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!

PHOTOS!!

I have been exceptionally bad about remembering to take pictures at my village, and I definitely haven't posted any. So in response to the requests for photographic evidence that I'm actually alive and well after a month in Senegal, I give you Jackie's photos. A lot of these are of specifically her family and stuff like that, but we are in the same training village and have more or less the same living situation so it will give everyone a better idea of what's going on over here. Enjoy and sorry...I will try to make more of an effort to post pictures in the future.

the big reveal

So about a week ago, I finally found out where in Senegal I’m going to be living for the next two years! Here’s how the big reveal went down:

There is a huge map of Senegal painted on the basketball court at our training center in Thies. So last Thursday they led all of us PCTs out to the basketball court and blindfolded everyone. Then they lead people one by one to stand on the part of the map that corresponds to their permanent site; and handed them an envelope containing all of the details about the town, the kind of work there is to do, etc. So I’m standing around on the edge of the court, trying to patiently await my turn, when my LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator) Sakhir grabs me and walks me over to a spot on the map. I was still blindfolded at this point, but I could tell from the people talking around me that I had been placed in the same region as three of my closest friends here. Naturally, I started to get pretty excited about the fact that we would all be close to each other. Well not so fast, Corkery. That’s right…after standing there for about 5-10 minutes chatting with everyone, one of the current PCVs catches a glimpse of the name of the town written on my folder and is like, “Wait, what…you’re not at all in the right place.” So he promptly grabs my hand and trots me to another place on the map, which ends up being roughly 200 KM away from all of those people I just got excited about being close to. Bit of a wah wah moment, I know. But actually I think it will be a good thing…more excuses to go visit them, right? Plus, the people who are in my region are awesome as well. So now, info about my site…

So for the next two years I’ll be living in a town called Nioro, which is a little bit east of the center of Senegal. Nioro is a departmental capital in the Kaolack region, about 25 KM north of the Gambian border. It has a population of about 20,000 and is fully stocked with a daily market, internet cafes, and boutiques [that even have Pringles! Yes, my ancien (PC slang for the volunteer I’m replacing) felt that information was important enough to include in his close of service report…clearly we would have gotten along well].

I’ll be renting a room in the Mane family’s house. My mom is a teacher at the local primary school and my dad works at the pharmacy. They have 4 kids… 2 teenage daughters and 2 younger children. And now for the truly exciting news: my room has tile floors, electricity, running water, a shower AND a western-style toilet!! I can’t even tell you how happy this makes me. At my training village I take bucket baths and use a squat toilet and its really not so bad, but if a real shower is an option, I am certainly not going to turn it down. Also, my ancien told me that high speed internet has recently come to our town, which means that I can have it installed in my house. HURRAH!! Now no one has an excuse not to sign up for Skype slash send me lots of emails so that we can stay in touch.

In terms of the work, I’ll more or less figure that out when I get there and see what people are interested in working on. But, my ancien worked with some local young women to start a restaurant, which I think would be fun to continue to be involved with. There is also a vocational school in town where I might try to teach some general business classes. Plus, I know that I definitely want to get involved in some gender and youth development work in Nioro. All in all, it seems like there are a lot of interesting opportunities to pursue.

Since I won’t be able to get to Nioro to look around for myself until I move there, that’s about all of the information I have right now. Though I do know that there are 4 other PCVs (2 from my stage and 2 who’ve been in country for about a year) within a 25 KM radius of my town, which is awesome. Wanting to be close to other volunteers was the one thing I really stressed to the director of the SED program during site placement, so I’m very happy with where I ended up. This way I have other Toubabs to go to and speak English with when I’m on the verge of a melt down, haha. Plus, nearly half of my stage is going to the same region as I am, so clearly the new PC house in Kaolack is going to be THE place to be in Senegal.

Well I think that’s about it for now. Next up we’re headed back to Tassete for 10 days for more language training (starting to learn Wolof!) and to celebrate Korite (the end of Ramadan). Hopefully, when I get back to the internet I’ll be able to post some pics of myself and my host family celebrating in our fancy Senegalese outfits. Also, we just got back from staying with current volunteers for 4 days, so look for a post on that adventure to come. Now I should run…I’m late for the requisite “teach the prissy SED kids to play in the dirt and make tree nurseries” lesson with the agro-forestry PCVs. Later!

P.S. Here's a link to a good map if you want to see where exactly my town is. Nioro (or Nioro du Rip as it is shown on this map) is in the green section, just above the Gambia. Senegal Map

Ramblings from Tassete

(written Saturday September 5, 2009)

Let’s see, what’s new…We’re nearing the end of our longest stretch at our training village. Not gonna lie, the first week in village was more than a little rough at times. So when I came back here for the start of this two week stretch I was pretty apprehensive about being able to tough it out without a major breakdown or two. On the contrary though, the last two weeks have been pretty great. I caught a bad cold, which was frustrating; especially since being tired and sick meant that at times trying to form coherent sentences in French felt like trying to do calculus in my head or something. The cold is almost gone though so hurrah for that! (And I’ll definitely take a cold over some of the nasty stuff that the other PCTs have been catching.) Plus, tomorrow we have our first day off since we got here! I plan on spending it doing exciting things like hand washing my clothes and practicing my grammar, but still…after 24 straight days of classes it is definitely something to celebrate. Then, next Tuesday we have our second language proficiency interview. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it goes better than the first one. I won’t be jet lagged and sleep deprived this time, so I figure it couldn’t possibly be worse. (Let’s face it…sleep deprivation + jet lag = I can’t even form proper sentences in English, let alone in French, lol.)

