This post is completely off Peace Corps topic really, but as it is (apparently) rare that I get inspired to write something I figured I'd go for it. Today has been one of those days where I sit back and think to myself, "Wow, my life is a cosmic joke." Allow me to explain...

Really, it all started yesterday evening. After several days of dark skies, the humidity finally broke last night and a major storm ensued. When it rains the temperature drops easily 5-10 degrees in a matter of minutes, which is always a welcome break from sweating to death. So I was excited to grab a quick shower, and curl up in bed for a movie and a relatively comfortable (temperature-wise) night's sleep. Not so fast there, Elizabeth. This is Senegal after all...less than 5 minutes after the rain really got going, POOF...there goes the power. Obviously a bit of a disappointment, but I figured it'd come back on before too long and decided to go ahead with my plans. I hoped in the shower (by the light of my cell phone's flashlight) and then crawled into bed with my laptop for movie time.

One movie and one episode of TV later...midnight and still no power. Bite. Still trying to be optimistic, I grabbed my hand fan and started fanning myself to sleep. I drifted off sure that the power would be back on by morning.

4 AM...awake again because, in spite of the rain, it was still HOT (in the vicinity of 90 F) in my room and the electricity was no where to be seen. In an attempt to get comfortable enough to get back to sleep, I decided to take a quick shower. After a brief conversation with my mom who was trying (and failing) to beat the heat by sleeping outside, I went into the bathroom and turned the water on. Thankfully there was still enough water pressure for the shower to work, but the water was barely more than trickling out. BAD SIGN. You see if the power is out for too long (which at this point it had already out for 7 hours) the water pumps stop working and pretty soon...no more water. Hoping for the best, I climbed back into bed and tried to fan myself back to sleep.

8 AM...wake up and still no power. Wah wah. So rather than my normal bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I ate summer sausage. I had a feeling this was going to go on forever, which meant that all things perishable in my fridge needed to be consumed or lost. Thank goodness I hadn't yet opened the giant jar of salsa my parents brought for me...losing that would've been truly tragic.

After my super nutritious breakfast, I was faced with a dilemma, aka what to do with myself. Pretty much everything I had planned on doing today (work, laundry, cleaning) required either water or electricity. Both of which were still nowhere to be seen. So much for that productive day I was going to have...

In the end, I settled on packing my bag for the trip down to Kedougou for the 4th of July. When that was done, my mom and I spent a while discussing how we could get our hands on some water. Losing water is so much worse than electricity...can't flush the toilets, bathe, wash your hands, cook, clean, do laundry, NOTHING. In the end, we found out that there was still water at my uncle's house and called a horse cart to take a bunch of buckets over there to fill up. Problem temporarily solved, I decided to kill some time by painting my nails...

Lunch. Sweating. Being angry about the power still being out. More sweating...

Finally, a whopping EIGHTEEN hours later, the power came back on. HURRAH! By this time its nearly 4 PM so I scrambled to get some laundry done (thankfully the water kicked back on shortly after the power) so that it would have time to dry before the sun set. Then I dragged my bike out of storage for the first time in months to wash and get it ready for Kedougou. Water and power restored...I figured my day had turned around. Again, not so fast, Elizabeth.

First, my bike was all screwed up because someone (cough little brother cough cough) had been playing with the gears while the bike was stationary. After lots of grease and chipped nails (grr!), I finally managed to get the chain back in place. Then I tried to pump the tires up only to find that my bike pump doesn't fit. Great. So I decided to call Katherine and ask for advice as I know her bike sees a lot more action than mine. I had been listening to music while I did laundry/cleaned so I went to go turn my iPod off and POOF...iPod breaks. Tried everything I could think of to bring it back, but no good...bye bye iPod :(

Disheartened, I call Katherine to ask about the bike pump and again...no luck. She doesn't have the same pump as me. Figures. After another 30 minutes of messing with it, I finally get the tires pumped up. At this point I figured a little American food binge was necessary with the day I'd been having. So I shoved far too many Goldfish in my mouth and decided to tackle repainting my nails. I had just gotten them finished for the second time today and POOF...nail polish falls off my desk. Cue black nail polish splattering all over my desk, floor and brand new shoes. Great. So I ran around trying to clean it all up before it dried and half-succeeded...my shoes and desk still have lovely black spatter marks everywhere.

That mess (mostly) dealt with, I went to grab my laundry off the line and what do I find? A bird pooped on my clean bra. COME ON! Talk about when it rains, it pours. So I wash it again and hang it up to dry in my bathroom (a hopefully bird poop free zone).

And finally...we're sitting down at a lovely dinner of rice and peanuts and I reach up to tuck some hair behind my ear, only to find a HUGE grasshopper in my hair. Yuck. My family, of course, got a kick out of me freaking out about it. I may live in Africa, but bugs in the hair is never something I'm going to be OK with.

So to summarize. Today...

- 18 hours without power

- Roughly 12 hours without water

- Broken iPod

- Nail polish debacle

- Bird poop contaminated laundry

- Bug in hair

Mostly, (except for the iPod) its funny and a little silly now that I've bothered to write it all down...but you know how those kind of days are. In the end, you just have to throw up your hands, have a laugh and accept that the universe has won this round. And now I'm going to bed before anything else can get screwed up!

Nu fanaan ak jamm!! (roughly translated: Let's pass the night in peace)

So it has been over a month…if there’s even anyone out there still checking this blog, I apologize. Allow me to catch you up…

My trip to Spain was very nice. I enjoyed lots of good food and wine, air conditioning, rain (for the first time in 6 months) and some serious time with CNN. It was great to see a friend from home, though unfortunately, another friend who was supposed to join us got stranded in Germany because of all the volcano nonsense in Iceland. All in all, it was a nice weeklong break from life in Senegal. It’s strange how going to the movies or wandering around lush green gardens feels surreal, while bartering in Wolof or taking sept places feels completely normal these days…

Another thing that surprised me about vacation was how hard it was to come back. When I left I was feeling great about life here, so it caught me off guard that I came back from Spain rather short on motivation. In retrospect, I think it happened because seeing someone from home triggered the first real bout of homesickness I’ve had since leaving home back in August. And its times like that when I’d defy anyone to honestly say that questions like, “What am I really doing here?” don’t pass through their head.

It was while I was trying to re-establish my routine and motivate myself that I got some extremely sad news from home…three weeks ago, my Grandpa passed away. I knew going into Peace Corps that there was a good chance I’d never see him again; but of course, knowing that and having it actually come to be are two very different things.

I think when a person you are close to passes away, all you want to do is be with other people who knew and loved them, to take time to remember them together. That being said, being so far away from my family was incredibly hard. I was able to talk with everyone a fair bit in the days following Grandpa’s death, but all I wanted to do was be at home. Though, it was fortunate that I was among friends here when I found out (rather than at site alone), and they were great and incredibly supportive.

So that’s why I haven’t posted in a while. I debated whether or not to write about these past few weeks at all, but in the end I felt I should. In spite of how bad I am at updating, I do want this blog to be an honest chronicle of my life in Peace Corps, as much for myself as for everyone back home. So I decided I can’t just write about the good things and leave out what has been the hardest time in my service so far. Peace Corps isn’t always sunshine and roses after all.

Now that you know what’s been going on, don’t worry…this post does not end with, “And that’s why I’m ET-ing.” (ET means early termination of service) I’m still finding the motivation I had before recent events to be a bit elusive, but I’m not going to quit. I can feel a change coming on as we speak!

I’ll end with a promise to be better about posting in the future. And for Grandpa, thank you for all of the memories and everything you taught me. Love you and miss you so much…

Well I still have a bunch of things to tell everyone about regarding the past few months, but in the meantime here’s a brief update...

Tomorrow (April 13th) officially marks 8 months of life in Senegal! Its hard to believe that 3/4 of a year has gone by so quickly. I find it even harder to believe that I've now lived in Senegal longer than I lived in London or Chicago. Who would have imagined...

A new stage of trainees has arrived (health and environmental education volunteers), so my group is no longer the low man on the totem pole. It's funny to think that not so long ago life here seemed so new (and sometimes terrifying) and now we're the ones that people are turning to for advice.

All in all, life is pretty great these days. I feel comfortable in the culture and very capable of communicating and getting around independently. I've also got some really good projects in the works, which I'm super excited about. Basically, I’m having a great time and I am pretty darn happy with how life is going. I guess you could say I’m just high on life lately :)

AND, tomorrow night I’m leaving on vacation for a week! I’m going to meet a few friends from home and travel around Spain a little. We’re going to Madrid, Seville and Cadiz. I’m going to get reacquainted with the Western world, maybe treat myself to a little bit of luxury and enjoy lots of delicious Spanish food. It should be a great trip!!

Ba bennen…

Alright, I'm officially failing at my New Year's resolution to update more regularly. Sigh. I apologize....

But in exciting news, internet has finally come to my humble abode in Nioro!! While not being connected to the outside world on a daily basis actually had its perks, I definitely wouldn't go back. Finally having the ability to skype with all my friends and family back home on a regular basis is AMAZING. So all of you out there...get skype and CALL ME! I believe my skype contact info is listed on the side, but if not, just search my name. I feel pretty confident in saying I'm the only Elizabeth Corkery living in Senegal.

Another perk of having internet is that I now have no excuse not to post all the blogs that I've stored up over the past few months. I'm working on getting them all put together and ready for posting soon because there's a lot to catch everyone up on.

In the mean time, life in Senegal is going well. Work is starting to pick up which is exciting. Unfortunately, temperatures are creeping up as well...highs around 115°F on a daily basis and this isn't even close to the hottest month of the year. JOY!

Now, before I get to all of the stories from the past few months, I wanted to take a minute to send some long overdue thank you's to everyone who has sent me packages and/or letters since I arrived. Actual hand written notes are on their way to you soon, but in the meantime I wanted to acknowledge everyone here.

SHOUT OUTS:

Sister Rita and Rose - the very first package I received in Senegal and I can't tell you how excited I was. Thank you for all of the amazing goodies that were my first taste of America in 2.5 months!! Also, thank you for all of your letters Sister Rita...its really great to get news from home via snail mail from time to time.

Grandma - thank you for all of your wonderful cards!! Your news from home and words of support/encouragement always brighten my day :)

Aunt Margaret - thank you for the birthday card and the pictures of you and the girls!

Amy and Mark - thank you for the amazing package! A fun gossip mag and mini bags of chips...you know me so well.

Alex - unfortunately the mice got to this package before I did, but it was still awesome. Chocolate and an entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos...enough said. Thanks!

Elizabeth D. - still keeping my fingers crossed that your package will show up sometime soon and I'm sure it will be fabulous. Regardless of when/if it arrives...thank you!!

Aunt Kristi and Uncle David - thank you for the books and the other treats! New reading material is always exciting :)

The lovely German tourists - we ran into them while they were stranded in Dakar by a snow storm at their next destination ;) Thanks for hanging out with the girls and I! Your company was amazing and so was all of that delicious food!

