CALL ME!!!!

from the states dial: 011 221 447 4010 and you will reach my cell! i have not set up voicemail yet, but feel free to call anytime! senegal is 4 hours ahead of the east coast time wise just fyi. peace out.

Life as Peace Corps Trainee 6:30am: Wake up for the first time (sometimes I wake up to the call to prayers around 4:30 or 5:30…Senegal is a Muslim country and Muslims pray 5 times a day….starting very early) If the electricity is working I get up and shower. But by shower I mean filling up a bucket and going in the designated stall to pour the water from the bucket over me to try and get clean. It’s surprisingly effective and almost enjoyable. 7am: Walk to the bus stop and wait with a few other trainees for the peace corps bus to pick us up and go to the peace corps compound. The first couple of days my host mom/brother walked me…but I’ve graduated to big kid status and I can now walk to the bus stop by myself. 7-7:30: Bus ride picking up other peace corps trainers (pct’s) and time for sharing crazy Larium induced (our malaria med) dreams and sharing stories about our crazy Senegalese host families. Based on other pct’s stories about their families, my family seems incredibly chill in comparison. One day when I understand who all the people are who come in and out of my house I’ll write about my family. I havn’t quite figured everything out, but here’s a brief description: I have a mom, dad, and approximately 8 siblings, some of whom are married/have kids. Once we arrive at the center we eat breakfast that consists of baguettes with jelly, nutella-ish stuff and butter. Every day. At our very first breakfast there were hard boiled eggs, but that was apparently just to get our hopes up. We definitely havn’t had anything but baguettes since then. Oh well. Baguettes are the new pancake. 8-12: Language class with 1 half hour break, and two shorter breaks. 12:30-2:30: Lunch and break. We eat lunch Senegalese style: 4-5 people sit around a big bowl of food on the ground and we just go at it. It’s usually fish and rice, sometimes we get chicken or some other kind of meat. During this break I usually play ping pong or throw a Frisbee around or just hang out. The lunch break is the time to do laundry too….our host families do most of our laundry (which is really nice) but we’re supposed to wash our own socks and underwear, and it actually is dry by the time we’re done with all of our classes for the day. A lot of people have started to nap or go to the internet cafe during this break (which is what i'm currently using the break for). 2:30-6: More class…..usually a variety of topics ranging from Senegalese culture to safety to medical info. The afternoon classes are usually pretty boring and I’m always counting down the minutes to the half hour break. The half hour break in the afternoon is usually when people go to the guard station at the compound and buy some “boisson sucre” a.k.a. soft drinks. There are 3 choices: Coke, Fanta Orange, and Fanta Cocktail. Fanta Cocktail seems to be the overwhelming favorite, seeing as its incredibly tasty and new to us. I’m sure they have it other places in the world, but I’d never had it before. There’s also some cookie things called “biscrum” that are good for a little sugar boost. Apres class: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays have been designated as “sport days.” On these days all interested pct’s walk to the track that’s about a block away from the peace corps compound and play either soccer or ultimate frisbee or just run on the track. There’s a “field” in the middle of the track, but it’s more an open sandy area than an actual field. “Track” is also a loose term….it’s pretty much just sand/dirt. All the “toubabs” (foreigner/white person) usually create quite a scene and the locals at the track just kinda stare at us. We’re supposed to be home by 7 so we can break the fast with our families (and also cuz it’s not so safe walking around town after dark by yourself). At my house, when we break the fast we first have 2 dates right at 7. A few minutes later I usually get a massive baguette with meat surprise on it. I call it meat surprise cuz every bite is a surprise…sometimes it’s a chunk of meat, sometimes it’s a potato, and sometimes it’s a massive chunk of fat. On a good day I’ll only have to swallow one massive wad of random animal fat, but on a bad day I’ll have to swallow about 3 wads of fat. We also drink Nescafe or some tea-ish drink….I havn’t quite figured out what the tea stuff is exactly. After the fast is broken, people usually just sit around-usually outside because it’s much cooler outside. If I have homework I’ll do my homework, if not, I just sit. If I try to read anything my siblings usually take whatever I’m trying to read from me and look at it or ask me questions about it, so no reading actually happens. Sometimes one of my siblings will talk to me in French (amongst the family they speak pulaar and/or wolof), which is nice and sometimes frustrating cuz my French is still pretty rusty. Oh well, I think its getting better. I should probably just be trying to speak in pulaar anyway (with all 10 words I know). We usually have dinner around 9:30 or ten, which is always rice and fish in a communal bowl. After dinner we usually have some juice called “bisap” juice…I forget what it is in English but it’s really good! I usually go to bed pretty soon after dinner….which really means I lay in bed for about an hour fanning myself until I stop sweating or eventually fall asleep sweating. Then I wake up and do it again. Sorry for all the run-on sentences and rambling. I hope some of that made sense. We have Sundays off, but I’ve only had two Sundays here so it’s hard to say what a normal one is like. This past Sunday I spent a lot of the day getting my hair braided. It took all day because it didn’t happen in one sitting. My sister started braiding, then decided she wanted to shower and go to the market, so I went to the market with her with about ¼ of my hair braided. When we got back she continued braiding until we used an entire package of hair ties. Turns out I have too much hair for just one pack of hair ties, so my sister went back to the market to get more hair ties. After an hour or so later she got back and finished braiding. By the time she finished it was about time to break the fast and begin the evening activity of sitting around. And that was Sunday. I really appreciate the comments you leave on my blog....it makes me very happy! Hopefully I'll get in a routine where I can update it more regularly. Uncle Gil, I've gotten your emails and will try to answer some of your questions in future posts. Uncle Timmy, feel free to share this with your class! Jenny, when I was visiting you this summer you asked about african women and big butts....i have an answer for you and will write about it sometime soon. Miami people: I'm glad you had fun at homecoming!

Assala Malekum!

So two days ago i spent about 45 minutes writing a really long blog entry, and right as i was about to click to submit the new entry the stupid electricity went out! So I was originally planning on this first entry in Africa to be long and detailed....but i don't know that it will be. Anyway, where to start....

Thank you to everyone who has emailed/commented on my blog/written on my facebook wall/sent me letters....it makes me so happy and i really appreciate it! Keep it coming!

The group of people i'm training with (my "stage") is the biggest senegal has had to date...there's 50 of us! It's been really fun getting to know people, and it's a great group....everyone is really interesting and very talented. About half the group is Small Enterprise Development, (SED), and the rest are either Sustainable Agriculture or Agro Forestry. We have technical training with our specific sectors, but our language classes are mixed up among the sectors. For example, I'm the only SED person in my 6 person language class, there's 4 sustainable ag people, and one agfo person. We're learning a local language called "pulaar du nord," and we're the only 6 people learning pulaar du nord. You'd think that would mean that after training i'll be going to the northern part of the country, but that's not necessarily the case. Apparently there's a region in the middle of senegal where the people mostly speak pulaar du nord, so i could be going there. We won't find out where our sites are for another couple of weeks. And it doesn't really matter anyway b/c we have about 8 more weeks of training.

My host family is pretty cool....they speak pulaar and wolof (another local language), and they gave me a new pulaar name. I am now Rougie. "mbiyete mi ko Rougie." Ha, that's about all the pulaar i know right now! I guess i should go study some. I also need to go break the fast with my family. It's Ramadan right now, which means they don't eat or drink during the day. As soon as the sun sets though they "break the fast" with dates, coffee, baguettes wtih meat surprise on it, and then dinner around 10 pm. Ok i'll write more later. Peace out!