Full Spectrum Experiences

As life continually teaches me, there is never one side to things.  You think things might be down, but soon enough it will jump back up.  I have found over the past month that the pendulum is constantly swinging.  A quick recap of contrasting experiences include:

• ·         I was stung by a scorpion / The next day I avoided a scorpion sting (though my friend’s skirt did catch fire in the process of trying to kill it…)
• ·         I dealt with the sudden death of my counterpart from an asthma attack and experienced my first Senegalese funeral / My Wolof tutor had a baby girl and I went to my first naming ceremony.
• ·         I planted many trees (and will soon plant many more) / A tree toppled over on top of me because termites had eaten and killed the roots.
• ·         I dealt with the sudden onset of the hot season in Kaffrine / I had a short break from the heat by a visit to the delta region.
• ·         My computer crashed / I have an amazing friend who is working on sending me a new one.
• ·         I taught school gardening lessons where the kids made fun on my language and didn’t really care about the lesson / and I taught classes that were engaged and excited about gardening and didn’t mind that I stumbled along with my words.

Other things that I have done this month include taking an 80 km bike ride with Christi to visit the sites of Sarah F and Lorraine PD (In that time we played in various trees, visited the scary acacia forest, saw the megalith stone circles, were nearly stung by the scorpion, and watched Lorraine battle a flaming skirt, and it was all worth to so I could watch Sarah sit in a bucket and open her birthday present), had some great dinner parties with friends, and slowly progressed with my language.

So life has been working hard to keep things fairly balanced in my world this month.  I’m constantly learning and growing, I have amazing site mates who are patient with me and teach me very useful things, and I’m always collecting new stories to tell. 

(If you want to know about any of these specific stories, just let me know.  Sorry I fail at posting regularly and crazy experiences tend to add up quickly here.)

P.S. I'm heading to the land of greenery and waterfalls tomorrow, also known as Kedougou! I'll let you know about that adventure when I return.

IST and upcoming elections

IST has come and gone, and now I feel that I have a wealth of knowledge ready to impart! I had 11 days of intensive technical training where I learned everything from organic (and chemical) pest management to erosion control to seed saving. It was fascinating, yet quite exhausting. My brain definitely hurt by the end. But I did counteract that by hanging out with my amazing friends in the down time. At one point we decided that our cuddle sessions weren't adequate in a small bed, so we pushed two bunk beds together, tied the mosquito nets together, and had a bunk bed fort! This made cuddle time soo much cooler!! Also, at one point we played in a seemingly abandoned old Beetle that was sitting in the middle of a field. When we came back by 10 minutes later, the car was gone! So I may or may not have accidentally broken into someone's car... These are mere samplings of the amazing times we had. After spending 2 months together during PST many of us became very close, only to be placed in various parts of the country that are quite far apart. So we went a little crazy with how much time we spent together.

But now I'm back at site, figuring out how to get involved in projects. It is a little bit difficult because of the upcoming election. Everyone is waiting in anticipation to see what happens. There have been a lot of riots in the major cities as people protest Wade's candidacy. Don't worry, Kaffrine has been very mild. We have had a lot of presidential candidates come through on their campaign tours, but they have remained peaceful. (Though when Wade came through, there were a lot of riot police around in case something happened.) The first round of elections happens on Sunday, February 26^th. The results should be released sometime that night or the next morning. That is when I anticipate things going crazy. Right now we aren't allowed to travel to any regional capitols until after this wave of the elections are over to see how people respond. So I'm putting most everything on hold until then too. I still retreat to my lovely garden everyday and that has been delightful. I love seeing things grow!

Oh, I also had my first sleepover in a hut! The other day I biked to my friend Christi's village, which is about 5km south. We went around and greeted most of the village, danced a little, ate two dinners, and carried a basin of water on my head across the village! (This is a lot harder than you would think...) She doesn't have electricity so we lit some candles and chatted late into the night, while also listening to the birds that have built a nest in the rafters. It was quite romantic! The next day after a lovely breakfast we filled tree sacks and planted some lemon trees. All in all, a successful trip that I will certainly cherish.

I'm heading into the bush again tomorrow to help my friend Sarah celebrate her birthday. Yay for 20+ km bike rides through the bush! I love the adventure!

P.S. I was stung by a scorpion today. It was intensely painful but is getting better slowly. Right now half of my hand is numb... so typing is interesting. But rest assured, it isn't lethal. And I did consult medical staff. So really, all in a day's work. Bismillah!