Mrs. Brignadello, Mrs. Bowen, Mrs. Campion, Mrs. Donnelly, Mrs. Blakesly, Mrs. Comfort, Mrs. Glawe, Mrs. Sparrow and Mrs. McGee - thank you all so much for everything!! Your packages were such an amazing hodge podge...I can't tell you how nice its been to have some new shirts or to use body wash instead of bar soap for the first time in months. And all the food was, of course, delicious and devoured right away.

Mr. Funkhouser - awesome package. Animal house, a toga party mix, beef jerky and cereal. YAY, thank you!

Mrs. Schwass - this package was the perfect mix of delicious goodies and fun luxuries. The candles have especially come in handy since the power has been going out every night for the past 3 weeks. Thank you!

Kate - your package was such a surprise and brought a huge smile to my face :) The picture you sent is now proudly on display in my room and omg, including that DVD from Greece almost made me tear up. See you very, very soon!!!

And last, but most certainly not least...my amazing parents!! Thank you for all of the package you have sent Mom and Dad. Mom, you're absolutely the best at finding things to send that I never realized I was missing but am so excited to receive :) And thank you for fulfilling all of my random requests for things from the states. You guys are the best and I can't wait to see you soon!!!!

I think that just about covers it. Its so nice to have a taste of home and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all for putting these packages and letters together! Not to mention now that starving season is here...those snacks from America are lifesavers on days when the only things in a bowl meant to feed 8 people are white rice, two tiny fish and a small carrot. So one more time...a huge THANK YOU to everyone!!!

Ba beneen :)

As I mentioned in a previous post, the SED PCVs in the Kaolack region do a business-related radio show every first Monday of the month. Usually, Lindsay and Daniel, who are both in their second year of service, handle the programming. However, when the January show rolled around, they were both unavailable, which meant either the show wouldn’t get done or some first years would have to take charge. So Kenny, Mollie (two other PCVs from my stage) and I decided to put our awesome language skills to the test and give flying solo a try. The show was January 4, so once we all got back to Kaolack from New Year’s we got started on preparing for the show. First, Kenny took a section from one of our training manuals, specifically related to finding a business idea, and turned it into a script. Then the three of us got together and worked on perfecting the script and translating it into French for the show. So what does teaching a Senegalese person how to find a business idea entail? Well, things like this may seem intuitive to most of you, but here, one can never assume. We started with Kenny (who was the program host) and myself (the “business expert”) discussing some basic principles, such as what to do before opening a business, steps to follow, etc. Then, Mollie joined the mix, playing a Senegalese woman wishing to open a business and seeking my advice on how to go about finding a good idea. Through the role-play we demonstrated that first you need to look at what already exists in your area and what there might be a need for. Then compare these observations with your own personal skills and…voila! You are on your way to a solid business idea. Again, I know this sounds incredibly basic, but you’d be shocked by the number of women you find sitting in a one block radius selling the EXACT same thing everyday. So, with all of this in mind, we headed over to the radio station in Kaolack and gave it our best shot… Verdict: moderate success. For our first time on our own, it went reasonably smoothly and I think we covered an important concept. With radio, its hard to know if anyone even tuned in, let alone took anything away from what you said. Still, I think we gave it a solid a try. So, why call it a “moderate” successs? Well, the show didn’t exactly go off without a hitch… funny moments: 1) We show up, feeling a bit nervous, but determined and sit down in the booth to wait for the show before ours to finish. We were patiently waiting, when the guy running the board tells us he’s going to play one more song and then he’ll play “the music.” “The music” is what he puts on every time immediately before the Peace Corps show. Apparently, as soon as this music is played, all the listeners know that the Americans are up next! So what is the “alert-the-world-the-Americans-are-next” music? Why, Michael Jackson, of course! Awesome! 2) Let me preface this next moment by saying that pretty much everyone in our region is obsessed with the show Glee. I mean, how could you not be? It is SO GREAT! Well, I had brought my iPod along to play some music during breaks in our radio show. Obviously, said iPod has both Glee soundtracks on it. So, with the full support of Mollie and Kenny, we decided to use our musical breaks to introduce Senegal to a magical mix of all things Glee. Amazing idea, right? Right! What wasn’t so brilliant of me though was when “Bust a Move” was playing and, in trying to queue up the next song, I accidentally started it over when the song was already about a minute in. Whoops. Clearly, I was not meant for a career as a DJ… 3) Another stellar moment in our show? The first part of the show went reasonably well minus the music snafoo. But, when it was time for Mollie to come in playing the Senegalese entrepreneur seeking advice, things went a bit down hill. We came back from a music break and Kenny and I made a few quick comments before he introduced Mollie. Well, Mollie got a couple of words into her first line and started to giggle. Which of course led me to start giggling and then Kenny too. So there we were, in the midst of claiming to be serious business people and we all end up dissolving into laughter in the middle of our show. Amateur hour for sure. 4) And the final funny/awesome moment…just our super cool music playlist. As I already mentioned, we featured numerous selections from Glee, received with varying degrees of love from the two Senegalese women running the board for our show. And to round out our educational show on both business and awesome music, we ended with a couple of all-time greats. First, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. And finally, it was only appropriate (especially in light of funny moment #1) to end with a little “Thriller” by the late, great Michael Jackson. Which was made all the more awesome by the fact that our time ended immediately following one of the creepy voiceovers in the song. Senegal, your welcome. So…now you probably see why we categorized the effort as a “moderate success.” But we had a good time and hopefully a few people were listening. Maybe they even took something away from our “lesson.”

2009 was definitely a year of firsts…first time in Africa, longest I’ve ever gone without seeing my family, and first Christmas on my own (to name just a few). Christmas is far and away my favorite holiday, but this year I mostly tried not to think about it too much. I heard from a lot of the year-in PCVs that no matter what your plans are, it just won’t feel like Christmas over here. Frankly, they were right. However, despite the lack of traditional Christmas festivities, we still had a good holiday… Christmas came a little bit over 2 months after I first got to Nioro. So, my four closest friends here (Alyssa, Jackie, Katherine and Tamar) and I decided to plan a nice break from site in honor of the holiday. The idea was to spend Christmas and the following days at the PC regional house in Dakar, and then head north to Saint-Louis for New Year’s. I arrived in Dakar on Christmas Eve and joined Tamar and Katherine for a nice Italian dinner (yay pizza!). Afterwards, we headed back to the house and marathoned some Christmas favorites…Love Actually, White Christmas, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Good stuff. The next morning, Alyssa and Jackie arrived and, in a time honored Christmas tradition, we spent the rest of the day lying around. I also talked to family back home for a while, which was great, albeit a little bittersweet. I powered through the day though, pretending I wasn’t missing anything or anyone back home. [Denial is a very powerful weapon in the battle against homesickness.] Then we rounded out the day with a tradition followed by many Jewish families on Christmas…going to a Chinese restaurant for dinner! Overall, it was a nice relaxing day. The girls and I spent the next few days exploring Dakar and getting our fill of delicious food. We took a trip out to Goree Island (a small island off the coast of Dakar used during the slave trade), shopped at the used clothes market (fukku jaay in Wolof), and hiked up to the lighthouse. We also checked out all of the restaurants we’d been dreaming of after several solid months of fish and rice everyday… Italian, the French Cultural Center, Indian, ice cream (yes, it counts as a meal), even fried chicken!! There was also a lot of movie watching and putting our (in my case limited) cooking skills to use at the regional house. Courtesy of Casino (the amazing, almost Western-quality supermarket in Dakar) and our lovely families in America we pulled together some spectacular feasts. We had a big pancake breakfast with real syrup, courtesy of my Mom (yay!). Made some delicious stovetop lasagna and green bean casserole (again, thanks Mom!). We even pulled off a Mexican feast with actual taco shells and salsa courtesy of Alyssa’s Mom. [Sorry if this is uninteresting, but as you can probably tell by now…Christmas for us this year was all about the food.] After several days of seeing Dakar and eating way too much food, we packed our backpacks and hopped in a hot, crowded sept place for the trip to Saint-Louis. We arrived at the garage in Saint-Louis early afternoon and made our way to the hotel. We stayed at a cozy little hotel on the ocean a little ways outside of town where a bunch of people from our stage were already staying. After dropping our bags and changing out of our dusty travel clothes, we headed down the beach to a hotel with a pool to meet up with everyone else. We spent the rest of the evening and most of the day on New Year’s Eve catching up with people and exploring Saint-Louis. During the French colonial period, Saint-Louis was the capital of Senegal. Now, the colonial architecture is beginning to crumble, but the city still has some of that sedate, old world feel and is beautifully situated right on the Atlantic Ocean. So we enjoyed ourselves wandering around the city, watched a street festival, and, in spite of the chilly 80º weather, got in some beach time. [No joke, 80º is borderline sweater weather for me these days.] Later, in honor of New Year’s Eve, the girls and I got together with everyone else to prepare a barbeque feast. We had shrimp and beef kebabs, fish steaks, good cheese and lots of other delicious food. Kudos to all the people who helped cook! (My mediocre skills and I helped by staying out of everyone else’s way, haha) Then, we rang in a new year and a new decade standing on the beach, looking out at the Atlantic (cheesy, but picturesque) and celebrated by dancing until the early morning! On New Year’s Day, the party was over and it was time to head out. So the other Kaolack-ers and I said our goodbye’s and headed home. Sorry for the lateness of the update, I really am the world’s worst (or best?) procrastinator, haha. Happy belated 2010 to all of you on the other side of the Atlantic!!

(This post refers to events during the week of December 6-12. I'm less than 2 months behind now...slowly but surely getting this blogging thing down, haha.)

