Merry Christimas and Happy New Year!

Well I didn't quite succeed on getting the blog caught up on everything before the holidays, but I got close. And 8 posts in one week is by far a new record so I didn't do too badly. I'll write some more posts about Tabaski and other things after New Year's, but in the mean time... I've added pictures of my family's Tabaski celebration to my Life of a PCV album if you'd like to check them out.

In the morning I'm headed to Dakar for a bit of an orphan's Christmas with some friends. It certainly won't be the same as being home for Christmas (which I'm trying not to think about because its too sad), but we're going to prepare delicious American food and hang out by the pool so it should be fun. We're also going to head up north to St. Louis to stay on the beach for a couple of days. It sounds like there will be a huge group of volunteers up there for New Year's, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. It will be nice to have a little American time to relax and hang out away from site.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Try not to get too cold over there with all of that lovely winter weather :)

P.S. 221.77.330.4845...feel free to call if you're bored on Christmas day (or whenever) and want to say hello ;)

Japonaise?

Being white and living in West Africa means having, “TOUBAB!!” screamed at you multiple times daily is simply a fact of life. Sometimes, like when its followed by, “Give me money! Give me your bike!”, it makes you want to scream. Other times, like when it’s a really adorable little kid jumping up and down, clearly very excited to see you, it can even make your day. But the point is, either you learn not to let it bother you or you’re not going to last very long around here.

Lately though, in my wanderings around Nioro, I have been noticing an interesting trend… In addition to my daily helpings of, “TOUBAB!” I have also been hearing a lot of, “JAPONAISE!” (Japonaise meaning Japanese in French) The first few times it happened I was sure there was no way this label was being directed at me. So I scanned the area around me, but the only other people in site were Senegalese. Thus, as it has continued to happen randomly over the past few weeks, I am forced to conclude that these cries of “JAPONAISE!” are indeed meant for me.

Most of the kids who yell this at me are rather little, so I just kind of chuckle to myself and try to teach them that my name is Amy. However, I kid you not, the other day a group of teenage girls walked passed me on their way home from school and yelled, “JAPONAISE!”

I was utterly dumbfounded. Why yes girls, I am Japanese. Tell me, what gave it away… the extremely pale white skin? The freckles? The red hair? All classically Asian characteristics to be sure. And to think I nearly won that “Who looks the most Irish competition” when I was little…

And that’s just one of the many ways that Senegal keeps daily life amusing!

Preparing for the Fête

After our early Thanksgiving in Kaolack, we all headed straight back to site in order to celebrate Tabaski with our families. Tabaski, also known as Eid al-Adha or “Festival of Sacrifice”, commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael (or Abraham and Issac according to Christianity) in obedience to God. As I’m sure most of you know, at the last minute God spared Ishmael and provided a ram to be sacrificed in his place. Every year, approximately two months and ten days after the end of Ramadan, Muslims around the world celebrate this event by slaughtering a sheep and sharing it with friends, family and the less fortunate.

This year, Tabaski fell on November 28. So when I returned home from Thanksgiving, preparations for the holiday were in full swing. Every year when Tabaski rolls around, everyone in Senegal who can possibly afford it (and many who can’t) prepare by buying a sheep to kill, getting their hair done (for the women), having new clothes made, etc. In the week leading up to Tabaski all of the tailors at the market in Nioro were working practically 24 hours a day in an effort to get the clothes done in time. Also, travel in the days before Tabaski is a complete nightmare as everyone is rushing home from the cities to their villages to celebrate with family.

Well in honor of this being my first Tabaski with my family, I decided to show my support by going all out on the preparations. First up, new clothes… I wasn’t about to plunk down 20,000 CFA to have another complet made, but I did buy some wax (a type of fabric that most closely resembles the stereotype of African dress) to get a dress made. Before heading up to Kaolack for Thanksgiving I went to the tailor to pick it up and ohhhh man. I looked like a clown. Sleeves puffed out like crazy, way too big for me…it was not good. Thankfully, the tailor didn’t give me a hard time when I came back with a laundry list of changes to be made. In the end it turned out alright, but I just don’t think white girls with red hair are really meant to wear head to toe African prints, haha.

Next up, hair braiding. I had my hair braided by a Senegalese woman once before when I was 15 and it hurt soooo badly. In spite of this painful memory, I decided to give it a try again because my family seemed really excited about it. So I sat down in front of my Yaay, gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. At first it barely hurt so I figured I must’ve toughened up since the age of 15 and this wasn’t going to be so bad. WRONG. The only reason it didn’t hurt at first is because my Yaay wasn’t used to my hair. Well let me assure you that by braid 3 or 4 she had “mastered it” and I was screwing my eyes shut in pain. And this was only the beginning…I still had well over ¾ of my head to go. It was too late to turn back though, so I sat there for the next hour or so trying not to let her see how much it felt like my scalp was being ripped off and slowly telling myself, “Ok, only three more to go. Two more. One more!” Woo, and I’m done! Not so fast, Elizabeth…

I thought I was done, but my Yaay, being a bit of a perfectionist, finished the last braid and then decided that she should redo the first FIVE because they weren’t tight enough. OW OW OW! Another twenty minutes later and I was finally free to get up and survey the damage. A – I think I lost about a ¼ of my hair in the process because it was absolutely everywhere. B – cornrows are not a good look for me. Shocking, I know. Oh well, everyone seemed genuinely excited that I got my hair braided so I suppose it was worth it. I’m not so sure I’ll be signing up for that again next year though.

And the final part of my transformation into a Senegalese woman for the big day…henna. My Aunt Dekhady did it for me on my fingers and toes. Unlike with Indian henna where they make intricate designs on the skin, in Senegal, its typically used more like nail polish. I didn’t leave it on quite as long as my Aunt told me to, but it’s a good thing I took it off when I did. Unsurprisingly, the vibrant orange shows up a whole lot more distinctly on my skin than on the Senegalese. So now, almost a month later, the color has finally started to fade from the skin around my fingers and toes but I’m still going to be sporting some major Illini pride on my nails for probably several months to come.

A Thief in the Night

[Allow me to preface this post briefly by saying that usually, I prefer to sleep on the roof at our regional house. One, there aren’t enough beds inside for everyone so when all of us are there (like at Thanksgiving) its necessary. And two, it is SO MUCH cooler up on the roof than inside that stuffy house at night.]

Well after a delicious dinner and lots of lazing around the night before, I woke up on what was actually Thanksgiving morning to the sound of people talking. Grumbling to myself when I looked at my watch and saw it was only 7 AM, I reluctantly pulled out my earplugs to figure out what all the fuss was about.

So why was everyone chattering away on the rough at such an early hour? Apparently, during the night, someone had gotten onto our roof and stolen Jen’s shoes and her cell phone. [Jen is a sustainable agriculture volunteer from my stage.] At first she thought it might just be another volunteer messing with her, but then she noticed that the barbed wire along the ledge was bent upwards in a tell tale fashion. It would seem that while we were sleeping, a child crept across the rooftop of the house next to us, slid under the barbed wire and made off with Jen’s things, without a single one of the 10 or so of us who were up there noticing.

Well the whole time they are discussing this, I’m laying there gathering my things up and thinking to myself, “Man, poor Jen…that really blows.” It is of course at this point that I crawl out of my mosquito net and realize that my shoes are not where I left them. After a brief check of the area around my mattress it becomes clear…the little jerk made off with my shoes too!

It was also at this point that I remember feeling something grab at my feet during the night. In retrospect, it was probably the little kid accidentally hitting me as he snatched my shoes. Too bad I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Though on the plus side, it might have been my moving around that scared the kid off because he/she didn’t grab any of the shoes, phones, etc. belonging to people who were sleeping further away from the wall. Alas, it was too late for me to save my nice Teva flip-flops (or Jen’s even more expensive Chaco’s), wah wah.

And so, after buying a pair of flip-flops at the boutique, Jen and I trekked off to the local gendarme’s office. I wasn’t particularly inclined to bother with filing a report as I knew there was no way I was getting my shoes back, but Etienne (PC Senegal’s Safety and Security guru) insisted. So we explained to the gendarme that someone had stolen our shoes and Jen’s cell phone. He then of course asked us what kind of shoes they were, and when we explained that they were both flip-flops he looked at us like we’d lost our minds. You see the flip-flops that the Senegalese know (and that I was now wearing) cost about 500 CFA, or roughly $1. Why on earth were we bothering to make a report over losing something that cost only 500 CFA…heck, they charged me (illegally) even more than that just to file the report! So we explained to him that these were American flip-flops. “Dafa cher!” (They are expensive!)

Well after that (and probably realizing we weren’t going to go away until we got the paperwork we wanted), they took us seriously and we started to get somewhere. An hour and a half later we finally had what we needed to send to Etienne and we headed back to the house.

So yep, while all of you back in America spent your Thanksgiving morning’s preparing food or watching the parade, I spent mine at the police station. I suppose I can just add that to my list of Thanksgiving firsts this year…first one not in America, first one spent away from my family, first (and hopefully last!) spent at the gendarmerie. Ah, memories…

On the plus side though, the day certainly improved from there; and I got to talk with most of my extended family back in the States that evening!

