Merry Christmas from Senegal!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to my wonderful friends and family! It is weird to be spending Christmas without you, which is fitting, because this has probably been the weirdest couple months of my life. A lot has happened and it has been a tough first month in village. On Christmas Eve I am going to attend Catholic mass, which will be held in French, here in this 90% Muslim West African country - should be another interesting cultural experience! Here are a few of my journal entries from December:

December 6th, 2012

As I pull up to my new village I feel a nervous current running through me. This is IT! The first day of my two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Maleme Niani, Senegal. I have successfully completed a grueling yet enjoyable two months of in-county training, now I'm on my own in a small village in Africa. 

The hut they built for me is literally the size of a king-sized bed. There is not enough room for my double mattress-pad and the rest of my things which amount to two suitcases of stuff. We drop my things off in the hut and I try to keep an open-mind and role with the punches, as is always necessary in the Peace Corps.

We immediately head to the village center to meet with the elders and important people in the vil, and I'm feeling a little discouraged about my living situation. I put on a smile as I walk into the room and sit at the head of the table with 20 intent Senegalese staring at me, Oh shit, was I supposed to prepare a speech??

The women are clad in beautiful bright Senegalese dress and look to be the oldest women in the village. They all wear scarves covering their heads. The men look serious and are wearing their boubous.

Djitte introduces me before I have time to stumble on my words (Alhamdullilah/Thanks to Allah). Djitte is in charge of Agroforestry programming and came to my vil to help install me. Each person gives me a little welcome speech, and Djitte translates for me. Although their cadence sounds very rough and angry (like all Senegalese), the messages are friendly and welcoming and the villagers are eager to get started on projects!

As we head back to my house I decide to pull Djitte and my host father Souleyman aside and discuss my hut. I figure this will be my home for two full years and I might as well voice my concern right away. I ask them if I can move into one of the other huts on the compound. Djitte then calls Mboulle, the PC Safety & Security officer because everything goes through him...

Mboulle and my host father agree to the move. I am SO GLAD I spoke up. My new hut feels like a PALACE compared to the other one. I am all settled in and feel at home in my new hut.

Sunset from my family compound

My new host mother NeeNee reminds me a lot of my host mother during training; she is very large, warm, and has a wise and comforting tone to her voice even though she is only in her 30s. When it gets too hot she takes off her shirt and her giant breasts sag very low, her nipples the lowest point almost touching her belt line. Before dinner, my 1 year old sister Mane starts running naked around the compound with a Machete. I am mortified that she is going to trip and hurt herself, but my family notifies me that this happens all the time. Hey, T.I.A. (This is Africa).

My mom shows me her Senegalese ID card and I am surprised to learn that she was born in 1981! I believe that is around the time my real mom graduated from college (sorry mom!). NeeNee is only 9 years older than me and she already has 6 children. The oldest, Pape, is 15. That means she started having children when she was 16, common in Senegal. 

NeeNee is my host father's first wife. In Senegal, a man may have up to 4 wives, so long as he can financially provide for all of them and their children. Souleyman recently married another woman named Isatu- she is very young, he thinks between 20 and 22 (many people don't know their ages here), and she does not live with us. My mom does not like her; who can blame her? It's safe to say I wouldn't be happy about my husband marrying another woman. My mom says this second wife is "mang beteyaa" (not good) and men should only have "musoo killing" (one wife). I agree. After talking to other Peace Corps volunteers, I hear that sometimes having many wives actually can work really well, because when families get larger it is really nice to be able to share the large workload of cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. I have been informed that a lot of volunteers moms are best friends! I will let you know how my family dynamic develops.

My mom NeeNee and lil sis Mane eating lunch

December 9th, 2012

My second night in village was definitely my most physically exhausting and painful night in the Peace Corps so far. I had been feeling pretty crappy all day, and shared a lunch bowl with 8 dirty children (the norm - both the feeling crappy and the lunch bowl). As dusk began to fall the gut-wrenching vomitting session commenced. I sat outside wrenching over a puke bucket until dawn. I literally did not get more than a 60 second break at any point to catch my breath and by hour three it was all dry heaves and stomach acid. The vomit erupted with such force and noise that I swear every person in the village could hear me! My neighbor and siblings came and checked on me. My host parents were so worried and wanted me to go to the hospital. They sat with me  the entire night getting me water and squeezing a cool cloth on my neck. They spoke to the PC doctor on the phone, who informed them that the hospital would not help and I just need to wait it out (the hospital would probably give me a shot of large spectrum antibiotics, which they do for most anything - we aren't supposed to ever go there unless it is a life threatening emergency). Unfortunately, everyone in PC Senegal has to experience a few awful nights of adjusting - hopefully it never happens to that degree again!