Once the excitement of Tabaski was over, things in Nioro settled down considerably and I went back to my usual routine. Otherwise known as Wolof lessons, meeting people, looking for projects and generally wandering around town greeting people to fill up time. As exciting as daily life in Nioro is, when the opportunity came up in early December to do some work/visit another volunteer, I jumped at the chance. First up, participating in Peace Corps' radio broadcast in Kaolack. Every Monday from 5-6, PCVs in the Kaolack area host a radio show on one of the local stations. These shows are done in Wolof, and cover a variety of different topics from business practices to cultural issues to health. Every first Monday of the month its the SED kids turn to host the radio show, so I figured I'd come in and check it out. Lindsay and Daniel, two SED volunteers who are a year into their service, usually take charge of the monthly SED broadcast. For the December show, they invited all the new SED-ers to introduce themselves and see how things work. So Kenny, Mollie and I, along with Lindsay and Daniel, headed over to the radio station and commenced with dispensing our wealth of business knowledge to the listening masses. And by dispensing my business knowledge I mean, I introduced myself and then sat back and listened. Lindsay and Daniel did most of the talking since their Wolof skills are infinitely more developed. Basically, the theme of that day's show was teaching people how to properly invest in order to grow a business. For example, just because you want to sell bread in a neighboring town, you shouldn't run right out and buy yourself a car. Find a more cost effective solution so that you don't put yourself deep into debt over an expansion that might not pan out. Its these and lots of other basic business concepts that seem like common sense to most Americans, but can take Senegalese people a while to grasp. Anywho, it was interesting to see how the whole PC radio show thing usually works so I'd consider it a successful first attempt. Immediately after the show, Daniel and I packed up our things and headed to his site, Fatick. We arrived at the garage just in time to watch a sept place fill up and leave for Fatick. Sad. So we paid our passes and hunkered down in the car for an hour or so waiting for it to fill up. Unfortunately, by the time 5 other people also wanting to go to Fatick showed up, the sun was setting. Let me tell you...if transportation over here sounds scary during the day, DO NOT try it at night. One, we had possibly the most broken down sept place of all time. The sound coming from the gear box every time our driver tried to change gears was practically deafening. Add to that the fact that the road between Fatick and Kaolack is littered with potholes big enough to swallow a car whole. What does this mean? Well essentially imagine watching a game of Mario Kart...cars swerving all over the road regardless of which lane of traffic they were meant to be traveling in. Add to this the fact that it was dark, there were semis, and I was seriously concerned that the transmission of our sept place might drop out at any second. Yeah, it was a little scary. Thankfully though, we arrived in Fatick in one piece, did a little "HURRAH, we made it!" dance, and continued on to Daniel's house. The following morning we were up bright and early and headed across town. Daniel had planned a 4-day long formation (training in French) with local teenagers on how to start your own business. Daniel and his Senegalese counterpart were teaching it, and I came along to check things out and "help." The first day, Daniel focused on teaching the kids what makes a good idea for a business and how to go about finding one. Unsurprisingly given that he was working with a group of 17-20 year olds, trying to get them to participate was like pulling teeth. But eventually they started to answer some questions and I think Daniel did a great job of getting his point across. So after a long day, we retired to Daniel’s house to indulge in some delicious Kraft Mac & Cheese (so good, especially since we spent the entire lunch break talking about American food we missed) and watch the first three episodes of GLEE!! (Being theater nerds, we were both instantly obsessed and took it upon ourselves to extend that obsession to the entire Kaolack region.) The next day, we dragged ourselves out of bed and headed out early for another full day of imparting wisdom. This time, it was Daniel’s counterpart’s turn to give teaching a go. He was slightly more successful at getting the students to pay attention and participate, but that comes as no great shocker…he’s older and Senegalese after all. Overall the biggest take away from that day was how much I don’t miss high school. People who teach high school students must have the patience of a saint! So if you are one of them, kudos to you because I definitely don’t think I could do it. The following morning, Daniel headed back off to the formation, but I felt it was time to get back to site. I stopped for the night in Kaolack to get in some Skype chatting with my Mom and download a little more GLEE (best. show. ever.). Then it was back to Nioro, the fam and all the excitement that is daily life in my little town. Next time: Christmas!

I just uploaded a bazillion (or thirty some) new photos to Picassa. Enjoy: Life of a PCV!!

I’m sure you’re all getting sick and tired of me saying, “I swear, I swear I’ll get the blog caught up to the present soon!” but I’m afraid I have to say it one more time. Yet again, a brush with some unknown and rather unpleasant illness has thwarted my attempts at productivity. This time, I am told that it’s a nasty bout of food poisoning that has put me out of commission for the last five days. Well I don’t know if I buy a case of food poisoning lasting for that long, but OK. Either way, it’s been another “my body is vehemently protesting living here” kind of week, so I apologize for the lack of new updates. In an attempt to bribe you/slash spruce things up a bit though, I have given the blog a bit of a face lift, which I’m enjoying immensely. In addition to the sweet new background, I also updated the package list a bit and added some links. The links go to the blogs of four of my closest friends here in Senegal, each of whom is infinitely less of a procrastinator than I am. Therefore, their blogs are much more current if you care to check them out. Also, if you click on the map of Africa on the right-hand side, it will take you to the lovely PC Senegal website. From there you can learn all you ever wanted to know about Peace Corps Senegal and what we’re up to over here. So here’s hoping that food will start being my friend again super quickly because February is a busy month. And don’t worry, new posts will be right at the top of my to do list when my body gets back in line.

[Warning: There’s a chance that reading this post could put you off your dinner. So either toughen up and read on or come back after you’ve eaten :) ]

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, after Tabaski, every Muslim family in Senegal eats meat for the next week at least. What I failed to point out when describing the butchering process though is that they do not throw ANYTHING away. Seriously…I think maybe one or two organs didn’t make the cut, but that’s it. That bucket of meat I mentioned my Mom sorting through? It contained everything from plain old meat on the bones to the liver, kidneys, intestines, testicles, etc. With this information in mind, I think you’ll all understand why I stuck to the vegetables and rice and avoided meat in the days following Tabaski.

Well about a week after Tabaski, I figured we had to be nearly done with the sheep and started to ease up on my cautious eating habits… mistake. We sat down for dinner that Thursday night and I was excited to see that dinner was rice and beans and NO meat! There was a weird stick-like thing wrapped in what looked like thick string sitting in the middle of the bowl, but I was tired and hungry and I didn’t think much of it. So I’m sitting there eating my fill and listening to my family jabber away in Wolof when something that they said made me take a second look at that stick in the bowl.

So I leaned forward and again tried to figure what the heck that thing was doing in my dinner. Unable to figure it out (or perhaps just in denial), I pointed at the stick and asked my Dad what it was. His response: “C’est les intestin, quoi.” Well even though I imagine most of you probably don’t speak French, that sentence doesn’t require much translation. Yeah, that “thick string” wrapped around the burnt piece of wood? Sheep’s intestines.

Cue me having a flashback to the day of Tabaski and watching our Mauritanian butcher-friend holding the intestines over a bucket and squeezing out their contents. YEAH… I tried to be cool and calm about it, but my family knows me better than that. So when I followed this revelation by immediately putting down my spoon and declaring I was full, they all burst into laughter and a lot of, “Oh Amy!”s. And though I was rather grossed out, I had to join them, thinking to myself, “Oh Africa!”

The following night, it was time for dinner and I sat down at the bowl again, feeling slightly apprehensive, but determined to forget the intestines-incident. The cover was lifted off the bowl to reveal a delicious smelling meat stew type dish and I thought to myself, “Yes!” So I grabbed my spoon and proceeded to dig in.

Well I was sitting there enjoying the delicious food and half-listening to my family’s conversation when my attention was once again drawn to the meat in the center of the bowl. It was clearly on some type of bone, which I found reassuring, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly it could be. I was just about to ask, when I heard my Mom mention something about “soup” and it reminded me of a story my LCF told us during training…

Back when PC Senegal used to put people with families in Thies instead of villages for training, there was one girl who went to her home stay on the first night and her family had really wanted to make her feel welcome by preparing an especially nice dinner. So they made soup. Sounds harmless enough, right? Wrong. This girl proceeds to sit down at the bowl, on what was probably only her fourth night in country, and the cover is lifted off to reveal…a sheep’s head sitting smack dab in the middle of the soup. Apparently the girl was so freaked out that she called Peace Corps and made them come get her and take her back to the center for the night.

Well you can probably imagine my reaction…in what was I’m sure extremely comical fashion, I stop with my spoon halfway to my mouth for another bite, have an internal “OH CRAP!” moment, point at the meat and say, “Soup?! Is that the…the head?!” Well my family, who were probably waiting the whole meal for me to figure it out, starts laughing and my Mom, ever so helpfully, turns the “meat” around so that I can see the EYE, which is still in the socket. She then proceeds to grab the eye with her hand, pull it out, and deposit it on the ground next to the bowl.

This time I didn’t even try to pretend like I could be cool with it…I immediately dropped the spoon and shoved my chair back from the bowl. This of course prompted my family to laugh even harder, some of them to the point of tears. I, while admittedly super grossed out, had to join in. I don’t think I’ll ever look at soup in the same way again…

These incidents, particularly the one with the head soup, have pretty much become a running joke around the Mane household. Usually at least once a week at dinner, my Dad and I have the following conversation:

Baay: Oh Amy, I was thinking we’d get a head to prepare for dinner sometime this week.

Me: Really? Shoot, I have to go to Kaolack this week.

Baay: Oh don’t worry, we won’t have it on the day you’re gone. What day do you have to go to Kaolack?

Me: Whatever day you plan on having head for dinner.

[Cue laughter and “Oh Amy!”s from the rest of the family.]

So there you have it….fun adventures in foreign cuisine. I hope you’re not too grossed out, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. (And at least you didn’t eat the stuff!)

On the morning of Tabaski, everyone was up early to start preparing all the food for the day. I asked what I could do to help and was given a huge bowl of onions to dice. (Onions are a major ingredient in a lot of Senegalese dishes.)

I’ve never claimed to be much of a culinary genius, but before arriving in Senegal I’d say I was fairly confident in my abilities to at least cut up onions. Not so much here. The women here don’t use cutting boards, or even sharp knives. Rather they take a (usually) dull knife, place the onion in the palm of their hands, and proceed to dice it up in their hand. In the past when I’d offered to cut up the onions, no one let me…I think they were worried I’d hurt myself. I wasn’t quite confident I could do it either, but I decided to give it a go. Well I made it thru about ½ an onion before my eyes started watering so badly that I nearly cut my finger off. Needless to say, they promptle took that job away from me. I’m pretty sure they’ll never let me near onions again, but at least we all got a good laugh out of it.

Still trying to make myself useful, I volunteered to pound the pepper instead. My Mom and sisters looked at me skeptically for a minute, but then they seemed to decide that was a task I could handle without injuring myself. So I sat myself down in front of the big mortar and pestle and started pounding away.

About an hour and an absurd amount of ground pepper later, my arms were starting to get rather sore. [You don’t even realize what a blessing pepper mills (or pre-ground pepper for that matter) are!] At this point my Dad walks out and announces that its time to kill the sheep… and I took that as my cue to escape for a shower. Watching them slit the sheep’s throat? No thank you!

After showering and donning my new, slightly clown-like dress, I headed back into the courtyard. Thankfully, the killing part was over, but the sheep was still laying in the sand, bleeding into a hole. Once it had bled out completely, what did they do with said hole and all the blood? Cover it up with some sand and move on with the day. Yep, super sanitary.

And then the fun really began… the Mauritanian guy showed up to butcher the sheep. In our yard. (Usually the head of the family does it, but my Dad hired this guy instead.) I would have gladly excused myself at this point, but there was no way my family was letting me out of watching. So, I grabbed my camera instead and prepared to observe from a safe distance.

I’ve already posted pictures of some of the butchering process here, but allow me to tell you about my favorite part… The first thing that had to be done was to get the skin off. In order to do this, the guy cut a whole in the skin on the sheep’s leg and literally proceeded to blow the animal up like a balloon. Yep, that’s right…a sheep-shaped balloon. But the real kicker? While I’ve heard from other PCVs that their Dads used bike pumps, etc. to accomplish this task, our guy used his MOUTH! I was a bit dumbfounded. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see the guy with his mouth on the sheep’s leg as the animal gradually inflated. Yuck.

