To Read and be Refreshed

I was laying on my bed one day this week reading from a book containing classic short stories. The first one I read was by E. M. Forster. It really caused me to take a closer look at life and even my work here in Senegal. Its refreshing, raw, and challenging and I would love to see what you think of it. Without further ado, E. M. Forster's "The Other Side of the Hedge."

The Other Side of the Hedge
by E. M. Forster (1911)

MY PEDOMETER TOLD me that I was twenty-five; and, though it is a shocking thing to stop walking, I was so tired that I sat down on a milestone to rest. People outstripped me, jeering as they did so, but I was too apathetic to feel resentful, and even when Miss Eliza Dimbleby, the great educationist, swept past, exhorting me to persevere, I only smiled and raised my hat.
At first I thought I was going to be like my brother, whom I had had to leave by the roadside a year or two round the corner. He had wasted his breath on singing, and his strength on helping others. But I had travelled more wisely, and now it was only the monotony of the highway that oppressed me—dust under foot and brown crackling hedges on either side, ever since I could remember.
And I had already dropped several things—indeed, the road behind was strewn with the things we all had dropped; and the white dust was settling down on them, so that already they looked no better than stones. My muscles were so weary that I could not even bear the weight of those things I still carried. I slid off the milestone into the road, and lay there prostrate, with my face to the great parched hedge, praying that I might give up.
A little puff of air revived me. It seemed to come from the hedge; and, when I opened my eyes, there was a glint of light through the tangle of boughs and dead leaves. The hedge could not be as thick as usual. In my weak, morbid state, I longed to force my way in, and see what was on the other side. No one was in sight, or I should not have dared to try. For we of the road do not admit in conversation that there is another side at all.
I yielded to the temptation, saying to myself that I would come back in a minute. The thorns scratched my face, and I had to use my arms as a shield, depending on my feet alone to push me forward. Halfway through I would have gone back, for in the passage all the things I was carrying were scraped off me, and my clothes were torn. But I was so wedged that return was impossible, and I had to wriggle blindly forward, expecting every moment that my strength would fail me, and that I should perish in the undergrowth.
Suddenly cold water closed round my head, and I seemed sinking down for ever. I had fallen out of the hedge into a deep pool. I rose to the surface at last, crying for help, and I heard someone on the opposite bank laugh and say: “Another!” And then I was twitched out and laid panting on the dry ground.
Even when the water was out of my eyes, I was still dazed, for I had never been in so large a space, nor seen such grass and sunshine. The blue sky was no longer a strip, and beneath it the earth had risen grandly into hills—clean, bare buttresses, with beech trees in their folds, and meadows and clear pools at their feet. But the hills were not high, and there was in the landscape a sense of human occupation—so that one might have called it a park, or garden, if the words did not imply a certain triviality and constraint.
As soon as I got my breath, I turned to my rescuer and said:
“Where does this place lead to?”
“Nowhere, thank the Lord!” said he, and laughed. He was a man of fifty or sixty—just the kind of age we mistrust on the road—but there was no anxiety in his manner, and his voice was that of a boy of eighteen.
“But it must lead somewhere!” I cried, too much surprised at his answer to thank him for saving my life.
“He wants to know where it leads!” he shouted to some men on the hill side, and they laughed back, and waved their caps.
I noticed then that the pool into which I had fallen was really a moat which bent round to the left and to the right, and that the hedge followed it continually. The hedge was green on this side—its roots showed through the clear water, and fish swam about in them—and it was wreathed over with dog-roses and Traveller’s Joy. But it was a barrier, and in a moment I lost all pleasure in the grass, the sky, the trees, the happy men and women, and realized that the place was but a prison, for all its beauty and extent.
We moved away from the boundary, and then followed a path almost parallel to it, across the meadows. I found it difficult walking, for I was always trying to out-distance my companion, and there was no advantage in doing this if the place led nowhere. I had never kept step with anyone since I left my brother.
I amused him by stopping suddenly and saying disconsolately, “This is perfectly terrible. One cannot advance: one cannot progress. Now we of the road—”
“Yes. I know.”
“I was going to say, we advance continually.”
“I know.”
“We are always learning, expanding, developing. Why, even in my short life I have seen a great deal of advance—the Transvaal War, the Fiscal Question, Christian Science, Radium. Here for example—”
I took out my pedometer, but it still marked twenty-five, not a degree more.
“Oh, it’s stopped! I meant to show you. It should have registered all the time I was walking with you. But it makes me only twenty-five.”
“Many things don’t work in here,” he said. “One day a man brought in a Lee-Metford, and that wouldn’t work.”
“The laws of science are universal in their application. It must be the water in the moat that has injured the machinery. In normal conditions everything works. Science and the spirit of emulation—those are the forces that have made us what we are.”
I had to break off and acknowledge the pleasant greetings of people whom we passed. Some of them were singing, some talking, some engaged in gardening, hay-making, or other rudimentary industries. They all seemed happy; and I might have been happy too, if I could have forgotten that the place led nowhere.
I was startled by a young man who came sprinting across our path, took a little fence in fine style, and went tearing over a ploughed field till he plunged into a lake, across which he began to swim. Here was true energy, and I exclaimed: “A cross-country race! Where are the others?”