My site mate Nicky and me with some of my siblings

December 15th, 2012

My first week was rough: from health issues to contant miscommunications. I think my friend Rene put it best, "What a mega weird week in our lives". Things are picking up and getting closer with my host family is really helping me feel more comfortable. My neighbor Fofana asked me what the differences between families in "Amerik" and Senegal are. To start, families in Senegal usually have between 10 - 40 children from the 1 - 4 wives. I told him that in Amerik, it is normal for couples to have 2 or 3 children, or even none. It was hard for him to understand because children play such a large role in helping the family run, and he asks, what do families in Amerik do when children die and they only have 1 or 2?

(Side note: On December 21 my 3 year old host cousin passed away. All they said was that he "wasn't well" and died in the hospital. It was very sad but the family seemed to keeping functioning the same. It is not uncommon for young children to not be healthy and pass away.)

December 20th, 2012

My second week was much better than my first, and I am starting to fall into a routine. I wake up around 7 and try to go on an hour long bike ride every morning. Dawn is beautiful, the sky is peachy-orange and it is not yet too warm to exercise (because it is the cold season). I ride along a dirt path into the bush, surrounded by only trees and silence. It is an hour of quiet I do not see again until I retreat to into my hut for bed. After my bike ride I usually stop at Fa Ndou's breakfast stand and get a bean and tapilapa (freshly baked village bread) sandwich, then head home to the Gory family compound.

I am continuing Nicky's latrine project she started about a year ago. PEPAM and USAID provide materials to build UN approved sanitary latrines and we coordinate finding the masons and families. So far 30 latrines have been built in Maleme Niani and last week we visited all of them surveying if they were working and being used properly. 73 people have signed up for the second round of latrines, and coordinating the building of those will be a big undertaking.

In January we will hold Maleme Niani Malaria Day at the middle school, and also hold a regional training on the uses of the Moringa tree, which has incredible health benefits. Before I head back to Thies for my 10-day intensive technical training in mid-Feb, I need to plant 50 trees in a tree nursery, collect as many seeds from local varieties as i can for the seed bank, and create a 15 minute powerpoint presentation on my potential projects. I am interested in starting a large-scale fruit tree orchard in which the people of Maleme could harvest and sell to supplement their incomes.

Living in a Muslim country has been really educational. A lot of the words we use everyday are actually in Arabic. Most people pray 5 times a day and work must always be scheduled around prayer times. Drinking alcohol is strictly forbidden, and there is none available in villages. Women are expected to keep their heads covered at all times, but this is largely changing in the bigger cities. As a foreigner, I am not expected to wear a head scarf, thankfully, that shit gets HOT! The mosques all have loud speakers that play prayers seemingly all day and night. I am regularly woken up at 4:30am by the mosque speakers, but thankfully my compound is not directly next to one.

I am getting pretty comfortable with Wolof, French, Mandinka, and Pulaar greetings, and Maleme is really a mix of all of those languages and cultures. My name here is Mariatou Gory and some people call me Ma-tou for short, which I think is cute.

There are so many animals in my daily life, but not the ones you would typically picture in Africa. I share my hut with at least 3 large rats and 4 giant lizards. They noisily chase each other across my walls each night. My first night I could not sleep at all and I kept sitting up with a start shining my flashlight on the wall trying to figure out what was rustling through my things. I'm hoping to get a cat to help me out with the rats, but Senegalese don't keep animals as pets, and are often very cruel to them. There are tons of wild cats and dogs running around though, and I might just adopt one! Hoards of donkeys, horses, goats, sheep, and chickens wander aimlessly though our home everyday. Apparently they returen to their owner's homes each night, but that has yet to be corroborated! 