Well after that shocker, the butchering proceeded as you’d imagine it would. My family certainly enjoyed themselves laughing at how uncomfortable I was while watching the whole process. It was especially fun when the butcher started advancing towards me holding the sheep’s recently decapitated head in front of his face like a mask. This experience just confirmed for me that I infinitely prefer the American way of doing things…aka the meat arrives at the supermarket in neat little packages and bears almost no resemblance to the animal/animal parts that it came from.

Once the butchering part was finished, my Mom and sisters took over again. First, they grabbed the liver and threw it on the fire. Then they took the laundry basin full of everything else and started dividing it up. Some we’d eat later that day, some went in the freezer, and some we gave away.

Next up? A mid-morning snack of liver fried with onions and potatoes, yum! Thankfully, they gave my Dad and I a separate plate and, since he pays much less attention to what I eat than my Mom and sisters, I was able to eat around the liver without getting any grief. I’ve tried more new foods than I can count since getting to Senegal, but I don’t really feel like liver needs to be one of them.

Well after all the excitement of the morning, the day definitely settled down. We ate another meat-tastic lunch, took our post-lunch naps and then everyone got decked out in their new outfits. (I, being far too cheap/poor to buy a second new outfit for the day, put on my complet from Swear-in again.)

A big part of Tabaski celebrations is going around to visit people and asking their pardon for any faults you might have committed against them over the past year. Also, all the kids run around from house to house showing off their new clothes. It’s kind of like trick-or-treating, but people give out coins instead of candy. So, after all the kids in my family took off, Yaay, Baay (Dad) and I piled into my Dad’s ancient Peugeot to make our rounds.

And that was pretty much it for the big day. After visiting 6 or 7 houses, we headed back home, ate some more meat, and I passed out. Over the next couple of days, visitors continued to come and go from the house to ask my family’s pardon. We also ate a ridiculous amount of sheep and all I can say is thank goodness my family can afford refrigeration! Regardless of whether a family has a refrigerator, they continue to eat meat for days after Tabaski, and I’m sure I would’ve gotten a major case of food poisoning.

And on that lovely note…ba bennen!

Well I didn't quite succeed on getting the blog caught up on everything before the holidays, but I got close. And 8 posts in one week is by far a new record so I didn't do too badly. I'll write some more posts about Tabaski and other things after New Year's, but in the mean time... I've added pictures of my family's Tabaski celebration to my Life of a PCV album if you'd like to check them out.

In the morning I'm headed to Dakar for a bit of an orphan's Christmas with some friends. It certainly won't be the same as being home for Christmas (which I'm trying not to think about because its too sad), but we're going to prepare delicious American food and hang out by the pool so it should be fun. We're also going to head up north to St. Louis to stay on the beach for a couple of days. It sounds like there will be a huge group of volunteers up there for New Year's, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. It will be nice to have a little American time to relax and hang out away from site.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Try not to get too cold over there with all of that lovely winter weather :)

Being white and living in West Africa means having, “TOUBAB!!” screamed at you multiple times daily is simply a fact of life. Sometimes, like when its followed by, “Give me money! Give me your bike!”, it makes you want to scream. Other times, like when it’s a really adorable little kid jumping up and down, clearly very excited to see you, it can even make your day. But the point is, either you learn not to let it bother you or you’re not going to last very long around here. Lately though, in my wanderings around Nioro, I have been noticing an interesting trend… In addition to my daily helpings of, “TOUBAB!” I have also been hearing a lot of, “JAPONAISE!” (Japonaise meaning Japanese in French) The first few times it happened I was sure there was no way this label was being directed at me. So I scanned the area around me, but the only other people in site were Senegalese. Thus, as it has continued to happen randomly over the past few weeks, I am forced to conclude that these cries of “JAPONAISE!” are indeed meant for me. Most of the kids who yell this at me are rather little, so I just kind of chuckle to myself and try to teach them that my name is Amy. However, I kid you not, the other day a group of teenage girls walked passed me on their way home from school and yelled, “JAPONAISE!” I was utterly dumbfounded. Why yes girls, I am Japanese. Tell me, what gave it away… the extremely pale white skin? The freckles? The red hair? All classically Asian characteristics to be sure. And to think I nearly won that “Who looks the most Irish competition” when I was little… And that’s just one of the many ways that Senegal keeps daily life amusing!

After our early Thanksgiving in Kaolack, we all headed straight back to site in order to celebrate Tabaski with our families. Tabaski, also known as Eid al-Adha or “Festival of Sacrifice”, commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael (or Abraham and Issac according to Christianity) in obedience to God. As I’m sure most of you know, at the last minute God spared Ishmael and provided a ram to be sacrificed in his place. Every year, approximately two months and ten days after the end of Ramadan, Muslims around the world celebrate this event by slaughtering a sheep and sharing it with friends, family and the less fortunate.This year, Tabaski fell on November 28. So when I returned home from Thanksgiving, preparations for the holiday were in full swing. Every year when Tabaski rolls around, everyone in Senegal who can possibly afford it (and many who can’t) prepare by buying a sheep to kill, getting their hair done (for the women), having new clothes made, etc. In the week leading up to Tabaski all of the tailors at the market in Nioro were working practically 24 hours a day in an effort to get the clothes done in time. Also, travel in the days before Tabaski is a complete nightmare as everyone is rushing home from the cities to their villages to celebrate with family. Well in honor of this being my first Tabaski with my family, I decided to show my support by going all out on the preparations. First up, new clothes… I wasn’t about to plunk down 20,000 CFA to have another complet made, but I did buy some wax (a type of fabric that most closely resembles the stereotype of African dress) to get a dress made. Before heading up to Kaolack for Thanksgiving I went to the tailor to pick it up and ohhhh man. I looked like a clown. Sleeves puffed out like crazy, way too big for me…it was not good. Thankfully, the tailor didn’t give me a hard time when I came back with a laundry list of changes to be made. In the end it turned out alright, but I just don’t think white girls with red hair are really meant to wear head to toe African prints, haha. Next up, hair braiding. I had my hair braided by a Senegalese woman once before when I was 15 and it hurt soooo badly. In spite of this painful memory, I decided to give it a try again because my family seemed really excited about it. So I sat down in front of my Yaay, gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. At first it barely hurt so I figured I must’ve toughened up since the age of 15 and this wasn’t going to be so bad. WRONG. The only reason it didn’t hurt at first is because my Yaay wasn’t used to my hair. Well let me assure you that by braid 3 or 4 she had “mastered it” and I was screwing my eyes shut in pain. And this was only the beginning…I still had well over ¾ of my head to go. It was too late to turn back though, so I sat there for the next hour or so trying not to let her see how much it felt like my scalp was being ripped off and slowly telling myself, “Ok, only three more to go. Two more. One more!” Woo, and I’m done! Not so fast, Elizabeth… I thought I was done, but my Yaay, being a bit of a perfectionist, finished the last braid and then decided that she should redo the first FIVE because they weren’t tight enough. OW OW OW! Another twenty minutes later and I was finally free to get up and survey the damage. A – I think I lost about a ¼ of my hair in the process because it was absolutely everywhere. B – cornrows are not a good look for me. Shocking, I know. Oh well, everyone seemed genuinely excited that I got my hair braided so I suppose it was worth it. I’m not so sure I’ll be signing up for that again next year though. And the final part of my transformation into a Senegalese woman for the big day…henna. My Aunt Dekhady did it for me on my fingers and toes. Unlike with Indian henna where they make intricate designs on the skin, in Senegal, its typically used more like nail polish. I didn’t leave it on quite as long as my Aunt told me to, but it’s a good thing I took it off when I did. Unsurprisingly, the vibrant orange shows up a whole lot more distinctly on my skin than on the Senegalese. So now, almost a month later, the color has finally started to fade from the skin around my fingers and toes but I’m still going to be sporting some major Illini pride on my nails for probably several months to come.

[Allow me to preface this post briefly by saying that usually, I prefer to sleep on the roof at our regional house. One, there aren’t enough beds inside for everyone so when all of us are there (like at Thanksgiving) its necessary. And two, it is SO MUCH cooler up on the roof than inside that stuffy house at night.] Well after a delicious dinner and lots of lazing around the night before, I woke up on what was actually Thanksgiving morning to the sound of people talking. Grumbling to myself when I looked at my watch and saw it was only 7 AM, I reluctantly pulled out my earplugs to figure out what all the fuss was about. [Side note: don’t ever come to Senegal without earplugs. The mosques announce the morning call to prayer well before sunrise. With megaphones. EVERYDAY. And you can be sure that if you’re in a town with a mosque, you’ll be able to hear it.] So why was everyone chattering away on the rough at such an early hour? Apparently, during the night, someone had gotten onto our roof and stolen Jen’s shoes and her cell phone. [Jen is a sustainable agriculture volunteer from my stage.] At first she thought it might just be another volunteer messing with her, but then she noticed that the barbed wire along the ledge was bent upwards in a tell tale fashion. It would seem that while we were sleeping, a child crept across the rooftop of the house next to us, slid under the barbed wire and made off with Jen’s things, without a single one of the 10 or so of us who were up there noticing. Well the whole time they are discussing this, I’m laying there gathering my things up and thinking to myself, “Man, poor Jen…that really blows.” It is of course at this point that I crawl out of my mosquito net and realize that my shoes are not where I left them. After a brief check of the area around my mattress it becomes clear…the little jerk made off with my shoes too! It was also at this point that I remember feeling something grab at my feet during the night. In retrospect, it was probably the little kid accidentally hitting me as he snatched my shoes. Too bad I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Though on the plus side, it might have been my moving around that scared the kid off because he/she didn’t grab any of the shoes, phones, etc. belonging to people who were sleeping further away from the wall. Alas, it was too late for me to save my nice Teva flip-flops (or Jen’s even more expensive Chaco’s), wah wah. And so, after buying a pair of flip-flops at the boutique, Jen and I trekked off to the local gendarme’s office. I wasn’t particularly inclined to bother with filing a report as I knew there was no way I was getting my shoes back, but Etienne (PC Senegal’s Safety and Security guru) insisted. So we explained to the gendarme that someone had stolen our shoes and Jen’s cell phone. He then of course asked us what kind of shoes they were, and when we explained that they were both flip-flops he looked at us like we’d lost our minds. You see the flip-flops that the Senegalese know (and that I was now wearing) cost about 500 CFA, or roughly $1. Why on earth were we bothering to make a report over losing something that cost only 500 CFA…heck, they charged me (illegally) even more than that just to file the report! So we explained to him that these were American flip-flops. “Dafa cher!” (They are expensive!) Well after that (and probably realizing we weren’t going to go away until we got the paperwork we wanted), they took us seriously and we started to get somewhere. An hour and a half later we finally had what we needed to send to Etienne and we headed back to the house. So yep, while all of you back in America spent your Thanksgiving morning’s preparing food or watching the parade, I spent mine at the police station. I suppose I can just add that to my list of Thanksgiving firsts this year…first one not in America, first one spent away from my family, first (and hopefully last!) spent at the gendarmerie. Ah, memories… On the plus side though, the day certainly improved from there; and I got to talk with most of my extended family back in the States that evening! [Also, in case you’re worried now…we’ve reinforced the barbed wire on the roof so hopefully people can’t sneak onto it anymore. And I haven’t slept on the roof since, though I’m not sure I can guarantee not to do it when the hot season comes.]