“There are no others,” my companion replied; and, later on, when we passed some long grass from which came the voice of a girl singing exquisitely to herself, he said again: “There are no others.” I was bewildered at the waste in production, and murmured to myself, “What does it all mean?”
He said: “It means nothing but itself”—and he repeated the words slowly, as if I were a child.
“I understand,” I said quietly, “but I do not agree. Every achievement is worthless unless it is a link in the chain of development. And I must not trespass on your kindness any longer. I must get back somehow to the road, and have my pedometer mended.”
“First, you must see the gates,” he replied, “for we have gates, though we never use them.”
I yielded politely, and before long we reached the moat again, at a point where it was spanned by a bridge. Over the bridge was a big gate, as white as ivory, which was fitted into a gap in the boundary hedge. The gate opened outwards, and I exclaimed in amazement, for from it ran a road—just such a road as I had left—dusty under foot, with brown crackling hedges on either side as far as the eye could reach.
“That’s my road!” I cried.
He shut the gate and said: “But not your part of the road. It is through this gate that humanity went out countless ages ago, when it was first seized with the desire to walk.”
I denied this, observing that the part of the road I myself had left was not more than two miles off. But with the obstinacy of his years he repeated: “It is the same road. This is the beginning, and though it seems to run straight away from us, it doubles so often, that it is never far from our boundary and sometimes touches it.” He stooped down by the moat, and traced on its moist margin an absurd figure like a maze. As we walked back through the meadows, I tried to convince him of his mistake.
“The road sometimes doubles, to be sure, but that is part of our discipline. Who can doubt that its general tendency is onward? To what goal we know not—it may be to some mountain where we shall touch the sky, it may be over precipices into the sea. But that it goes forward—who can doubt that? It is the thought of that that makes us strive to excel, each in his own way, and gives us an impetus which is lacking with you. Now that man who passed us—it’s true that he ran well, and jumped well, and swam well; but we have men who can run better, and men who can jump better, and who can swim better. Specialization has produced results which would surprise you. Similarly, that girl—”
Here I interrupted myself to exclaim: “Good gracious me! I could have sworn it was Miss Eliza Dimbleby over there, with her feet in the fountain!”
He believed that it was.
“Impossible! I left her on the road, and she is due to lecture this evening at Tunbridge Wells. Why, her train leaves Cannon Street in—of course my watch has stopped like everything else. She is the last person to be here.”
“People always are astonished at meeting each other. All kinds come through the hedge, and come at all times—when they are drawing ahead in the race, when they are lagging behind, when they are left for dead. I often stand near the boundary listening to the sounds of the road—you know what they are—and wonder if anyone will turn aside. It is my great happiness to help someone out of the moat, as I helped you. For our country fills up slowly, though it was meant for all mankind.”
“Mankind have other aims,” I said gently, for I thought him well-meaning; “and I must join them.” I bade him good evening, for the sun was declining, and I wished to be on the road by nightfall. To my alarm, he caught hold of me, crying: “You are not to go yet!” I tried to shake him off, for we had no interests in common, and his civility was becoming irksome to me. But for all my struggles the tiresome old man would not let go; and, as wrestling is not my specialty, I was obliged to follow him.
It was true that I could have never found alone the place where I came in, and I hoped that, when I had seen the other sights about which he was worrying, he would take me back to it. But I was determined not to sleep in the country, for I mistrusted it, and the people too, for all their friendliness. Hungry though I was, I would not join them in their evening meals of milk and fruit, and, when they gave me flowers, I flung them away as soon as I could do so unobserved. Already they were lying down for the night like cattle—some out on the bare hillside, others in groups under the beeches. In the light of an orange sunset I hurried on with my unwelcome guide, dead tired, faint for want of food, but murmuring indomitably: “Give me life, with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds, with its deep moral meaning and its unknown goal!”
At last we came to a place where the encircling moat was spanned by another bridge, and where another gate interrupted the line of the boundary hedge. It was different from the first gate; for it was half transparent like horn, and opened inwards. But through it, in the waning light, I saw again just such a road as I had left—monotonous, dusty, with brown crackling hedges on either side, as far as the eye could reach.
I was strangely disquieted at the sight, which seemed to deprive me of all self-control. A man was passing us, returning for the night to the hills, with a scythe over his shoulder and a can of some liquid in his hand. I forgot the destiny of our race. I forgot the road that lay before my eyes, and I sprang at him, wrenched the can out of his hand, and began to drink.
It was nothing stronger than beer, but in my exhausted state it overcame me in a moment. As in a dream, I saw the old man shut the gate, and heard him say: “This is where your road ends, and through this gate humanity—all that is left of it—will come in to us.”
Though my senses were sinking into oblivion, they seemed to expand ere they reached it. They perceived the magic song of nightingales, and the odour of invisible hay, and stars piercing the fading sky. The man whose beer I had stolen lowered me down gently to sleep off its effects, and, as he did so, I saw that he was my brother.