Donkey's hanging out in front of my hut

My bed 

 My toilet and shower

Potential space for a garden/orchard

Cool shot of some Maleme boys under a tree

Much love to all - so thankful for you guys and thank you so much to everyone for sending the letters and packages :)

Peace out, LO

YouTube Vid of the Swearing-In Ceremony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6CF009zP4&feature=youtu.be

It's Official.

Yesterday I became an official Peace Corps Volunteer! I feel proud, nervous, and excited for what is to come.

I took the same oath that any individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office in the civil service or uniformed services, takes: 

“I, Lauren Thomas do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” 

Accepting my Peace Corps ID and certificate from Demba Sibite, the Agroforestry Associate Peace Corps Country Director

The Agroforestry group pic!

A couple quotations they shared with us during training:

Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start

with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best

leaders, when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will

say 'We have done this ourselves'. ― Lao Tzu

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. 
– Andre Gide.

Tomorrow I leave for my village of Maleme Niani and everything is going to change. I am sad to be saying goodbye for now to the 55 awesome volunteers in my group and the incredible trainers and staff here in Thies, but I cannot wait for the challenge and freedom of being in village!

Mandinka Dialogue: Video

Here is a short video of Sam and I speaking in Mandinka!

Translation:
L: Hello, peace be with you!
S: And peace to you.
L: How are you/is there any evil?
S: All good, no evil.
L: What is sweet?
S: Nothing much.
L: Thanks to Allah.
S: Thanks to Allah.
L: How is your garden?
S: My garden is very big. Hot Pepper and Bissap and Onions are there.
S: How many siblings do you have?
L: In Senegal, I have 5 siblings. Their names are Abdou, Diarra, Bainsa, Mabintu, and Basekou.
S: Troublemaker Basekou!
L: Troublemaker Basekou.

Why am I here?

Now that training is almost over I will reflect a bit on the positives and negatives of being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal! I will swear in as an official volunteer on November 30th (after hopefully passing a Language Proficiency Exam and Agroforestry Technical Exam)!

The major challenges so far:

- The heat - always sweaty, all the time. Enough said.

- Doing laundry by hand - is extremely difficult and time consuming, the women here literally spend hours upon hours almost everyday washing clothing, which brings me to ...

- Gender roles and Women's Rights - it s often difficult and disheartening to witness the role of women in the Senegalese community. Most girls are forced to drop out of school before the High School level, or never allowed to go to school because their place is in the home doing chores. My 6 year old host sister sweeps the floor, does the dishes, helps cook lunch and dinner, deals with the trash, and obediently serves her father, brother, and guests. He two older brothers have never been seen helping with chores, while my sister is constantly yelled at to clean faster and better (again, she is 6!).
I feel no animosity at all toward my brothers who get to drink tea and play soccer all day and get to go to school. They have been raised to play and relax while their sisters and mothers work all day. Every other family they know functions the same way.

- Packs of children - especially the young boys who have too much free time, chasing after me and yelling Toubab. Yesterday, a kid threw a large rock at me and it hit me in the back of the shoulder. It hurt my pride more than anything. An older girl was standing there next to him and did not scold him. Also, when we were pulling water from the well, a young boy spit on Sam.

- Language barrier - there are many languages spoken in Senegal, and I currently speak none of them well. It is difficult to gain the respect and friendship of community members when communication is such a frustrating struggle!

- Pre-service training - is hard and the days at the center are jam packed with information and void of free time. Days start promptly at 8:15am and last for 10 straight hours. Sessions range from Integrated Pest Management Theory to The Role of the Volunteer in Development, from Sexual Assault Awareness to The Ecology of Senegal. At the end of the 10th hour, it is hard to stay awake with the heat!

Despite these challenges, I am feeling more and more sure that I am doing the right thing and that my work here will be meaningful and fulfilling.

There are many positives, and so far, they outweigh the negatives:

- I will move to my village on December 1st! - so many things to look forward to - the privacy of my own toilet and backyard to shower in - finally unpacking my suitcases after two months of lugging them back and forth between the training center and my homestay - a small community that will get to know me by name and will learn to not call me Toubab or throw rocks at me - freedom to cook for myself and get nutrients I am lacking eating white rice for every meal.