When push comes to shove

Christmas here was lovely and New Years was entertaining. I went to a beach town with some friends for Christmas and basically spent 3 days laying on the beach reading, splashing in the waves, and enjoying awesome company. It was the best way to escape site after my first 6 weeks. I also had an intensive language seminar at the end of that where my LCF came to Kaffrine for 3 days. So the break was delightful.

Christmas at Toubab Dialaw

I did not end up celebrating the New Year at site. Instead, I traveled to the lovely region of Fatick with some friends where we were to stay at a campement on the edge of the Mangroves. Basically, a gorgeous area full of life (compared to what I experience at site...) To start off this trip I took my first mini bus where 30+ people crammed into this vehicle and we stopped at every village along the way from Kaffrine to Kaolack. Fortunately I sat in the back of the bus so I wasn't overly squished. And I made friends with the guy who hangs out the back door or on the ladder to the roof yelling prices and destinations to people waiting on the side of the road. It seems a bit dangerous because often times the bus will start pulling away and the guy has to run and hop on the back. Oh, and they never wear sturdier shoes than a flip flop. Not sure how often they get injured in this job but they seem to have a good time.

When I arrived in Kaolack I found my friends and we had to argue prices with the next driver to put 8 people in a sept place. It is slightly illegal so whenever we passed a Gendarmerie (the police station) I would duck down. That part wasn't a big deal to me because we did something similar to get back from Christmas vacation. The biggest issue was that we were all set to go and then the people at the garage decided that our car needed to go to Dakar instead. So they put us into this very beat up car. The driver knew his car was struggling and so would take as many bush paths as possible to avoid the awful state of the regular road. Bush paths are nicer because it is packed sand, but not nice because it is a tiny one-lane path with many blind turns. I'm sure you can see where this is heading. We had multiple close calls. The last one both cars had to stop to avoid colliding. There was a patch of deep sand next to us which the other car refused to take so we had to turn into that. This of course entailed being too stuck in the sand to move at all. And then the transmission blew. So there was nothing we could do but push this car along these bush paths in the middle of nowhere. We passed a few villages and kids would occasionally come out in order to the see the spectacle of 8 white people pushing this car. I don't know exactly how far we went but I would estimate it at about 2 km. Fortunately for us my friend Ash had made friends with a driver who lived pretty close to there so she called him and he rescued us when we reached the main road. So that turned out well.

The actual New Years celebration was an interesting one because we ended up getting kicked out of the first place we went. The family of one of the volunteers were visiting and we met with them at their hotel. But the owner of the place decided we were unruly and said we had to leave. It was a ridiculous situation but we ended up going to another hotel that is owned by this awesome Dutch couple and that worked out nicely. There were fireworks on the docks and Senegalese drummers. The owners even danced with us late into the night. And then on my way back the next day I saw a giant troop of baboons!! That was the best way to start out the new year.

It took me a lot longer to get home than I had expected because of a transportation strike. I was stuck at the regional house in Kaolack for a couple of days until that was over. It was weird not seeing any taxis, busses, or sept places on any of the roads for days. This country doesn't function well without the public transit system and things weren't really resolved then. Another transport strike occurred last week for a few days but some sort of agreement was finally made (ie the religious leaders who own most of the vehicles in the public transit system were given something to assuage their discontent).

I was home for less than a week before heading out again to the All Volunteer Conference in Thiès. There were transportation issues again but this time because of a major religious holiday where people were flooding to Maggal Touba (slightly less important than the pilgrimage to Mecca for the Senegalese Mouride Muslim sect which caters to the majority of Senegal). Basically most of the cars in Senegal were heading to Touba, so we couldn't get to Thiès. Peace Corps ended up sending some buses out to consolidated locations for us to get to the conference. My bus ended up arriving 6 hours late so I didn't make it to Thiès until almost 4AM. But I was still up by 7AM to attend the various sessions. It was actually a really fascinating conference because volunteers from all over West Africa came to present various projects that they have been working on. It gave me a lot of ideas for projects here and even things I could do in the States. There is a really cool recycled paper briquette maker that I really want to make and use when I get back. It was also really neat to meet so many other volunteers. I'm still pretty new here so I hadn't met the majority of volunteers in Senegal, and then there were also volunteers from Mali, Guinea, Gambia, and Cape Verde so it was great to network.