Announcements Announcements Announcements

Shameless plug but worth it! Please check out my newly posted grant through the weblink below. I am currently working on a project to supply Maleme Niani's middle school with two new classrooms. They are currently deficit FOUR classrooms and desperately need the space. I hope to be posting a video here soon showing you the school and meeting some of the people this project will affect. The project is titled "Building Schools Building Futures" and you can find the information using that name or my last name Scates. Please click, take a look, and think about responding! Also pass the word along to family or friends who may be interested in supporting something like this! We need the help! We need your help! More to come in the future!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.donatenow

Merry Christmas Joyeux Noel

Seasons greetings to friends family and followers! I hope you are all enjoying your Christmas holiday no matter the weather or place and have friends or family to spend the season with! I thought I would fill you in on my Christmas happenings so far and share a little bit of my reflections of the differences I have been experiencing in Senegal so far this Christmas season...

So, currently I am sitting in the house of Belgiums who live in Dakar working for a international NGO. They have lived here a little over a year and open their home to Peace corps volunteers who come into dakar for various reasons. Graciously, they opened their home to three of my girlfriends, Maggie, Erin, and Shannon this christmas as we were on our way to the beaches of caps Skirring but won't be leaving until this evening. The sharing of their beautiful home included attendance at a Christmas eve party with their closest friends and family (some even flying in from Paris/France). I must say it was probably one of the nicest Christmas celebrations I have ever experienced (despite not having my family and traditions here ...don't worry mom :)) My friends and i were a little nervous going into it because most everyone speaks french and my french is there but its not up to par...lets just say im really really good at pretending i know what you are saying (the things you learn in a foreign country). So schmoosing around frenchies was a little bit scary but we were up for the challenge...especially knowing games, food, and wine would be involved in the festivities. So we prepared...traveled to the local grocery store (yes they DO have them in Dakar!!) and bought a bottle of red wine and came with my "white elephant" gift, party dress, newly purchased gold and fabulous strappy $3 sandals, and ready to enjoy the holiday season! Guests started arriving around 7:30 pm and were supplied with "hors doeuvres" that would challenge any posh restaurant in town. We consumed caviar and creme (my first experience, it was quite delightful i must say), smoked salmon, belgium sausage, some type of delicious pickled eggplant, tapinade, mozarella and sun dried tomato, anchovies on toast, and wine that flowed all night long. After snacking on this for an hour or so we played a getting to knwo you game...in french and broken english, and it wasn't as awkward as we thought it would be. Around 10pm we sat down to a salad including four types of meat (duck included) with walnuts, pine nuts and a delicious olive oil balsamic vinegar type of dressing. It filled an entire dinner plate and I was already getting concerned with the fullness of my stomach from the dining on appetizers. Salad was of course followed by dinner...around 11pm. We dined on delicious turkey, potatos shredded up and fried to perfection in small samples, a sausage type stuffing, pears filled with cranberry sauce and all followed by champagne two types of bouche de noel, a chocolate mouse extravaganza and of course the holiday fruit cake. To end the evening was a wonderfully entertaining game of White Elephant in which i ended up with a basket found in most senegalese restaurants...still deciding what i will do with it.