- Forever a student - the amount of new knowledge I am gaining and the pace at which I am obtaining it is energizing. Learning a new language is difficult but rewarding, and makes me feel productive. I am lucky to be learning Mandinka, and not many people in the world have to opportunity to learn it the way I am!
I know lightyears more about agriculture, land management, agroforestry, and gardens and field crops than I did two months ago (probably because I came in with about nothing!). I can now identify over 30 of Senegal's local tree species by their Latin names. My profession in Mandinka is "yiri tutu la", literally, planter of trees. I like it :)

- Opportunity for change -  Senegal is definitely a developing country, and there is much room for growth. I am very interested in getting involved with the Peace Corps' SENEGAD (Senegal Gender and Development) program, working with young girls on changing gender roles and increasing equality of opportunity through girls camps, school clubs, scholarships, and seminars!

- Taranga - is the Senegalese concept of hospitality. They really take to heart the idea of loving thy neighbor, or anyone else for that matter, as a brother or sister. I could walk into basically any family compound in Senegal and be offered a meal and a place to sleep, no matter how little food or space is available.

- Peace Corps/Senegal - the organization in Senegal is especially well-run and effective. We have over 250 volunteers in country and the way the program is run and connected through staff, trainings, safety and security, healthcare, summits, transportation, etc. blows my mind! The amount of time, money, and hard work that goes into operating the organization is enormous. The staff are extremely knowledgeable and passionate about development and make sure that we are producing tangible results. I feel very blessed to be placed here because Peace Corps programs can vary drastically by country.

- Support - I went into this with the feeling that my two years here in Senegal would be a daunting solitary journey. I know now that I was wrong. I feel supported on all sides from friends, family, coworkers, and Peace Corps staff here in Senegal and back at home (and in Argentina and Australia!). I have already made some great friends in my Ag stage who are really the glue keeping this whole process together. I feel connections with my language trainer, the Peace Corps medical officers, my host family, and current volunteers in my region. There are no lack of friendly and supportive peers to chat, laugh, and vent with. I have applied to be part of the volunteer-run Peer Support Network and act as a counselor to other PCVs - I hope I get it!

After two months of training, all I know for sure is... this isn't going to be easy, but it will be stimulating and rewarding - and I'm in it for the long haul!

My Home for the Next Two Years

I am in a really good place and so stoked on my permanent site placement! In December I will move to Malem Niani, in the Tambacounda region in the southeast of Senegal. Malem is considered a large village by Senegal standards (3,000 people), but it felt very small when I visited. Everyone was extremely welcoming and excited to meet the new volunteer! I am the fourth Peace Corps volunteer to serve in Malem, and I think it will be helpful that the community is already accustomed to working with Peace Corps. I just returned from spending 3 nights there for Volunteer Visit. VV used to be called "demyst" because it was a demystification of where we will be for the next two years!

Below is the Tamba region in orange. You can see the regional capital Tambacounda right above the tip of the Gambia. I am 70km up the road from Tambacounda, which I can get to fairly easily through flagging down public transit, or take a nice long bike ride on a flat paved road!

Malem is a road town and receives many travelers as it is on Route Nacional, which connects Dakar to both Mali and Guinea. My village has electricity from 7pm to 11pm every night meaning I can get cold drinks in the evening! This is a real luxury that most volunteers don't have. My home doesn't have electricity. My family (The Gory Family) is currently building me a small mud hut near their compound. When it is finished I will have my own fenced in backyard and private latrine. Half of my village speaks a dialect of Mandinka (which I am learning), and the other half of the village speaks Pulaar. This should be an interesting challenge and hopefully I will pick up some Pulaar also! Mandinka is not spoken in Dakar or Thies, so I will also have to learn some Wolof to be able to navigate public transportation. Beyond that, french is also spoken in the major cities and very useful. It looks like I am aiming to learn four languages in the next two years, I'll let you guys know how it turns out...

For Volunteer Visit I stayed with Nicky Olerich who is a current Health and Environmental Education volunteer in Malem Niani. She is from Huntington and has been in country for a little over a year and a half. I feel so lucky that I will have her to show me around for my first few months. After she finishes her service there will not be someone replacing her.

During our visit, Nicky, Adam and I took a Charette, or horse drawn cart, 12k into the bush to visit Adam's site. Adam will be living in Dawadi, a small village north of Malem. On our way there our charette popped a tire and we had to call another one. On our way back, our charette broke down again and we had to hang out for 3 hours with all our baggage half way between our sites!

