Saturday, April 26, 2008

new photo site!

So I've created a Flickr site to post my PC photos to, in bulk, when I can, which seems to take less time to upload and has more space than this blog. I'll still probably post photos here from time to time, but the photo site will be more like an ongoing album, so you can check that out too. Here's the web address:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/offtoseetheworld/

So far actually these photos are mostly from Tracy's camera, but soon I'll have some up from mine as well.

Enjoy!

at the office in Linguère

10 days wiser...

Whew. "Demystification."
What a word for what we just experienced. The new PC term for it is CBT - Community-Based Training, but I guess you could say that I have been demystified in many ways, after spending the last week plus with a current volunteer, shadowing her work and meeting her community. With everything we did and the time we spent there, it's hard to express how the days seemed to stretch on and on, slowly melting into each other with a timelessness that was intensified by the heat and the constant concentration required to interact in a different community in a new language. Monday felt like Saturday, Thursday could have been Sunday, and each day there seemed to be so set apart from what we were used to, the community in itself seeming isolated from the rest of the world, existing alone in the desert heat. After a few days the whole town knew our names, our new names that is, the second round of names we've been given here in country, and I admit now that as difficult as it was to feel like we were thrown into a new situation just as we were getting comfortable in our first one, I feel more ready now to go to my site and start feeling comfortable there.

This week I bought my first few meters of Senegalese fabric, danced at a tam-tam while wearing a borrowed Wolof outfit, complete with headwrap, tried to bargain for produce at a weekly market, and helped facilitate a session on mosquito net dipping for the town (with some small success). Most of the week it was between 98 and 100 degrees F, only cooling down slightly each night, and most of my pocket money went towards buying boissons fraiches at the town butiks. On the day where there was nothing cold in the fridge because the electricity was down, I came back to the house with two cans of pineapple chunks to share between us after our hot lunch of fish and rice, and we laughed as the five of us passed around the cans and savored the semi-cool juice.

Now that we're back in Thiès, I realize I did a lot of complaining, but overall those days were positive ones, and helped to reassure me that I will indeed be able to handle myself when I get to site. This last week also is making me appreciate all the more the luxury of sitting here to write this with air conditioning blowing cool around me. Until the next time!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

sun and sand.

Week 5 of 8, and training is getting more important every day. It's also getting to be more fun, for me at least, since I feel like my language skills are starting to be acceptably passable, Sant Yalla. I've been joking around with our trainers, having funny conversations with my friends who are learning Wolof, and laughing at phrases other friends are learning in Serere and Pulaar (in Serere, to say "really?" you say "ndigol-ndigol?") Buying sodas from the guards at the gate in between classes, while they ask me in Wolof if I have any cute sisters, also keeps me smiling. Last week I was talking with my Senegalese sisters, in between studying for two tests, and after two of them asked me if I didn't have a "far" back in America ("far" is a Wolof word that means "boyfriend", but really in Senegalese culture you don't have a boyfriend unless you're basically engaged, so. anyway...) and when I said no, they didn't believe me, so to deflect attention I turned to my (very pretty) younger sister and told her I knew she had a "far", and she giggled, and said no, no, while my older sister laughed and said, "Yeah, she does! She's got 10, 11, 12..." and counted all the way up to 25! So when I told the guards who were asking about my eligible sisters that ND had 25 boyfriends, they got a big kick out of that, and said, no, no, 25 boyfriends, "baaxul!" ("no good!") :p

Things have been going really well for me, I helped organize a trip to the beach this past weekend, and I'm excited to keep going with training, though a little overwhelmed about going out to site in just under a month - gasp! We found out our site placements on Friday, and it's hard to believe that in less than four weeks we'll all be somewhere different. I feel very lucky to have the people I have here with me in this stage (our training group), and will definitely miss them when we're all spread out around Senegal. But the country is not sooo big... though one of my best friends has been posted in a village that will take about 14 hours by car to get to =( I found out I'm going to be on the coast, about 110 km south of Dakar, around the city of Joal, which has about 35,000 people. So probably no mud hut for me, actually. I have mixed feelings about this, as I really do love living in my village right now, as everyone knows me, and I feel very comfortable and safe there. But everyone has been very supportive here, and I have faith that the trainers know what they think is best for me, and things will work out okay whether I'm in a city or a village. I'm trying not to build up any expectations around proximity to amenities like electricity or running water, as I've mostly gone without both for the last month anyway (though we have them at the training center, of course), but it's hard not to be excited about the fact that my site will be, by all accounts, very close to the beach =)

