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 21st:
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 comments:
Post a Comment