God Floods the Fields

For weeks now my host family has talked about how when the rainy season comes we will farm corn, rice, peanuts, and fonio.  I of course have no experience as a farmer, living in the suburbs my whole like, but my village seems to have made it their mission to turn me into a farmer.  They talk about how we'll find the cows,  (dappitugol nagge), tie them down (hummugol), and use the bulls to pull the ploughs (I forgot the pulaar word for that).  Growing corn and the other crops made sense to me, but I didn't understand how they would grow rice.  When i think of growing rice I think of terraced, flooded rice patties in China, something like this:

There is a Peace Corps China, I wonder what that would be like

The only problem is, so far my site has been more like a savannah.  Well, more like a savannah woodland.  Either way, I didn't see how they would be able to flood the fields enough to sustain rice production.  There are fields and what not, but they are rather dusty and dry, as my previous photos are evidence of (I would re-upload them, but I'm really lazy.  Actually, in my language group that's kind of my nickname: gorko amudo, which means 'lazy boy'".  Anyway, I was talking to a fellow PCV, Cameron, about my site and farming when he came for a visit and I asked them what kind of irrigation or whatnot they used to flood the fields.  His response was "Irrigation? No, they don't flood the fields at all.  God flood the fields".  I've experienced rains at site so far, but it never really rains enough to fill whole fields full of water, so I still had my doubts.  I now understand what he means.  Today was the first real rains of the rainy season.  For the last few days I have been in the lovely town of Salemata for a language seminar.  Today we took the 2 hour drive back through some of the most torrential rains I've ever seen.  The road, not being paved, was in the process of being washed away.  It really was a site to behold as rivers of water washed over the road.  All along the sides of the road then fields had disappeared and in there place was flooded marshland, a perfect rice growing environment.  As we passed the turn-off to my village I looked out the window towards the bush path. Unfortunately, I didn't see a bush path, I saw river flowing over what was my bush path into the laterite road that was slowly itself becoming a river too (sorry I didn't take any pictures).  Anyway, now I see how the village people are able to grow rice.  They just cultivate, but God floods the fields.

One Month At Site

I have been living in Niangue for a little over a month now.  The question that is most often asked of me is what have I been doing all this time at site.  This simple question is both easy and difficult to answer because I don't really do all that much.  I wake up, hang out with people, drink tea, eat meals, and occasionally I'll be invited to do something around the village like make or thatch a roof.  There really isn't much more to say because at this point in my service I'm just trying to become slightly competent in the language and build connections with the people.  Of course, these connections are hard to form if you can't say much more than expressing basic needs.

With that said, I thought I'd make some general observations about my time so far.  So the rainy season has arrived which means that although it's still usually unbearably hot during the day, at night it usually rains.  This rain is always accompanied by thunder and lightning.  Always.  It's quite impressive really, being surrounded by lightning flashes at such  an intensity that there's usually a flash of thunder at least every second.  With the rains have come the grasses.  Grass is something you don't really appreciate until you haven't seen it for months.  It's a striking experience to see the green grasses fill the fields that I've only ever seen as brown.

what is that greeness I see?!

It has gotten significantly greener since  took that picture about a week and a half ago, but since my camera battery seems to be messing up I haven't been able to take any pictures.

So since there isn't really much substantively to talk about my time at site, I thought I'd regal you with a story of adventure!  Well, it was sort of an adventure, and not one that I had intended to take.  Our story starts about 3 weeks ago when I came into Kedougou for the first time since I had gotten to site.  After about 10 days at site I needed to charge electronic devices such as my phone and my ipod, and since Kedougou is the closest place to me to do so, I decided to come on for the day.  Also, I was really craving a hamburger.  Well, being once again in the blissful land of electricity, mostly running water, and internet, soon the day was becoming night.  Since I'd only really been at site for a week I didn't want to sleep at the regional house, so I decided to bike back.  However, it was already 7:00PM and the sun would be going down at around 7:30.  Now I had only ever ridden my bike to site once before during my volunteer visit, and I wasn't quite sure I'd be able to make it back.  I had my phone flashlight though, so what's the worst that could happen... right?

