The Beginning of RAMADEATH!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

Before I start telling you about my very Last RamaDeath (Yiiipiiiee), I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone who read my blog about the girl’s camp project we are doing here in the North of Senegal! Thank you so much to all of you who have shown your support for this project and helped spread the word about our cause. This project means a lot to me and all the other volunteers working on this girls’ camp. It is so important to help empower these young girls to follow their dreams and aspire to be all they can. Once again, thank you so much, especially for all the donations. Your generosity means the world to me and to these young girls who will get the chance to experience an amazing week-long summer camp for the first time!!

My Very Last RamaDEATH!!!

On the night of July 20^th 2012, the new moon showed itself to all and once again RamaDeath began. I was awoken at 4:30 am by my Aunt Njiaay to come and eat breakfast. We were served baxal gerte which is my favorite dish here; its peanut flavored rice; but at 4:30 am, a huge bowl of rice is the last thing I want to eat! After my family force fed me to eat way too much rice, it was 5am and I was wide awake with nothing to do.  My family told me to drink lots of water and to go back to bed. After having just eaten a huge bowl of rice, sleep was the last thing I wanted to do! I tried to sit outside and read a book with a flashlight but soon discovered that I was alone, and my family had dispersed. Some went into their rooms to fall back asleep while others got ready for the 5:30 morning prayer. So sure enough I headed back into my room and laid down on my bed underneath the mosquito net and somehow managed to fall back asleep. I didn’t awake until 9:30ish the next morning, groggy and cursing myself for sleeping in so late because you’re even more tired than you were when you woke up at 4:30.

See, the hardest part of RamaDeath for me is not the hunger part, you get use to that; it’s the whole time schedule of things. Your every day routines get screwed up and wacky! I don’t go to bed until 11pm or so after we have just eaten a huge bowl of dinner and am shaken awake at 4:30am for breakfast and eat yet another bowl of some sort of rice dish and then fall back asleep for a couple of hours. Then most of your days are spent doing nothing; especially by the time the afternoon rolls around because it is so hot and you’re so thirsty and hungry that you just have no energy to do anything but lie around! For me it’s an amazing time to get lots of reading done. My sleep and digestive schedules are just so off kilter that during the day I feel like I should be doing things but am too physically tired to do so. Also I haven’t been able to work out or go for a run at all during the day because I am fasting and by the time we break fast and eat our bread it’s too late and too dark to get some exercise! Truly the worst part of all of this RamaDeath stuff is the fact that I can’t wake up to a nice hot cup of coffee (even though the coffee here is Nescafe packets and really can’t compare to the real stuff back home but it gets the job done). For those of you who know me, you know just how much I love my coffee. I pretty much think it is the best thing in the entire world! So not having my cup every morning, you can imagine how cranky I have been lately.

Aida cooking benes (fried dough balls) which we eat at 7:30pm for Break Fast..yummy but sure as hell not healthy!

Xhady, who absolutely amazing at braiding hair has
lots of time do all the girl's hair during Ramadan

This 1^st week of Ramadeath has gone by so slowly that it feels like it will never come to an end!! There has literally been nothing to do in village except for lying around, reading a book, playing with the kids or watching a movie on the computer. However Ramadeath has given me the chance to converse more with my family and village since there is not much work to be done. I have actually really enjoyed sitting underneath the tree in my compound with my family, watching the men holding their prayer beads and studying the Koran for hours each day. To them, Ramadan is a time for Muslims to reflect on and purge their sins and prove their devotion to God. It is a time for forgiveness and the cultivation of virtue. Ramadan is meant to bring out the best in people, their true virtue by giving them time to reflect and think about their own character. Fasting is also supposed to enhance a sense of gratitude towards God for all of his bounties. I also learned from my brothers that fasting is a way to show the pangs of hunger and thirst that are suffered by those less fortunate and a chance for the rich to walk in the shoes of the poor. As much as I complain about Ramadan, I do have to say that to see people’s faith and their complete unwavering belief in something is extraordinary.





I love this picture of my Dad with 2 of his little grandchildren
Baby Aida and Baby Xhady

Rest in Peace Fatou Ndoa

Sadly, this past weekend my family in Mboula received the most unfortunate news. My torrando (my name sake) Fatou Ndoa, who is my Father’s younger sister, passed away. As upsetting as the news was for my family, it was not unexpected. My name sake, who was quite old had been gravely ill for the past couple of weeks. I had never met my torrando Fatou. She lived in Dahra (my closest road town) and never came to visit Mboula while I have been there due to her old age. When my family received the news of her death from the Imam who announced it over the mosque speakers to the whole village, it was a little awkward for me; especially because I had never met her. I was not quite sure how to react.  The way they grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones is a little different from what I am use to. I wasn’t sure what to say or how to act around my family. Everyone just kept stating the fact that my name sake died.

