Dagana Dagana

Book: Captains Courageous By Rudyard Kipling
Song: Instant Karma By John Lennon

10 ways my life has changed;
1, I ride my bike 20 k to get mail and use the internet.
2, I work out every day, but I use buckets of water for weights.
3, I look at Mauritania every day, weird.
4, I try to learn French but people only speak to me in Wolof, so my French still sucks and my Wolof is way worse. I can only say Mangi Dem, I go.
5, Every single time I step outside my compound I get rushed by at least 3 kids. One of which looks like he is 40. I will get a picture.
6, Every single place I go, every single person stops what they are doing and looks. Just like in the “Three Amigos” when they step into the bar in Mexico.
7, I eat all meals with a spoon or if it’s not rice I use my hands to eat.
8, Every single day for lunch I eat is fish and rice. Every day I like it a little more.
9, Every day I read 70 to 120 pages in my book.
10, I drink 2 to 6 cups of tea a day. They are only shots of tea but each shot has a little over one teaspoon of sugar in it. I brush my teeth a lot.

Sorry it has been so long since I last wrote. I got to Dagana to discover the internet, but it works so slow I really got nothing accomplished in the hour I used it. I got to one email gave up and tried to surf the web. After that I went to Richard Toll to use the internet but the reso was not working there so I had to wait a little. But now to start from where I had left off.
All has been going well, I recently have left my family in Theis, which was sad because they are very nice people and I wish that they could of stayed my family, but as it goes I have a new one. My older brother has actually called me and texted me how much he misses me hanging out with him and his friends at the boutique on the corner. That is generally how we passed the nights.
I was excited to get to my site and but before getting to Dagana I spent three nights in St. Louis with two other volunteers waiting to get installed. We had a good time hanging around and trying to bargain with the locals. I bought a new bed and that was about it since I figured a town of 25,000 I could probably buy what I need here. Boy, was I wrong. I can’t buy a stove anywhere. The city was nice but I got a little bored of it after 3 days. The third day the country director came and picked me up to go to site. At this point I was starting to get a little nervous and starting to worry about everything. The language, my room, the whole deal. We finally get to Dagana after a short drive and dropping another volunteer off in the middle of nowhere. We pull up to my house and my dad comes out to greet me. That is when it really got interesting. Within the first two seconds of hearing my dad speak I couldn’t understand one word he said. He mumbled and didn’t move his teeth when he spoke. I looked straight at the country director, he looked at me and I knew that was it. We walked into my new home into my rooms, which I didn’t realize were my rooms because they had everyone else’s stuff in them and it was dirty. I said hi to the rest of my family and sat down. Immediately my dad started to ask about money and paying bills so I knew it was going to be a difficult transition period into the house. After 10 min of questioning me about money I was qued to start dragging my stuff out of the car. The only problem was that I had nowhere to put my stuff because my room was occupied by all of the family’s materials. As soon as my stuff was in the house the CD looked at me sighed and said, “You have my number, right? Call me if you need anything. Good luck.” I just stared back thinking to myself, oh my good what have I gotten myself into. The car pulled away and we started cleaning up my rooms. Which by the way are some of the nicest in country, but make my frat house in college look like the Ritz (for all of you who have seen my frat you are probably laughing.) Before we started the cleaning process I met everyone and got down names. I thought I had a mom, a dad, 4 sisters, an aunt, and a maid, but as it turns out I was very wrong. I have a dad, two moms, a cousin, the aunt doesn’t live with us, a grandma who wears the same outfit everyday the last two weeks, one sister with one mom, another sister with the other, and a niece whose mom doesn’t live with us. That is who lives with us I actually have 9 brothers and sisters 7 of which don’t live with us. You can also imagine how awkward it is when you find out the lady you thought was a maid is actually your second mom. The second wife does a lot of the work in the house so it was very confusing. But now I have it down although I can only remember a few of the names. Luckily they have namesakes so I have two Awa, and two Fatou. It helps. As I have been writing this blog I just drank two cups of tea, it is 8 at night so it was my 5th cup of the day. We also have after dinner tea which means I will have atleast two more cups.
Moving into my new house was very hard since I really couldn’t understand my dad’s French and my family will only speak to me in wolof. I get very tired each day and find myself taking frequent cat naps to help me get through the day. I have also been working out in my bathroom, which is a good release of energy. Another hobby of mine is going down to the river and watching the sunset over Mauritania. I spend a lot of my time reading, and going around the town speaking or trying to find new things. I have not yet my counterpart since I was just dropped off at my site and have no way of contacting her. I have been showing myself around town. So far I have been going to the French classes in the high school and now sit in M. Duff’s class at 10 every morning. At 12 I go to his house drink tea and he helps me with my French. After that I go home and sleep, read, play the guitar, work out, anything to stay busy. Around 4:30 I go to a garden and help out while the teenagers or kids speak to me to help me with my language. I have learned that the only thing that can hold me back is fear at this point. I had to go to the garden and offer to help. No one did it for me, my dad helped me get into the class at the lycee, but I am the one who set the schedule and the tutoring lessons. I am the one who goes to the maison communale and speaks with the employees and reads at their library, I have no choice but to be social or I will fail and be miserable. This experience thus far has given me a lot of confidence and has made me become more of an adult, but I would be lying to you if I said I wasn’t scared to go and speak to all these people. What makes it a little easier is that I am white and American. As funny as that sounds, I just can go to city hall, walk into the mayor’s office without an appointment and hangout for the day. People want to know the white guy and it is important for me to get to know the people in power. Even if I can’t communicate very well right know, the fact that I go and say hello to the mayor, makes me just as important as that mayor. People will see me with the mayor and think I am very important. I also have been working on a scheme of fame. I have been finding all of the pockets of children and teaching them my name. So whenever I go anywhere in town, the children start to chant my name and wave. I am going for a “Lawrence of Arabia” moment when all the people chant his name, or a “Volunteers” moment. By the way my name is Djibril Fall aka Djibi (Jibi) or in English Gabriel. I have the coolest name in Senegal, I love it. Any who this is starting to get really long so I will save you something for my next blog if I can make the 20 k ride. I almost died since there are not to many trees and the wind was going, along with a uphill ride all the way home.
(My dad has a really dumpy car that we have to push start some times, it is his baby and the other day he was really mad because when he was driving at night he ran over some kids bike, because his lights don’t work. He was telling me all about how the kid shouldn’t of been their. Now he is mad at the fam because he had to honk his horn three times before some one would open the gate for his car. My life is funny.

Ps, There is a cricket in my room for the past two weeks that is really loud, but when I find it there will be a tortures death involved.

Peace, Love
Djibi