[Also, in case you’re worried now…we’ve reinforced the barbed wire on the roof so hopefully people can’t sneak onto it anymore. And I haven’t slept on the roof since, though I’m not sure I can guarantee not to do it when the hot season comes.]

Happy Thanksgiving!

As Thanksgiving rolled around, I was doing my best to keep my expectations low and not think about it too much. After all, this year there wouldn’t be any Macy’s Parade to watch with my sisters. No chocolate covered turkeys from Aunt Maribeth or listening to my Dad try to convince my Mom that this year we really should deep-fry a turducken. And definitely no trying to rouse myself out of bed at 6 AM on a cold Wisconsin morning to go shopping with Aunt Chris on Black Friday. (Well I’ve never actually done that, but I always tell myself I’m going to this year, haha) However, despite missing out on these and most of my other Thanksgiving traditions, I was pleasantly surprised that it still felt like the real deal.

This year, Thanksgiving fell a couple of days before a huge Muslim holiday called Tabaski (which I will write plenty more about later). So, to make it easier for everyone to get back to site on time to celebrate Tabaski with their families, we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at our regional house a day early (on the 25^th). I left site and headed up to Kaolack a few days beforehand to relax and hang out with all of the other volunteers. It was a nice opportunity for everyone to take a mini-vacation from life at site; and to find out how the first month on our own went for everyone in my stage.

I wish I could say I had a hand in preparing our Thanksgiving dinner, but not being the most talented person in the kitchen, my many offers to help were kindly decline. Plus, some of the people in our region are truly excellent cooks and they had everything well in hand. So I did a few dishes, collected the money (accountant, ha) and did my best to stay out of their way. And major kudos to the chefs because it was honestly one of the best Thanksgiving dinners I’ve ever had. (In no doubt partially do to the fact that anything resembling American food is like the best thing that’s ever happened to me these days)

All told, our delicious Thanksgiving feast for about 22 people cost 3,200 CFA per person. Which is roughly the equivalent of $7. And this is what that lovely price got us (and everything was made from scratch!):

• 3 turkeys (2 were grilled/roasted and 1 deep fried)
• Garlic mashed potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Cranberries (courtesy of a care package from someone’s family in the States)
• Millet bread

- This was probably the biggest hit of the whole meal. Kenny, our “restaurant manager” extraordinaire, had wanted to make cornbread, but wasn’t able to find any cornmeal at the market. So he substituted millet and tweaked the recipe a little…DELICIOUS!

• Vegetable soup
• Dinner rolls
• Macaroni and cheese
• Crudite platter

- And let me tell you how rare a treat it is to encounter a vegetable in this country that hasn’t been boiled for upwards of two hours, minimum

• Pineapple upside down cake
• Pumpkin loaf
• Apple crisp
• Peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting
• Snickerdoodles

And I’m probably forgetting a few things, but suffice it to say that it was amazingly tasty and, in time honored Thanksgiving tradition, I ate until I couldn’t possible eat anymore. Who would’ve thought you could find all of that delicious food in Senegal?!

Mouse Invasion

Let me just preface this post by saying that I’m not a person who deals with rodents well. Or bugs. Or really anything that crawls around (babies excluded). Which of course creates a problem given that I live in Africa and bugs, rodents, etc. are unavoidable. Most of the time I choose to deal with this problem by living in a land of denial and pretending like there’s no way mice could get into my room. Well of course, once again, Senegal felt the need to go and prove me wrong…

On about day three of my brush with Dengue Fever (before I went up to Dakar), I was crawling into bed for the night when I heard a tell tale scurrying sound. I looked down just in time to see a mouse run across the floor in front of my bathroom and sneak under my bed. Now, bearing in mind that I was running a 102° fever and was already safely inside my mosquito net for the night, I thought to myself, “Ok, Elizabeth…its just a little mouse. It’s not going to hurt you. And there’s nothing you can do about it so just pretend you didn’t see it and go to bed.” Well, try as I might, that logic lasted all of five seconds before I crawled back out of bed and went to fetch my Dad.

So I walked into our sitting room where my Dad was watching the news and informed him that I saw a mouse in my room. I’m sure he was thinking something along the lines of, “So what?” but he indulged me and we went to try and get it out. Word spread to the rest of the family pretty quickly and soon everyone was in my room, moving all the furniture away from the walls and armed with broomsticks, etc. I really wish I had taken a picture of the situation because it was quite comical.

Twenty minutes later we still hadn’t seen a glimpse of the mouse again and I was starting to become concerned that I’d just hallucinated it in my feverish state. Then we moved the refrigerator and the little bugger came scurrying out and dove under the bed again. Of course being the most easily startled person in the entire world, I screamed. So while I felt mildly vindicated that the mouse was not in fact a figment of my imagination, mostly I was now super embarrassed. Half of the family was bent over clutching their sides they were laughing so hard and I was ordered out of the room.

I spent another ten minutes or so anxiously hovering outside my door while my family continued the search. It wasn’t looking like they were going to ever succeed in killing it/chasing it out of the room when all of a sudden it darted out from behind a bookshelf and headed straight for me. More screaming. More tears of laughter from the family. But it had at least left my room and was now hiding under my brother’s bed. The whole family then moved into the other room to try and roust the mouse from there while I ran to my door and shut it immediately in case the stupid rodent should try to get back in my room.

I had very much hoped that this would be a one-time occurrence, but no luck. And I have to say, the family wasn’t quite as amused the second time we had a “let’s get the mouse out of Amy’s room” party. So I’ve had to resort to putting out poison. I’m not really sure how I feel about poison/traps though. I don’t like live mice being in my room, but the thought of having to deal with dead ones is a bit too much for me. I suppose that’s what having a little brother is for though, right?

I am also not taking any chances of having mice get into my stuff anymore. All of my food and dishes are stored in either my trunk or sealed buckets. I keep all of my undergarments in a plastic bag. (The thought of a mouse scurrying around on my underwear is really more than I can handle). And I’ve even resorted to barricading the bookshelf that holds my clothes on a nightly basis. It’s a bit of a hassle, but I’m too cheap to buy a wardrobe with doors (which aren’t fool proof anyway) and it’s worth it for the piece of mind. So take that mice, you’re not going to get the best of me!

Dengue Fever

The first two and a half weeks at site after install went pretty well…meeting potential work partners in the community, getting my room organized, and being shown around the area by my family. Right around the end of the first week of November, Ariana and I decided to make a brief trip up to Kaolack to check for mail and eat some American food. All went smoothly with our first trip away from site, but while I was there I was talking to one of the other volunteers and I mentioned something about how, “Aside from getting a bad cold, I really haven’t been sick at all.” BIG MISTAKE.

Of course after making that stupid comment, irony just had to step in and prove me wrong. Immediately after returning to Nioro that Friday night, I developed a fever and spent the rest of the weekend in bed as it got progressively higher and higher. In addition to the fever, I had a horrible cough and zero appetite; but what really made this brush with strange African diseases fun was the fact that it was accompanied by insomnia. I really don’t know if there’s anything more annoying than feeling like crap and not even being able to sleep through it.

By Monday morning, having not slept more than a few hours in three nights and with my fever now up to almost 103°, I figured it was time to give the medical office a call. After looking through our medical handbook over the weekend, I was rather convinced that I’d forgotten to take my prophylaxis at some point and landed myself with malaria. While the doctor was confident in ruling out malaria (phew!), she did seem to think that it might be Dengue Fever. I’ll leave you all to wikipedia it and figure out exactly what Dengue is (because I couldn’t explain it well enough anyway), but suffice it to say its not something to mess around with. So I was told to pack up and head back to Kaolack to get some rest and because it’d be easier for PC to come get me there if the need arose. (Yeah, at this point I was starting to get a little freaked out.)

[Side note: why didn’t the doctor think I could just get some rest at site? Well, let’s just say, that, as much as I love my family, they are Senegalese and so not particularly inclined to leave me alone when I say I’m not feeling well. They were certainly concerned and tried to be helpful. However, they also didn’t really understand why I couldn’t eat huge helpings of rice. And they kept insisting that my 103° fever was simply my body adjusting to the climate. Right, I’m sure that was the problem.]

Anyway, after one night in our over crowded regional house not sleeping due to a combo of insomnia and getting locked out of the room with the fever-reducing medicines, I felt like I was about to LOSE IT. I really do try my best to keep a positive outlook here, but I will challenge anyone to be able to do that after running a fever for 4 straight days on no sleep. So I called up Dr. Ararat again and, given that the fever still wasn’t going away, I headed up to Dakar to stay in the med hut.

By the time I got to Dakar on Tuesday afternoon (thankfully without incident) I was so out of it that it took me an hour of wandering around the Peace Corps office in a daze before it dawned on me that I should go see the doctor. What can I say? My brain was totally fried. Anyway, to make a long story short…she ran some blood tests and I spent the rest of the week in the med hut popping Tylenol to keep the fever down. On the plus side, the med hut is air-conditioned and there’s WiFi and a phone on which you can make free phone calls to America. Plus, it is gloriously quiet and I was finally able to get some sleep and therefore regain my ability to think coherently. On the down side, my fever ended up lasting over a week. I did finally kick the fever though and headed back to Nioro. There was no definitive conclusion from Dr. Ararat as to what I contracted, but I certainly hope I never get it again!

