no means yes

The first stage of the head bobble is ignorance.

I tried to learn a little about India before I came. I asked former travelers for stories, I read about the politics, read some literature, I watched Slumdog Millionaire, I read the “Train Tips” section in the India Lonely Planet. I was prepared. But somehow in all of that I missed out on a critical piece of information, namely that in India no means yes. To be more precise, in India as opposed to everywhere else I’ve ever been on the planet, people indicate “yes” with a side-to-side head bobble rather than a nod. It looks a lot like a headshake “no” if you’re not expecting it. You readers may all have been aware of this already, but me, I missed out on that bit of info before I came.

The second stage of the head bobble is confusion. This stage was mostly enacted with rickshaw drivers—“Can you take me to Banjara Hills?” Headshake. Go on to the next rickshaw. “Can you take me to Banjara Hills?” Headshake. What’s wrong with these drivers?? I go through the moves once again but this time when I turn away the driver calls me back and tells me to get in. Aah, those were all bobbles not shakes.

The third stage is understanding mixed with the dawning realization that sometimes yes means no. I know what to look for now—it’s more about the movement at the top of a person’s head, rather than what’s going on at the chin. Funny how you don’t realize what physical clues you’re accustomed to reading until they change. Now I see the head bobble for what it is, but the meaning is more complex than a simple yes. A head bobble from the desk clerk at my guest house either means “yes ma’am” or, more usually, “I have no idea what you just said but I’d like you to be happy.” Like the time I asked about getting a water supply for my room so I don’t have to buy bottled water every day: “Can I get drinking water for my room? A lot of water?” Head bobble. Later that day, an empty bucket appears outside of my room. Or at work, when I ask for data on households that have bought the filter I’m here evaluating. “Can you send me the spreadsheets with that data?” Head bobble. Two weeks later, I’m still data-free.

The fourth stage of the head bobble is, of course, acceptance. And involuntary assimilation. It starts with a group of expat summer interns sharing their discovery of the phenomenon—“And another thing—the head bobble!” “I had no idea people were saying yes for the first week!” “Totally!” This is quickly followed by everyone in the group doing their version of a head bobble, which is a pretty priceless moment. But then comes the day that your colleague at work asks you to send him a copy of that report you just finished and you nod yes. But when you turn back to your desk your American co-worker is staring at you. “What’s wrong?” you ask. “You…just bobbled!” they reply in envious amazement. Score one for cultural immersion.

blue white and red

I have this friend from Guinea, Ian, who decided to visit his family in France after the program shut down, and we'd been talking about maybe meeting up sometime somewhere....until I decided ok enough of that lets do it! So now I'm in Paris :)

I've been here 2 1/2 days so far and it's all the frenchy experience I could have hoped for. The first day I wanted to hit up something big and famous so we went to the Sacre Cour, giant white dome of a church perched on a hill looking over the whole city. After climbing up a couple dozen flights of stairs (man for a mostly flat city there are sure a lot of stairs here...) we got to the top for a glorious view of the city, ancient famous buildings poking their spires up wherever I looked. Then a group of musicians set up and started playing twangy french music so Ian and I just sat on the steps and watched them play against a backdrop of the entire city of Paris...nice.

Today we went to meet up with Monique and Lise, Ian's aunt and cousin, at a rally for Segelene Royale. Well not so much a rally as an event where they were handing out free drinks and crackers. We pushed through the cheerful crowd (I think they'd already been handing out free drinks for a while) to get our cups of wine and sangria. Some guy walked up to us and said "I love you, and I love you, and I love you" pointing at each of us in turn. I asked "what about that guy?" he turned around with a tearfully joyful smile and cried "I love him too!" There was an old man in straw hat, red sweater and bow tie walking around playing french music on an accordian and giving everyone a nod and a smile as he passed by, and another guy holding up a sign that said "Sarkozy's policies are full of [large pile of poo]" and carrying a little fluffy dog in a sling. I like french lefites, tehy're fun! Too bad Sarkozy won, otherwise it would have been a great party in the streets tonight.

fun with tuaregs

I spent this afternoon sitting with some Tuareg guys watching as they turned a giant piece of cowhide into a beautiful purple belt. I was looking for someone to make me gris gris, a charm that you wear for good luck or protection, and was led to this leather worker stall. The guy invited me to sit, his apprentice made me tea as the guy scraped and dyed and cut and glued and braided this thing in front of me. We talked about Timbukto, which is where he's from (yes it's a real place, you can go on camel rides for a night in the Sahara but every now and then the Tuareg--they're this very independent nomadic tribe--kidnap foreigners to show that they're still independent), we talked about Guinea and the problems there, some other guy came up and borrowed the leather worker's shoes so he could run an errand...basically it was a day hanging out in West Africa, and I loved it, and I am going to miss it. What a bizarre and beautiful place.

Anyways I'm leaving tomorrow morning to visit Dogon country, this amazing region where the people live in cliffside villages and hold tight to traditional practices. We'll be walking from village to village for a week, me with all my worldly possessions on my back. Maybe I can rent a donkey. Man I love being able to say things like that and mean it!