As Thanksgiving rolled around, I was doing my best to keep my expectations low and not think about it too much. After all, this year there wouldn’t be any Macy’s Parade to watch with my sisters. No chocolate covered turkeys from Aunt Maribeth or listening to my Dad try to convince my Mom that this year we really should deep-fry a turducken. And definitely no trying to rouse myself out of bed at 6 AM on a cold Wisconsin morning to go shopping with Aunt Chris on Black Friday. (Well I’ve never actually done that, but I always tell myself I’m going to this year, haha) However, despite missing out on these and most of my other Thanksgiving traditions, I was pleasantly surprised that it still felt like the real deal. This year, Thanksgiving fell a couple of days before a huge Muslim holiday called Tabaski (which I will write plenty more about later). So, to make it easier for everyone to get back to site on time to celebrate Tabaski with their families, we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner at our regional house a day early (on the 25th). I left site and headed up to Kaolack a few days beforehand to relax and hang out with all of the other volunteers. It was a nice opportunity for everyone to take a mini-vacation from life at site; and to find out how the first month on our own went for everyone in my stage. I wish I could say I had a hand in preparing our Thanksgiving dinner, but not being the most talented person in the kitchen, my many offers to help were kindly decline. Plus, some of the people in our region are truly excellent cooks and they had everything well in hand. So I did a few dishes, collected the money (accountant, ha) and did my best to stay out of their way. And major kudos to the chefs because it was honestly one of the best Thanksgiving dinners I’ve ever had. (In no doubt partially do to the fact that anything resembling American food is like the best thing that’s ever happened to me these days) All told, our delicious Thanksgiving feast for about 22 people cost 3,200 CFA per person. Which is roughly the equivalent of $7. And this is what that lovely price got us (and everything was made from scratch!): 3 turkeys (2 were grilled/roasted and 1 deep fried) Garlic mashed potatoes Sweet potatoes Cranberries (courtesy of a care package from someone’s family in the States) Millet bread - This was probably the biggest hit of the whole meal. Kenny, our “restaurant manager” extraordinaire, had wanted to make cornbread, but wasn’t able to find any cornmeal at the market. So he substituted millet and tweaked the recipe a little…DELICIOUS! Vegetable soup Dinner rolls Macaroni and cheese Crudite platter - And let me tell you how rare a treat it is to encounter a vegetable in this country that hasn’t been boiled for upwards of two hours, minimum Pineapple upside down cake Pumpkin loaf Apple crisp Peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting Snickerdoodles And I’m probably forgetting a few things, but suffice it to say that it was amazingly tasty and, in time honored Thanksgiving tradition, I ate until I couldn’t possible eat anymore. Who would’ve thought you could find all of that delicious food in Senegal?!

Let me just preface this post by saying that I’m not a person who deals with rodents well. Or bugs. Or really anything that crawls around (babies excluded). Which of course creates a problem given that I live in Africa and bugs, rodents, etc. are unavoidable. Most of the time I choose to deal with this problem by living in a land of denial and pretending like there’s no way mice could get into my room. Well of course, once again, Senegal felt the need to go and prove me wrong… On about day three of my brush with Dengue Fever (before I went up to Dakar), I was crawling into bed for the night when I heard a tell tale scurrying sound. I looked down just in time to see a mouse run across the floor in front of my bathroom and sneak under my bed. Now, bearing in mind that I was running a 102° fever and was already safely inside my mosquito net for the night, I thought to myself, “Ok, Elizabeth…its just a little mouse. It’s not going to hurt you. And there’s nothing you can do about it so just pretend you didn’t see it and go to bed.” Well, try as I might, that logic lasted all of five seconds before I crawled back out of bed and went to fetch my Dad. So I walked into our sitting room where my Dad was watching the news and informed him that I saw a mouse in my room. I’m sure he was thinking something along the lines of, “So what?” but he indulged me and we went to try and get it out. Word spread to the rest of the family pretty quickly and soon everyone was in my room, moving all the furniture away from the walls and armed with broomsticks, etc. I really wish I had taken a picture of the situation because it was quite comical. Twenty minutes later we still hadn’t seen a glimpse of the mouse again and I was starting to become concerned that I’d just hallucinated it in my feverish state. Then we moved the refrigerator and the little bugger came scurrying out and dove under the bed again. Of course being the most easily startled person in the entire world, I screamed. So while I felt mildly vindicated that the mouse was not in fact a figment of my imagination, mostly I was now super embarrassed. Half of the family was bent over clutching their sides they were laughing so hard and I was ordered out of the room. I spent another ten minutes or so anxiously hovering outside my door while my family continued the search. It wasn’t looking like they were going to ever succeed in killing it/chasing it out of the room when all of a sudden it darted out from behind a bookshelf and headed straight for me. More screaming. More tears of laughter from the family. But it had at least left my room and was now hiding under my brother’s bed. The whole family then moved into the other room to try and roust the mouse from there while I ran to my door and shut it immediately in case the stupid rodent should try to get back in my room. I had very much hoped that this would be a one-time occurrence, but no luck. And I have to say, the family wasn’t quite as amused the second time we had a “let’s get the mouse out of Amy’s room” party. So I’ve had to resort to putting out poison. I’m not really sure how I feel about poison/traps though. I don’t like live mice being in my room, but the thought of having to deal with dead ones is a bit too much for me. I suppose that’s what having a little brother is for though, right? I am also not taking any chances of having mice get into my stuff anymore. All of my food and dishes are stored in either my trunk or sealed buckets. I keep all of my undergarments in a plastic bag. (The thought of a mouse scurrying around on my underwear is really more than I can handle). And I’ve even resorted to barricading the bookshelf that holds my clothes on a nightly basis. It’s a bit of a hassle, but I’m too cheap to buy a wardrobe with doors (which aren’t fool proof anyway) and it’s worth it for the piece of mind. So take that mice, you’re not going to get the best of me!

The first two and a half weeks at site after install went pretty well…meeting potential work partners in the community, getting my room organized, and being shown around the area by my family. Right around the end of the first week of November, Ariana and I decided to make a brief trip up to Kaolack to check for mail and eat some American food. All went smoothly with our first trip away from site, but while I was there I was talking to one of the other volunteers and I mentioned something about how, “Aside from getting a bad cold, I really haven’t been sick at all.” BIG MISTAKE. Of course after making that stupid comment, irony just had to step in and prove me wrong. Immediately after returning to Nioro that Friday night, I developed a fever and spent the rest of the weekend in bed as it got progressively higher and higher. In addition to the fever, I had a horrible cough and zero appetite; but what really made this brush with strange African diseases fun was the fact that it was accompanied by insomnia. I really don’t know if there’s anything more annoying than feeling like crap and not even being able to sleep through it. By Monday morning, having not slept more than a few hours in three nights and with my fever now up to almost 103°, I figured it was time to give the medical office a call. After looking through our medical handbook over the weekend, I was rather convinced that I’d forgotten to take my prophylaxis at some point and landed myself with malaria. While the doctor was confident in ruling out malaria (phew!), she did seem to think that it might be Dengue Fever. I’ll leave you all to wikipedia it and figure out exactly what Dengue is (because I couldn’t explain it well enough anyway), but suffice it to say its not something to mess around with. So I was told to pack up and head back to Kaolack to get some rest and because it’d be easier for PC to come get me there if the need arose. (Yeah, at this point I was starting to get a little freaked out.) [Side note: why didn’t the doctor think I could just get some rest at site? Well, let’s just say, that, as much as I love my family, they are Senegalese and so not particularly inclined to leave me alone when I say I’m not feeling well. They were certainly concerned and tried to be helpful. However, they also didn’t really understand why I couldn’t eat huge helpings of rice. And they kept insisting that my 103° fever was simply my body adjusting to the climate. Right, I’m sure that was the problem.] Anyway, after one night in our over crowded regional house not sleeping due to a combo of insomnia and getting locked out of the room with the fever-reducing medicines, I felt like I was about to LOSE IT. I really do try my best to keep a positive outlook here, but I will challenge anyone to be able to do that after running a fever for 4 straight days on no sleep. So I called up Dr. Ararat again and, given that the fever still wasn’t going away, I headed up to Dakar to stay in the med hut. By the time I got to Dakar on Tuesday afternoon (thankfully without incident) I was so out of it that it took me an hour of wandering around the Peace Corps office in a daze before it dawned on me that I should go see the doctor. What can I say? My brain was totally fried. Anyway, to make a long story short…she ran some blood tests and I spent the rest of the week in the med hut popping Tylenol to keep the fever down. On the plus side, the med hut is air-conditioned and there’s WiFi and a phone on which you can make free phone calls to America. Plus, it is gloriously quiet and I was finally able to get some sleep and therefore regain my ability to think coherently. On the down side, my fever ended up lasting over a week. I did finally kick the fever though and headed back to Nioro. There was no definitive conclusion from Dr. Ararat as to what I contracted, but I certainly hope I never get it again! So there you have it, the story of my first major brush with disease in Africa. I figured I’d write a post about it not in an effort to worry anyone back home, but simply because getting sick is a part of our life here. My immune system is in no way used to the living conditions/climate nor the general lack of stellar hygiene that is the norm around here. Any volunteer who actually makes it through two years in Senegal without having some strange virus, skin infection, intestinal problem, etc. is probably just really freaking lucky. That being said, now that I’ve had my go with it, I very much hope to avoid getting sick again. [Of course I write this having just recovered from another week spent in and out of bed with some strange flu-like virus, so no such luck. Sigh. Oh Africa…]

