An ad for abstinence

So, it's really unbelievable that I can see myself on an airplane in the very near future and in my parents' living room. I have no doubt that everyone at home who's thinking that same thing is THRILLED about it. Mom even bought the Christmas tree earlier than I think ever before in the 21 years I've been alive and I'm certain it was solely to convince herself that her kids were going to be home very soon. No doubt, I'm excited to go home. I even changed my cell phone ring to We Wish You a Merry Christmas yesterday because the only evidence of December here is the fact that the Tubaab gas station went all out with their Christmas decorations. I asked Alex why there's no Christmas music and he said it doesn't start until about December 20th. This is probably one good reason why you will never find Senegalese people in a market wrestling over a toy for their kid; they aren't yet totally fed up with the holiday. Yet, actually, that's really sad as well because there are so many other reasons that would never happen here. There such a lack of materialism here. People don't have much and don't complain much about anything. I have no doubt they would find the idea of adult people waiting six hours in line the day after Thanksgiving in the freezing cold and then trampling people to get through the doors of a department store and running as hard as they can to the toy department before proceeding to tear each other's hair out until every last piece of merchandise is off the shelves as completely ludicrous. Sure, I'm American and I also find this behavior completely absurd but at the same time the very idea of consumerism that unleashes that sort of behavior is definitely way more alive in the minds of the American people than anyone here. Sooo, I'm having a little trouble adjusting to the idea of leaving the mentalities I've adjusted to. If I sat for a whole day thinking I don't think I could come up with anything I want for Christmas or could ever justify feeling material needs when I'm already so wealthy in a million other ways, including materially.
I love my new family so much and I'm so happy that I have been liberated from MSID housing and that I fought for my right to make my own decisions. The program was definitely not very happy with my neglect to inform them that I decided to leave my house practically in the middle of the night to move in to a room with three guys that are my age but I'm incredibly happy that they came to see my point of view. So many other people in the group are not having good experiences in their houses and internships and I feel very lucky in my own (even with my first family because aside from the mother I loved almost everyone in the house).

I changed my sector of the hospital for the last time this week. I am now in maternity. I can't do as much there which is unfortunate because I was really getting into the idea of all the hands-on stuff but the things I'm observing are amazing. Monday through Wednesday was a strike so when I went Monday it was pretty uneventful. There are also about 8 other interns there everyday who are actually going to be mid-wives at the end of their time there which leaves a much smaller need for me. During the strike people come only for emergencies. One of the interns gave an exam to a pregnant woman and then asked me if I wanted to "toucher" as well. I said, "Umm... well, I dont really know what I'm looking for". I suppose I'm grateful that I am allowed to stick my hands in just anybody's vagina without any knowledge whatsoever of what to do beyond that but I figured it wouldn't do any good having my hand up in some lady's ovaries and probably knocking her baby in the head while I'm saying, "yup- I feel something".

Later that day some of the interns bought makeup from one of the nurses who always sells things there. One of the girls thought it would be fun to give me a makeover. I couldn't decide if this was a great bonding experience or a great big joke for all the other interns to laugh at the ugly tubaab. I'm still not really sure. I know for certain that after she drew black eyebrows on me and then traced my pink lips in the same black pencil and colored it in with pink lipstick I looked like a real fool but everyone seemed sincere when they said I looked pretty and I couldn't take it off so I didn't quite know what to do. I waited until they left and then rubbed the shit out of my face with tissues.

Tuesday I woke up high on Benadryl because since it got down into the mid-70s here at night I now have a cold. I was so groggy and in such a deep sleep that I took another one and passed back out until 11. This is the latest I've slept since being here. Wednesday I had a meeting with my director involving my flight from my house. Alex goes to work everyday at 7 am but Wednesday his boss said he was going to Thies (the town we spent the day in last Saturday) to do a job. So, he ended up leaving Dakar at 3:30 pm from his non-paying internship and not getting back to Dakar until 6:30 am Thursday. He spent the entire night installing an internet cafe there. When I asked him if he was getting paid for that he said he doesn't know. Can you imagine working almost 24 hours straight in the US without being paid? Can you imagine going to work and being told that you aren't going home at the normal time and you have to go to another town? Anyway, this makes me very angry! But, as soon as he got back Thursday morning he came over and crawled in bed with me and I couldn't bring myself to get out of the bed for most of the day. We cooked eggs (which he did way better than me on a kerosene flame that's not a stove), and wrestled (which was totally hot because he's a brown belt and can throw me around a lot), and just spent the whole day together and I was totally happy.