So there you have it, the story of my first major brush with disease in Africa. I figured I’d write a post about it not in an effort to worry anyone back home, but simply because getting sick is a part of our life here. My immune system is in no way used to the living conditions/climate nor the general lack of stellar hygiene that is the norm around here. Any volunteer who actually makes it through two years in Senegal without having some strange virus, skin infection, intestinal problem, etc. is probably just really freaking lucky. That being said, now that I’ve had my go with it, I very much hope to avoid getting sick again.

[Of course I write this having just recovered from another week spent in and out of bed with some strange flu-like virus, so no such luck. Sigh. Oh Africa…]

The People of Nioro

I figured you all might like a brief introduction to my family here in Senegal; so here it is…samay waa ker (“the people of my house” in Wolof):

• Aliou Mane – my Dad. He’s 53 and a former member of the Senegalese national handball team (fancy, I know). Now he works at the Pharmacie Nioro du Rip, which I have taken to be a good omen since my own wonderful Mom back in the States is a pharmacist :)
• Seynabou Ba – my Mom. She’s 35 and a teacher at one of the local primary schools. She’s also probably my favorite person in Nioro thus far and definitely the person that I talk to the most.
• Aminata Mane – my little sister, who’s 11. We’re both named after my Dad’s older sister who lives in Dakar. She’s shy and quiet, but very sweet. She also just started learning English in school this year. I haven’t gotten her to speak much of it yet, but I’m working on it.
• Douda Mane – my little brother, who will be 7 in January. He’s pretty adorable and absolutely can’t sit still to save his life. I wish I could see him when he’s at school because it baffles me that he can pull off sitting that long, haha.

That’s it for my parents and their children, but we also have two of my Yaay’s (Yaay = mom in Wolof) sister’s daughters who live with us and are also my “sisters.”

• Defatou Dioup – she’s 17 and a student at the local high school.
• Awa Dioup – she’s 15 and also a student at the high school. Both she and my Yaay get a particularly good laugh out of the things I do on a daily basis. I have literally had them laughing to the point of tears over such totally hilarious things as the fact that many of the things in my room are green and I don’t like bugs. (They are very easily amused by almost anything I do, haha)

And that’s all of the people who live at my house. It’s a very VERY small household by Senegalese standards, but that suits me. I think I might lose my mind if I’d been put in one of those compounds that house like 40 people, haha.

Other people I see a lot of in Nioro include:

• Aliou Fall – my counterpart who is teaches some business classes locally and is also the secretary at the cultural center
• Mr. Fofana – my supervisor who works for the Development Communitaire. He’s also one of my dad’s best friends so he’s around the house a lot.
• Fatou Ly – my Wolof instructor. She’s married to my counterpart’s older brother.
• Aissatou Ba – my maternal grandmother. I visit her with my Yaay a fair bit, but mostly I put her on here because it gives an opportunity to tell the story of my Yaay’s family. My maternal grandfather was the chief of the whole town and had 4 wives and somewhere upwards of 25 children between them. YEAH. Aissatou is the youngest and the last surviving of his four wives. She lives in one of those huge 40 person compounds across town.

So that’s a brief introduction to the people I spend most of my time with at site. Ba beneen!

Home for the Next Two Years

Hi everyone, sorry that its been so long since I updated…its been a busy few weeks, plus I’ve been battling some weird virus, so I got a little behind. But I’ve promised myself that I’ll get everyone caught up before Christmas, so here goes…Install (aka moving to my permanent site), October 21^st:

Bright and early that morning, myself, Ariana and Danielle (who are the two volunteers from my stage closest to me) gathered up all of our stuff at the regional house in Kaolack and piled it into a sept place. Then the three of us hopped into one of the lovely air-conditioned Peace Corps vehicles for the hour long trip down to Nioro.

As part of the official “install” process, a Peace Corps representative takes everyone around to meet the key government players in their new communities. So our first stop was the Prefet’s office. The Prefet is the person who oversees government operations in a department, which is basically the French equivalent of a county. Nioro is the seat of our department (and by far the largest town) so all of the government offices are located here. After the Prefet’s office, we made our rounds of the local government agencies we’ll be working with. First, we visited the local agricultural agency for Danielle (who is a sustainable agriculture volunteer). Then, we stopped at the agroforestry agency for Ariana (who is an agroforestry volunteer). Finally, we headed over to the Development Communitaire, which is the government agency that I technically work under. All in all, these meetings were about as exciting as you would suspect. Just a lot of, “Welcome to Nioro” and “We’re always open if you need anything.” type stuff.

With the formalities out of the way, it was time for Peace Corps to drop me off at my house. Basically, we pulled up, unloaded all of my stuff, and then the car took off to take Ari to her village. All of this happened in the span of about 10 minutes…so not much in the way of easing into being left alone, haha. Danielle hung around at my house for a little while and had lunch with us because the Peace Corps’ car couldn’t fit her stuff and Ari’s at the same time. But before long they were back so we loaded her stuff on the car and they headed out again. And I was alone. The only Toubab in a town of over 20,000 people.

Its hard to explain exactly how this whole experience felt, but I think it would be best likened to being dropped off at college for the first time: kinda terrifying, a little exciting (because I could unpack for the first time since August!) and mostly…totally surreal. Add to that the fact that unlike when I arrived at U of I, communicating with all of these new people in English wasn’t even an option. French or Wolof only. Overwhelming? Yeah, to put it mildly.

PLUS, as if the day in and off itself wasn’t enough to handle, my supervisor and my new mom both threw me some curve balls. First of all, my supervisor informed me when we were visiting his office that he was hosting a meeting with the heads of local women’s groups that night and wanted we to attend. Talk about jumping in with both feet (and completely ignoring the fact that during counterpart workshop we had discussed giving me a few days to get settled before doing stuff like that). Is he expecting me to be able to teach these women something today? In Wolof? These questions and many others raced through my head until I was thoroughly freaked out. However, there was nothing for it but to go and see what the deal was, so I showed up at the appointed time and hoped for the best. Thankfully, all I had to do was introduce myself and then sat to the side looking like I understood what was going on (which, since the entire meeting was conducted in Wolof, I most definitely did not).

The other curve ball came curtsy of my mom who, upon learning that I had only a very limited understanding of Wolof, decided that the best way for me to pick it up would be to communicate with me in Wolof and Wolof only. In retrospect, I realize she was doing this in an effort to be helpful and speed up my comprehension, but on that particular day…it almost brought me to tears. After a while she seemed to sense that she was both overwhelming me and getting nowhere fast so she started using French, but it certainly added to the stress of the day.

By 8 PM I was thoroughly exhausted and decided it was time to go into my room, shut the door and try to unwind a little before bed. All in all, it was quite a day, but I think I will like it here. My mom intimidated me a little at first with her insistence on using Wolof only, but I know she meant well and I like my family a lot. Plus, one of the things she said to me that I did understand was, “You are my child and we are your family.” It was certainly a comforting sentiment after a crazy day.

P.S. I have a new Senegalese name…Aminata Mane. I just go by Amy though, which is not pronounced like the American name, but like the French word for friend, “ami.” (It is also technically supposed to be spelled Ami, but I decided I preferred it with a “y”, haha) And my last name is pronounced like the painter, Manet.

No More Hand Holding

After Swear-In it became immediately clear that as far as Peace Corps is concerned, we’re big kids now. What does this mean? Basically they got us back to Thies that night and gave us each enough money to get to our regional capitals, and that was it. We spent the next two nights at the center in Thies, but the party was over. No more meals cooked for us, no one coming in to restock the toilet paper, etc. Time to start taking care of ourselves again.

Over the course of the weekend, everyone except the new volunteers in the Dakar/Thies regions headed out to their regional houses. From the regional house (or the training center in the case of the Dakar/Thies people), PC personnel would pick everyone up one by one, and take them to their site. So Sunday morning, myself and the 20 other new volunteers in the Kaolack/Fatick/Kaffrine regions packed all of our stuff onto a bunch of sept places (the station wagon type transportation) and headed off to Kaolack. Getting to Kaolack was, as always, a bit of an adventure. I swear, sometimes I truly forget that I live in the developing world, but traveling always serves as a reminder. For one, we must’ve been pulled over by the gendarmes at least 3 or 4 times. Nothing too exciting, but they always seem to feel the need to stop you and have a look when they see a bunch of Toubabs zooming by. Plus, there are so many potholes on the road from Thies to Kaolack that the drive there can best be likened to a real-life game of Mario Kart. Cars swerving all over the road, some choosing to abandon it entirely and drive through the grass, even one slightly-too-close-for-comfort near collision with oncoming traffic. Always an adventure!