After the conference we all headed to Dakar for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament aka WAIST. Basically this is a chance for everyone to relax, play some ball and enjoy the amenities of the largest city in West Africa. I think I mentioned before, each of the teams chose a theme to dress up and make things more interesting. My region did Boy scout/Girl scout and I must say I think I made an awesome Brownie. I ended up not playing for my team though because we had plenty of people. But I did decide to help out the Cape Verde/Guinea/Mali team because they were short players. This included the game against my own team. But that was really the best game of all because we decided to ditch the softball and we played full-contact kick ball! It was a free for all with very few rules and blurred lines on who was playing for whom. There was tackling, intentional fumbling, and at one point the third baseman decided to score a point for the other team by running home! (Thanks Christi!) It was the best kickball game I've had in a really long time. And I became an honorary member of PC Cape Verde! I intend to visit sometime this summer. (Side note: Peace Corps is leaving Cape Verde in September! They have decided the job is done and their presence is no longer needed. The volunteers who aren't leaving before then will be transferred to another country for the rest of their service. So I need to visit soon!)

 

Cape Verde Softball team

Another aspect of WAIST is the PC Talent Show, Prom, and date auction. During Prom/Date Auction I ended up enlisting the help of some friends and we bought our friend Bob, who is a volunteer in Cape Verde. All the proceeds go to a scholarship fund for underprivileged girls, so we figured an afternoon of friends hanging out would be a good way to support that. I'm sure he felt pretty special going out to dinner with 3 lovely ladies. So all in all, I had a great time dancing, hanging out with other volunteers and eating great food in Dakar.

I had one day to recover from WAIST before my next conference, which was training for the PC Senegal Peer Support Network. 2-3 volunteers from each region were selected for this support counsel that any volunteer can turn to when they are struggling or maybe just need someone to talk to. It is also an important thing to have during crisis situations. We had a two-day training with psychologists, medical staff, and the cross cultural coordinator in order to be most effective in this work. Since this is the line of work that I want to pursue, I'm really grateful that I can do this during my service.

Peer Support Network

The rest of my month has been spent reconnecting with people at site, working in my garden and on the school gardening projects, as well as doing a seed collection training where we went into the bush and collected seed pods. Basically I spent a morning climbing trees and running around in as much forest as we have in this part of Senegal with friends. We also had a picnic in a Baobab grove and were eventually chased away by a swarm of bees. So all in all, a great time!

Now I'm off to IST (In Service Training) which marks the completion of my first 3 months as a volunteer. We will have 11 days of intensive agriculture training and preparation to kick start projects. I'm looking forward to this because I'm hoping it will give me the direction I've been lacking thus far.

P.S. If you were wondering, I have now been able to get halfway through my laundry before someone stepped in to help me. Progress! Maybe soon they will trust me to do the whole thing on my own.

5 Week Challenge Completed!

In an effort to encourage people to stay at site for the first little while after installing so that you will take the time necessary to really get to know your family and your site, our country director Chris Hedrick instituted the 5 week challenge. The rules are that you are not allowed to stay at any regional house overnight and if possible spend as little time as possible away from site for that first bit. Now this had to be modified slightly because my stage had Thanksgiving smack dab in the middle of that challenge. So we were allowed 2 days at the regional house and they tacked on an extra week to the challenge. I definitely went and enjoyed Thanksgiving with other Americans at the regional house but I have done well not staying anywhere else since install. I took a few day trips to visit some villages near me, but I was always home in time for dinner.

Now that I have completed this, I'm going to spend about a week away for Christmas. Though I think I'll be spending New Years in Kaffrine to save money for All Volunteer conference and WAIST next month. Plus I have friends willing to come to me to celebrate the new year! What is WAIST you ask? (I know you are oh so curious... :P) WAIST is the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. So all of the Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa are going to make their way to Dakar and we are going to have a grand ole time dressing up and playing ball. The theme my region (Kaolack) has chosen for our costumes is boy scout/girl scout. So I'm of course perusing every fukkijaay (second hand clothing vendors) I can find in search of the perfect costume! Oh how I love a good costume party! Apparently there will also be a masquerade the first night, so I need search hard for something appropriate for the occasion. If I had realized how much costuming and dressing up I would be doing here, I think I would have brought an extra suitcase just full of random costume stuff. Oh well. Hidesight is 20/20. Plus it is an entertaining time searching through all the stuff secondhand stores across America and Europe didn't want.

Now what on Earth have I been up to the past few weeks? Well, I've been trying to workout everyday. Usually I get up and do yoga and then go running. For those who don't know, I've decided to run a half marathon in March. This decision was made by a group of us here in the Kaffrine sub region. We will be the Kaff Half Team! I've never been a big runner, but it has been a goal of mine for a really long time and there happens to be a great cause to support so I'm going to make it happen. It will be part of Senegal's Race for Education. All donations (which you can make on pcsenegal.org) will go toward a scholarship to keep girls in school and for other GAD -gender and development- activities.