K bye for now and I hope to have fabulous updates in the very near future :)

change of plans

Martial law has been lifted in Guinea but the country is in no way stable or safe, so I'm going go go out and explore the world a little while I wait to see if maybe I (and the rest of the Peace Corps program) can go back there within the next 6 months. I'm planning on traveling through West Africa for about a month, seeing the sand and camels of Morocco, and then going on to Portugal where I'll discover once again the joys of living in a country where people say things and I don't understand. Hopefully I can hop over to other places in Europe while I'm there, and I'll be there until the fall probably, so if anyone wants to meet up this summer at a Bavarian biergarten or Parisian pâtisserie just let me know!

season's updates

elephant poo...still warm, they must be close!

Here's a quick rundown of how life's been since November. Or October, I'm slacking. Anyways, here goes...

October...
...was the month of Ramadan, which means everyone fasts during the day and then as soon as the sun goes down starts eating as much as they can stuff in, passes out and gets up at first prayer call (5am) to eat again before sunrise. Oh, no water allowed during the day either, which some people take to mean they can't even swallow so there's a lot of spitting all the time. Gross. I decided to try fasting in solidarity (without the spitting part), can't be too bad right? I lasted 3 days. Ramadan lasts 30. Oops! But I spent my time well, the GRE was being offered out here at the end of October and I thought well hey, everyone in my town is grumpy in the afternoon anyways because it's hot and they haven't eaten all day, might as well spend my time hiding from them and studying for the GRE. Brilliant reasoning, right? Well anyways that's how the month disappeared and now I'm halfway set for grad school once I get back, yay! And then in

November...
...I started teaching health classes at three elementary schools in the district, one in town and two out in the boonies, which means beautiful walks to work two days a week and a two minute commute another day. Plus getting to know some kids in town and trying to pass on important health info all while getting great lessons in French when my 12 year-old students correct me (always fun). That kept me busy until Thanksgiving, when I went to the regional capital to whip up a feast with the Fouta crew. We ate well, real well. The US government was kind enough to ship over a turkey and it made the trip without even getting completely defrosting despite the eight hour taxi ride. And fyi it's amazing how close you can get to pumpkin pie with local squash and papaya. Try it next time you're in the tropics ;). In

December...
I decided that if I had to spend Christmas away from family I might as well make it memorable, so my friend Andrea and I took a trip to the exotic and mysterious forest region of Guinea, home to animists, chimps, and elephants! We got a free ride on the World Food Program flight along with a couple of hundred pounds of rice. First time I've ever landed on a dirt runway in a two-prop plane, felt like a pretty adventurous start. Our first mission was to track and find the elusive forest elephant, so we headed off into the Seredou mountains where we found a guide who knew a village where a herd of elephants had passed the night. We headed off into the jungle on foot behind the machete-wielding, chain-smoking guides, first down a dirt road walled in by thick jungle leafyness and then we came to a tunnel the elephants had muscled through the brush. The guides turned off and then the real fun began, following elephant footprints, jumping over broken tree trunks and dodging vines, fighting of biting ants falling out of the trees, slogging through rice fields in knee-deep mud, generally having an awesomely fun time--but no elephants. We found some elephant poo, but sadly it was cold. Yeah, I checked. After a hard morning of hiking our guard took pity on us and took us back to his village where he had us sit and found us a couple of liters of palm wine to drink. At 9 in the morning. With the whole village watching. But it's ok, they joined in too! Life in the forest is different than life in muslim land....

We were more successful in ForestMission pt. 2, which was finding real live wild forest chimps. There's this town called Boussou where the villagers hold chimps as their totemic animals and have created a protected place for them to live. Andrea and I camped out at a research station there and went off into the mountains where we spotted a chimp dining on fruit above us in the trees, swinging around on branches and chucking down fruit bits on our heads. It was awesome. She climbed down her tree maybe 20 feet away from us, gave us a good look, and scampered off uphill, screaming like a madwoman. We took that to mean "get the heck away from me!" and backed off, but it was really neat!

After feasting on fried plantains for a week we decided that we wanted to spend Christmas a little more traditionally, so we headed off to a volunteer's site up country, going up a road so bad that overturned semis are landmarks and the road dips down into 15 foot potholes gouged out during the rainy season. Bad ride. But at the end we had friends and feasting and homemade Christmas stockings. It was great :)

January...
...started getting a little weird. We got news that a general strike was going to be called against the government so Peace Corps had us sit tight at our sites. I decided to spend the strike at my neighbor Amy's house (her town has actual communication, like cell phone reception and a working radio, plus having people to hang out with is never bad). The four of us in town got together every night and made regional cuisine, like Chinese night (excellent sweet and sour) and Ghetto Southern night (lots of fried things). It was a great time, right up until the strike got violent--not in our town, but in other, bigger towns around Guinea. Peace Corps decided to move us out of the country to wait for things to settle down, so we packed up (one bag each) and convoyed off to Bamako, Mali. Now all 105 of us are hanging out at the training compound here in Mali and waiting to see what's going to happen next.

club de sante

presenting certificates to one of the peer ed students

I did a peer educator training with my neighbor Amy at her town's Lycée. This doctor in Amy's town, he's the guy 2 people down from me in the pic, is amazingly motivated to do things for the community and wanted to train some students on health topics, so we got together and set this up. We had 11 kids show up and that was a great success because the last time we tried we had 2--but that was probably because the week we had picked ended up falling right after a national strike and during the World Cup. Don't ever try to get anything done in Africa, Europe, basically anywhere in the world (outside of the US) during the World Cup. Lesson learned.