I am so happy to be placed in Malem and I love the people and the environment. There are many trees and at night the stars glitter brightly in the sky; I am glad I brought my constellation guide! Because I am in a road town, we will almost always have access to fresh vegetables and eggs which is AMAZING! Most villages in Senegal don't have access to vegetables during the dry/hungry season. My families compound is literally right next door to a middle school and I am really excited to work with them on agriculture and health projects! I will be leaving my computer at the Peace Corps Regional house in Tambacounda. It is a central meeting place where all the volunteers in my region can come a couple times a month to cook food together and reboot. It slightly resembles a Fraternity house but is awesome nonetheless. During Volunteer Visit the current Tamba volunteers threw us a party and we got to meet most of the people in our region!

I definitely miss my friends and fam and it will be hard not being with you guys for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Know that I am doing well and thinking about all of you :)

Toubabs and Tabaski

October 14th

Yesterday we went to the beach (baadaa). It was so beautiful and tropical, a really nice break. Sam, Adam, Pape and I sat in a shaded beach hut and ordered frozen bissap juice. It was ice cold and sharply satisfying. The day was amazing and being under the warm salty water was therapeutic.

Despite all the dead fish floating in the sea next to us and the pack of diseased wild dogs on the shore, it was the best day ever! I hope to go every Sunday for the next couple months.

October 23rd

The second baptism (kuulio) was in many ways the same as the first. A lot of people sitting around for hours then a delicious spicy goat dish for late afternoon lunch. This one was different though, because around 4pm, as the air was starting to cool off, all the men left the party.

Sam and I realized we were the only ones left outside (playing 20 questions in front of the compound). We walked inside and came upon a circle of about 50 women chanting and singing with a few playing drums. We joined the circle and felt like we were witnessing a secret women's club. They would take turns shaking it in the middle of the circle and the older women were definitely the craziest dancers. As the sun started to set we crammed in a taxi and headed back home to Mbour.

This Friday marks the start of Tabaski, the second biggest Senegalese/Muslim holiday behing Ramadan. Tabaski is the the celebration of when Abraham was told by God/Allah to sacrifice his son Ishmael, but right before he killed his son God allowed him to sacrifice a ram instead. Tabaski is a celebration of God's mercy, and everyone that can afford to will sacrifice a ram on Friday morning. What ensues is supposed to be a week-long bbq where everyone's homes are open to the public and everyone walks around the community sharing food and conversation. I'm excited and a little scared!

October 26th

It is 11:15am on Tabaski morning and a lot has happened. I woke up with a full bladder at 3am and made my way outside to the hole in the ground that is our "Turkish Toilet". When I groggily exited the bathroom, our sacrifice ram was waiting for me outside the door, looking ready to charge, somehow not tied to the fence it was the night before.

I freaked for a brief second then remembered my flashlight and strobe-lighted the ram while I dashed inside and safely back to bed.

Next time I saw the ram my host father was slitting its throat. I watched the sacrifice bu did not stay for most of the dismemberment. The blood was bright red like a can of coca-cola. My father is a Marabout, or religious leader in the community, so he was in charge of slaughtering all the rams in the  compounds nearest to us.

The air is thick with excitement just like on Christmas. Everyone is all smiles and laughter and dressed in their nicest clothing. My little brother Baseko gnaws on a baguette while he watches the sacrifice with intent like it was a good movie.

I was invited to help in the kitchen for the first time, which was exciting. I peeled onions until I cried. My nieghbor stuck a piece of onion on the center of my forehead to stop my eyes from watering; I don't think it helped. I also ground giant black peppercorn in a huge wooden bowl.

While the women sat around a large bowl peeling veggies, my dad and brothers Abdou and Bainsa walked in with most of the skinned ram, including the skull.

Everyone giggled and I shielded my eyes from the head of the ram that was staring at me, Silly Toubab. Toubab is the Senegalese word for "white person" or foreigner. Kids, parents, and everyone in between calls to us with this name. It is usually just out of curiosity and not meant to be derogatory, but it can get old. It is interesting how if a Senegalese person was visiting the US, it would be outrageous for people to point and yell at them "Black person! Foreigner!", but here is a natural and accepted. There is no concept of political correctness and simply pointing out what someone is is not considered offensive.