My thoughts on this evening....
1. I probably ate more meat in one evening than i have eaten in an entire year in Senegal...it was incredible, my stomach wasn't ready for it, and today i am feeling the effects.
2. Toubabs (white people) can be as generous kind and fun as my senegalese village friends...this was noticed by their kind words, opening of their home and lives to us, jokes, conversations through broken french and english, kados, creepy old men, and the playing of Nelly Furtado's promiscuous girl as a festive holiday selection.
3. The differences that can exist between two communities in one country are huge! Despite the differences however I have seen the kindness that exists among one another and the love that people have for the human race. It was nice to see people take care of one another and to feel the effects of that.

Finally I just wanted to share my thoughts coming from my village to a very posh and nice home in Dakar. I think when you are completely immersed in a culture it is difficult to see beyond it, to realize differences exist beyond your current reality. Traveling from one extreme to another made me realize how stark poverty can be, and how different my life is from the lives of others while I am in village. It may sound sort of "look at me" but i honestly forget the poverty of my village family when that is all I know. It was a shock to realize that not having a warm shower in 4 months, not sleeping on a real mattress, not eating more than one type of meat in one week let alone one meal was both totally normal but totally abnormal to me. I can live in both worlds, feel somewhat at home and at peace in those worlds, but yet they are so different and i can forget so easily that the other exists. Its a strange existence to live in but its home.

From all of that I hope that wherever you are this Christmas is home to you. I hope no matter your economic status, what you ate for christmas dinner, if you had a warm shower or a clean bed, no matter your circumstances I hope you had people in your life who love you and whom you love. I hope you are able to spend quality time with them and enjoy each others company. I also hope that you are able to invite others into your life who might not have that due to their circumstances and treat them as a part of your own family, sharing your home, your food, and your love! And with that, most of all i hope you experience love this Christmas season. No, I didn't attend a Christmas service last night, or a senegalese party celebrating the christian holiday, but I was with people who cared deeply for one another, gave generously, and shared their love with me. That, I believe, is the true meaning of Christmas. Merry Christmas with LOVE from Africa!!

Gobble gOBBLE Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Senegal, but we as Peace Corps volunteers do our best to make thanksgiving just like home. My friends Erin, Maggie, her boyfriend Cory and I went down to Kedougou. Erin, another friend Hayes and I made the trip to the waterfalls a few days before thanksgiving. This is not your average waterfall trip, it’s a pretty intense 57+ km trip by bike over rolling hills the first half and on gravely, rocky trails the second half. The scenery in Kedougou is so unlike the rest of Senegal. It has beautiful, rolling hills, somewhat mountainous terrain, and of course the reason we were going: waterfalls. I am not that big of a biker because I have been unhealthy and around my site its much sandier and harder to bike as often as I would like. So, I was prepared to be in for a butt kicking and in some senses that’s what I got. My friends were very patient and encouraging but I was definitely struggling huffing up those hills and crossing small rivers. It was absolutely beautiful and we finally reached the falls after about 4/1/2 hours of biking! I will say that trying to bike those trails and crossing rivers in the rainy season would be very painful, very hard, but a huge accomplishment with beautiful sights!
We camped out when we got to the falls, fixed some delicious camping food, swam in some really really cold water, hiked, and enjoyed the peace and quiet! I will try and attach some of the photos I took and you can see some of the beauty there. I am happy to say though that this trip has been known to make or break a peace corps volunteer and I hope upon looking back that my trip was made.
Now I am at the kedougou house, enjoying a thanksgiving dinner, football, games, and other toubabs company! I wish you all a fabulous thanksgiving wherever you are hoping you are able to celebrate with delicious food and family! Happy Thanksgiving and more blogs to come!!

New Pictures

Hey all!

Just letting you know there are new pictures to the left...Korite is the holiday after the month long fast of Ramadan. Pictures are of my family and friends in my compound. They all got new clothes for the holiday and were excited about the pictures I was taking! Pretty cute eh? Take a look and let me know if you have any questions!

An assortment of random things you must must read!