But this time it worked! We did a training on all sorts of sex health topics and the students were all shy at first but warmed up pretty quick. Maybe the homemade American goodies we brought every day helped out with that--we have now introduced brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and chips and salsa to the Fouta. We made official Peace Corps certificates and handed them out to the students in their classrooms, I'm pretty sure it was more of an honor than an embarrassment. This training is just the first step, now the students have formed a Club de Santé (health club) and are going to give presentations and plan health event in their school and in the community.

I'm really happy cus this is just what I thought I would be doing before I got out here, and I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. It's tough to have daily reminders of how little I know--can't speak the language, don't know the customs, trip over a rock in the road and have everyone around say "careful!" cus of course they were watching me--and so good to feel capable for a change. This stuff I know. Peer sex educator training, yeah, I can do that. Even in French!

new favorite website

Just wanted to spread some love. Love of the dance. And of the treadmill.

zen and the art of home pest management - part ii

I have a little mouse problem. Much better than a giant rat problem, which some of the other volunteers have (bush rat is apparently quite yummy and one of those suckers is a hearty meal) but still I need to do something about it so a little while ago started telling people I was interested in getting a kitten. What I was probably saying was something along the lines of "me want child-cat" but I think I must have gotten the point across because last Friday at the crack of dawn (ok more like 7 but still way before visiting hours) I woke up to someone calling "Aminata Porto" (that's "white girl Aminata) from my front porch. Crawled out of my mosquito net and slid the bolt back from the front door to find the neighbor girl Aissatou holding a black and white furball. "Baby cat!" she said proudly, holding it up to my face where it hissed at me. "You want a baby cat right?" Um, well, yeah.... "OK!" she smiled, set the cat down on the floor, and closed the door. The kitten slinked around the door to my kitchen, bumped into the wall and spat at it, and disappeared inside.

Um, well, looks like I got me a cat! I decided to let her chill in solitude under the bamboo shelves where she was hiding for a bit while I got some supplies. I looked up the word for sand in my Pulaar dictionary and set off to get 1) sand for litterbox and 2) fish for food. Simple, right? Yeah, right. There was a giant pile of sand sitting in a lot down the road so I went over and asked a guy nearby, "I want sand. I have baby kitten. I take?" He said I had to ask the owner of the sand, he's "over there" with a wave of the hand down the road. Directions are really imprecise around here, I mean not like there are street names of course but you could do a little better than "over there." Anyway I went over to where "there" looked to be and tried again: "I want sand. You have sand? I take?" No luck, I had to ask the maitre who lives behind "that door there." Awesome. I went down the alley he waved at, picked a likely looking door, and walked into a courtyard where half a dozen women stopped their cooking and clothes washing to stare at me. I put on a big smile, "Hi! I have baby cat. I want sand. I take sand? It is good?" They all stared at me for a few more seconds before bursting out laughing and talking. "Eeeeh! White girl speaks Pulaar! Ha ha, porto has a kitten. Ah! Porto wants sand for her kitten!" They helped me fill up my bag with sand, laughing and chatting the whole time, made introductions all around, invited me to eat breakfast with them, and waved me on my way. Sweet! Step 1 down.

Step 2 was a longer goose chase that sent me all around town (stocks get kind of low the day before market day during the hungry season) til I ended up at the health center where the Chef's wife had some bonga (dried) fish (there are some great words in Pulaar). Everyone seemed to think it was hilarious that I was buying fish for a cat, oh silly American with her strange ways! I headed back home with a small parade of children that kept growing as kids shouted out to other kids "Hey, Aminata got a cat!" I shooed most of them away when we got to the door but there were about 10 kids I let in to peer at the kitten crouched in her corner. I said she was sleeping cus I don't know the word for terrified, and then we all sat down and flipped through my photo album and magazines and public health picture flip books for the rest of the morning. One of the girls asked at some point if the kitty was a Diallo or a Bah (the last names of about 95% of the people in my town, there's a kind of friendly rivalry between the two--you know, Bahs are cattle thieves, Diallos eat beans, hahaa it's good for hours of entertainment) and I said actually she's a Kamara and since it's a custom here sometimes to name babies after the day they were born on she's now Juma Kamara. So mice in my house be warned cus you are mouse brochette just as soon as Juma has enough coordination to walk for more than two feet without falling over!