But we all made it to the regional house in one piece. My install date was Wednesday, October 21^st, so I spent the next several days wandering around the city, slowly buying all the things I’d need to take to site with me. So what exactly does a PCV moving to site for the first time need? Voila, my shopping list:

• 2 large washing basins for laundry – I may have a flushing toilet and a shower now, but I definitely won’t be seeing a washing machine again until I get back to America. Sigh.
• Side note: in case you were wondering, laundry and mysterious bleach stains do continue to be the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. I avoid bleach near my clothes like it’s the plague and yet these stains continue to appear. I believe at last count, I am down 7 shirts and one of my favorite skirts. EIGHT articles of clothing! I swear, laundry is a constant test to my resolve to stay here. I’m going to have to have a tie-dye party to mask the stains because I really don’t have enough clothes without all those shirts. Which means I’ll be spending the next two years wearing more tie-dye than people in the 60s. But I digress…
• Laundry clips for hanging things out to dry – no washing machine means there are definitely no dryers. But really, the sun dries things faster anyway
• 2 buckets with lids for storing food and other things that I don’t want mice getting into
• 1 plastic cup for taking bucket baths – when the electricity goes out for an extended period of time (which it often does) so does the running water. Thus, sometimes showering is not an option. Wah wah.
• Gas tank with a burner – stoves/ovens are also not something you see frequently
• Bowls/plates/silverware for those occasions when I feel ambitious enough to use said gas tank to cook for myself
• Broom/dustpan
• FAN!!!! – I have been dreaming about having one of these for the past two months. SO AMAZING!
• Hand washing station – sinks aren’t a common bathroom feature here, so they have these things instead. It’s basically a teapot that sits on top of a large covered bowl. The cover has holes in it, so you pour the water from the teapot over the bowl to wash your hands and then empty the bowl periodically.
• Power strip – its incredibly rare to find a room that has more than one electrical outlet
• 2 trunks – 1 for locking stuff up at site, 1 for locking stuff up at the regional house
• Toilet paper – some of my fellow PCVs claim that I’m not “integrating enough” by continuing to use toilet paper. I however am a firm believer that just because the Senegalese don’t use TP doesn’t mean I can’t. If that limits my integration…so be it. I’m far too much of a germ-a-phobe to do without.
• Side note 2: this tendency not to use TP is one of the reasons why no one uses their left hand to interact with others in Senegal. Think about it for a minute, and I’m sure you’ll figure out why…
• Voltage regulator – pricey, but I’d very much like to avoid my computer getting fried by one of the many, many power surges around here
• Thin foam mattress – because I was too cheap to spring for the fancy thick one
• Gifts for my new family

So in case you were wondering, there you have it…everything (or at least I hope since that took up most of my settling-in allowance) one could need for setting up a home in Senegal. All of this stuff was bought at the market in Kaolack (which, fun fact, is the largest covered market in Africa!). And with the help of some PCVs who’ve been in country for a while and my own bargaining skills, I think I managed not to get ripped off too much on anything. Hurrah!

Next time: moving to Nioro!

My "Commencement" Speech

As much as it embarrasses me to post this, some people requested so here it is…my speech from our swearing-in ceremony. Don’t worry, I translated it into English for all the non-Francophones out there. I swear it sounds better in French (since that’s how I wrote it originally), so don’t be too harsh in judging it!

Mesdames, Mesdemoiselles et Monsieurs…

Hello, I hope that you are all well. My name is Elizabeth Corkery, but here in Senegal, my name is Adama Barro. I am a small enterprise development volunteer and I will be living in Nioro for the next two years. To start, I’d like to speak to you about our stage…

We are fifty-two Americans who came to Senegal for a lot of different reasons, but all with the hope of helping the Senegalese. When we arrived in Dakar in August, we were like children. No one could speak the local languages or even perform simple tasks like washing our own laundry. So, we spent the last nine weeks in eleven villages at cities near Thies, learning the languages, the culture, technical skills and, in general, how to take care of ourselves in this new culture.

I, for example, lived in Tassete with the Barro family. With my fellow trainees, I took French classes and, towards the end of stage, we learned Wolof as well. Also, we became true members of our families and our community.

I think that all the trainees share the opinion that the last few weeks have been difficult. We made lots of mistakes in the languages and the culture; and each trainee destroyed at least one article of clothing while trying to do his or her laundry.

However, with the help of our families and our Peace Corps trainers, we survived. At present, there are people among us who can speak French, Wolof, Mandinka, Serere and even three varieties of Pulaar. Also, we have a better understanding of Senegalese culture and everyday life here.

At the beginning of next week, we will leave for villages and cities all over Senegal. Even though we are scared, I know that after having completed training, we are ready to stand on our own two feet.

So, on behalf of our stage, I would like to say thank you to our families and our communities for teaching us and for putting up with all of our faux-pas and all of the bizarre things that we did. Also, thank you to Peace Corps staff for their support and their patience throughout our training. Without the help of all of these people, we could not be good volunteers.

We are all very excited to go to our sites and I know that, with the continued support of the Senegalese, we will spend two productive and prosperous years here.

So, long life to the collaboration between Senegal and the Peace Corps…

And thank you for your attention.

It's Official!

Sorry for the extended absence everyone. Procrastinating is one of my most well exercised talents, which I’m sure all of you know. So really…this post about Swear-In may be a month late, but for me, that’s practically on time. Enjoy!

[Also, for those who might not know…Swear-In refers to the ceremony that marks the end of training and the transition from PCT to Peace Corps Volunteer.]

Swear-In was October 16^th (exactly two months and three days after our arrival in country!) at the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Senegal. So that morning we all woke-up early and decked out in our Senegalese finest for the big day. Then we piled into a couple of vans and fell in behind our police escorts (I know, we’re a big deal…) for the trip from Thies to Dakar.

Miracle of miracles, we managed to arrive early. So we sat around and chatted for a bit while assorted Peace Corps and U.S. Embassy staff and Senegalese dignitaries gradually streamed in. Once everyone had arrived and was seated, the ceremony got under way.

The ceremony was more or less exactly what you would expect from such a government affair. It started with speeches from our Training Director, Demba Sidibe, the Director of Peace Corps Senegal, Chris Hedrick, and U.S. Ambassador Marcia Bernicat. Then the Ambassador had us all stand up and swear our oath. I wish I could tell you I remember exactly what the oath involved, but frankly it escapes me at the moment. Basically we swore to uphold the ideals of the Peace Corps and the U.S. Government, etc. I swear I was paying attention, but I was also rather distracted with worrying about screwing up my speech or tripping over my pagne on the way to the podium. [Pagne’s are traditional wrap skirts and they are deceptively hard to walk in. Especially for a klutz like yours truly.]

After oath, came the volunteer speeches. Our language trainers selected four people from our stage to write and give speeches in the local languages during the ceremony. Lucky lucky me (because we all know how much I adore speaking in public), I was selected to give the French speech. But first up was Shannon, who gave a speech in Mandinka. I couldn’t understand a single word she said, but it is a very beautiful sounding language. Then KC gave her speech in Puallafuta, which is a dialect of Pulaar spoken in Kedogou, a region in the Southeast of the country. After KC, it was my turn to give my French speech…

To say I was nervous would probably be the understatement of the century. One, I’ve never been a fan of public speaking. And two, it was bad enough that I had to give the speech in front of the 150 people at the ceremony, but the week before (and of course after I’d already agreed to do it) I learned that the ceremony, my speech included, was going to be broadcast across the country. YIKES! However, I made it to the podium without falling and overall, I think the speech went quite well. My hands were shaking like leafs, but I was able to hide them behind the podium. Plus, years of theater and being forced to give presentations in business classes taught me how to keep my voice steady even when the rest of my body is shaking from nerves. I even got a few laughs from my jokes about us Toubabs not knowing how to do our laundry by hand or basically take care of ourselves here, haha. So I consider it to have been a successful endeavor.

Following my speech, Byron gave the last PCV speech in Wolof. Then the Secretary General to the President gave a speech; and the ceremony concluded with the APCDs (Associate Peace Corps Director) for Agriculture and SED giving out our new PCV ID’s and letters of partnership with government agencies. And that was pretty much it for the exciting swearing-in ceremony.

After the ceremony, there were drinks (non-alcoholic, of course…95% Muslim country after all) and food out in the backyard. Unfortunately, I was way laid from my attempted assault on the mini-hamburgers (don’t judge…you’d miss them terribly too) by someone from a Finish newspaper doing an article on the Peace Corps. I’m not entirely sure why the only non-Senegalese or American press person there was from Finland of all places, but in an effort to be a good new PCV I answered his questions. Unsurprisingly I was asked if the fact that the economy is so bad right now motivated my decision to join the Peace Corps. The number of people applying to join the PC has gone up considerably over the past year so I understand why everyone always asks that question. Nevertheless, I’m happy that my answer to that question is, “No, I in fact gave up a job to do Peace Corps.” I think anyone deciding to join PC, regardless of their reasons, is a good thing; but I do like to remind reporters that the state of the job market is not the reason that the majority of people decide to become a volunteer.