*my apologies for the mistakes made in the haikus that were previously posted on my blog. I entirely blame them on my lack of work with haikus and the number of languages jumbled in my head that i can't count syllables. forgive me :)*

A Lizard Climbed up my Back; I’m Going to Have a Baby
For those in touch with your superstitious sides when a lizard climbs on your back, you will soon conceive. I was fortunate to have that occur this last week and was informed by my mother that I will soon be having a child. For my family and friends in the states-please don’t worry it is only superstitions, nothing I plan on happening any time soon. Oh and for those who were wondering i only semi-freaked out as the lizard was climbing up my back. It was trying to reach the destination of the post next to my seat...i just happened to be in the way. All the same I must say that was probably a first.

Christmas 2009 - yes its early but then again i'm thousands of miles away. Please contact my family with any questions or collaborations. Thanks!!!

An ode to my family and friends far away
Listing my wishes for this years’ Christmas day

They’re not set in stone, just writ with a pen
To give you ideas of the things you might send.

If times now are hard, money’s not coming through
Please just send me a Christmas letter or two.

Packaging can make quite a dent in the pocket
That Flat-rate boxes or teaming up may help stop it.

No need to feel like you must send me an item,
Simple updates with pictures will keep me a smilin’.

The address is easy B.P. 309
Tambacounda, Senegal, W. Africa (Christmas 2009)

Wishing you love, peace and joy this Christmas to come
Here’s my list-take a look-why not join in the fun??

Spiced Tea-just a lil I don’t need the whole family supply
Oyster Crackers and Dill spice-chili anyone??
Jello Cake Fixings -minus the cool whip that pry wont travel well
Candy Canes/Peppermints/Christmas Treats
Crochet Hook
Christmas music (cd, tape, or flash drive)
-John Denver, Bing Crosby, Manheim Steamroller, the classics i grew up with
Andes mints
Ritz crackers and chocolate chips for dipped PB sandwiches
cute headbands
Football/Volleyball (send deflated for packaging)
Maple Syrup (the real stuff)
Big Tomatos seeds
Seeds for herbs


The Meal you will Crave on a Cold Winter Night

Recipe dedicated to the women in my family who loved it!

Senegalese Maffe (Peanut Sauce)
This recipe will feed 10 people generously (Senegalese standards). Fix rice separately (follow rice instructions) as you like it and set aside to be topped with a heaping portion of a delicious peanut sauce…
Peanut Sauce:
2 cups unsalted, all natural peanut butter
Veggies: 1-2 potatos, 1-2 carrots,
Meat of your choice
ex. 2-3 filet of fish deboned
filet of steak cut into cubes
Small can of tomato paste
Onions 2-3-chopped up
Dried okra powder- made by drying okra and pounding it up –it basically acts as a thickening agent so if you need a thicker sauce you can use this if you find it or a substitute like a little bit of flour
Netto seeds (if you can find these please tell me where, I searched everywhere for them) about 2 T whole seeds
pepper about 1T peppercorns
red pepper about 1T small dried red peppers
salt
mami cubes 2 (you can probably find this in an international grocery store)
garmi packet 1 (same as mami)
1. Mix together Peanut Butter and about 2-3 Liters of water over heat (depending on thickness of sauce you desire) and bring to boil and simmer
2. Add desired veggies (cut in large chunks), meat, tomato paste, and a mami cube and garmi packet
3. Pound up pepper, red pepper, netto seeds, onion and other mami cube with a mortar and pestle and add to maffe sauce. Leave to simmer on low heat.
4. If needed add salt to taste
5. Add okra powder or thickening agent substitute
6. Simmer until ready. Serve with rice and enjoy on a cold winter night!!

A Senegal Haiku

Per request of my brother in law I will make a post only in Haiku's. Nate I hope you enjoy and bear with me this is spur of the moment.

Senegal is hot
But when it rains it gets cool
I sweat day and night

There are lots of flies
they like to swarm on new cuts
like mosquito bites

my dad the mayor
has plush new couches and chairs
i lay on them now

Mosquito nets work
but they dont work well if
you both are inside

Guy like to dance here
they dance better than girls do
it is lots of fun

Work is slow right now
The trees are all planted
I hope they dont die

Vitamins are good
they make you feel much better
when you eat just rice

Soccer is huge here
team mission just won first place
this weeks new highlight

Send your requests here
I'll write what you want me to
this websites for you

Until the next time
Enjoy the cool weather there
Jump in the leaves too!