Finally on Friday I went back to my internship, though. This was a normal day in the maternity and man was it .... interesting. Here having a baby is a wildly different experience than in the US. Sometimes I can almost manage to forget that I'm in Africa until I get to the hospital and see how incredibly different the health care is. So, in Senegal there's really just no such thing as privacy. It's just not... I don't know, important to people? The salle d'achoucement or room where women give birth is just one big room with about six beds. Actually, let me correct that- there are three "beds" which I would describe more like 30 year old pieces of foam covered in a plastic type material with no sheets or coverings whatsoever. These beds are for during the labor and after the birth. The other 3 "beds" are where the women actually give birth. They're basically just tables, not long enough for the woman's whole body with no where for her head. If you entered the place without any nurses there you might have the impression that it's some horrible room for torture. When I arrived there was a woman squealing in quite a bit of obvious agony. There was another women on a delivery table hooked up to an IV, and another in a bed with her baby next to her. There was a baby in a baby cart on one side of the room. The squealing woman was vomiting and contorting her body and moaning a whole lot. A few minutes later they took her to the table area. I saw these unusual metal pans under the table and wondered what they were for until they pulled one out and shoved it under the women's butt to catch her afterbirth. The only IV the women were hooked to was a glucose drip. Yup- all natural... mmm... I don't know what it was but I started feeling nauseous and decided to go look for my bottle of water. I figured I had plenty of time to see the birth since that takes a long time. Nope. I was wrong. I came back to a newborn on the scale and the woman no longer squealing. The afterbirth was mysteriously dumped into a plastic bag and weighed. Maybe the next week I will ask about this tradition. No family or friends are in the room with the woman while she's delivering. There's really not much talking at all between her and the mid-wives and interns. The baby comes and no one really pays that much attention to it. Or to the mother really for that matter. This is not because people don't love their children in Africa or something like that. I'm not really sure the reason, actually. I was really sort of stunned at everything I saw there. Even more so I think I was horrified by the very thought of ever having children myself. Anyway, the next and last week of my internship is sure to be exciting.

My new living arrangement has its ups and downs. I now sleep in a big double bed with a rotating fan. The fan would've been realllllllly nice back in September and October when I was sleeping in a major puddle of sweat every night. I can go out when I want and I don't have to disturb anyone to get back in the house (at my old house I had to tap on the window of my parents' room if I came in later than 11 pm and then they had to open two bolted doors for me downstairs before I had to proceed to pounding on the door to my floor succeeding in waking up most or all of the 10 or 12 people in my house). The boys are super nice to me and we have political and religious debates and conversations. They are friends with Alex so he's there with me all the time and we don't have to hide. They help to keep me as comfortable as possible as often as possible and I'm so grateful for it. The only downsides are that I now have to leave my house to use the restroom and the restroom is more like a dormitory/outhouse sort of setting. There are 9 stalls which 5 families have keys to (and families here can be like 20 people). The boys at my house lost their key so they always have to walk with me to the shower to ask another familiy to use their key and I think also because they think I am too weak to carry my own water bucket. Sometimes the stalls are pretty nast and I now take bucket showers. There are still the 2 inch long, 1 inch wide cockroaches and if I take a shower past 6:30 pm I have to use a candle but none of these things really bother me too much anymore. Since I live with boys there is occasionally a bad meal but that's to be expected. I feel so strong now that I'm almost pretty certain that I can do anything I ever imagined and I feel that eating hard rice every once in a while (or one time some cow intestines) or taking a bucket shower for three weeks are definitely things I can deal with. I'm so grateful for having a place I can feel comfortable and where I'm pretty sure people actually like me that I can sacrifice all the other creature comforts that were basically dead in me anyway. Plus, I feel that I am now living in a manner that is way more similar to the average Senegalese and I think that's really important. However, I have to admit, a warm jacuzzi bath in a clean tub with a light and no insects is going to be pretty heavenly, and that's why I'm so grateful for this experience.