Also, I have been developing my farming callouses. By hauling 150-300 gallons of water everyday, I am getting some real working hands. My garden is 22m x 30m so wandering through it with 2 11L watering cans can get pretty tiring. But I feel like I'm getting the hang of it and have definitely gotten faster. It used to take me over 2-3 hours on the veggie days but now that only takes me 1 ½ hours. Maybe I'm still slow but I am methodical and it has become relaxing to focus on the garden and taking care of the plants. Plus who doesn't love wandering barefoot among beautiful plants? Sometimes the plants the bite though if step on a burr or get caught on the Zisiphus or Acacia Melodica (both are varieties of thorny bushes to act as live fencing) that lines my entire garden. I can deal with that though. It has been a while since I have been able to easily wander barefoot anywhere. I certainly wasn't going to do that while I was working in downtown Los Angeles... Also, I have been learning how to harvest casava and sweet potato. I'm just going to say for the record that while there are many ways to do this, the coolest by far that I have seen and practiced is with the use of a machete. Right now I have an awful rat problem where they dig and destroy all of my root crops. I've laid traps and poison but so far it doesn't seem to be doing any good. I don't really like killing things (I still struggle to squish the beetles that eat my veggies) so it is a tough battle to figure out the best way to deal with them so they stop eating my crops.

On the note of rodents, I also have mice that have moved in behind my shelf. At first I thought it was roaches moving up and down the back of it because the giant ones that had been living in my bathroom disappeared after the shelf was brought in. Now it is entirely possible that they are also living behind there, but I definitely saw a mouse today when I shined my cell phone flashlight back today because there was so much raucous going on. Strangely, I hate them less now that I know it is mice making all the noise rather than roaches, but it still doesn't solve my problem. And just for the record, banging on the shelf and telling them to be quiet and that you don't like them doesn't do dara (ambiguous word meaning something or nothing or anything).

By the by, it is kidding season here in Senegal. This means that I have an attack of cuteness at least twice a day when I see adorable baby goats frolicking about. For those who are curious (though for the life of me I can't fathom why) it is also lambing season but they are definitely not as cute. I know there has been some debate at whether or not certain photos I have posted are goats or sheep. This can seem confusing because there is a breed of goat called Nubians (because they are of East African origin) which have long floppy ears and a roman nose. To clarify, the animals in those photos are actually sheep. All sheep here have floppy ears, roman noses, a long tail, and are some variation of white in color. And all goats are much more delicate in features with either erect ears or airplane ears, a short tail, and numerous possible colors. Don't worry, I'll post pictures. Also, sheep here are still as mindless and unimaginative as they are in America, while goats seem to always be having an adventure. If you didn't already know, I'm slightly biased towards goats. My bad.

We just celebrated the Muslim New Year called Tamharit a couple of weeks ago. The best way to celebrate this is by making a big dinner of couscous {called cere (pronounced chair-ey)} steamed with nuts and raisins with a delightful sauce that was full of boiled veggies and yapp (some undefined meat). When the meal was almost over they poured fresh milk, from the Pulaar home down the street who keep cows, on top. Quite delightful really. Then the fun began. All the kids ran and changed into each other's, or their parent's, clothing so they could appropriately cross dress and then run around town with drums, pots, and pans to dance and sing for treats. Sound somewhat familiar to anyone? It was great to watch everyone let loose a bit and fully embrace the spirit of the new year. The dressing up is only for the kids, but I still managed to dance a bit in the streets with a bunch of Senegalese staring at me. How could I avoid a perfect opportunity to dance?

For those of you curious for a breakdown of my host family/those who live in my family compound:

Maam (Grandmother): Anta

Dad: Saloly Sylla

Mom: Alima Fall

Siblings:

Anta ~11*

Awa ~9

Bamba ~7

Mymuna ~3

Uncle: Ass

Aunt: Adama

Their kids:

Pap (never met him. He is older and lives in another ville)

Baas ~10

Adama ~8 (baby Ada as she is fondly called)

Fatu Ndiaye ~6

Lammine ~2

Adama ~16 (She is sort of adopted. Related in some way but she claims Adama as the mom who raised her. I met her real mom once. She is divorced and has a child named Souleye who is ~18 months.)