In order to get to my site you have to take a decently well maintained laterite road for about 8km, and then a bush path for about 10km.  

I'm still not quite sure what laterite is

By the time the sun was setting, I was still on the laterite road.  By the time it was completely dark... I was still on the laterite road.  I turned on my phone flashlight, but apparently I had overestimated its strength, as it didn't really even cast enough light to allow me to see the dirt under my treads as I rode on.  I started thinking "this is not good".  Well, there are a bunch of bush paths that turn off of the main laterite road, fortunately mine is marked by a sign saying "Daaka de Bandafassi

A daaka is a sort of muslim retreat.  It comes from the pulaar word for "to camp".  It's basically a muslim sleepover camp in theory.

I knew that the turn off would be approaching, but my flashlight was so weak that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to see it.  I had to stop at every bush path that joined the main road to look for the sign.  I eventually found it, and began to ride down the bush path to my site.  Unfortunately, being that it was pitch black (it was overcast and the moon hadn't risen) and my flashlight sucked, I couldn't see the path under me.  Bush paths aren't really of the highest quality and often have potholes and deep sand and all sorts of things that conspire to dismount a bike-rider.  I only rode my bike for about 5 minutes down the path before I realized that this would not work, so I got off and started walking it.  At this point it should take only 45 minutes to get to my site on bike, but on foot i reckoned it would take around 1.5-2 hours.  Now thus bush-path isn't a straight shot and there are a series of forks and criss-crossing paths.  I looked at my clock and said if I wasn't at site by 9:30, then I'd have to backtrack.

Fortunately, I knew that there would be a few landmarks on my way.  The first would be the seasonal river I'd have to cross.  Calling it a seasonal "river" might be too much, it's more like a seasonal creek.  At this point though it was still dry.  I figured it would take about 45 minutes to get there, so I decided to stave off panic until that point.  If by that time I didn't find the stream, I'd allow myself to panic.  

I think it would be beneficial at this point to paint a mental picture of the state I was in.  There I was, walking my bike down a path I'd only taken once before in my life through the African bush.  My light wasn't strong enough to really see much around me, but I was surrounded by open fields that occasionally would turn into wooded thickets.  It was really quite terrifying.  I kept hearing ruffling in the undergrowth and the calls of strange animals out in the darkness.  Occasionally a field-mouse would run across the path, accounting for the ruffling I heard, but it was hard to not let my imagination run wild.  I'm only about 50km from the national park (also a UNESCO world heritage site) that has lions in it.  Now lions wouldn't range that far from the park... right?  I trod along through the darkness.  I was just starting to get worried when I got to the stream.

apparently it never gets deeper than neck-level

Good, that meant that I was half way there.  I continued along my path slowly narrating my whole adventure in my head as an author would a story.  It was quite odd, but i guess it kept me sane.  Everything was going well, until I got to a fork in the road I wasn't expecting.

two roads diverged in a darkened field

Shoot, well now what?  I really had no idea which to take, and decided to take the left one.  I figured if I didn't get to site in an hour I'd have to turn around, come back to this fork, and take the other one.  Fortunately I chose the right path, as I got to my last landmark.  It's a large rock-bed that apparently isn't made of rocks, as they're not technically classified as such for some reason.  Apparently my ancien liked to point this out. The only problem was, I couldn't make out the path in the field.

they look like rocks to me

I was able to follow the path because I could see the bike-trail running through it.  However, as you can see, rocks aren't good for making out a bike trail.  I decided to walk my bike over it and veer to the right, looking to where the path exited the rock area.  Fortunately I found it and it was only 15 more minutes before I got to site.  All in all I got back at 9:30, when it should have only taken me until 8.  Well, that's my story, I hope you liked it.  It's fortunate that I took the right paths because otherwise I might still be lost out there.