Morning tea and evening flies

As most of you know, I'm not much of a morning person. It usually takes those small comforts to help me face the day. For me, one of those comforts is a nice cup of tea. I was really excited about tea in Senegal because I heard that they drink it multiple times a day and there is a whole ceremony surrounding it. I had a bit of a reality check when I got to my training site and realized that my host family doesn't really drink tea. The only time they have it is when friends (usually male) come over and will make it. It is really cool to watch as they pour some tea from glass to glass in order to build up foam. When the foam is just right, you fill the cup with more tea and then drink it, trying not to drink the foam. Interesting side note: I discovered that the foaming is not just caused by pouring the liquid from glass to glass. They add a significant amount of sugar to each pot of tea, so when it gets poured, the stirring up of the sugar helps create the foam. And each time they make it, it becomes a little sweeter. Senegalese love their sugar.

Anyway, usually by the time I wake up in the morning my family has tea already waiting for me. They are accustomed to drinking their incredibly sweet cafe touba so there is a small pot of tea on the side just for me. Apparently it is a bit strange here to start the day with tea rather than coffee. Because my family doesn't usually drink tea, they make it for me as if they would make instant coffee. This means 2-3 heaping tablespoons full of dried tea leaves and about the same amount of sugar for approximately 1 cup of tea. (If you don't know the normal serving size for loose leaf tea, is it generally about 1 teaspoon of leaves to a cup of water.) Sometimes I am able to add my own sugar before they do it for me, but even when I get that luxury, I tend to add more sugar than normal in order to make it palatable. The tea is so strong that I usually try to water it down without them noticing, but sometimes I just bite the bullet and wash it down with my breakfast of bread. Every day I try to pull myself out of bed sooner so I can put the tea on myself, but I have yet to catch them before it is already on the stove. Perhaps at my permanent site I will have more control of my morning tea, or at least by then I will have learned how to say that it is too strong and I want to make it myself. I guess it is all part of the learning process.

On a completely unrelated note:

The statistical likelihood for someone in my training group to be plagued with the horrible reality of mango fly larva was about 1 in 100. Lucky for me, one girl has already had 2, so I guess that means I am off the hook...

If you didn't know, the situation with mango flies is that if you leave your clothes out at night, it is possible for the flies to lay their eggs in them. Now if that happens and you don't shake out and/or iron your clothes afterward, the egg will somehow burrow into your skin, and the larva will grow inside of you until it is just about ready to become a fly. Awful mental image, right? I really didn't think it was likely that this would happen to someone. The trainers like to tell us the rare horror story to keep us on our toes. But it did indeed happen that a girl had left her underwear drying near her window which had a broken screen and she did not thoroughly check before she put them on. (Maybe she hadn't received her necessary morning jolt yet either) So one day she noticed a painful bump on her rear end which she then thought was a staff infection. She treated it as such and was trying to become accustomed to not being able to really sit down comfortably. One morning after abnormally painful night, she discovered the larva sticking most of the way out of her skin. She pulled it out and now has a hole where the larva had been. After this happened she realized that the bump she had on her inner thigh was probably the same thing, but it has yet to make its way to the surface, despite many attempts by her host family and her to get it out. So until it shows it's disgusting face, she has named it and tries to suffocate it with antibiotics and a bandaid.

Homestay 2 week 1

Round 2 at my homestay is going well thus far.  We have a lot more to do in our garden this time so that keeps us pretty busy.  Sometimes it is really nice to retreat to the garden as a sactuary.  There are constantly local kids there ready to help or goof off, but it has been pretty well established that they stay on the outside of the fence so we don't have any more footprints going through the garden beds.  We repared and extended the fence so that we could do more in it and keep the animals/kids out.  I'm not sure yet if we made a mistake during our first week at site because we gave treats to the kids who helped us the day after a huge project cleaning up and gathering the material to make our first compost pile.  Now we have twice as many kids hanging around but only a few of them actually help out.  The others tend to get into fights over something and try to send them away unsuccessfully.  My wolof isn't very good yet so I am stuck saying things like “do you want to help me,” “I need more (leaves/rocks/water)” and similar basic phrases. 

            My host family is still great and help me whenever I'm around.  I still say “dëgguma” (I don't understand) a lot and I think some people who aren't as close to me like my grandmother who visits occasionally get a little frustrated at my lack of comprehension.  But I'm trying and it is coming along slowly.              My host mom is a really good cook and I found that when I went back to the training center for a couple of days, I missed her food.  I'm a little spoiled here, I think.  I definitely live a better life than a lot of trainees at the moment and I worry that I may be setting myself up for more hardship down the road when I get to my permanent site.  But at the moment I'm enjoying my comfort level :)

Homestay week 1

I just completed my first week at my homestay!  It was a crazy awesome experience.  My host mom Atta Njaay is amazing and she really takes care of me.  I have 2 little brothers named Falu and Bappa.  And my aunt Fatu Jopp and her friend Jaal help clean and take care of the house.  I think of them as my sisters because they are both in their teens.  I actually have a really nice house with running water and electricity as well as a nice room with a big bed and a fan.  Those may seem like simple things, but I definitely have some friends here who are pretty jealous...