Uncle: Demba

Aunt: Keiwei

Kids:

Lat ~4

Kattime ~1

Souleye ~14 (He is a student who lives with my family. I don't actually know his relation, where he is from, or why he is living with us. I should probably find these things out.)

*People in Senegal don't really keep track of ages or birthdays. When I ask I get conficting results. Also, because so many people don't pass the yearly exams to move to the next grade in school, many people fudge their ages so it doesn't look so much like they had to repeat any classes. Never believe someone when they tell you their age here. The first time I asked my host mom in Bayakh what her age was, she told me 25. I have since met 2 of her younger sisters, and at least one was over 25 and I know there are siblings between her and my host mom in age. So obviously this is not terribly accurate. Yet it is a popular question to ask people when you first meet them. Don't ask me why.

Overall, I'm settling in pretty well. I have a tutor now named Khodia. We meet 3 times a week for 2 hours each time. I may cut this down after the holidays are over. I have found that when I go I don't really have questions to fill the 2 hours. So I either need to make the classes shorter or have fewer each week. I'm not really sure how much better my Wolof is after a month and a half at site, but I guess it is coming along. I've met some cool people. Did you know that you can basically go anywhere and expect to be hosted. One day my friend Christi (Otherwise known as Maamjara) and I rode our bikes to a ceeb shack which was not currently serving food. We were ushered into the backyard courthouse, offered water and a concoction of yogurt, millet, and bananas before we actually found out that the person we were looking for was not there. Then they invited us to stay for attaaya so of course we sat for another hour or 2 drinking attaaya and meeting these strangers who opened their home to us. Now we go back regularly and chat with them. This is the most common way I have met people actually. Just go somewhere random, sit and chat, drink tea or crack peanuts, and practice Wolof.

People here are always willing to share whatever they have. It is expected that you will offer whatever you have to those around you. I have heard some say that this is why everyone in Senegal is poor. This may or may not be the case. I certainly see a lot people offering everything they have to others, even if they don't have much. I enjoy this spirit of giving but I can see where some problems may arise. But I also think that the issues have more to do with wanting instant gratification rather than taking the time to plan for the future. You can see an example of this in the daily lunch bowl. At the beginning of the month there are typically a lot of veggies and fish but it definitely pieters off by the end of the month. This is something that I feel I will be working against a lot when doing work projects and helping people realize that if you plant live fences and other such things now, they will pay off in the future.

And on a random side note, all of the teachers in the Kaffrine area went on strike last week. Everyone comes to school for 1 hour from 8 to 9 AM and then they all leave. According to my host dad who is a school teacher, the government has not paid the teachers for administering the end of year testing in June. So they are striking now in hopes that they will be paid for that past labor. Apparently this has been happening every year at various times. I feel bad for the kids who have to suffer because of this. And the gardens we are helping them start which probably will be neglected until this is resolved. Oh broken system. When will you be fixed?

On that note, presidential elections are in February. There is a big hubbub about that because Abdoulaye Wade, the current president, wants to run for a third term, which goes against the constitution of Senegal. So he has submitted an amendment to allow for this and the Congress will rule sometime next month on whether or not he will be allowed to run. If he does there will most likely be rioting and a bit of chaos. So if you were thinking of traveling to Senegal any time between January 15th and March, I would suggest against it. Don't worry, I will be safe and away from major cities during that time. If something big does happen, we have a very good Emergency Action Plan in place. No need to be concerned, but I figured I would let you know what's up.

And in conclusion, I like Senegal! No really, I enjoy being here and meeting all of these people. I'm definitely learning and growing a great deal. I do love you all and miss you terribly, so please send me letters so I can actually keep up individual correspondences.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

New Toubab on the Block (and Happy Thanksgiving to all!)

      I'm safely installed at my new site! Kaffrine is great and my host family is awesome. They've helped me set up my room, my uncle built me shelves, my mom shows me around the market and tells me how much things should cost, and my dad has introduced me to his entire school. They are even more adamant than I am about correcting people when they call me Toubab than I am, which is reassuring. They are constantly teaching me things about Senegal. And my Wolof is progressing ndank ndank. I can hold basic conversations but I find that each time I begin a new task, there is an entire list of vocabulary necessary to complete it that I don't currently possess. I'm getting really good at pantomiming things until people get the gist of what I'm trying to say. Then they tell me the words I was looking for and after I repeat the words, they are almost entirely forgotten. So in general I walk around with a notebook in my bag and then I try to write down the word before it is lost. This is only marginally successful so far because I'm not always in a good position to write things. Like when washing clothes.