I figured you all might like a brief introduction to my family here in Senegal; so here it is…samay waa ker (“the people of my house” in Wolof): Aliou Mane – my Dad. He’s 53 and a former member of the Senegalese national handball team (fancy, I know). Now he works at the Pharmacie Nioro du Rip, which I have taken to be a good omen since my own wonderful Mom back in the States is a pharmacist :) Seynabou Ba – my Mom. She’s 35 and a teacher at one of the local primary schools. She’s also probably my favorite person in Nioro thus far and definitely the person that I talk to the most. Aminata Mane – my little sister, who’s 11. We’re both named after my Dad’s older sister who lives in Dakar. She’s shy and quiet, but very sweet. She also just started learning English in school this year. I haven’t gotten her to speak much of it yet, but I’m working on it. Douda Mane – my little brother, who will be 7 in January. He’s pretty adorable and absolutely can’t sit still to save his life. I wish I could see him when he’s at school because it baffles me that he can pull off sitting that long, haha. That’s it for my parents and their children, but we also have two of my Yaay’s (Yaay = mom in Wolof) sister’s daughters who live with us and are also my “sisters.” Defatou Dioup – she’s 17 and a student at the local high school. Awa Dioup – she’s 15 and also a student at the high school. Both she and my Yaay get a particularly good laugh out of the things I do on a daily basis. I have literally had them laughing to the point of tears over such totally hilarious things as the fact that many of the things in my room are green and I don’t like bugs. (They are very easily amused by almost anything I do, haha) And that’s all of the people who live at my house. It’s a very VERY small household by Senegalese standards, but that suits me. I think I might lose my mind if I’d been put in one of those compounds that house like 40 people, haha. Other people I see a lot of in Nioro include: Aliou Fall – my counterpart who is teaches some business classes locally and is also the secretary at the cultural center Mr. Fofana – my supervisor who works for the Development Communitaire. He’s also one of my dad’s best friends so he’s around the house a lot. Fatou Ly – my Wolof instructor. She’s married to my counterpart’s older brother. Aissatou Ba – my maternal grandmother. I visit her with my Yaay a fair bit, but mostly I put her on here because it gives an opportunity to tell the story of my Yaay’s family. My maternal grandfather was the chief of the whole town and had 4 wives and somewhere upwards of 25 children between them. YEAH. Aissatou is the youngest and the last surviving of his four wives. She lives in one of those huge 40 person compounds across town. So that’s a brief introduction to the people I spend most of my time with at site. Ba beneen!

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.

As much as it embarrasses me to post this, some people requested so here it is…my speech from our swearing-in ceremony. Don’t worry, I translated it into English for all the non-Francophones out there. I swear it sounds better in French (since that’s how I wrote it originally), so don’t be too harsh in judging it! Mesdames, Mesdemoiselles et Monsieurs… Hello, I hope that you are all well. My name is Elizabeth Corkery, but here in Senegal, my name is Adama Barro. I am a small enterprise development volunteer and I will be living in Nioro for the next two years. To start, I’d like to speak to you about our stage… We are fifty-two Americans who came to Senegal for a lot of different reasons, but all with the hope of helping the Senegalese. When we arrived in Dakar in August, we were like children. No one could speak the local languages or even perform simple tasks like washing our own laundry. So, we spent the last nine weeks in eleven villages at cities near Thies, learning the languages, the culture, technical skills and, in general, how to take care of ourselves in this new culture. I, for example, lived in Tassete with the Barro family. With my fellow trainees, I took French classes and, towards the end of stage, we learned Wolof as well. Also, we became true members of our families and our community. I think that all the trainees share the opinion that the last few weeks have been difficult. We made lots of mistakes in the languages and the culture; and each trainee destroyed at least one article of clothing while trying to do his or her laundry. However, with the help of our families and our Peace Corps trainers, we survived. At present, there are people among us who can speak French, Wolof, Mandinka, Serere and even three varieties of Pulaar. Also, we have a better understanding of Senegalese culture and everyday life here. At the beginning of next week, we will leave for villages and cities all over Senegal. Even though we are scared, I know that after having completed training, we are ready to stand on our own two feet. So, on behalf of our stage, I would like to say thank you to our families and our communities for teaching us and for putting up with all of our faux-pas and all of the bizarre things that we did. Also, thank you to Peace Corps staff for their support and their patience throughout our training. Without the help of all of these people, we could not be good volunteers. We are all very excited to go to our sites and I know that, with the continued support of the Senegalese, we will spend two productive and prosperous years here. So, long life to the collaboration between Senegal and the Peace Corps… And thank you for your attention.

After Swear-In it became immediately clear that as far as Peace Corps is concerned, we’re big kids now. What does this mean? Basically they got us back to Thies that night and gave us each enough money to get to our regional capitals, and that was it. We spent the next two nights at the center in Thies, but the party was over. No more meals cooked for us, no one coming in to restock the toilet paper, etc. Time to start taking care of ourselves again. Over the course of the weekend, everyone except the new volunteers in the Dakar/Thies regions headed out to their regional houses. From the regional house (or the training center in the case of the Dakar/Thies people), PC personnel would pick everyone up one by one, and take them to their site. So Sunday morning, myself and the 20 other new volunteers in the Kaolack/Fatick/Kaffrine regions packed all of our stuff onto a bunch of sept places (the station wagon type transportation) and headed off to Kaolack. Getting to Kaolack was, as always, a bit of an adventure. I swear, sometimes I truly forget that I live in the developing world, but traveling always serves as a reminder. For one, we must’ve been pulled over by the gendarmes at least 3 or 4 times. Nothing too exciting, but they always seem to feel the need to stop you and have a look when they see a bunch of Toubabs zooming by. Plus, there are so many potholes on the road from Thies to Kaolack that the drive there can best be likened to a real-life game of Mario Kart. Cars swerving all over the road, some choosing to abandon it entirely and drive through the grass, even one slightly-too-close-for-comfort near collision with oncoming traffic. Always an adventure! But we all made it to the regional house in one piece. My install date was Wednesday, October 21st, so I spent the next several days wandering around the city, slowly buying all the things I’d need to take to site with me. So what exactly does a PCV moving to site for the first time need? Voila, my shopping list: 2 large washing basins for laundry – I may have a flushing toilet and a shower now, but I definitely won’t be seeing a washing machine again until I get back to America. Sigh. Side note: in case you were wondering, laundry and mysterious bleach stains do continue to be the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. I avoid bleach near my clothes like it’s the plague and yet these stains continue to appear. I believe at last count, I am down 7 shirts and one of my favorite skirts. EIGHT articles of clothing! I swear, laundry is a constant test to my resolve to stay here. I’m going to have to have a tie-dye party to mask the stains because I really don’t have enough clothes without all those shirts. Which means I’ll be spending the next two years wearing more tie-dye than people in the 60s. But I digress… Laundry clips for hanging things out to dry – no washing machine means there are definitely no dryers. But really, the sun dries things faster anyway 2 buckets with lids for storing food and other things that I don’t want mice getting into 1 plastic cup for taking bucket baths – when the electricity goes out for an extended period of time (which it often does) so does the running water. Thus, sometimes showering is not an option. Wah wah. Gas tank with a burner – stoves/ovens are also not something you see frequently Bowls/plates/silverware for those occasions when I feel ambitious enough to use said gas tank to cook for myself Broom/dustpan FAN!!!! – I have been dreaming about having one of these for the past two months. SO AMAZING! Hand washing station – sinks aren’t a common bathroom feature here, so they have these things instead. It’s basically a teapot that sits on top of a large covered bowl. The cover has holes in it, so you pour the water from the teapot over the bowl to wash your hands and then empty the bowl periodically. Power strip – its incredibly rare to find a room that has more than one electrical outlet 2 trunks – 1 for locking stuff up at site, 1 for locking stuff up at the regional house Toilet paper – some of my fellow PCVs claim that I’m not “integrating enough” by continuing to use toilet paper. I however am a firm believer that just because the Senegalese don’t use TP doesn’t mean I can’t. If that limits my integration…so be it. I’m far too much of a germ-a-phobe to do without. Side note 2: this tendency not to use TP is one of the reasons why no one uses their left hand to interact with others in Senegal. Think about it for a minute, and I’m sure you’ll figure out why… Voltage regulator – pricey, but I’d very much like to avoid my computer getting fried by one of the many, many power surges around here Thin foam mattress – because I was too cheap to spring for the fancy thick one Gifts for my new family So in case you were wondering, there you have it…everything (or at least I hope since that took up most of my settling-in allowance) one could need for setting up a home in Senegal. All of this stuff was bought at the market in Kaolack (which, fun fact, is the largest covered market in Africa!). And with the help of some PCVs who’ve been in country for a while and my own bargaining skills, I think I managed not to get ripped off too much on anything. Hurrah! Next time: moving to Nioro!

Sorry for the extended absence everyone. Procrastinating is one of my most well exercised talents, which I’m sure all of you know. So really…this post about Swear-In may be a month late, but for me, that’s practically on time. Enjoy! [Also, for those who might not know…Swear-In refers to the ceremony that marks the end of training and the transition from PCT to Peace Corps Volunteer.] Swear-In was October 16th (exactly two months and three days after our arrival in country!) at the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Senegal. So that morning we all woke-up early and decked out in our Senegalese finest for the big day. Then we piled into a couple of vans and fell in behind our police escorts (I know, we’re a big deal…) for the trip from Thies to Dakar. Miracle of miracles, we managed to arrive early. So we sat around and chatted for a bit while assorted Peace Corps and U.S. Embassy staff and Senegalese dignitaries gradually streamed in. Once everyone had arrived and was seated, the ceremony got under way. The ceremony was more or less exactly what you would expect from such a government affair. It started with speeches from our Training Director, Demba Sidibe, the Director of Peace Corps Senegal, Chris Hedrick, and U.S. Ambassador Marcia Bernicat. Then the Ambassador had us all stand up and swear our oath. I wish I could tell you I remember exactly what the oath involved, but frankly it escapes me at the moment. Basically we swore to uphold the ideals of the Peace Corps and the U.S. Government, etc. I swear I was paying attention, but I was also rather distracted with worrying about screwing up my speech or tripping over my pagne on the way to the podium. [Pagne’s are traditional wrap skirts and they are deceptively hard to walk in. Especially for a klutz like yours truly.] After oath, came the volunteer speeches. Our language trainers selected four people from our stage to write and give speeches in the local languages during the ceremony. Lucky lucky me (because we all know how much I adore speaking in public), I was selected to give the French speech. But first up was Shannon, who gave a speech in Mandinka. I couldn’t understand a single word she said, but it is a very beautiful sounding language. Then KC gave her speech in Puallafuta, which is a dialect of Pulaar spoken in Kedogou, a region in the Southeast of the country. After KC, it was my turn to give my French speech… To say I was nervous would probably be the understatement of the century. One, I’ve never been a fan of public speaking. And two, it was bad enough that I had to give the speech in front of the 150 people at the ceremony, but the week before (and of course after I’d already agreed to do it) I learned that the ceremony, my speech included, was going to be broadcast across the country. YIKES! However, I made it to the podium without falling and overall, I think the speech went quite well. My hands were shaking like leafs, but I was able to hide them behind the podium. Plus, years of theater and being forced to give presentations in business classes taught me how to keep my voice steady even when the rest of my body is shaking from nerves. I even got a few laughs from my jokes about us Toubabs not knowing how to do our laundry by hand or basically take care of ourselves here, haha. So I consider it to have been a successful endeavor. Following my speech, Byron gave the last PCV speech in Wolof. Then the Secretary General to the President gave a speech; and the ceremony concluded with the APCDs (Associate Peace Corps Director) for Agriculture and SED giving out our new PCV ID’s and letters of partnership with government agencies. And that was pretty much it for the exciting swearing-in ceremony. After the ceremony, there were drinks (non-alcoholic, of course…95% Muslim country after all) and food out in the backyard. Unfortunately, I was way laid from my attempted assault on the mini-hamburgers (don’t judge…you’d miss them terribly too) by someone from a Finish newspaper doing an article on the Peace Corps. I’m not entirely sure why the only non-Senegalese or American press person there was from Finland of all places, but in an effort to be a good new PCV I answered his questions. Unsurprisingly I was asked if the fact that the economy is so bad right now motivated my decision to join the Peace Corps. The number of people applying to join the PC has gone up considerably over the past year so I understand why everyone always asks that question. Nevertheless, I’m happy that my answer to that question is, “No, I in fact gave up a job to do Peace Corps.” I think anyone deciding to join PC, regardless of their reasons, is a good thing; but I do like to remind reporters that the state of the job market is not the reason that the majority of people decide to become a volunteer. Anyway, that was a tangent…but after I finished talking to the Fin, I again tried to make my way over the food. No such luck. I noticed that the Press Director for Peace Corps was waving in my direction trying to get someone to come over, but I just assumed she was waving at the group of LCFs standing behind me. Not so much. It took me several minutes of awkward, “Wait, are you talking to me?!” type gestures to realize that it was me she wanted to come over. Next thing I know I’m standing in front of a news camera being interviewed in French. I had no idea that they’d want me to do that, so I was a little flustered, but I think for the most part it went well. After my brief, but shining moments in the press (HA) were over, I got down to taking lots of group photos. Then all of us newly minted PCVs went over to the Atlantic Club for some relaxing by the pool before we headed back to Thies. That evening we also threw ourselves a “Hurrah, we made it!” party at the local speak easy. (Otherwise known as the home of the Catholic guy who has a bar in his courtyard, haha). All but one person from our stage came to the party, which was great. It was nice to have one last night to relax and hang out with everyone before we scattered across the country. All in all, it was a great day and I couldn’t be happier that training is over!!

