October 28, 2005

Dear Friends and Family, ...........................I have finally gotten a ticket, and plan to fly home in just a few days! This will be my last mass email from Africa, but hopefully not the end of my travels. I am thinking Asia may be my next adventure, but not until next fall at least............................................. I'm very excited to be back and see all of you as I make my US tour from coast to coast. Once I got my ticket I found myself very impatient to be home and more bothered than usual by the little inconveniences of being here. Now, I am enjoying my last couple of days and trying not to go crazy buying things............................................. Last weekend, I was happy to find a little get away in a small fishing village an hour south of Dakar, Senegal. On a cliff overlooking the ocean, a Frenchmen created several bungalows and rooms with dorm like beds all made of stone in a small space (less than half a block) with lots of trees and bushes intertwined by stone path ways. There were lots of comfy sling back chairs for relaxing and viewing the ocean- fishing boats going in and out- and stone steps leading down to the water for a closer and wetter view. I enjoyed early morning swims, before the waves got too big and fabulous seafood meals in the evenings. .........................I spent a lot of time looking at the ocean and thinking about how I would soon be crossing it, and trying to explain where I have been and what I have been doing for two and a half years. My fellow PCVs and I have laughed at the impossibility of answering the question, "How was Africa?" However, I am going to try to do just that. ............................I would say Africa was very different, but in some ways the same. Whether you are in an American classroom sitting at your desk surrounded by colorful posters and furniture marking the reading and math areas holding a large ergonomically designed pencil writing on special lined paper; or you are crammed in a small room with no windows or doors 100 kids so tightly packed that the ones in back have to climb over the heads of those in front and the late comers have to bring their own rock to sit on using a stub of chalk and a slate.... Either way you are still a six year old trying to understand the mysteries of A, B, C. ...........................................I was also amazed by the diversity within Africa (donkeys mixing with SUVs on the street; an old woman coming out of the forest with a woven basket full of firewood on her back and a cell phone around her neck).................................. I expected to see forests and desert but I was surprised by the rolling green hills and rocky Colorado like areas in between. A main similarity I noticed traveling through Africa was the way that the houses changed along with the landscape. As we left the forest and trees became sparser we saw fewer houses of wood and more sticks, mud, and grass. Eventually the houses were all mud huts with grass roofs, and gradually the grass roofs became flat mud roofs. At the same time the mud mixed with grass became mud mixed with sand. Later, the houses appeared to be entirely made of sand, like sand castles, and in the desert there is nothing to build a house with but you see the occasional nomadic tent put up to block the wind. All of these houses are built with local materials which will be left behind to decompose and turn into more trees, grass, or mud for the next generation to build with................................ This simple, natural, way of life makes sense to me. I hope to be able to incorporate it into my own life, as I go back and figure out what that is going to be exactly............................ I’m not saying I don’t want to buy one of those ipods I have heard so much about or get a soy mocha grande no whip as soon as I get off the plane. Rather, I will be looking for a balance between what I want right now and what I think is best for the future. ...................................Thank you again for all your support and for listening to my stories. I can’t wait to see you all soon! Love Sara

October 13, 2005 .....Dear Family and Friends,....... While in Mali I visited "Dogon Country". According to lonely planet it is often rated in travelers favorite places to visit in West Africa. I would agree. The scenery and culture were beautiful and fascinating.......... However, as I expected, the numerous other tourists and lots of people trying to benefit from the tourists selling stuff etc. took away from the beauty and authenticity of the area. Luckily I was able to do a lot of hiking and visit some more out of the way villages to get off the tourist track....................... The "Dogon" people live above, below and inside a large escarpment (cliff) in eastern Mali. Unlike many other ethnicities in Africa they still hold many traditional practices. There are many families and villages that remain totally animist (and others that mix with Muslim or Christian practices.) ...................According to the Dogon, over 1000 years ago this rocky area was inhabited by the Tellem people, who built their homes and structures high up in the middle of the cliff. I was able to see some of the original Tellem structures but couldn’t visit them because they are so high up, in the middle of the cliff that there is no apparent means of reaching them. Dogon people explain that the Tellem must have had magical powers, such as the ability to fly, in order to reach their homes. A more "scientific" theory is that the area was much wetter and rain forest like in the epoch of the Tellem. Therefore the people may have used vines and natural ladders to reach their homes. The Tellem have since left, died off, or mixed with the existing Dogon who also