      While we are on the subject of washing clothes, I did that the other day for the first time with an entire house of spectators. It was unnerving. People like to ask you if you have the ability to perform any said task when you say you did something or you are about to do something so for days my family asked if I was able to do my laundry. Now, I never like to back down from a challenge so of course I said I could do it. Which I can, by the way. But I was still shown the Senegalese hand washing techniques. I want to paint this picture for you. I'm sitting on a stool about 6 inches tall, in a skirt, with 2 large basins (beniors) in front of me, a pile of clothes, and a bar of soap my mother said was necessary for . Enter my host mother who informs me that I will also need powder soap for the water, “bleu,” and bleach. So she promptly sent one of the children running around to buy small sachets of these things from a boutique down the street. Once we have these things we can then commence. Now the Senegalese have a technique of getting the right tension on the clothing with an over abundance of soap so that when then rub their fists full of cloth together, it makes a squeegee sound and launches soapy water everywhere. If you can't get that sound, you aren't doing it correctly. Now I was watching very closely and thought I was imitating that motions well, but I was only successful with that process a couple of times in the 2 hours I did this. I guess it will require more practice. Good thing I have 2 years for that... And if any of you are wondering what exactly the “bleu” is, you aren't alone. When I ask them to explain it, they just say that it is bleu. It kind of makes some of the clothes with blue hues a bit brighter but not enough that I think I would actively use it given the choice. With the incredible quantity of soap used, I certainly hope my clothes stay clean for a while. I think there is enough soap still left on them to repel a small army of mud monsters. Also, hand washing this way is really hard on clothes so between that and the heat my clothes are already looking a bit haggard.

      So a quick run down of my first 2 weeks at site: I live in a small family compound which houses about 20 people. I don't really feel out of place having 12 children under the age of 16 running around everywhere. And those are just my siblings and cousins that live here. Everyday I go to the lovely garden Susan has put together over the last 2 years. For the first couple of days she was there and she showed me around, gave me an idea of what she does on a daily basis and then let me go at it. She took a backseat over the next week as she finished up school lessons and trainings before leaving for her vacation to America. So now she is gone and I get to hold down the fort for the next month and a half. We'll see how well that goes.

      Every morning I wake up around 7AM, try to do a little yoga and go running. It is a routine I hope to keep up, though each morning I have to remind myself that I will feel better and more awake afterward. I'm still not a morning person, but I'm managing alright so far. Before I can leave the compound to go running I have to greet every person individually, asking if they slept well and informing them of my intentions for the day. This can take a while so I try to let them know I'm off to run and then I continue the greetings upon my return. Then I cook some breakfast (usually oatmeal and tea, though a couple of days I have made eggs) and take a lovely bike ride across town to my garden. Then after greeting everyone at the agriculture office, I spend the next few hours watering. Because it is the cool season I water the beds of veggies every other day and all of the trees on the off day. I'm pretty sure I use about 300 gallons of water just for the vegetable beds. Carrying 2 watering cans back and forth to my basin for that much water has definitely been giving me a work out. I'm building my farming callouses! Beyond that I don't have a ton of structure for the rest of my day except that I make sure I'm home for lunch and dinner. In the evenings I try to sit outside with my family and learn wolof. That is when I'm most proactive because I always bring my notebook out with me. I try to explore the city when I can and have met some very helpful people. There is a man who owns a small boutique down the street who will sit for hours telling me about his theories on life and explaining the words I don't understand using the english he learned when he went to primary school in Gambia.

      After Thanksgiving my site mate Emily is going to help me find a tutor. I think that will help give my studies a direction because right now I'm haphazardly bumbling along with the language. As much as I hate to admit it, I do much better with a classroom setting than trying to hold myself to an individual studying regiment. I always find some excuse that allows me to procrastinate things a little longer. But when somebody is expecting something and giving me deadlines, I feel a sense of obligation to uphold my end.

So life here is going well and I'm enjoying the people and my time. Hopefully I can get some projects up and running soon enough. I'm chilling at the regional house in Kaolack for Thanksgiving!! I'm so excited to be baking and eating American food. Plus I carried a pumpkin (on my head in Kaffrine) from my garden in Kaffrine to the regional house. This included wandering around both cities and coordinating a ride at the garage with everyone looking bewildered at the toubab carrying the giant squash. Great memories I hope to keep with me for a long time. :) Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm grateful to have you all in my life and I'm grateful for this opportunity to experience a new culture and way of life. Hugs all around!!