Anyway, that was a tangent…but after I finished talking to the Fin, I again tried to make my way over the food. No such luck. I noticed that the Press Director for Peace Corps was waving in my direction trying to get someone to come over, but I just assumed she was waving at the group of LCFs standing behind me. Not so much. It took me several minutes of awkward, “Wait, are you talking to me?!” type gestures to realize that it was me she wanted to come over. Next thing I know I’m standing in front of a news camera being interviewed in French. I had no idea that they’d want me to do that, so I was a little flustered, but I think for the most part it went well.

After my brief, but shining moments in the press (HA) were over, I got down to taking lots of group photos. Then all of us newly minted PCVs went over to the Atlantic Club for some relaxing by the pool before we headed back to Thies. That evening we also threw ourselves a “Hurrah, we made it!” party at the local speak easy. (Otherwise known as the home of the Catholic guy who has a bar in his courtyard, haha). All but one person from our stage came to the party, which was great. It was nice to have one last night to relax and hang out with everyone before we scattered across the country. All in all, it was a great day and I couldn’t be happier that training is over!!

More Pictures!!

I've got some free time near the internet this weekend so more blog posts to come soon, but in the meantime...I've updated my pictures! So if you care to check them out, here are the links again.

For pictures of our end of PST celebration and Swear-In, click here: Adventures During PST

and for pics of what my new home in Nioro looks like, click here: Life of a PCV

ba beneen!

Later Tassete…Its Been Real

It’s been two months already? Really? And now they expect us to go off on our own and survive without anyone to hold our hands?? Sounds crazy, but its true…pre-service training is officially at an end!

After my birthday we had one last day of class and then it was time for the dreaded final language test. In order to be sworn-in as an official volunteer, we all had to reach the level of Intermediate-Mid in our languages. Since I had already met and surpassed that level in French, I had hoped that I could just start learning Wolof without having to reach some specific level to swear-in. False. Those of us who transitioned from French to Wolof had the lucky distinction of needing to test at a certain level in two different languages. So our last day in Tassete, Jackie and I had a language test in Wolof and we needed to reach Novice-Mid.

Now to put it into perspective…some of the people who learned Wolof from the start of training were at the Novice-Mid level during the second language test. Which was at the 4-week mark in training. We had to get that level after 6 days. Yeah…talk about pressure. While I’m sure I would have benefited from another week of formal instruction in Wolof, I did NOT want to be held back and have to stay in Tassete instead of going to install (aka move to my permanent site).

The boys did their French interviews first and then it was my turn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my biggest problem with Wolof right now is being quick on the uptake when someone asks me a question. So right off the bat, Sakhir asked me something like, “What did you do yesterday?” Totally blanked. Took me at least 30 seconds to remember that “demb” means yesterday in Wolof. Bad news Bears. The interview did go uphill from there, but when I finished I was pretty seriously worried that Novice-Mid wasn’t going to happen.

After the fun interview, I practiced my speech for swear-in (which I’d finally gotten around to writing the night before) with Sakhir and my classmates. They seemed to think it was pretty good and I got a few laughs, which is what I was hoping for. So here’s hoping it goes over well with everyone else. Then it was time to finish packing up my room, have one last lunch with my family and say our goodbyes…

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been living with this family since AUGUST already. For most of training it felt like time was crawling by, but looking back now…I feel like I stepped off the plane yesterday. And yet the fact that I just finished grad school in May totally blows my mind. College seriously feels like another lifetime.

I’m looking forward to getting to Nioro and finally being able to unpack my suitcases and feel settled. But at the same time, I’m going to miss Tassete. I was talking with Jackie the other night and she mentioned something about how our lives will never again be as simple as they were in Tassete, and its true. It will be nice to have a shower again and access to the Internet and all those luxuries. However, there is definitely something to be said about living, even for a small amount of time, without all of those things. Frankly, it’s a lot less stressful and you really do appreciate the simple things like rain and the moon. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but seriously, its true…we all noticed that even after the first 5 days in village. So while I wouldn’t want to do it forever, I will miss the steady pace and the routine of life in a village.

[Oh and spoiler alert: I did pass my Wolof exam…Novice-High! So yay…there is officially nothing left between me and becoming a full-fledged PCV!]

A Thoroughly African Birthday

Well if somebody had asked me two years ago what I’d be doing on my 24^th birthday, I’m pretty sure living in Senegal wouldn’t have been anywhere on my list of possibilities. And yet my birthday has come and gone, and that’s exactly what happened. So here’s how my birthday, Africa-style, went…

We still had to have language class (even though I swear the schedule said that the whole day was free), but at least Jackie and I played the “but it’s my birthday!” card on Sakhir and got ourselves the late morning session. I had hoped to use that extra time to sleep in, but tin roofs heat up pretty quickly around here and by 8 AM it was getting a little too hot in my room to sleep. So I got up and set about getting ready for the day. Then Jackie came over and brought me a birthday card and some Biskrems (which are a delicious shortbread type cookie with chocolate filling that we are all addicted to) as a present. As evidenced by the wish list I made on the side of the blog, food is very high on my list of “Awesome Things to Receive” these days, so it was a pretty great gift.

Then it was time for Wolof class. During class Senegal said “Happy Birthday!” to me in a way only it can… And by that I mean, we were having class under the big tree at my house and I got pooped on not once, but TWICE by birds. Thanks, Senegal!

Mostly this was funny because the first time it landed on my arm, which is easy to clean off, and the second time it only got my notes. It would have been an entirely different story if it had landed on my freshly washed hair. (You grow to appreciate the effort that goes into washing your hair more when you are trying to do it out of a bucket. Trust me.) Wanting to avoid how angry I’d become if it happened a third time and did land in my hair, this finally prompted me to break out “the hat.” I call it “the hat” because I hadn’t yet worn it in country, due mostly to the fact that it absolutely guarantees people laughing at me. Why? Because while the huge floppy brim and UVB-proof material make it great for protecting one from the sun, it tends to look a little out of place here. Also, buying the hat in pink was, in retrospect, a bit of an error in judgment on my part. Nevertheless, I decided that compared with bird poop in my hair on my birthday, it was the lesser of two evils; and so I broke it out…much to the amusement of Jackie, Sakhir and my family.

Thankfully, I made it through the rest of class without any bird issues and we had the rest of the day free. I wanted to go into Thies and have some American food so we made plans to meet a few people from other training villages and headed out. Which is another way in which it was a thoroughly African birthday…10 people crammed into a car roughly the size of a circa-1992 Dodge Caravan on the way to Thies. Fun times, as always. But we made it in one piece so no worries.

We met everyone for lunch at a restaurant called “Big Faim,” and pretty much proceeded to wile away the rest of the afternoon eating too much, using the free wireless, enjoying the A/C and catching up on all the latest PC Senegal news. Definitely not as exciting as birthdays I’ve had in past years, but it was fun and I really appreciated the fact that people endured the sept-place ride to Thies to hang out.

After exhausting nearly 5 hours sitting around the restaurant (and making yet another failed attempt at finding handheld fans called ubukais at the market), we headed back to Tassete for dinner. When we got back it was time for another thoroughly African experience to remember the day by…popping the blister Jackie got from a blister beetle. Blister beetles are lovely little creatures that essentially pee acid on you, causing blisters to form on your skin (not fun, as I have since experienced for myself). With most blisters you just wait and let them pop on their own, but with these you have to do it right away and under water, otherwise the acid will just get all over you skin again. Lucky Jackie, one of the little buggers got her right near her collarbone…a place that is difficult to submerge without being indecent and definitely hard to reach to pop oneself. And so we dragged out her med kit and I got the lucky task of popping it while sitting on the mat in my frontyard. Again, fun times, haha.

After that the day pretty much wound down…I finished reading Into Thin Air (which if you haven’t already read, I’d highly recommend it), hung out with my family for a little bit, had a little birthday-related meltdown that prompted screaming at children who tried to grab me and demand money while I was freaking out…you know, the usual. Let’s just say that while it was definitely a good birthday overall, seeing as it was the first birthday I’ve ever spent that far away from home (and the only one in 24 years I haven’t seen my Mom on)…it was hard and my emotions were on a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes you stop and wonder what you’re doing with your life and I feel like birthdays are a prime day for doing that. Without going into the gory details, I’ll just say that while I’m happy in my decision to join the Peace Corps and I know that we’re doing important work…sometimes it scares me to think about the fact that this is a totally temporary life. Even if I decide to extend longer than two years, at some point I HAVE to pick-up and start all over again somewhere else. But that’s life, right?

Thankfully, Jackie is well accustomed to dealing with my minor breakdowns at this point and was able to calm me down in pretty short order. Plus I got a few phone calls from people back home, including my parents, which certainly helped.

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes! I very much appreciated them all :) Looks like 24 is going to be a very interesting year…

I suppose you could say I’m tri-lingual now…

The morning after we got back from Dakar, it was time to pack-up and head out to Tassete for one last time. Which of course meant, only one more week of training, final language tests, swear-in and then that’s it…training’s over and I’m off to Nioro on my own. YIKES! But first, the last week of training…

Right before we went to the beach, we had our third language placement interview. I had passed out of the required level of French during the second interview, but they wouldn’t let me start learning a local language just yet because the other people in my class still needed to get the required level in French and we only have one LCF in Tassete. But the good news is, A – I went up in my French level between the second and third interview, so while it was frustrating not to be able to move on, at least I learned something. And B – Jackie passed out of French during the third interview and we got Simone (the language coordinator) to agree to split our classes. So this time when we went back to Tassete, we had two separate language classes. Jackie and I started learning Wolof, while Alex and Josh worked on perfecting their French.