made their homes in caves and openings in the cliff up until recently....................................... All the present Dogon villages are at the base or on top of large escarpments because this is where they are able to grow crops and raise animals. However, they still use the caves for storing food etc. Although some of these sites in the rocks are off limits because they are sacred and others are UNESCO world heritage sites, others are open to the public. I wandered through this miniature city on a cliff and into caves where there is broken pottery and even animal bones marking a chiefs house.................................... The villages themselves were also interesting. The houses, graineries, and most structures are built with stones, mud, sticks, and stalks of millet. Each village includes a meeting place with no walls and a low roof of sticks and millet stalks. The low roof is intended to encourage people not to get angry (thus hitting there head). The more traditional villages also have a special house that quarantines women during their monthly menstruation. My guide explained that this is done because it is considered "unclean" but I think it also provides a nice rest for the women from the intense daily labor of family life........................................... One village we stopped in for the night seemed over run with tourists (including a group of 14) at my little "hotel". As people were getting rooms etc., I spotted an empty roof with a perfect view of the cliff and ancient city with in it. I asked the owner if I could go up there (local people as well as tourists often sleep on the roofs as it is cooler than any other place. The helpful owner replied, "Certainly, let me go find a stair case". He returned with a log open like a Y on top that had notches cut into it like stair steps. I climbed up a bit precariously with my backpack etc. and happily settled in for the evening.................................. It was an amazing view, nothing but stars on three sides- like a dome. The fourth side was the giant cliff with small structures built of mud and rock inside it. In the morning, I had a great view of the village waking up. Around 5:30 at first light the noise was shocking. Animals, goats, chickens, donkeys; thump thump, thump of women pounding millet; babies and children crying and playing; people talking. All of this was amplified by echoing from the cliff. In fact, I could have sworn that the noise was coming from the ancient city up in the rocks.................................................... I continue to have fabulous adventures, but I am certainly looking forward to being back in the US of A in about 3 weeks!!!!!! I hope things are good with all of you. Love Sara

September 25, 2005.................................... Dear Friends and Family,................................. I am now in Burkina Faso. Crossing from Ghana to Burkina Faso was a border where there were some obvious changes, namely money and language. Ghana, being a former British colony, speaks English and doesn’t use the West African franc that is tied to the French franc and used in most of west and central Africa....................... However after I changed money and switched my brain back to French the first (and much more interesting) difference I noticed was the traffic. As we sped along (squeezed two in the front seat of a taxi) on the newly paved road we didn’t pass more than three or four other vehicles in two hours!......... However the traffic on the side of the road was heavy. There was a constant trickle of bicyclists going in both directions, mixed with an occasional motor bike or pedestrian. Young women with babies tied to their backs or produce piled so high on the back that you couldn’t even see the bicyclist's head in front of the bundles. People had furniture, live goats and chickens, or even another bicycle strapped to the back of their bikes. .......................When we finally did meet another vehicle- on top of the bus there was baggage piled three feet high and then strapped on top of the baggage were bicycles!! There was even a motor scooter placed, vertical, on top of the minibus with a young man sitting on the moto as if he were going to drive it off the top of the car! .......................................When I got to Ouaga in Burkina Faso I got off the taxi in the center of town and called my friend who works here (a former Gabon PC volunteer). He replied with "Sara! Where are you? I'll come pick you up" and he did, in his very own car! I felt weird riding, alone, in the front seat of his Toyota Camry watching a young boy trying to merge his donkey pulled cart into the throng of bikes, motos, and taxis all making there way down the freshly paved motorway........... Oh the places we go! I am now on my way to Mali. Love, Sara

September 16, 2005.................................... Dear Friends and Family, ...................After almost a week in Accra (the capital of Ghana, which is also known as Ameri-cra) we had had sufficient eating of good food. We enjoyed the big city life but were glad to come to the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary in between the villages of Boabeng and Fiema in the central Ashanti region of Ghana (just north of Techimun off the main road). The simple guest house outside of the village was a sanctuary for us as well as the 200 monkeys who reside in the adjacent forest. The house had a nice front porch for relaxing reading and served us filling portions of cheap local food at our leisure......................... Since leaving Gabon I have been craving the various leaf dishes they make there and so I was glad to see we were having "palaver" a leaf sauce with boiled yams for our first night. It was good but my stomach still isn’t