Last weeks of training

Right now I am finishing up my last couple of weeks as a trainee. I have my final language test next Tuesday and the results of that will determine whether or not I will swear-in at the same time as my fellow stagieres. I'm not too worried about this. I reached the required level of intermediate mid at my last test, so as long as I don't do any worse than that, I will be fine. Yesterday I had my very first phone conversation completely in Wolof! I felt really proud of myself when I got off the phone and realized what I had done. Granted, it was with my LCF, so maybe it isn't quite as cool, but she is a native Wolof speaker so I'm counting it.

So to catch you up on what I have been up to the past few weeks: I have taken to wandering around the streets of Thies when I can rather than take a taxi to the market or to the restaurants. The training center is about a 30 minute walk from the main street in Thies where we do most of our shopping. It really isn't bad, but when I first tried to venture out on my own I had only a vague idea of which direction I was heading. It all turned out well in the end and I have since taken a different path to and from town each time. It keeps things exciting and helps me become more accustomed to the feel of the city. When I first arrived I was terrified of going anywhere by myself, especially if it meant wandering into the heart of the city. I think with time and language acquisition this has become less of an issue. It seems a little strange to me that my comfort zone has changed so much in such little time. But I am glad that I has. It means that I am able to take on more challenging situations. Such as presenting my garden on Saturday to the community in an open field day, completely in Wolof. That one will be interesting...

We had a counterpart workshop last week where a work partner or two from each person's site came to Thies for a 2 day seminar to learn about Peace Corps and what kind of work we will be doing as well as giving us time to get to know them and figure out how we can help each other over the next two years. It was a very enlightening experience. I met people from every region and heard so many different languages. I am fortunate though that I am learning Wolof because many of the sessions were given only in Wolof. I felt kinda bad for the people learning Pulaar, Serere, Mandinka or Jahanki because they didn't get things translated as often. Granted, a lot of the discussions used technical vocabulary that was well above my head, so I still didn't understand very much. But I recognized that the workshop was more for the counterparts and less for the trainees. So I did what I could and spoke the language as much as I was able. It was a bit chaotic in the beginning when I was on a Welcoming committee that was supposed to introduce new arrivals to the center and show them where they would be staying. There were different shifts of people doing this and I ended up helping out the late night crew, which meant that we didn't have anyone who was fluent there to help us when we couldn't find someone on the list or their room had been given to someone with the exact same name. (Btw, names in Senegal are reused a lot. Often you find the same name repeated even in a single family. So imagine a list of people from around Senegal and you apparently have 3 Fatamatou Ndiayes with only one listed on the sheet. That was fun.)

The day after we finished the counterpart workshop, we all loaded into the buses and headed to Dakar for the day. This was my first time in Dakar since we arrived bleary-eyed at 5am my first day here and loaded onto those same buses headed for Thies. It was really interesting to see Dakar in the daylight and to be able to wander around for a little bit. We didn't get to see all that much beyond the Peace Corps headquarters and some of the shops downtown, but it was still an interesting trip. And I finally saw the infamous African Renaissance statue that towers over Dakar. If you don't know about it, I suggest a quick google search.

The real highlight of last week was going to Popenguine. It is this lovely beach town near Mbour where we rented a beachhouse right on the ocean. Some people call it the MTV house because it is this gorgeous place right on beach that we then crammed 50+ people into for the night. It may have been a bit crazy at times... I ended up spending the majority of my time in the water hanging out with people. Some of you may be surprised by this because of my lack of desire to swim in the states. I'm not a good swimmer by any stretch of the imagination and I only recently learned how to tread water. But I still have a fantastic time splashing in the cool waves. It was certainly much warmer than the water in LA. To me, it more closely paralleled Tampa, Florida. This was also the first time I have done any night swimming in the ocean so that was exhilarating. When I first went out after dark there was some fog on the water and I was only with one other girl. It was terrifying but exhilarating. The longer I was out there, the less concern I felt. Also, more people came in and that always helps me feel safer. Granted, you can't always expect that because you are in a group, bad things won't happen. Actually, right between dinner and my evening dip in the water, somebody broke into one of the upstairs bedrooms and stole somebody's bag. The person climbed up the cement wall using a meter box as a foot hold, then put a board over the pointed barbs to hop onto the balcony and then came in through the open door. I know we were not as conscientious as we should have been, but to make matters worse, the one bag that the guy took before hearing someone come up the stairs and bolting back over the wall was the bag that held all of our transportation money totaling to 50 mille or approximately $120. While this may not seem like a lot to some, when you are given 1 mille each day to survive on, and you have already spent your entire week's allowance for this trip, it struck hard for many people. I felt really bad for the guy who had all of his stuff stolen, including his Ipod, camera, and glasses. But this is life and we will hopefully be more cautious about things like that in the future. And in my opinion, it didn't ruin my trip. I still had a fantastic time and immensely enjoyed falling asleep to and waking up to the sound of the waves crashing on the sand. (I also discovered some old military bunkers on the side of the cliff near the house that had been used to defend the coastline from attack by sea!)