I was excited to finally start Wolof, but man…I’d forgotten how incredibly frustrating starting a new language is. Jackie and I had class for about an hour and a half to two hours every morning, after which we’d work on our homework while the boys had French. Then we’d break for lunch, and repeat the same class/homework schedule in the afternoons. Roughly 3-4 hours of class a day might not sound like a lot, but it was completely exhausting. At least when I first started French there were common grammar structures and even some of the same words to fall back on. However, that is definitely not the case with Wolof.

Everyone keeps telling me that Wolof is easier to learn than French because it doesn’t really have much grammar and rules, but starting out…that is really hard to get used to. Especially when trying to switch to that from French, which has its own academy for regulating the language (L’Academie Française), it loves rules so much! Basically, for the first three days of Wolof I felt like someone had taken an eggbeater to my brain by the time I collapsed into bed each night. Plus, I’ve never been very good at being patient with myself when I don’t understand things, so at times; it was hard not to scream in frustration.

Thankfully though, we started classes on Tuesday and by about midway through class on Friday I had a bit of an epiphany and things started to make more sense. And not a moment too soon, let me tell you. I can now form a fair amount of necessary sentences in Wolof such as “I’m hungry.” “I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.” “I can’t marry you because I already have a husband.” (oh the fun of daily marriage proposals…) etc. It might not seem like much, but after a mere 6 days of Wolof classes…I’ll take it.

For some reason what is hardest for me right now is understanding people’s questions, not so much formulating responses to them. I find that a little weird since at the beginning of training, I could understand more of what people said in French than I could articulate myself. Oh well…I suppose it will all come with time.

Aside from learning Wolof instead of French, the last week of community-based training (CBT) was pretty much the same as all the rest. I had hoped that the cold season would immediately follow the end of the rainy season, but no dice. It didn’t rain all week so it was hotter than ever in Tassete. Which of course meant that we spent most of our time at my house enjoying the shade of the big trees (trees that provide shade really are the best thing ever in this climate) and either having class, studying or lounging around. We also went and cheered Tassete on to victory in the semi-final match of the local soccer tournament. Jackie’s brother even scored the winning goal! (We had already left town by the time they played the final, but they won that too. Yeah Tassete!)

Oh and the other big theme of the last week in Tassete was procrastination. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I was asked to give a speech in French for our swearing-in ceremony. I was definitely honored to be one of the ones chosen (there are PCTs giving speeches in Mandinka, Pulaar and Wolof too), but I’m not so much a fan of public speaking. Plus, I’ve never had to give a commencement type speech before. So naturally my reaction (surprise surprise) was to procrastinate writing it for as long as possible in the hopes that something brilliant would come to me eventually, lol. (Don’t worry, I didn’t wait until the night before the ceremony before I wrote it, but more on that later).

Well I think that about covers it… Ba beneen yoon! (which means until next time in Wolof)

Dakar Weekend!

[Just to clarify…this refers to the weekend of October 3 & 4. I’m a little behind on writing, but I promise to catch everyone up to the present soon!]

After our defeat to the LCFs in soccer Friday night (October 2), we had to do some language classes the following morning and then we got the rest of the weekend free to do as we pleased. Hurrah! While some of the PCTs stayed at the training center in Thies, I decided that it was a good opportunity to check out more of Dakar (since all I’d seen so far was the airport). So Saturday afternoon about 16 of us hopped on an Alham and headed to the regional house for a couple of nights. This might not have been the responsible decision given how tired I was at this point, but hey…you only live once, right? Plus, I knew I had a whole week of village life and lots of sleep ahead of me in Tassete.

After being caught in the inevitable Dakar traffic for several hours, we arrived at the regional house…or Liberté 6 as we call it (because that is the name of the quartier where its located). Some people went out to a Korean BBQ place for dinner, but being both lazy and short on funds, I opted to go with the neighborhood egg sandwich vendor. After all, you can’t go wrong with a meal that only costs 300 CFA (roughly 75¢). I’ve never really been a fan of hard-boiled eggs (the yolks…YUCK), but that doesn’t seem to stop me from eating them here. Of course that’s not really surprise since most of the things I eat on a daily basis here, I refused to touch back in America. For example: fish, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. are staples of my diet these days. I suppose it’s about time that I stopped being as picky as a three-year old with my food though, haha.

Anywho, after dinner everyone regrouped at the house for a couple of drinks and then we headed out to a party at the Oceanium, a club on the water. The first Saturday of every month they hold a big all night party, so naturally, when we heard that there was dancing and a good chance of awesomely-bad American music (this is Africa after all), we wanted to check it out. The party was a blast and it was nice to go dancing for the first time in a while.

On Sunday, a bunch more people from our stage came up from Thies and we headed to the Atlantic Club. The Atlantic Club (or American Club, as we call it) is pretty much exactly like a country club back in the States (minus the golf course) and its members are generally American ex-patriots or French nationals living in Dakar. And lucky for us the owners are fans of Peace Corps so they let us all come and use the pool/tennis courts/etc. for free! It’s a pretty sweet deal.

So we spent the day lounging around by the pool, eating American food (they have Snickers!) and chatting…just another typical day in the life of a hard-working Peace Corps volunteer. It was almost hard to go back to the daily village life after that…hanging out there, it’s really easy to forget that you’re still in Senegal, haha. Eventually though we had to face the music and everyone headed back to the regional house for the night.

Then on Monday, we all headed to the Peace Corps office in Dakar for a fun filled day of meetings. We started off with a briefing from the head of security at the U.S. Embassy, who did his best to put a little fear into us…particularly those living around the Mali/Mauritania/Guinea borders (don’t worry, that’s not me). I think he was a little more keyed up than usual having spent the whole weekend helping to coordinate the evacuation of Embassy personnel and other U.S. citizens from Guinea. So after he talked, Etienne (the head of security for PC Senegal) got up and calmed everyone down, haha. Have no fear…Etienne assures us that he’s not worried about anything and if there ever were a need to worry he’d definitely be the first to know.

After security, we had the requisite signing of papers slash talk on the process of obtaining a U.S. Visa from the director of U.S. Citizen Affairs at the Embassy. This was mostly just to prepare us for the inevitable barrage of questions we will be getting over the next two years from people wanting to move to the States. Oh, as well as the process of obtaining a Visa if we want to marry a host country national and bring them home with us. She assures us that there’s almost always someone in every stage that ends up wanting to do this. I for one am extremely curious to see who it’s going to be from our group, haha.

Next on the agenda was a brief bus tour of Dakar, followed by lunch in the city. I went to the French Cultural Center because I was told that they’ve got amazing burgers (man do I miss burgers!) and it definitely lived up to the billing. Delicious! After lunch we went back to the office to meet the administrative staff and talk about exciting things like money and vacation policies. Then it was a mad rush to see who’d get the bus with the A/C and who’d be stuck with the Alham for the ride back to Thies. I definitely made it a priority to get a spot with A/C, haha.

Ok, I realize that this entry is approaching the length of a book so I promise I’m almost done, but one other piece of news…our stage lost its first person that night :( We were all eating dinner in the refectoire when one of the girls from our stage got up and announced that she was early terminating (ET-ing) and heading back to America. She had been sick and stuck at the med hut in Dakar a lot, so while I don’t know if that factored into her decision, I can’t really say that I blame her. I’m not sure I’d still be here if I’d been having persistent health issues for the past two months. Thankfully though, I’ve been pretty healthy so far (KNOCK ON WOOD). I wasn’t particularly close to this girl, but it was still sad to see her go. Especially so close to swear-in…we were only a week and a half away from the whole stage making it through training! Oh well, such is life I suppose…

And on that slightly depressing note (sorry, but I figured I should share the news), I’ll end this post…bye!!

America vs. Senegal...PC style

As I’m sure everyone well knows, soccer (our football as we call it on this side of the Atlantic) is a favorite past time in Africa, and Senegal is no exception. So after months of trash talking, when CPW was over it was time for the big PST match-up…PCTs vs. LCFs (our language trainers). Reports vary and its hard to trust the sources, but the story goes that over the last 10 years or so, the Americans have only succeeded in beating the Senegalese once. Nevertheless, we adopted the Cubs' favorite mantra (BAHAHA) and proclaimed, "This is going to be our year!" And so we went into the match determined to take them down a peg.

Well I decided that six years of soccer experience back at St. Thomas Grade School, plus a brief stint (aka two practices) on the Queen Mary Women’s football team in London, meant that I should give it a go. Good news: I successfully made it through the match without falling (I think) or embarrassing myself too much (its rare, but it does happen). Bad news: we definitely did not win. I place part of the blame on bad officiating. Mostly though I think it can be put down to lack of adjustment to the climate and two months of all of us sitting on our butts and eating rice all day. Because goodness knows I was in tip-top physical shape before I came to Senegal. HAAAA.

