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Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:59:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Hannah Koenker <hannahkoenker@yahoo.com>
Subject: last hi till april
hi, last email before april 12. i got all my stuff done, the letter to the aids program director bitching about condoms in the interior (how can we improve distribution, so i don't have to come to lbv myself) and the sex survey close-to-final draft, 1440 condoms and some books. we will travel by bush taxi and send our stuff with amanda in the peace corps truck since there isn't room for passengers.
i did hear about the propaganda department and remember thinking "won't this kind of jeopardize their mission?" i am continually disappointed in our leadership but in the same way i am disappointed with finky because he poops on the floor. he can't really help it, see, so it's hard to hold it against him. maybe i should expect more from my government.
picture captions: [see photos for December 2001]
1) the view from my living room, during a rainy day in october. soon there will be a terrace there.
2) 2) dogon kids in dogon country, with the cliff in the background.
3) 3) me with moustaf and aicha before new year's. check out moustaf's and my matching outfits!
4) hanging-out-place in dogon country, with carved pillars. (i bet you could research why they are carved, because i sure don't know. twins are important i think that's the corner).
here's something i wrote to kristen johnston because she said her students were interested in what people do in gabon, daily. and if young couples are economically subserviant to their parents and inlaws.
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it's neat to hear your students are interested in life over here. what people do all day depends on how old they are; students get up, go to school till 12 or 1, have repos where they eat (rice, or manioc with sauce) then back from 3 to 5. afterwards there are sports or hanging out at houses with friends, talking on the porch. we don't have phones. in the evening there's homework and helping with dinner, or if they're renting rooms, usually just some warm sugar milk with a little coffee. then they have sex.
mamas do chores all day and in between they go to the marche and visit with other mamas. they bathe the kids and do laundry and prepare meals and sit and talk with family and friends. there's a lot of sitting and talking. often they will spend the day at the plantation, planting or weeding or harvesting or debroussing, so they can feed the family. this is hard work. kids are the ones who fetch the water if the house is not hooked up (most aren't, but pumps aren't that far). basically, if you have free time, youchat. that's it.
i don't know about the young couples under the thumb of the parents but it wouldn't surprise me. a lot of students are married, but a la coutume - not at the mairie, just an agreement entre eux that can easily be broken (and often is). they are generally still supported by the folks in this case. i don't know many married folks that aren't more or less independent but you know, everyone here is getting money from some relative that has a good job somewhere, so this circle of dependence is pretty large.
i hadn't heard about the african volunteers scandal but that's what goes on the lycee here and everywhere else - profs finding copines in their classes and getting sex in exchange for giving good grades. You can imagine that the girls think they are benefiting from this arrangement as well. this kind of prostitution is very common and boys sit around and talk about how they can't get a girl unless they have lots of dough, and girls sit around talking about how their parents won't support them enough so they can buy shampoo and face cream and shoes, etc. it's a complicated issue and reflects the downturn in the economy since the oil started drying up.
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i have a slice of pizza and some senegalese rice waiting for me in the fridge so i am gonna go eat that up.
[go ahead and post the picture of the tuaregs.] we had a fun time with the tuareg knife sellers, who invited us to their 'campement' to herd camels and live in tents and help their women. 'you are development workers! we need your help at the campement! there is too much work for our women and you must help!' they were really cute, actually, and it was a tempting offer. :)
i love you,
hannah
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Hannah Koenker
hannahkoenker@yahoo.com
www.econ.uiuc.edu/~hanko/
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