrived. So we wound up arguing for a few minutes until the driver conceded defeat and paid for gas to be put in the car. Then, for the entire duration of a 4 hour trip, he played the same high-pitched-praise-Allah-give-me-a-headache song that made me want to scream. I thought about accidently spilling my drink on the radio. As if the radio wasn’t bad enough, every gendarmerie along the route tried to pull us over to check our papers. I guess the caravan of 5 cars of white people was just too much to resist. Oh and it was hot!

We arrived Sunday night and until Thursday morning, I acquainted myself with the city. Kaolack itself is not a pretty city. If Dakar is the “Paris” of West Africa, then Kaolack is certainly “Marseille.” What is nice about it is its size. It’s big enough so that we can buy anything we could need and then some –the ‘then some’ being western goods. I took a few days to buy what I thought I would need. By the time I was finished, I wound up with plates, dishes, a machete, buckets, silverware etc. What I figured I would need, I bought, as the Peace Corps gives us a generous amount for “settling in” expenses.

By Monday afternoon, with nearly 30 people in the regional house, there was no room left, but it was a blast and we all had fun. Feeding ourselves was getting expensive, so one of the volunteers who knew how to kill and clean a goat offered to collect money and make roast goat for dinner. His assistant, a volunteer of Greek decent (insert pun here) offered to help. I didn’t like it. The taste was excellent, but the texture and consistency of goat’s meat was not appealing to me.
Moving on to Thursday the 22nd. Charged with the responsibility of installing myself and another volunteer is will be very close to me was the security director and an assistant from the medical office. It took two hours in the Peace Corps car and we arrived in the afternoon. I was greeted by my host family warmly and they invited the PC staff and the other volunteer to stay for lunch. After lunch the PC staff took off to install the other volunteer and I was left with this family.
This family is interesting-I’ll leave it at that. I’ve been here five days and I know only one person’s name and have no idea how the family structure works. There is three women and many children. I know one woman is my host grandmother, and her daughter (my host mother) lives in Kaolack because she is in a technical school. There is a boy and a girl of high school age, though I don’t know how they are related. I do know the boy is the son of the woman in Kaolack and the boy told me his father is in the Ivory Coast working and can’t come back now because of money. I don’t know if he sends money every month or what. My counterpart later told me he is indeed working in the Ivory Coast, but he also has another family!

My room is nice and big. It has a thatched roof which is great with the heat. It’s spacious and I do like it. I’m having a dresser made and my counterpart has a fridge ready for me to buy. When it is all set up, I will send pictures.

The Peace Corps told us not to discuss money or our contribution for a few days because we needed to determine who runs the family and what an appropriate amount to give each month is. Unfortunately, before I was even here for 16 hours, my family had told me what they believed I should contribute each month. I thought it unfair and I am currently negotiating with the family. However, in order to cover my rear, I have already looked at a few other locations, though I am confident the family will be more reasonable. I wish I could divulge more, but it is unwise to do so on a blog.

The past few days have been spent meeting useless government officials who think too highly of themselves and becoming acquainted with the family and town. It’s not the prettiest site, but it’s livable and I am definitely not near central command, which may or may not have its advantages. On that, I will have to wait and see.
Sunday was the most interesting day here so far. My counterpart, who is catholic, picked me up to go to mass on Sunday. On this particular Sunday, the priest from the big cathedral in Dakar had come for a conference. He was a very interesting character, but I had to sit on a bench for 3 hours before we finally left! After mass, my counterpart asked me if I wanted to go with him to a nearby village to pick up some pork for a party later on. I thought why not and I jumped inside the car with my counterpart, some other guy, and a priest and off we went. We wound up heading north on some dirt roads that took us into the bush. After a while I asked what we were doing (I’ve really learned to just go with it here) and my counterpart said we were looking for a hunter who would be waiting for us by the side of the road. After a while, we came across the hunter who led us on a 20 minute walk though the bush to nowhere. When he finally stopped, (and we caught up) there, at his feet, was Pumba, dead as a can be. It turns out he meant wild pork. Back at home, my counterpart’s wife cooked up the meat and I did try it, and I loved it! It is some of the best meat I have ever had and it tastes just like domestic pork.
So far, those are my adventures. Please stay tuned.