used to the natural (unrefined) red palm oil (made from palm nuts) that is a west African staple. It seems to coat the inside of your mouth and stomach. Yum :).................. After dinner, we pumped water at the nearby hand pump (a good work out) and took our bucket baths before sleeping under the luxurious ceiling fan! The next morning, our guide showed us the many marked paths within the forest. There were some large trees and vines but it wasn’t the thick jungle like atmosphere of the Gabon equatorial forests. However less "underbrush" allowed us to better see the monkeys, and there were lots of them! The guide explained that there are two kinds, the black and white Colobus and the Mona monkeys. Each of them is sacred to one of the nearby villages. Many villages, tribes, or clans in west/central Africa have a sacred animal which can’t be killed or eaten by anyone from that tribe. The villagers believe that if they were to kill or eat the sacred monkey a "calamity" will befall them. Therefore, these monkeys, (unlike most other wildlife in Ghana) has been historically protected from poaching and loss of habitat. Some of the monkeys are so unafraid of humans that they come into the village and steal food from people’s kitchens. However, people don’t kill them or eat them but they do bury the monkeys in a simple wooden coffin when they die. This is part of respecting the spirit of the sacred animal....................... After visiting the village and watching some renegade monkeys take off with several tubercules (like potatoes) our guide left us to meander through the forest. We walked for awhile without seeing anything and then we spotted some dark lumps on a branch , twenty feet away. It wasn’t until they got up on all fours and started walking along the horizontal branch that I realized it was a whole family of monkeys (20-25 grayish brown Mona monkeys). Small, medium and large they walked in a single file line along the branch towards the center of the tree where they broke away leaping onto lower branches or jumping/falling on to the tree canopy below. The large one was about the size of a large cat or small dog. Watching them walk along the branches or on the ground it reminded me of a cat. But than they swung from vines and took leaps that I thought would surely land them on the ground. It looked like so much fun I was jealous................................ Sibling Rivalry: One medium sized monkey was munching on some leaves and a smaller one jumped over to share the branch. The medium sized monkey (an older brother I’m sure) promptly knocked the little guy off the branch and sent him tumbling to the ground. However he just got back up on all fours, unscathed, and scampered up a different tree.................................. Another day I went walking in the forest and found a troop of black and white Colobus hanging out in the trees, munching on leaves. I sat on the convenient bench with a back that angled back so you could comfortably lounge there and watch the monkeys hanging out in the trees above your head. The Colobus have long white tails (longer than their body) and when they are sitting on a branch you often see just the tail hanging down, and I would of never known it was a monkey if I wasn’t on the look out. They have bushy white beards and very hairy eyebrows. We had a wonderful time watching the monkeys in their natural habitat, protected by the villagers' traditional belief that animals are sacred. ................................................. I hope all is well with all of you, love sara

September 7, 2005

Dear Family and Friends,.................... I am in the glorious metropolis of Accra, the capital of Ghana. So far, Ghana has been a very pleasant experience. We have found less of the hassle and general bustle of other big African cities. The kids on the street say, “ Hi”, but not, “give me money”, as they did in some areas of Benin and Togo. ................................................Benin and Togo were also interesting. All three of these areas seem more like Gabon, relative to the Muslim desert of Niger and tChad. Benin has a rich history of voodoo and traditional medicine ceremonies. We saw people dressed up in shiny red outfits and beads dancing in the street, to call up spirits (requested by relatives- who pay money for the service). Another person dressed up like a walking haystack and all the children try to get close and then run away as the haystack comes after them. ............................................We also visited the point of no return (in Ghana) an archway that African people walked through before being loaded on the slave ships, at this point many of the oldest and weakest said goodbye to their relatives, who were never to return. Although, some have symbolically come back to repass through the arch. We also saw artifacts from the slave trade, chains and the buildings they used to hold people. It was all very sad and moving. .........................The point of no return is on the beach, of course, and interestingly the waves there are bigger than any I have ever seen. It’s very dangerous to swim, I just put my feet in where the waves came up and could feel it pulling strong. We were laying on the beach, a good 20 feet from where the waves were hitting, but while both our backs were turned, laying on our stomachs reading our books a wave came over us and all our stuff, threatening to send us all out to sea. We were fine, but wet....... The power of nature is always remarkable. ..............In Togo we just happened to be in a very small hotel room with TV and CNN , and we were surprised to hear about the devastation of the hurricane in New Orleans, etc. Again, we may try to tame nature and the wild to make our homes but in the end nature is always