If we get annoyed when packs of kids yell Toubab! at us, we have been told to yell Mo
Fing back at them, which means little black boy in Wolof. Sam and I think Mo Fing sounds like a rappers name and have decided if we ever start a hip-hop group, we will be called Mo Fing!

I really did think Tabaski lunch was good, although I gagged a couple times because the sheep was so chewy and I was eating with my hand instead of a spoon for the first time. Lunch was pot-roasted sheep with pasta and a thick onion marinade. Imagine eating that with only your right hand...

The strong smell of dead sheep is everywhere and I cannot escape it. It reminds me of when I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and Tulane had a huge crawfish broil. The stench of crawfish thickly permeated everywhere around campus and there were thousands of crawfish in the street. That is what is is like here but with the smell of old sheep meat.

As the evening came to a close, I sat outside the compound with my brothers and sisters eating my #1 fav treat - frozen bissap juice from the corner of a plastic bag (nature's candy)! It cost 25 CFA which is about 5 cents.

Tomorrow is our site placement reveal! I am so excited to find out where my permanent site will be. After we find out we will get to visit a volunteer in our region. I will make sure to take photos and update you when I return! We still have another month of training split between the center and our CBT sites, then we will be sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers on November 30th.

CBT - Community Based Training

They said the first day of CBT would be the hardest and most awkward day in all of our 27 months in the PC.

On October 3rd I got dropped off in a Mandinka community in M'Bour, about 45 minutes from the training center. I was alone with my backpack, water filter, and the family I would spend the next 2 months living on and off with during training. I stayed with them for 7 nights and just got back to the PC training center.

Within 30 seconds of arriving I had used up all of my Mandinka I knew - I be heera to? Heera dorong. Kor tanante? Tanante. (How are you? Only peace. Is there any evil? No problems.) Roughly translated. I was then told my new name is Mariama Danso. Mariama is the Muslim name for the Virgin Mary and Danso is their family name.

We sat down in a circle outside and they proceeded to talk about me in Mandinka while I smiled and laughed. Then abruptly they all stood up and moved the mats and chairs inside. It had been about 100 degrees and clear skies but sure enough it started to rain 5 minutes later.

For the next 3 hours we proceeded to eat uncooked peanuts and drink Attaya (tea). Tea is a huge part of their culture and we spend the majority of everyday sitting in a circle and drinking tea. As is customary I brought them 10 boxes and tea and a large bag of sugar. They prepared the tea in a small tin teapot over hot coals.

We drank out of two shot glasses that got passed around the group. The tea was delicious and dark, with lots of sugar and mint from the little boy who had just popped in a traded his mint for some of our peanuts.

October 6th

I just kind of realized that as an Ag volunteer in Senegal I got myself into two years of hard manual labor in the sweltering heat...

But really, I am excited about the training garden Samantha, Adam, and I are building in M'Bour! I hope stuff grows :) It was a lot of work gathering all the materials we needed for the 1m cubed compost pile, vegetable nursery, and 3 1x3m garden beds. To amend the soil we needed charcoal, wood ash, and manure. To make the compost pile we needed to stack layers of nitrogen and carbon: for nitrogen we picked green leaves and grass and found horse manure, for carbon we searched for dry leaves and used peanut shells. So far it is looking good! When we go back to CBT in 2 days we will start planting...

October 8th

Every morning from about 9am to 12pm we we have Mandinka language class with our LCF (language and culture facilitator) Pape Sanou. I am happy to have Binta (Sam) and Bakarey (Adam) in my Mandinka group.

I hang out with my youngest siblings Baseko (4) and Mabintu (6) a lot. They are adorable and I love chilling with them. My sister Diarra is 17 and her husband Moussa in 31. They were with us the past week but left for Dakar today to attend the University. I am sad because I am not sure if I will get to see them again!

I get all of my water from my British Berkefeld water filter and then treat it with bleach. The first time I used it I had not screwed on the filter candles correctly and the unfiltered water leaked through. I then proceeded to serve Sam and Adam water from my filter. Luckily none of us got sick and hopefully it will just make our immune systems stronger!

It was definitely difficult and at times lonely spending a week with people that I cannot communicate with, but I totally see how impactful learning a language through this method is. I will spend 2 nights here at the center and then go back to CBT for 16 days! Right now the word I hear the most is "Domo, domo, domo" (eat!). My family loves to feed me and feeding guests well is something Senegalese take pride in.