But seriously, we lost (2-1…I think. There was some major debate about the scoring, haha) and probably due to their superior skill. Hopefully we will have a rematch during in-service training though and then…they’re going down!

Also, here’s an example of how my playing went: given my total lack of skill and the fact that I haven’t really played soccer since I was 13, I decided that the safest place on the field for me was at forward. This may seem counterintuitive, but in spite of all of our trash talking we knew the LCFs were better so chances were most of the action for us was going to be on the defensive end. Well at one point the ball was kicked towards one of the corners and instead of going after it (in my defense, I thought it was out of bounds…the field we played in doesn’t have fancy things like sidelines) I just stood there waiting for it to get thrown back into play. Brilliant, I know. When I finally wised up and realized it was still inbounds, I went after it and instead of getting the ball, I accidentally kicked Bamba (the LCF, not to be confused with the SED tech trainer) in the shins. I really can’t decide what he found funnier…the fact that I actually missed the ball enough to kick him. Or the fact that it probably didn’t even hurt enough to legitimately call it a kick.

What can I say, I’m gonna give Mia Hamm a run for her money…

Counterpart Workshop

Sorry for the long absence from blog posts…it’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks! I believe the last time I posted anything we were getting ready for counterpart workshop, so I’ll start the updates with that…

All in all, counterpart workshop (CPW) wasn’t really much to talk about. It basically consisted of two days of sessions on such exciting topics as expectations, the relationship between counterparts and volunteers, the SED project plan, etc. Truthfully, the thing that sticks out most in my mind when I think about CPW is being exhausted. While some lucky PCTs got to stay at the center during CPW, we Tassete people enjoyed commuting to and from Thies everyday. Not only did we have to commute, but also we were the first of four villages being picked up all by the same van. So this meant that we had to wake up everyday at 5:30 AM in order to shower and get on the bus in time for breakfast before sessions started at 8:15; and we usually got back to village around 8 PM. That’s a long day even by American standards, but after two months of living at the village pace, it was practically unfathomable. Then add to that the fact that all of our sessions were being conducted in rapid-fire French, which required me to pay very close attention in order to understand what was being said. PLUS I’m pretty sure the last time I slept straight through the night was at the hotel in D.C. during staging…you could see why exhaustion was the main theme of the workshop, haha.

Aside from the exhaustion, CPW was beneficial for a couple of different reasons. The information presented in most of the sessions was really meant more for the counterparts and supervisors than for us, but it was helpful to see how Senegalese interact in a classroom style situation. For example, while in America we are taught to raise our hands and wait quietly to be called on if we have something to say, the Senegalese custom is to snap their fingers repeatedly until someone is recognized. The first time one of the counterparts did that during a session, I was completely taken aback. After all, I think most Americans would agree with me that snapping at someone like that is quite rude. Little did I know…that’s just the way things are done here. So it’s good that I learned that now rather than being caught off guard in the future while trying to run a meeting or teach a class.

Also, as my part of the workshop, I worked with Byron, Alex and Alys (three other SED PCTs) on creating a skit regarding the relationship between counterparts (homologues) and volunteers. We came up with the idea of “Homologue Homme,” a superhero version of the counterpart, to demonstrate our expectations. So we wrote the skit and put it on thinking we were being reasonably clever and that everyone would find it helpful, and hopefully a little bit funny. Well to sum it up in a few short words…epic fail! It would seem that the underlying sarcasm of the idea (and the humor in general) doesn’t translate across cultural borders. While we were trying to portray things like wanting our counterparts to introduce us to people and show us around town; they thought we were expecting our homologues to literally swoop in and save the day whenever we cry for help. I think one of the homologues actually even raised their hand to point out that they are incapable of flying…no joke, haha. Needless to say the superhero concept did not convey quite what we had hoped, but it was another good lesson in the difficulties of communicating across cultural borders. In the future, I’ll have to be a little bit more careful about how I try to explain things.

Last but not least…CPW was also a good opportunity for everyone, myself included, to meet his or her counterpart and supervisor. As SED volunteers, we are all assigned to work under a government agency; so the supervisor acts as our contact for whatever agency we are meant to work with. The counterpart/homologue on the other hand, is more the person that shows you around and works with you on a daily basis regarding your projects. So far both my supervisor and homologue seem like really good people. I think there’s a possibility that one might be a bit more difficult to work with, but hopefully I’m wrong…only time will tell.

À la prochaine!

Mini Beach Vacation!!

So last Monday, the Peace Corps FINALLY made a little room in our schedule for us to have a day off when we weren't all separated in our training villages. Obviously, we jumped at the opportunity and all 50 of us decided to head to Popenguine, an eco-tourism site on the coast, for a little mini beach holiday. I volunteered to plan the trip, but being faced with the prospect of finding transportation, renting houses and procuring enough food and drinks was a little bit daunting. Thankfully though, there is a PCV in Popenguine who, when I called him to get the number of the guy we usually rent houses from, volunteered to take care of reserving the houses. Ankith also called ahead and warned the boutiques that 50 Toubabs were rolling into town, so they needed to stock up. A couple of relatively smooth phone calls in French to arrange Alhams and texts to all the PCTs letting them know the plan and we were ready to go...

So on Monday afternoon, PC cars came and got us from the 11 different training villages and brought everyone back to the center. Then we all ran around packing up stuff for the beach and borrowing foam mattresses to bring along. We got everything strapped onto the 2 Alhams and crammed ourselves in to head out, only an hour and a half later than intended...which is pretty much a miracle for the Peace Corps and Senegal in general. Of course travel in an Alham is always an adventure and the one I was in stalled and came to a complete stop while trying to go up a hill on the way. We were thinking we'd have to push it to the beach, but thankfully it started again after 5 or 10 minutes and we were on our way.

Once we got to Popenguine, I decided it was about time to pass the torch on being in charge and enjoy myself, haha. So we stopped at a boutique to get supplies and I handed all the money to Kathryn, another PCT, and let her take over. All 50 of us piled out of the Alhams at this point, which was total chaos. Everyone was in charge of getting their own snack and drinks, but we also had to get everything we needed for a communal dinner that night and breakfast in the AM. Plus, some of the PCTs were in charge of walking into random compounds looking for ice. In Senegal, you can't just walk to the gas station or grocery store and buy ice. You have to look for houses that have freezers. Frequently, the women that live there will fill up plastic bags with water and then freeze them to sell as ice; so that's what we were after. After about an hour of running around like chickens with their heads cut off, we finally piled back into the buses and drove the rest of the way to our houses.

That day was possibly the hottest day since we arrived in Senegal, so that plus 25 people packed into an Alham equals I've never been so sweaty in my life. So as soon as we got to the house, most of us dropped our stuff and headed straight for the ocean, while a few people got started on making spaghetti.

Everyone took a break from swimming to eat spaghetti Senegalese-style (aka 15 forks attacking each platter), but otherwise the entire night was spent enjoying the ocean. It was a gorgeous evening and the water was the perfect temperature, so it was pretty much amazing. It was nice to have a chance to unwind and hang out with everyone out from under the eyes of PC staff.

We rented 2 houses for the night, which sounds like a lot, but with 50 PCTs plus 6 or 7 PCVs who came down to join the party, things got rather crowded. So it was pretty much sleep wherever you could find enough space to lay down, haha. I, for example, ended up sharing a flimsy foam mattress with another PCV out on the porch of the big house. Thank goodness for mosquito coils preventing us from getting bitten to death, because there was definitely no where to hang a net. But I got to sleep right next to the beach and spent the night swimming in the Atlantic, so who am I to complain? Waking up there was definitely one of those moments where I have to pause and take a step back...it still seems surreal that this is my life now. And of course its not all fun times and parties on the beach, but its still an amazing opportunity to experience.

The next morning some of the girls cooked pancakes for everyone (which I slept through, wah wah) and then we spent the rest of the day hanging out in the water or around the house. Unfortunately, I missed putting sunscreen on my chest so I got my first major sunburn since getting to country...but frankly, it was worth it. It has been far too hot the past 2 weeks to even consider not staying in the water when I had the chance.

Around 5 it was time to pack up and head back to reality. I wish we could have had one more night to enjoy the beach, but oh well. Thankfully everything went off without a hitch planning-wise and everyone had an awesome time. Great trip!!

Right now we're in the middle of counter-part workshop so I'll let you know how that goes next time. Later!

Korite!

For those who might not already know, Korite is the Muslim holiday that celebrates the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan. Everyone gets dressed up, goes to visit family and spends the day eating and celebrating being able to eat and drink during daylight again. Sunday the 20th, the start of our most recent trip to the training villages, was the big day...