On Wednesday, we are headed back to the PC Training Center in Thies for a couple of days. This trip to center is when they finally tell us where our permanent sites will be! Obviously this is exciting, but it’s also a little bit terrifying. Everytime I start to think about the fact that in a few weeks I am going to be sent off to site ON MY OWN that feeling of, “Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?!” starts rushing back, haha. But at least soon I will know where I’m headed and I’ll be able to start preparing myself by talking to volunteers in the area, learning more about my region, etc. For a country the size of South Dakota, the different regions are surprisingly diverse, which has made it pretty impossible to make any guesses about my site without knowing its exact location. Also, after three nights at the center, we’re all going on volunteer visits. Hopefully, if my ancien (the volunteer I’ll be replacing) is still in country I’ll be able to visit my actual site, which would be awesome. But if they have already left, I’ll at least be able to go to a different PC site in my region. Either way, I’m looking forward to the volunteer visit because it will be my first taste of what life is really going to be like for the next two years.

Speaking of which…the concept that this is my life for the next TWO YEARS is still impossible for me to grasp. Right now it feels a little bit like summer camp. Like one morning I’m just going to pack up my things because it is time to head back home to my family and friends. Which will be happening…in TWO YEARS. Hopefully it will sink in soon, but three and a half weeks in, it still feels totally surreal.

So that’s the gist of the next couple of days. Now, here are some random observations/events that I feel like sharing:

• I have always been kind of bad about complaining too much, but I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to be more positive. As I said, the first week in village was a little rough, so by the time I got back to the Training Center in Thies last time I was ready to do some major complaining. Well we all know that misery loves company, so I went out for pizza (yeah, American food!) with some other PCTs and we spent the whole meal talking about all the things that sucked the first week that we were here. Usually, I think that stuff like that is good because you get it off your chest and then you feel better, but nope, not this time. I left that dinner feeling even worse because in addition to all the little stuff that was irritating me, I had everyone else’s concerns weighing on me too. That’s when I decided that from now on I’m going to really focus on the positive. (See look…three weeks in and I’m growing as a person already, haha) I know its an obvious thing, but having that little ephiany, man let me tell you…it makes a WORLD of a difference. Even when I was sick and felt like crap this week, I still never felt as down as I did the last time I was here.

• So in keeping with the above statement, here’s a brief list of all the little things that make me happy in Senegal:
• RAIN! No joke, I seriously get giddy when it starts to rain these days. Why? Because it means that it’s going to be cool enough to sleep comfortably at night! One night this week I even had to crawl out from under my mosquito net to grab a blanket and it was pretty much the best thing ever. (In case you didn’t already know this…I love blankets.)
• Mosquito nets! When I first got here mine had some pretty huge holes in it, so the last time I went back to center I got a new one and it is AMAZING. My bed is now my own little bug free haven and it is great.
• The moon! The electricity goes out a lot here. A LOT. But I’ve never appreciated the moon so much in my life. It is so wonderfully clear and bright. I don’t even need a flashlight to see when walking around my compound at night if the electricity is out.
• Berry Mix flavored Mentos! Why? Because they are the only kind of candy that I’ve been able to find in Thies that is American AND that won’t melt in the heat, haha.
• Phone calls/texts from people back home! So thank you to all the people who have called or texted me since I got my cell phone. Seriously, it makes my day!
• Omelets! Pretty much everything else we eat around our compound is some type of Senegalese dish involving fish and white rice. So while the omelets I occasionally get for lunch are super oily and probably really unhealthy, they still make me happy because it’s the only familiar thing I eat in village.

• Last week we took a day off from afternoon classes and headed into Thies to eat some American food for lunch and run a few errands. This meant that we had our first experience with another form of Senegalese public transportation: the sept-place. Basically this means that at one point on the 25 km ride to Thies from Tassete, we had 11 people crammed into a car that reminded me very strongly of the Grand Caravan my Mom used to chauffeur us around in back circa 1992, haha. There are of course no seat belts in these vehicles, but thankfully we made it to and from Thies without incident.

While in Thies, we picked out some fabric and went to the tailor to get outfits made for Korite. For those who might not know, Korite is the big celebration that Muslims have to celebrate the end of Ramadan. So I bought some fancy violet colored tie-dye (which is cheesy in America, but actually super fancy in West Africa) and I’m having a traditional shirt and pagne (wrap skirt) made for the holiday. It should be pretty snazzy so as long as I don’t look like a total clown in it, I promise to post some pictures of the festivities.

• Yesterday, some other PCTs who are in surrounding villages came to Tassete so we could have a discussion about gender roles in Senegal. Naturally, the discussion rolled around to polygamy before too long. Here’s how one of our LCF’s (Language and Culture Facilitator) explained the reasoning behind polygamy in Islam: It is a universal truth that all men cheat, and that is why god said that men can have more than one wife. Think what you will of the practice (and I won’t air my views here), but when I heard him say that I couldn’t help but laugh. Man, people could have a serious field day arguing over the justifiability of that statement, haha.

OK, I think that’s enough boring information for one post. Hopefully you found some of that interesting/entertaining. A la prochaine!