I just got back from a weekend trip to my friend Cassie’s village and a spontaneous trip to Djene. Cassie will leave for America on August 4, as she is finishing up her second year. She invited her closest friends in village for a feast in her concession that we cooked for. Esther, Jen and I all came from San and had a great time at Tene, Cassie’s site. We got to Tene on Saturday afternoon and greeted the necessary people before heading over to the radio station where we acted out a skit on air. One of Cassie’s biggest projects as a volunteer is preparing a 15-20 minute radio broadcast once a week on health topics ranging from birth control to the effects of smoking to AIDS to nutrition. It was really fun and all the people of Tene were taking about how exciting it was to hear all the Americans on the radio. The next morning we headed over to one of Cassie’s friends houses and prepared the meal of rice and peanut butter sauce for 35 people…quite an undertaking. It took several hours to prepare but it was a great time to learn how to cook the sauce which is delicious but pretty expensive to make thus nearly impossible to eat at site. The party was a great success and it gave me a glance to my future a year from now. It was incredibly powerful to hear people talking about Cassie and how much she meant to them. It definitely helped put in perspective the role each of play in our respective communities.
Jen, her friend from home, and I left in the evening on Sunday for Djene. We had to cross the river via ferry, wading through the water to get on and off, but finally made it to our hotel around11pm. Djene is famous for the mosque in the center of village. It is the largest mud building in the world and is an impressive site, especially having lived in a very modest mud hut and knowing the extent of maintenance and upkeep required. In the weeks leading up to rainy season each year the entire city comes together for the very important festival in which all community members help to bring water to make the mud to re-mud the entire mosque. The festival is the one of the most important times of year and the tourist industry is dependent on it. Only Muslim people are allowed in or post menopausal women thus I only got to see it from the inside but it was still in impressive site. Apparently, there are 100 mud pillars in the interior to hold the ceiling up. No building is allowed to be taller than the highest point of the mosque thus you can see it from nearly everywhere in Djene. Just beside the mosque is a UNESCO building that is making huge progress in transferring Ancient Arabic manuscripts onto computers. Most every family in the city has these manuscripts passed down through the generations and have been kept in trunks for years suffering endless termite, mud, rain, heat, etc damage. Becoming a World Heritage Site has increased the tourists in the area which I’ve become torn between loving and hating. They bring a lot of money to the community but they also give handouts thus making our job as Peace Corps volunteers increasingly difficult as people associate being white with giving away money.
It was a great weekend away and I’m being forced now to start saying my goodbyes to some really great friends. On the other hand, I was just assigned to be site buddy for two new volunteers coming up in August so it will be a great chance to get to know the new guys who arrived a few weeks ago. I can’t believe it’s time for me to be doing this. I remember in my site visit how totally terrifying it was and how lost and confused and overwhelming it is, and now, I have to be the site buddy for two others…woah.
Anyways, I’ll be back soon for just a day next week and I’ll try to get a letter out.
Love you all,
Cait