I've got some free time near the internet this weekend so more blog posts to come soon, but in the meantime...I've updated my pictures! So if you care to check them out, here are the links again.

For pictures of our end of PST celebration and Swear-In, click here: Adventures During PST

and for pics of what my new home in Nioro looks like, click here: Life of a PCV

ba beneen!

It’s been two months already? Really? And now they expect us to go off on our own and survive without anyone to hold our hands?? Sounds crazy, but its true…pre-service training is officially at an end! After my birthday we had one last day of class and then it was time for the dreaded final language test. In order to be sworn-in as an official volunteer, we all had to reach the level of Intermediate-Mid in our languages. Since I had already met and surpassed that level in French, I had hoped that I could just start learning Wolof without having to reach some specific level to swear-in. False. Those of us who transitioned from French to Wolof had the lucky distinction of needing to test at a certain level in two different languages. So our last day in Tassete, Jackie and I had a language test in Wolof and we needed to reach Novice-Mid. Now to put it into perspective…some of the people who learned Wolof from the start of training were at the Novice-Mid level during the second language test. Which was at the 4-week mark in training. We had to get that level after 6 days. Yeah…talk about pressure. While I’m sure I would have benefited from another week of formal instruction in Wolof, I did NOT want to be held back and have to stay in Tassete instead of going to install (aka move to my permanent site). The boys did their French interviews first and then it was my turn. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my biggest problem with Wolof right now is being quick on the uptake when someone asks me a question. So right off the bat, Sakhir asked me something like, “What did you do yesterday?” Totally blanked. Took me at least 30 seconds to remember that “demb” means yesterday in Wolof. Bad news Bears. The interview did go uphill from there, but when I finished I was pretty seriously worried that Novice-Mid wasn’t going to happen. After the fun interview, I practiced my speech for swear-in (which I’d finally gotten around to writing the night before) with Sakhir and my classmates. They seemed to think it was pretty good and I got a few laughs, which is what I was hoping for. So here’s hoping it goes over well with everyone else. Then it was time to finish packing up my room, have one last lunch with my family and say our goodbyes… It’s hard to believe that I’ve been living with this family since AUGUST already. For most of training it felt like time was crawling by, but looking back now…I feel like I stepped off the plane yesterday. And yet the fact that I just finished grad school in May totally blows my mind. College seriously feels like another lifetime. I’m looking forward to getting to Nioro and finally being able to unpack my suitcases and feel settled. But at the same time, I’m going to miss Tassete. I was talking with Jackie the other night and she mentioned something about how our lives will never again be as simple as they were in Tassete, and its true. It will be nice to have a shower again and access to the Internet and all those luxuries. However, there is definitely something to be said about living, even for a small amount of time, without all of those things. Frankly, it’s a lot less stressful and you really do appreciate the simple things like rain and the moon. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but seriously, its true…we all noticed that even after the first 5 days in village. So while I wouldn’t want to do it forever, I will miss the steady pace and the routine of life in a village. [Oh and spoiler alert: I did pass my Wolof exam…Novice-High! So yay…there is officially nothing left between me and becoming a full-fledged PCV!]

Well if somebody had asked me two years ago what I’d be doing on my 24th birthday, I’m pretty sure living in Senegal wouldn’t have been anywhere on my list of possibilities. And yet my birthday has come and gone, and that’s exactly what happened. So here’s how my birthday, Africa-style, went… We still had to have language class (even though I swear the schedule said that the whole day was free), but at least Jackie and I played the “but it’s my birthday!” card on Sakhir and got ourselves the late morning session. I had hoped to use that extra time to sleep in, but tin roofs heat up pretty quickly around here and by 8 AM it was getting a little too hot in my room to sleep. So I got up and set about getting ready for the day. Then Jackie came over and brought me a birthday card and some Biskrems (which are a delicious shortbread type cookie with chocolate filling that we are all addicted to) as a present. As evidenced by the wish list I made on the side of the blog, food is very high on my list of “Awesome Things to Receive” these days, so it was a pretty great gift. Then it was time for Wolof class. During class Senegal said “Happy Birthday!” to me in a way only it can… And by that I mean, we were having class under the big tree at my house and I got pooped on not once, but TWICE by birds. Thanks, Senegal! Mostly this was funny because the first time it landed on my arm, which is easy to clean off, and the second time it only got my notes. It would have been an entirely different story if it had landed on my freshly washed hair. (You grow to appreciate the effort that goes into washing your hair more when you are trying to do it out of a bucket. Trust me.) Wanting to avoid how angry I’d become if it happened a third time and did land in my hair, this finally prompted me to break out “the hat.” I call it “the hat” because I hadn’t yet worn it in country, due mostly to the fact that it absolutely guarantees people laughing at me. Why? Because while the huge floppy brim and UVB-proof material make it great for protecting one from the sun, it tends to look a little out of place here. Also, buying the hat in pink was, in retrospect, a bit of an error in judgment on my part. Nevertheless, I decided that compared with bird poop in my hair on my birthday, it was the lesser of two evils; and so I broke it out…much to the amusement of Jackie, Sakhir and my family. Thankfully, I made it through the rest of class without any bird issues and we had the rest of the day free. I wanted to go into Thies and have some American food so we made plans to meet a few people from other training villages and headed out. Which is another way in which it was a thoroughly African birthday…10 people crammed into a car roughly the size of a circa-1992 Dodge Caravan on the way to Thies. Fun times, as always. But we made it in one piece so no worries. We met everyone for lunch at a restaurant called “Big Faim,” and pretty much proceeded to wile away the rest of the afternoon eating too much, using the free wireless, enjoying the A/C and catching up on all the latest PC Senegal news. Definitely not as exciting as birthdays I’ve had in past years, but it was fun and I really appreciated the fact that people endured the sept-place ride to Thies to hang out. After exhausting nearly 5 hours sitting around the restaurant (and making yet another failed attempt at finding handheld fans called ubukais at the market), we headed back to Tassete for dinner. When we got back it was time for another thoroughly African experience to remember the day by…popping the blister Jackie got from a blister beetle. Blister beetles are lovely little creatures that essentially pee acid on you, causing blisters to form on your skin (not fun, as I have since experienced for myself). With most blisters you just wait and let them pop on their own, but with these you have to do it right away and under water, otherwise the acid will just get all over you skin again. Lucky Jackie, one of the little buggers got her right near her collarbone…a place that is difficult to submerge without being indecent and definitely hard to reach to pop oneself. And so we dragged out her med kit and I got the lucky task of popping it while sitting on the mat in my frontyard. Again, fun times, haha. After that the day pretty much wound down…I finished reading Into Thin Air (which if you haven’t already read, I’d highly recommend it), hung out with my family for a little bit, had a little birthday-related meltdown that prompted screaming at children who tried to grab me and demand money while I was freaking out…you know, the usual. Let’s just say that while it was definitely a good birthday overall, seeing as it was the first birthday I’ve ever spent that far away from home (and the only one in 24 years I haven’t seen my Mom on)…it was hard and my emotions were on a bit of a roller coaster. Sometimes you stop and wonder what you’re doing with your life and I feel like birthdays are a prime day for doing that. Without going into the gory details, I’ll just say that while I’m happy in my decision to join the Peace Corps and I know that we’re doing important work…sometimes it scares me to think about the fact that this is a totally temporary life. Even if I decide to extend longer than two years, at some point I HAVE to pick-up and start all over again somewhere else. But that’s life, right? Thankfully, Jackie is well accustomed to dealing with my minor breakdowns at this point and was able to calm me down in pretty short order. Plus I got a few phone calls from people back home, including my parents, which certainly helped. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes! I very much appreciated them all :) Looks like 24 is going to be a very interesting year…