Tomorrow all of us PCTs are leaving, in ten different groups, to go out into country for 10 days for what's called in PC jargon "demystification". We'll be visiting current PCVs to see what their lives are like and what their work is like, to get a little practice in our technical areas, and to continue learning our respective languages, since our language teachers are going along. I'm going to miss my family here, but getting to see what PCVs really do should be interesting, and fun, and informative, for sure. I'll let you know how it goes.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

a little banner-waving.

Background info: yesterday was Senegal’s Independence Day, April 4th.

Because of the holiday, we trainees had the day off to use as we liked here around Thiès. Being as how we have been working and learning for the last three weeks to cram information into our brains to the tipping point, we were all very excited to get a chance to spend a night and a day just relaxing. To facilitate this kind gift, the staff at the training center allowed us to stay overnight there Independence Day Eve, meaning we had to inform our homestay families that we would be spending the night away. So on Tuesday evening, while my older sister and younger sister were in my room helping me go over my Wolof notes, I brought up the subject of Independence Day.

This is about how the conversation went, with me speaking some French, and trying hard to use Wolof more, and my sisters, N and ND, speaking a mixture as well, but with a larger ratio of Wolof to French :

ME: So. Vendredi. Naka lanuy waxe “vendredi” ci Wolof?
(How do you say “Friday” in Wolof again?)
N: Aljuma.
ME: Waaw, waaw-waaw, Aljuma. (Yes, of course. Friday.)
ND: C’est la fête de l’indépendance. (It’s the Independence Day celebration.)
ME: Waaw. Degg la. (Yes. It’s true.)
ND: Est-ce que vous fêtez le 4 avril en Amerique aussi?
(Do you celebrate April 4th in America too?)
ME: Déedéet. Wante… on célèbre le 4 juillet, c’est notre fête d’indépendance.
(No. But… we celebrate July 4th, that’s our Independence Day.)
ME: Kon, aljuma, amul klaas ndaxte c’est le 4 avril.
(So Friday there’s no class, because it’s the fourth of April.)
ND: Ah, baax na, baax na. (That’s great, great.)

[break in conversation while I try to formulate the words in Wolof to say I’ll be sleeping at the center Thursday night --- ND takes this opportunity to continue the topic of the 4th]

ND: Xam nga l’hymne nationale? (Do you know the national anthem?)
ME: Déedéet, wante xalaat naa ne … c’est dans mon cahier de langue, look, voila --
(No, but I think that… it’s in my language notebook, here, tada!)
[as I pull out my notebook, pointing to the page with the Senegalese national anthem]
N: Hahaha, [Then N, who has been very helpful and hands on in my language learning, takes my notebook into her lap and then proceeds to sing, along with ND, the entire national anthem. And maybe now you can see where this is going… Clap, clap, clap, so beautiful, etc. etc., and then…
ND: Xam nga sa hymne nationale? (Do you know your national anthem?)
ME: Waaw, waaw-waaw, The Star-Spangled Banner. (Yes, of course, “The SSB”.)
ND and N: Chante-la! Woyal, woyal!! (Sing it, sing it!)
ME: Mmm, well…

So that’s how I sang the entire American national anthem for my two Senegalese sisters, sitting in my room in our village on the outskirts of the city. Talk about cultural integration... ;)

Thursday, April 3, 2008














Jared is creatively demonstrating the effectiveness of the teaching system here at the training center. This is from the first week... and we were all très fatigué, c'est sûr.

let's give this photo thing a try...

First night in Africa, baby. Look how we are tiiired. This is the foyer of the training center, with its great maps painted on the wall of Africa and Senegal.

More PCT friends! read up.

To help round out your vicarious experience of Peace Corps training in Senegal, here are more of my friends here. Bethany in particular has posted some great photos already, so check them out!

Brittany: http://bsquaredinsenegal.blogspot.com
Annicka: http://annickawebster.blogspot.com
Bethany: http://pcbeth.blogspot.com
Marisa: http://senegalfastfood519.blogspot.com

Ba beneen yoon (til next time)!