Anyways, I am alive and well and still adjusting and trying to take everything in! Lots of love to friends and family.

One Week In

I can’t believe it is only day 5 in country! So much has happened this past week and I am so excited to share with you guys. We arrived very early on Thursday morning and basically went right into training:

We had a culture fair and learned a lot about Senegalese dress, customs, and food. They eat sitting on the floor around a gigantic bowl and everyone eats with their right hand (no utensils). It is totally taboo to ever use your left hand to do anything including eat, hand over money, etc! Our first lunch was a gigantic bowl of spiced couscous with interesting veggies I had never seen before and probably lamb but not exactly sure what the meat was.

Our days are packed and the training is really intense and organized. I am really impressed with all the awesome local teachers we have. The Peace Corps’ approach to learning is very different and they have one of the most outstanding language programs in the world. I feel so luck to be learning an African language with it! Half of this 2 month training will be spent living in a village with a family and learning by conversing with them. On Wednesday I will go to my Community Based Training site (stay with a family in a nearby village and do hands on work) for 5 days then back to the training center!!

On our first trip back from downtown Thies to check out the market, our janky cab completely broke down in the middle of the road! We had not yet learned any Wolof so that was interesting but it worked out.

It is SO HOT here like off the chain. Everyone is sweaty 100% of the time but I’m already kind of getting used to it! I love the people 57 people in my stage. We have a really diverse group from all over the US.

For anyone worried about me - The Peace Corps is EXTREMELY prepared in terms of medical, health, and safety. We each got cases of medical kits with everything you could ever need including antibiotics, malaria meds, and malaria treatment (just in case!).

Today we had an awesome dance party in the center of our courtyard:

Today we also had our first technical training and everyone got really into it! We made composting piles, made vegetable pépinières and planted hot peppers, bitter tomatoes, and cabbage, and learned double digging techniques for soil composition. We also had a class on plant nutrition.

I just found out the language I am learning and I am so excited!! I could have been assigned to one of eight languages that are spoken throughout Senegal: Wolof, Pulaar, Sereer, Janxti, Bambarro, Pula Futa, Fulaa Kunda, or Mandinka and....

I'm learning Mandinka! Mandinka is a minority language in Senegal, and is also spoken in the Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Chad. There are only three of us in my Peace Corps stage learning Mandinka and we will most likely be placed in the far south of Senegal!

 I really feel like I am exactly where I am meant to be at this moment. I am energized and eager for what’s to come!

Awaiting Departure

Hello friends! I am off to Africa next week... here is a little more info about my position in the Peace Corps- I hope I can stay in contact with you all via posts and photos on this blog :)

I am headed to Senegal, West Africa for 27 months, meaning I will return around December 2014!

My role is an "Agroforestry Extension Agent" and projects could include, but are not at all limited to, reforestation efforts, teaching sustainable agriculture techniques, starting vegetable nurseries, and leading community or after school programs!

Agroforestry is an integrated approach of using the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock. It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy, and sustainable land-use systems. A narrow definition of agroforestry is "trees on farms."

Senegal has a hot climate and will be around 85 - 100 degrees and muggy when I arrive! The population is 94% Muslim, the official language is French, and I will also be learning another tribal language. The population is just under 13 million. (CIA World Factbook).

I will likely be living with a family on a compound with my own hut without electricity or running water. I am enormously excited and also nervous that I am not qualified enough to make a serious impact! I realize that I will probably gain far more than I can offer and I cannot wait to be fully immersed in a totally new language and culture!

Peace Corps Senegal describes their approach: "Peace Corps Senegal has a very strong emphasis on the first goal of Peace Corps—the development goal. We take pride in tangibly helping the communities where we live and work make progress in improving their day-to-day lives. In addition to our strong focus on programs, 
such as Community Economic Development/Ecotourism, Health, Environmental Education, Agro-forestry, and Sustainable and Urban Agriculture, Peace Corps Senegal is developing innovative approaches to working across these sectors to achieve goals in each of the regions of Senegal where we work. In these efforts, Volunteers work as teams to design, develop and implement strategies for development in collaboration with each other, their communities, the local government and non-governmental organization partners." (Exciting stuff!! :D)

Teddy Roosevelt said "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, [and] difficulty" ... Here it goes!