When someone in the village dies, it is customary for people to come and stop by and give their condolences. All day long people in my village came to my house to pay their respects. It was a cultural learning experience for me. During my service, there have been a couple of deaths in village and each time I tend to keep my distance mainly because, I’m not quite sure how to act and the last thing I want is to be disrespectful or offending. I normally show up a day or two after and give my condolences but since this death was in my family, I couldn’t very well keep my distance especially since my family named me after this woman. My family was amazing and very understanding. I had a log discussion with my brother’s wives about how I would mourn the loss of a loved one back in America and how it is very much different from here. They told me what was appropriate to say and I asked what I could do to help and they told me that it would be really appreciated if I went to the funeral the following day in Dahra.

This was my first Senegalese funeral and what a cultural learning experience for me it was. The very early morning part of a funeral, the men (and only the men) take the body of the deceased to the graveyard for the burial, while singing hymns from the Koran the whole way there. Women are not allowed to attend the burial, they are expected to stay inside the compound and mourn the loss of their loved one from in there. Once the men return, they are separated from the women, where everyone then follows along while the Imam and other important men say their prayers. People also give the family money for their loss. Most people stay for the whole day where they have a big lunch, cheeb bu yapp (rice and meat), and sit around praying and grieving the loss. Also if the deceased is a husband, the widow of the husband is suppose to mourn his loss for 4 months and 10 days. This means that they are not allowed to leave their house or dress fashionably during the mourning period. Also the widow is not allowed to remarry until the end of her mourning period.

My torrando’s funeral, took place during Ramadan, so there was no big lunch. All the women gathered inside the compound sitting on mats listening and following the prayers of the Imam and other important male family members (including my Dad, who read off many prayers). I had to have my head wrapped, and my shoulders and knees covered out of respect to their religion. Most people stayed the whole day and conversed about old memories of my torrando. It was also a great chance for me to see some of my other family who live in Dakar and who I haven’t seen since Gammou (religious learning event). I really think my family appreciated that I came and in all I really learned that although there are many cultural differences, we’re still humans and we still mourn and grieve the same. We all miss the ones we’ve lost and it’s nice to have the comforts of family and friends nearby.  

 Hilary Clinton

This past Monday, I had to go to Dakar for my mid-service checkup and I am happy to report that I am pretty much healthy for the most part with the exception of a few skin irritations, irregular bowl movements and the inevitable weight gain. Other than that I am as healthy as I could be living in a Senegalese village. On more exciting news, it just so happened that while I was in Dakar so was our Secretary of State, Mrs. Hilary Clinton! She was just passing through Senegal on her way to South Sudan to congratulate the Senegalese government on their peaceful democratic elections this past February and was also hosting a greet and meet with all U.S government employees in Senegal at the Radisson Blue hotel (probably one of the fanciest hotels in Senegal) to thank them for all their hard work. And lucky me, Peace Corps volunteers were also invited to attend. So I dressed up in the nicest dress I had here in Senegal and along with other volunteers headed down to the Radisson blue, excited and hopeful at the chance of getting to meet Mrs. Secretary of State. We were shuffled into this little conference room where we had to stand and wait for 2 hours for Mrs. Hilary to show. Now I would have been completely fine with just standing around waiting if they had maybe provided some refreshments or little appetizers, but nothing, absolutely nothing. Not even chairs to sit in. Just standing and waiting. And all of it was for nothing! Hilary Clinton literally came in the room and gave a little 10minute speech thanking all the hard work of the U.S embassy workers and then rushed right back out the door. She didn’t even mention Peace Corps Volunteers!  I know Hilary is a very busy lady and I don’t mean to sound snarky but a little love from the Secretary of State would have been nice. And no refreshments or appetizers..I mean I know there have been budget cuts but really Hilary no food or drinks? Not cool, not cool at all lol!

 MRS. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton

I really would of loved a picture with you... Hilary

But in all seriousness, it was really a fun day for me. I got a chance to dress up and feel like a real person which I never get to do here (I even put on make-up) and it was still a great opportunity to go and hear Mrs. Clinton speak. I thought it was pretty cool just to be in the same room as the Secretary of State, which not many people can say they have.  Although I never got the chance to shake hands or take a picture with her or even at least ask for a job, it was still a pleasure listening to the Secretary of State share her appreciation for all of our hard work!


Going out having some fun after hearing our Secretary of State congratulate Senegal on their continuing success of peaceful democracy! Cheers 2 Senegal!!!

Fun picks of some of the kids in my Family

 Baby Xhady... She was born a NOLE Girl

 The future Senegalese Mia Hamm....My little prodigy, Baby Aida

Ahmed and Awa, my 2 little troublemakers

These are the cute little puppies I found living behind my house

Don't worry Mom, Im not thinking about taking them in, their Momma was close by keeping an eye on them