welcome to Senegal!!

Senegal...we made it! And so did everyone's bags so a big hurrah for that! Quick post on our first day:

Well, in spite of dosing myself with dramamine and melatonin, I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep on the plane. Thankfully though, after the bus ride to the training center in Thies and some brief introductions, we had the rest of the morning free to take naps/showers. After our rest it was time for my first taste of Senegalese food. We had a rice dish with some veggies, onion sauce, and what I'm told was probably goat's meat. In spite of my lack of adventurous appetite, I thought it was pretty delicious.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with interviews and more getting things organized. We had language interviews to assess our French, which I was rather nervous about. I'm not really sure how that went because I was kind of flustered, but I guess we'll see what there assessment is. In addition to language, I also had an interview with the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) for the SED program. I think that one went pretty well...she just wanted to ask a few questions and get to know more about us so she could start figuring out who should be placed where. And last, but not least we had a "medical interview" aka "here are your malaria pills. don't forget to take them." So I start taking those today....hopefully my dreams won't become too crazy because of them, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Right now we're all just sitting around in the disco hut chatting and taking advantage of the wifi before dinner...

Here are a couple of pics of the training center. The "disco hut":


And these are the buildings that we're staying in while at the training center. This one is the boys' side, the girls' is just out of the frame to the left.


All in all, I'd say things are going well so far. Today was a bit rough at times, but I think that 99% of that is due to having gotten barely 10 hours of sleep total this week. Plus, the cravings for cheeseburgers and Mexican food were hard to keep at bay given the fact that I've really only been eating one meal a day. I figure after a good night's sleep everything will feel a bit less scary. I'm also still experiencing a lot of, "wait, is this really happening?" feelings. Hopefully it will seem a bit less surreal soon, but who knows.

Bye for now!