I am now back at my site for a final week before the last language test and our swearing in ceremony on the 4^th, which will apparently be broadcast over national television! It is coming up so quickly! I am getting a traditional Senegalese outfit made for the ceremony and it should be ready by the end of the week! After the ceremony I will go back to my CBT site in order to celebrate Tabaski (the biggest holiday in Senegal) with my host family before going to my regional house and getting everything ready for my installation to my new home in Kaffrine on the 10^th.

In other news, for those who have asked about my struggles to use my right hand, it is coming along pretty well. Some days I surprise myself with how well I can manage a spoon during meals. I almost thought I was becoming competent until I tried to learn how to make Attaaya. You wouldn't think that making tea would be so difficult, but when you are pouring hot liquid from cup to cup in order to create foam in the glasses, this difficulty can be heightened when they tell you to switch hands and do it only using the right hand. Needless to say, I spilled tea everywhere and the guy teaching me took over to finish the round. Sigh. Can't get everything right the first time. :P

The next two years....

I now know where I am going to live for the next 2 years!!! I found out that the town of Kaffrine will be my new home starting in November! Last week I went there to visit the area and meet my new family. I have a wonderful site mate named Susan who is an Urban Ag volunteer as well. She is extending for a third year so I feel like I am getting an extra boost for getting started in the area. She is super knowledgeable and a lot of fun. I also have another site mate who is a SED (Small Enterprise development) volunteer named Emily. She has been there for about 1 year. Basically those people really make my site awesome and I'm looking forward to working and hanging out with them.

So a little about Kaffrine. It is known as the heart of the peanut basin. The streets are lined with peanut shells during a lot of the year. To find it on a map, locate Gambia and find where the border changes from a straight line to a bumpy curve. Kaffrine is almost directly north of that intersection. It is very hot there and can get upwards of 130 degrees Fahrenheit during the hot season. I'm a tad nervous about that, but I think I will probably try to visit cooler areas of Senegal during that time of year. The rainy season is just ending now, so it is slowly getting cooler as it moves into the “cool dry season” which should last until April or May I think. One of the trainers commented that they thought I could handle Kaffrine because I am from a desert. Hopefully they are right. There isn't a lot of topography there. It is basically flat with a few neem trees lining the streets for shade. There are about 30-40,000 people in the city but it feels more like a sprawling town. (Kinda similar to Cedar City in size and population actually.)

I will be living on the other side of town from my demo garden and the other volunteers so I will get some good exercise biking a few km to and from work everyday. I met my new family and received my new name, which I am stoked about! As of November I will be known as Arame Siila. My host dad is a school teacher at the local primary school and I will be working a lot with his classes on a school garden there and I think we are working on expanding that program to some of the other schools in the area. I will also be working with some women's groups as we help them establish some gardens in the city and teach them farming techniques. In my host family I have 3 little sisters and a little brother. I will be living in a small compound that holds my father's family as well as the families of his 2 brothers and their mother. I'm not quite sure how many people that entails, but I will let you know when I have a better idea of the dynamics. They all seemed really nice when I met them and I am really eager to start to get to know everyone.

Also during my visit we made quiche for dinner one night in Susan's room! She has this awesome little camping oven so we baked! I didn't think I would really get a chance to bake while I was here so I was extatic about this little treasure! The next morning I taught them how to make biscuits which made me incredibly happy. I hope to be able to occasionally go over and make delicious treats in it. This may seem silly, but those little things are what really make things manageable. I miss everyone at home a lot so it is nice when I can get a little taste of home as I eat a homemade biscuit or sip my favorite tea.

On the note of tea, I finally made my own tea at my CBT site!!! This morning when I got up I was able to tell my aunt that I only wanted hot water and then I steeped a bag of pomegranite green tea. It was delicious!! And it made my day that much better. I have a small stash of tea bags here so hopefully it can last through training. I actually have less than a month left in training, where only 12 days or so will be at my CBT site. I will be back at the training center on Saturday to take my second language exam and prepare for the counterpart workshop. More on that to come.