aka Fadimatou

So a lot has happened since my last Christmas/New Year blog. My landlord finally washed all the wasp nests off my walls and painted the inside a shade of yellow. I am now living in my house and have realized that there is still a lot for me to do. Although my bedroom is nearly finished I still have to result to preparing my meals on the floor of my kitchen and my stove stop is sitting atop two chairs (picture provided below).

My salon is bear and I am itching to fill it as I have no where, but a cement floor to offer anyone who visits and boy do people visit. Some volunteers here will not allow anyone, but other peace corps volunteers to enter, while others will let only certain people in village to enter or no one at all. Since my village is still getting to know me and do not have any concept of how private we Americans can be it is somewhat of a challenge to get them to knock on my door or not enter by backyard. Some girls will just open my door and walk right into my house without knocking or will knock and then walk in before I have a chance to say "come in." I have gotten used to locking my door when I am at home, especially when changing my clothes or using my latrine. I have been explaining to people that they need to knock on my door, which is also necessary as alot of people will clap instead of knock on doors. I believe that may be because people in village do not have doors like I do or have them don't ever close them unless they aren't in their house. Therefore people clap to announce that they are at your door. I am still getting used to that as I hear people clapping outside my concession walls all the time and can't distinguish between a visitor and some random person.

I think people in village also think its weird that I spend time in my house alone during the day. Mostly everybody eats lunch and takes a nap around noon till the prayer at 3pm cause its so hot. When they see me walking back from the health center at 10am or 4pm they will ask if I'm going to take a nap. I think its a weird concept for most of them that I work out of my house. For example one day I barely left my house because the following day I was attending a women's meeting and hosting my own village wide meeting. I stayed in most of the day writing out my speech to the village and preparing the materials for the activity that I wanted to do with them. While its not uncommon for women to stay in the house all day its weird I think for someone who works out of the health center to be at home and alone.

On another note my community meeting was very interesting. To start the process I met with the Lamido, which is the chief of my village to ask when would be a good day to have a community meeting with the entire village and if he could help me alert all the people, meaning all 4,000. He chose three days later and said that he would alert all the people to come to my meeting. I was sceptical, but I prepared and announced it to the people that I saw in the village, most who on the day of the meeting had no clue what I was talking about. At 4pm that day I sat on the bench next to the public square with my counterpart waiting. After about 45minutes the Lamido rides up and tells me that they need to pay respects to someones family because there had been a death and that they would return afterwards. I wait for another 30minutes and then the crowd starts to arrive little by little and I notice that only the men are coming and only the Muslim men at that. Apparently only the men who attend the Grand Mosque were given the notice, but you live and learn and then inform the priests of the catholic church next time. So i stood in front of about 100 men from my village and explained for probably the nth time, but definitely not the last that I am not a doctor, which they love to call me around village, nor a nurse, another popular choice and definitely not a nun, although I am Catholic. I also explained that I don't have any money to give them, but if they have ideas and are willing to work hard I will help them try to bring development to the village. After that I had the men and women (during my speech about 15 women showed up) split into groups and create a map of the community. It included all the place they felt were important in village as well as places they frequent the most, the least and things they feel are missing in village. The maps turned out to be a great resource for me as I discovered places I didn't even know existed in village like a technical school and a broken dam at the river. My village has some big needs, but they are a village that isn't shy of change and wants all the development they can get. My next project is to walk to each house in the village to do a community wide survey. All through out the month of February and a little of March I will be putting on my walking shoes and visiting everybody with the help of one villager from my town who is going to act as translator (keep me in your thoughts and prayers for this one).

On another note I know that I have talked to some of you about the crazy things that people can get on a moto taxi here. A brief list of my sightings include:

1) four grown men

2) Two grown men and a women with a baby on her back

3) About 20 live chickens strapped to the handles

4) About 20 large stacked 50 liter jugs

5) Man holding live goat across lap

6) The kicker.....the driver, and a bull in an upside down table and then another man on top of that

And its almost unbelievable, but I leave you with this picture of a man and his three tables on a moto. Oh yes, it happens.

Also I wish to announce that I will no longer answer to the name of Kauleen as no one here can pronounce it even after I explain that its just like "coline", which means "hill" in french. I have been told that you are really accepted when you are given a Muslim name and my counterpart picked Fadimatou, which people do call me. When I tell new people I meet my name they love it, its like instant street cred. The young man who helps me around the house even painted the name on my clay water pots and my concession wall.