more powerful.................................... We spent three days in the very pleasant town of Amedzofe Ghana, in the lake Volta region. This small town had a very village like feel to it, few cars on the mostly rocky dirt paths, a small market square with fifteen or twenty stalls of people selling vegetables etc. and a very helpful welcome center. The people set us up with a family to rent a room from. The town is in a mountainous foresty area. It reminded me of Gabon, but ever more hills, and mountains. We drove through a rainstorm and everything was still damp and misty when we woke up the next morning. The view was still gorgeous, tree covered hills as far as you could see. .......................I enjoyed the cool wet weather in the morning, time to snuggle up in our sitting room and read and write, the rain kept coming and going, by 10 the sun seemed to have made a break. So we returned to the welcome center and the nice young man who worked there , Joseph, showed us the road leading out of town and described how we could find the nearby waterfalls............................... We walked along a very well maintained path and found the mango tree he had described as a marker, and turned onto another path that was lined with flowering plants that served as a natural border for people’s plantations, small farms, on either side. We passed several people walking to or from their plantations, carrying fire wood or food, manioc yams etc in sacks on their heads. The path became narrower and the descent steeper and a rope railing appeared. It was very effective in keeping you from slipping down the wet rocks, leaves, and dirt. It was also kind of fun to swing a bit, and pull your weight up or down the path...................................... As we hiked a bit further we could hear the waterfall faintly in the distance. The noise became louder and than there we were. It was magnificent not very wide but very tall............................ The sun made a few brief appearances hopefully allowing us to get a few snap shots. I hope things are good with all of you. I look forward to hearing what you’re doing. Love, Sara __________________________________________________

August 22, 2005................. Dear Friends and Family, I hope all is good with yall! We have been touring tchad and niger and yesterday came into Benin. The pcvs in tchad had just gone to benin and were raving about it as modern- nice people and easy to get around, lots to do and see. ..............................Therefore as we have been trudging through the desert we have been envisioning "magical marvelous miracle benin" where the streets are paved with asphalt and water on every street corner. So far it’s living up to its expectations...... The hotel people gave us the nice room, with a king size bed ceiling fan and our OWN bathroom for the price of a regular room, $10 and then we were surprised to find email in this little town, Malanville....... We plan to tour Benin for a week or so and then cruise through Togo and spend a couple weeks in Ghana working our way up to Burkina Faso...... I’m thinking I will be in Senegal by late Oct to make arrangements to come home in November..... I have been out of touch longer then expected, because we didn’t stay long in Ndjamena the capital of Tchad and there is no email outside the caps of Tchad or Niger. We have spent three weeks traveling through the Sahel, semidesert area on the edge of the sahara, and experiencing a life VERY different from Gabon, or the states........................... Peace Corps, along with many ngo ( non governmental agencies), world vision, care, save the children, etc have been in and out of tchad for many years as the country experiences bouts of civil unrest and violence causing all of the above to flee, and then trickle back in as things calm down. It seems to be the pattern........................... The current PC folks just came in 2003, and have been working hard to restart the program, "reinvent the wheel". One pcv described tchad as " run by ngos" ....................... When we first crossed over from Cameroon and drove towards the town of Pala we kept waiting to see the town, it never came. There are no paved roads and few cement or "modern" looking buildings. Even the stores are often sticks with a grass roof............................................. They are building a new looking school, but it will certainly be overcrowded so that 1/2 the class stands or sits on rocks with their notebook on their lap, fervently trying to learn. All the PCVS are english teachers, because that’s what the government asks for and many are working a lot on secondary projects related to "gender and development". There are very few girls in school (4 girls out of 160 students). There are certainly more in primary school, however we found very few young women who spoke French which leads us to believe they never went to school. Arabic, Tchadien arabic, is more widely used than French, along with other local languages................................. Tchad is often divided into two sections: Southern chad is mostly christian and predominatley agriculturists, Northern is almost all muslim traditionaly cattle grazers. We were surprised to see lush green grass, lots of trees, bushes and healthy crops in southern Tchad. This is all due to the rainy season and unbelievably PCVs say that all of the greenery, except a few trees grew in the past month. It used to be all sand and now there are plants three feet high, it looks like a different world" said a pcv upon coming back from vacation (in the marvelous miracle magical benin- more on that later)........................ Going up north it really did look like a different world. We spent one productive day in the cap Ndjamena where we got visas for Niger took real showers and bought head scarves in the market. Many women in southern tchad, even northern Cameroon covered their heads with a loose fitting scarf , but up north all women do- even the Christian missionaries................................... We have all heard about the difference in status between men and women in traditional arab/muslim cultures, but it was interesting to experience being in a lower status position. We left the capital so quickly because there was another PCV, male, on his way to Mao, and everyone said it would be better if we traveled together, so the next day we put on our headscarves and got into the back of a land cruiser with our new PCV friend, an old women and 1O men wearing long boubous and turbans to travel through the sand to a place called mao. The road was mostly tire tracks in the sand but the ride went quite smoothly, as long as you were holding on for the bumps.................... There were several police stops, but the officers wouldn’t talk to Sandy and me. Many didn’t even ask to see our ID, or they would send our PCV male colleague to get it from us and bring it to them.... This was actually a nice perk because dealing with police is rarely fun. However there were other times, e.g. we were stopped at a police stop and everyone had gotten out because it was going to be awhile, one officer (who had been talking to us, surprisingly) told Sandy to go sit in a chair under a shade tree on the side of the road ( I had already taken refuge from the sun by climbing back into the car) Sandy sat down in the chair, next to which there was a mat that several men from our car and a few local kids were sitting on. A policeman came over and told her to get up- she couldn’t sit there because men were sitting there............................. Sandy wanted to do some cross cultural exchange on gender roles but thought better of it, considering where she was and who she was talking to, and came to join me in the car. As foreigners we get a lot more leeway. For expample, we are allowed to sit with male colleagues in a restaurant, but we never saw Tchadien women and men sitting together. The other thing that was difficult was that women are never supposed to look men in the eye................... I found it very difficult, and contrary to my natural intuition, to not look at people when they are speaking to me........................... We arrived in Mao, a beach town with no ocean... the houses and buildings, compounds are all made of sand, remind me of sand castles. Sand is certainly everywhere even in the food... you can’t avoid it. The pcv refers to it as "taste of mao" an important ingredient in any dish. It’s amazing what one can adjust to.................................... On the way up we passed groups of nomads.... women riding high atop camels with all of there possessions strapped to the sides, men on horses herding cattle.... wild west or african desert? ..............The women’s clothing is always bright colors pink, blue, green etc. contrasting with the sandy color of everything else.... even the "wildlife" camels blend in to the landscape.............. From Mao we traveled for four days to arrive at the next town, Zinder Niger... we bonded with our travel companions and one of them offered us a place to stay when we got to town, although she didn’t speak any French so this was all done through our driver. We were led to a door that was opened by a short women in a head scarf she led us into the courtyard and quickly brought out a mat and laid it on the ground for us to sit down on. next we were served tea, and fruit juice, and food- rice with sauce and meat and then more tea.. meanwhile the girl we had been traveling with also came in and suddenly the courtyard filled with women, age 7 to 70. They all seemed very glad to see their "sister" there was singing and dancing and a lot more tea. Sandy and I sat on the edge of it all on our mat, every now and then someone would come over and try to talk with us but our two words of Arabic and their three words of french didn’t last long. We enjoyed watching from afar. We feigned tiredness to find out where we should sleep. We assumed we would just sleep on the mat. There was a lot of discussion and then a large mattress appeared and was laid on a mat on the ground, it was covered with a soft blanket and then the women put up a mosquito net covering the bed like a canopy. They brought out pillows with ruffles and I felt like a queen sleeping under the stars. They even brought us lotion and perfume to freshen ourselves before going to bed. The singing and dancing continued as we lay down in our canopy under the stars, however, I think I fell asleep before my head hit the ruffled pillow and I awoke at dawn to see that most of the women had already gotten up, from where they were curled up on a mat on the ground. We were well taken care of................................. From Zinder we went to Agadez and went on a three day camel trek through the desert, I’ll tell you more later. It was beautiful and great to visit the Tuareg ethnic minority group, but three days on a camel was enough of a taste for me. I was disappointed that we didn’t arrive at the actual Sahara desert, but that would have been seven to ten days. It just means that I will have to make it to Mauritania, where almost the entire country is the Sahara desert............... We are now in marvelous magical miracle Benin which is so far living up to its expectations of being easier to get around and more modern, they have email in this little town for gosh sakes!!! I hope all is well with all of you! Now that I am back in the modern world, kind of, I hope to be better at corresponding. ................................................lots of love, sara