            During my first stay I received a lot of preferential treatment.  I'm trying to change that so they view me more as part of the family.  At the moment they serve me breakfast by myself and then for lunch and dinner we all eat around a communal bowl, usually of rice and fish with vegetables and a sauce.  It is called ceebu jen.  Often they will throw me a lot of the good bits of food, but I have been trying to either give it to others near me or put it back in the middle for someone else to have.  I want to be treated the same as anyone else.  I am really grateful for the family I have.  In certain homes in Senegal there are struggles with hygiene and lack of clean water.  My family is good about washing their hands and they clean everything very well.  As of yet, I haven't been sick yet and I feel totally comfortable eating whatever they serve (even the stuff that looks pretty unusual).

            I have an awesome group of trainees here in my village as well as an amazing language and culture teacher, Aysatu.  The other 3 trainees in my village are really cool and we all work well together in class and at our garden.  One of our main projects here is to put together a demo garden using the skills that the tech trainers have been teaching.  At the end of our PST (pre-service training) we have to  present our demo garden to the community, only speaking Wolof.  I'm nervous about this but I hope that it will be ok.  This is a really cool experience because I feel like it gives me a chance to practice the language as well as prepare me for my future agriculture projects here.

            

Homestay

I found out where I'm going to be doing my homestay! I will be in a coastal town about 30-40 minutes from Thiès and speaking Wolof!  This won't be my permanent site but I will be with this family for the next 9 weeks or so as I bumble with the language and culture so it isn't too bad when I make it to my permanent site (which is still unknown to me except that I will be in a town within 4-6 hours of Dakar speaking Wolof).


I leave to my homestay tomorrow and will be there off and on through training. This first stint is for 5 days and then a come back to the training center for a couple of days for more cultural and technical training.  Don't worry though.  It isn't like they are just throwing us into the villages and towns with nothing to go off of other than some basic phrases.  I'm going to be in a town with 2-3 other volunteers and my LCF (language and culture facilitator). We meet together everyday to work on the language and do various activities.  Plus it will be a good support network in this crazy fun experience! :)

Needless to say, I have an awesome staging group  (staj), amazing trainers in all sectors, and fantastic staff and other volunteers around.  Last night was the first night we could really leave the training center and it was really cool to go and hang out with everyone at a local spot.  We were able to go around the local market today and I got a traditional Senegalese welcome gift of tea and sugar for my host family, so I hope that works.  It will be fun and crazy getting used to how different everything is here.  I guess that is what I get for choosing this as my debut to international travel. :)

I'll let you know how my first homestay experience goes when I get back!

Ba beneen yoon!

Thiès (Pronounced Chess) Training Center

I made it to the training center in Thiès, Senegal!! The first day they let us take some time to settle in to our new surroundings, which was fantastic considering we got off the plane in Dakar at 5:30am. We were welcomed by a host of 3rd year volunteers and staff members, with the first face we saw after customs being the Country Director Chris Hedrick. It was pretty cool and I definitely felt like coming here was a good choice (Even though I didn't exactly get to choose the country).  I'm actually developing a lot of pride for this country and the people.  Crazy that I have only been here 3 days!!

Day two we hit the books and started our survival Wolof lessons.  I now know the basic greeting and probably say it 20+ times a day at the moment.  When I get into the city I imagine I will never stop saying it.  It is a cool language and when I finish lessons tomorrow, hopefully I can better explain it.

Right now we are pretty much trapped in our little training compound, safe from the world.  However, this will quickly change come Monday.  That is when we find out exactly what language we will be speaking at our site (though not where our site is) and get a tour of the markets.  When Tuesday rolls around we are flung into our homestay families and will stay there for a week before returning to the center for more training.  Luckily on Monday we also get assigned a language instructor who will go into the villages with us and give us on site language instruction.  At least with that I don't feel completely thrown to the wolves.... :/

As for a run down of what I have dealt with the past 3 days in country: a lot of stumbled Wolof, hep A and B shots, as well as meningitis shots (Rabies series still to come...), intense heat and humidity, squat toilets, a butchered french exam, dorm style rooms with 6 girls on bunk beds, mesquitos galor, delicious food, struggling to remember that using my left hand is not appropriate, meeting lots of amazing people, and listening to a crazy awesome thunderstorm last night.


All in all, I'm having a fantastic time thus far and I eagerly awaiting my language and technical classes tomorrow.

Jërëjef, ba beneen yoon! (Thank you, Until next time!)