So the morning of Korite I woke up (at the blessedly late hour of 10 AM no less) to the smell of my sister cooking several hundred beignets right outside my front door. Nothing says, "Today is going to be a good day!" quite like walking out of your room and being immediately handed more little balls of fried dough than you know what to do with. I'd like to say I showed a little restraint and didn't eat them all, but really...who are we kidding? I probably put on several pounds of beignet weight because of the celebrations. And beignets was only the start of the eating fest because, as my sister said while chiding me for the millionth time that I don't eat enough, "Its a holiday, its necessary to eat A LOT." Other things on the celebration menu included:

• lax - millet with milk and sugar so its kind of like porridge, but sweeter
• sauce - some type of meat (no idea what) in a sauce with onions and fried potatoes. it tastes pretty delicious, but in typical Senegalese fashion, the meat is cooked to death so its kind of like chewing on a piece of tire, haha
• lots of different types of juices that I tried to awkwardly refuse and/or took two sips of and then slyly threw out my window because they were made with unfiltered water and I'm too freaked out to drink it

Other big events of the day included my sister Maimouna visiting from Dakar with her husband and two sons. My nephews, Omar and Mohammed, are pretty adorable looking little kids, but don't let that fool you...they are major troublemakers. For example, we eat all of our meals from communal bowls, so everyone has their own section of the bowl and you keep to your own side. This is a rule that everyone, even little kids, knows and abides by pretty strictly. Nevertheless, on Korite, Omar got a real kick out of reaching ALLL the way across the bowl and into my section with his "I've been rolling around in the sand all day" little hands just because he knew it was gross and not appropriate. Yeah, he's trouble. Not only has he gotten several beatings from my family, but he's even earned a slap or two from Jackie and Alex, which is really saying something.

Anywho, also on Korite all of the little kids get dressed up in their new clothes and run around from compound to compound asking for money. Its kind of like trick or treating, and I'm not entirely sure what the point of it is, but its tradition. They all looked pretty adorable, especially the really little ones in matching outfits, so I decided I needed to get my camera and take some pictures. I tried to just take some on the sly, but I forgot about the flash and as soon as it went off, the jig was up. I was completely swarmed by at least 12 kids, which made getting decent pictures pretty difficult. But I was just happy to have made it back out of the mob with my camera still in tact.

Other than that, I spent most of the day just sitting around my compound waiting for something exciting to happen, haha. After a while it became pretty apparent that the big party I was expecting wasn't actually going to happen, but I was still waiting for everyone to at least put on their fancy outfits. I had asked my brother the night before when everyone gets dressed up and he said around 6. I'd been hanging out at Josh's house and I noticed his family getting dressed in their party outfits (including his adorable chunk of a little sister Ndiaye who was sporting a dress reminiscent of Cinderella and flip-flops that said "Princess" on them), which I figured meant it was time to head home and get changed myself. I got back to my compound, but everyone was still wearing their everyday clothes so I just sat down outside with everyone feeling rather confused. Then one of my sisters started jokingly giving me a hard time for not putting my new complet on, so I explained to her that I was just waiting for everyone else to change before I did. Turns out I was the only one in my family who bought new clothes for the holiday, probably because my family is rather poor. As you can imagine, I felt like a total jerk after that, but I decided it'd be even more awkward if I didn't go put my outfit on since they knew I bought it specifically for Korite. So I put the complet on and had my sister show me how to wrap my hair so that Jackie could come over and take some family pictures.

And that was pretty much the extent of the day. A little bit anti-climactic really, especially after looking forward to it throughout the whole of Ramadan. Well I think that's about all for now...next time: a post about our glorious mini-vacation to the beach!!

New Address!!

Because training is almost over (HURRAH!!), my trips into Thies will be stopping in a couple of weeks. Which is important for you to know mostly because this means my address is going to change. Here's my permanent address for the next two years:

PCV Elizabeth Corkery

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 2089 Ndorong

Kaolack, Senegal

West Africa

Par Avion

(Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by telling the world that I'm a PCV when I'm actually still a PCT for another 2.5 weeks, haha). So if you are inclined to send me a letter or even a package, send it to the above address in Kaolack from now on. If you send the mail to Thies I might not get it because after October 16th (the day of swear-in), I won't be back at the Training Center until January. Which means I won't get your mail for forever and any packages could get sent back to the states since PC staff won't pay to pick them up for me.

I've added a little wish list for package items on the side of my blog, below the "About Me" section. Unsurprisingly for anyone who knows me, it is mostly food that is either impossible or too expensive to procure here but is amazing and I miss it. So if you feel like sending a package my way, please do and you'll have my undying gratitude :)

Also, some brief guidelines on packages... it is recommended to buy flat rate boxes so that they are not so expensive. Its a good idea to write "religious material" or "personal items" on the outside so that they are less likely to be opened and tampered with on their way from you to me. Also try to seal things in plastic bags so nothing can get to them. Plus plastic bags are always useful for me to have around. And if you don't want to send a package (because I know they are pretty expensive), I would still love to get letters because snail mail in general is awesome and getting it makes me happy!

P.S. in case this lengthy post about mail wasn't a big enough hint...here's a not so subtle reminder that my birthday is October 11th! So while your packages/letters might not get to me before then, belated birthday mail would be AMAZING and receiving it would probably make my day/week.

Picture Time!

So I don't have any new blog posts ready to go just yet (its been a very hectic couple of weeks, haha), but I've got something even better...pictures! Yep, I finally took the hint and uploaded some of the photos I've taken. I've posted a slideshow on the right to liven up the blog a little, but if you want to see all the captions and everything just follow this link: my photos. Hope you enjoy them and I'll get another update ready to send out soon!

Volunteer Visit

As part of the pre-service training program, all trainees go and visit a current volunteer for a couple of days to get a taste of what the volunteer life is really like. So after we found out our permanent sites, we were all matched up with current volunteers for a four-day “demystification” visit. Byron, another SED trainee, and I went to go visit a volunteer named Jessica, who is also SED and has been in Senegal for a little over a year now. She lives about 30 KM south of Kaolack, the capital of the region that I will be living in (clarification: Kaolack is the name of the capital AND of the region. Potentially confusing, I know).

So last Saturday morning, after getting a late start (because between Senegal and the Peace Corps…everything is always late), all of the other trainees bound for southern Kaolack and I piled into a Peace Corps Land Rover and headed out. The distance between Thies and Kaolack is only like 130 KM so you’d think it’d take what, an hour and a half tops, right? Wrong. Road maintenance is far from a priority here once you get outside of Dakar. The trip took almost 3 hours because we had to zig-zag all over the road like a kid trying to drive in one of those street racing games at the arcade. But eventually we made it to the regional house in Kaolack to pick up one of the volunteers that another trainee was visiting and set off again…first stop, Jessica’s village. Well if you thought that the trip to the regional capital took an exceptionally long amount of time, it had nothing on the 30 KM trip to Jessica’s village. Yeah, it took over two hours of basically off-roading it through potholes and puddles the size of a mini lake. As a comparison, my family went on a Pink Jeep tour in Sedona this past spring, which involved taking a Jeep up and over the rock formations all over that part of the country. Well this trip to Jessica’s village was infinitely bumpier and Kaolack is pretty much entirely flat. Ohhh Senegal! But while it might sound to you that my trip to volunteer visit was exceptionally long or rough, it was nothing compared to some of the people who had to trek out to more remote locations. Some of my fellow PCTs actually had to spend the night on the side of the road in the bush because the numerous Peace Corps cars sent to fetch them got stuck in the mud upwards of 15 times. Yeah…makes my car ride seem like a limousine doesn’t it?

Other than that, the volunteer visit was pretty uneventful. We spent the first two days checking out Jessica’s village and getting clued in to all the latest Peace Corps gossip. Then, since there wasn’t much going on in her village due to Ramadan, we decided to catch an Alham up to the regional capital for the next two nights. Alham btw is Peace Corps slang for the big white vans that serve as public transportation over here. They’re actually called Ndiaga Ndiaye’s, but they all have “Alhamdulillah” painted on them in big, bright letters…so we call them Alhams for short. Basically, I would liken them to a death trap on wheels that in no way appears to be road worthy when they are empty, let alone when they are packed full of 35+ people with assorted bags and animals hanging out on the roof. We take one of these beautiful contraptions out to our training village all the time and the floor of the van is actually made of wood and has numerous holes in it. Fun times, fun times. Never the less, so far so good on them getting me where I’m going in one piece, so I’ll take it. Its kind of amazing the puddles and mud these things trudge through...especially because I’m quite sure that the car I drive back in the states, which is in perfect working order, could never handle them.

Anywho, we spent the next few days at the regional capital checking things out and pretending we were back in America. I ate macaroni and cheese (thank you PCVs who share their care packages!) and several cheeseburgers, sat in the air-conditioned room at the regional house, and marathoned some of season 2 of The O.C. with the other people at the house. It was pretty amazing. Oh and Byron and I successfully took on the city of Kaolack and its labyrinth of a market without the aid of a PCV or LCF to act as interpreter/guide. We were quite pride of ourselves, haha. The downside of training is that you start to get used to having some one there to interpret things and more or less do everything for you, but when we get to a site in a month we’re not going to have that anymore. So it was nice to prove to ourselves that we actually can do it alone.

So after having some major American time in Kaolack we headed back to the center for a couple of days of technical/cross-culture classes. Now, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m headed back to Tassete for language classes and to celebrate Korite. I’m also working on planning a beach weekend for our stage with my friend Kathryn, which should be tons of fun. Feel free to send me a million emails to read when I get back (HINT)…later!