The morning after we got back from Dakar, it was time to pack-up and head out to Tassete for one last time. Which of course meant, only one more week of training, final language tests, swear-in and then that’s it…training’s over and I’m off to Nioro on my own. YIKES! But first, the last week of training… Right before we went to the beach, we had our third language placement interview. I had passed out of the required level of French during the second interview, but they wouldn’t let me start learning a local language just yet because the other people in my class still needed to get the required level in French and we only have one LCF in Tassete. But the good news is, A – I went up in my French level between the second and third interview, so while it was frustrating not to be able to move on, at least I learned something. And B – Jackie passed out of French during the third interview and we got Simone (the language coordinator) to agree to split our classes. So this time when we went back to Tassete, we had two separate language classes. Jackie and I started learning Wolof, while Alex and Josh worked on perfecting their French. I was excited to finally start Wolof, but man…I’d forgotten how incredibly frustrating starting a new language is. Jackie and I had class for about an hour and a half to two hours every morning, after which we’d work on our homework while the boys had French. Then we’d break for lunch, and repeat the same class/homework schedule in the afternoons. Roughly 3-4 hours of class a day might not sound like a lot, but it was completely exhausting. At least when I first started French there were common grammar structures and even some of the same words to fall back on. However, that is definitely not the case with Wolof. Everyone keeps telling me that Wolof is easier to learn than French because it doesn’t really have much grammar and rules, but starting out…that is really hard to get used to. Especially when trying to switch to that from French, which has its own academy for regulating the language (L’Academie Française), it loves rules so much! Basically, for the first three days of Wolof I felt like someone had taken an eggbeater to my brain by the time I collapsed into bed each night. Plus, I’ve never been very good at being patient with myself when I don’t understand things, so at times; it was hard not to scream in frustration. Thankfully though, we started classes on Tuesday and by about midway through class on Friday I had a bit of an epiphany and things started to make more sense. And not a moment too soon, let me tell you. I can now form a fair amount of necessary sentences in Wolof such as “I’m hungry.” “I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.” “I can’t marry you because I already have a husband.” (oh the fun of daily marriage proposals…) etc. It might not seem like much, but after a mere 6 days of Wolof classes…I’ll take it. For some reason what is hardest for me right now is understanding people’s questions, not so much formulating responses to them. I find that a little weird since at the beginning of training, I could understand more of what people said in French than I could articulate myself. Oh well…I suppose it will all come with time. Aside from learning Wolof instead of French, the last week of community-based training (CBT) was pretty much the same as all the rest. I had hoped that the cold season would immediately follow the end of the rainy season, but no dice. It didn’t rain all week so it was hotter than ever in Tassete. Which of course meant that we spent most of our time at my house enjoying the shade of the big trees (trees that provide shade really are the best thing ever in this climate) and either having class, studying or lounging around. We also went and cheered Tassete on to victory in the semi-final match of the local soccer tournament. Jackie’s brother even scored the winning goal! (We had already left town by the time they played the final, but they won that too. Yeah Tassete!) Oh and the other big theme of the last week in Tassete was procrastination. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that I was asked to give a speech in French for our swearing-in ceremony. I was definitely honored to be one of the ones chosen (there are PCTs giving speeches in Mandinka, Pulaar and Wolof too), but I’m not so much a fan of public speaking. Plus, I’ve never had to give a commencement type speech before. So naturally my reaction (surprise surprise) was to procrastinate writing it for as long as possible in the hopes that something brilliant would come to me eventually, lol. (Don’t worry, I didn’t wait until the night before the ceremony before I wrote it, but more on that later). Well I think that about covers it… Ba beneen yoon! (which means until next time in Wolof)

[Just to clarify…this refers to the weekend of October 3 & 4. I’m a little behind on writing, but I promise to catch everyone up to the present soon!] After our defeat to the LCFs in soccer Friday night (October 2), we had to do some language classes the following morning and then we got the rest of the weekend free to do as we pleased. Hurrah! While some of the PCTs stayed at the training center in Thies, I decided that it was a good opportunity to check out more of Dakar (since all I’d seen so far was the airport). So Saturday afternoon about 16 of us hopped on an Alham and headed to the regional house for a couple of nights. This might not have been the responsible decision given how tired I was at this point, but hey…you only live once, right? Plus, I knew I had a whole week of village life and lots of sleep ahead of me in Tassete. After being caught in the inevitable Dakar traffic for several hours, we arrived at the regional house…or Liberté 6 as we call it (because that is the name of the quartier where its located). Some people went out to a Korean BBQ place for dinner, but being both lazy and short on funds, I opted to go with the neighborhood egg sandwich vendor. After all, you can’t go wrong with a meal that only costs 300 CFA (roughly 75¢). I’ve never really been a fan of hard-boiled eggs (the yolks…YUCK), but that doesn’t seem to stop me from eating them here. Of course that’s not really surprise since most of the things I eat on a daily basis here, I refused to touch back in America. For example: fish, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. are staples of my diet these days. I suppose it’s about time that I stopped being as picky as a three-year old with my food though, haha. Anywho, after dinner everyone regrouped at the house for a couple of drinks and then we headed out to a party at the Oceanium, a club on the water. The first Saturday of every month they hold a big all night party, so naturally, when we heard that there was dancing and a good chance of awesomely-bad American music (this is Africa after all), we wanted to check it out. The party was a blast and it was nice to go dancing for the first time in a while. On Sunday, a bunch more people from our stage came up from Thies and we headed to the Atlantic Club. The Atlantic Club (or American Club, as we call it) is pretty much exactly like a country club back in the States (minus the golf course) and its members are generally American ex-patriots or French nationals living in Dakar. And lucky for us the owners are fans of Peace Corps so they let us all come and use the pool/tennis courts/etc. for free! It’s a pretty sweet deal. So we spent the day lounging around by the pool, eating American food (they have Snickers!) and chatting…just another typical day in the life of a hard-working Peace Corps volunteer. It was almost hard to go back to the daily village life after that…hanging out there, it’s really easy to forget that you’re still in Senegal, haha. Eventually though we had to face the music and everyone headed back to the regional house for the night. Then on Monday, we all headed to the Peace Corps office in Dakar for a fun filled day of meetings. We started off with a briefing from the head of security at the U.S. Embassy, who did his best to put a little fear into us…particularly those living around the Mali/Mauritania/Guinea borders (don’t worry, that’s not me). I think he was a little more keyed up than usual having spent the whole weekend helping to coordinate the evacuation of Embassy personnel and other U.S. citizens from Guinea. So after he talked, Etienne (the head of security for PC Senegal) got up and calmed everyone down, haha. Have no fear…Etienne assures us that he’s not worried about anything and if there ever were a need to worry he’d definitely be the first to know. After security, we had the requisite signing of papers slash talk on the process of obtaining a U.S. Visa from the director of U.S. Citizen Affairs at the Embassy. This was mostly just to prepare us for the inevitable barrage of questions we will be getting over the next two years from people wanting to move to the States. Oh, as well as the process of obtaining a Visa if we want to marry a host country national and bring them home with us. She assures us that there’s almost always someone in every stage that ends up wanting to do this. I for one am extremely curious to see who it’s going to be from our group, haha. Next on the agenda was a brief bus tour of Dakar, followed by lunch in the city. I went to the French Cultural Center because I was told that they’ve got amazing burgers (man do I miss burgers!) and it definitely lived up to the billing. Delicious! After lunch we went back to the office to meet the administrative staff and talk about exciting things like money and vacation policies. Then it was a mad rush to see who’d get the bus with the A/C and who’d be stuck with the Alham for the ride back to Thies. I definitely made it a priority to get a spot with A/C, haha. Ok, I realize that this entry is approaching the length of a book so I promise I’m almost done, but one other piece of news…our stage lost its first person that night :( We were all eating dinner in the refectoire when one of the girls from our stage got up and announced that she was early terminating (ET-ing) and heading back to America. She had been sick and stuck at the med hut in Dakar a lot, so while I don’t know if that factored into her decision, I can’t really say that I blame her. I’m not sure I’d still be here if I’d been having persistent health issues for the past two months. Thankfully though, I’ve been pretty healthy so far (KNOCK ON WOOD). I wasn’t particularly close to this girl, but it was still sad to see her go. Especially so close to swear-in…we were only a week and a half away from the whole stage making it through training! Oh well, such is life I suppose… And on that slightly depressing note (sorry, but I figured I should share the news), I’ll end this post…bye!!

As I’m sure everyone well knows, soccer (our football as we call it on this side of the Atlantic) is a favorite past time in Africa, and Senegal is no exception. So after months of trash talking, when CPW was over it was time for the big PST match-up…PCTs vs. LCFs (our language trainers). Reports vary and its hard to trust the sources, but the story goes that over the last 10 years or so, the Americans have only succeeded in beating the Senegalese once. Nevertheless, we adopted the Cubs' favorite mantra (BAHAHA) and proclaimed, "This is going to be our year!" And so we went into the match determined to take them down a peg. Well I decided that six years of soccer experience back at St. Thomas Grade School, plus a brief stint (aka two practices) on the Queen Mary Women’s football team in London, meant that I should give it a go. Good news: I successfully made it through the match without falling (I think) or embarrassing myself too much (its rare, but it does happen). Bad news: we definitely did not win. I place part of the blame on bad officiating. Mostly though I think it can be put down to lack of adjustment to the climate and two months of all of us sitting on our butts and eating rice all day. Because goodness knows I was in tip-top physical shape before I came to Senegal. HAAAA. But seriously, we lost (2-1…I think. There was some major debate about the scoring, haha) and probably due to their superior skill. Hopefully we will have a rematch during in-service training though and then…they’re going down! Also, here’s an example of how my playing went: given my total lack of skill and the fact that I haven’t really played soccer since I was 13, I decided that the safest place on the field for me was at forward. This may seem counterintuitive, but in spite of all of our trash talking we knew the LCFs were better so chances were most of the action for us was going to be on the defensive end. Well at one point the ball was kicked towards one of the corners and instead of going after it (in my defense, I thought it was out of bounds…the field we played in doesn’t have fancy things like sidelines) I just stood there waiting for it to get thrown back into play. Brilliant, I know. When I finally wised up and realized it was still inbounds, I went after it and instead of getting the ball, I accidentally kicked Bamba (the LCF, not to be confused with the SED tech trainer) in the shins. I really can’t decide what he found funnier…the fact that I actually missed the ball enough to kick him. Or the fact that it probably didn’t even hurt enough to legitimately call it a kick. What can I say, I’m gonna give Mia Hamm a run for her money…

Sorry for the long absence from blog posts…it’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks! I believe the last time I posted anything we were getting ready for counterpart workshop, so I’ll start the updates with that… All in all, counterpart workshop (CPW) wasn’t really much to talk about. It basically consisted of two days of sessions on such exciting topics as expectations, the relationship between counterparts and volunteers, the SED project plan, etc. Truthfully, the thing that sticks out most in my mind when I think about CPW is being exhausted. While some lucky PCTs got to stay at the center during CPW, we Tassete people enjoyed commuting to and from Thies everyday. Not only did we have to commute, but also we were the first of four villages being picked up all by the same van. So this meant that we had to wake up everyday at 5:30 AM in order to shower and get on the bus in time for breakfast before sessions started at 8:15; and we usually got back to village around 8 PM. That’s a long day even by American standards, but after two months of living at the village pace, it was practically unfathomable. Then add to that the fact that all of our sessions were being conducted in rapid-fire French, which required me to pay very close attention in order to understand what was being said. PLUS I’m pretty sure the last time I slept straight through the night was at the hotel in D.C. during staging…you could see why exhaustion was the main theme of the workshop, haha. Aside from the exhaustion, CPW was beneficial for a couple of different reasons. The information presented in most of the sessions was really meant more for the counterparts and supervisors than for us, but it was helpful to see how Senegalese interact in a classroom style situation. For example, while in America we are taught to raise our hands and wait quietly to be called on if we have something to say, the Senegalese custom is to snap their fingers repeatedly until someone is recognized. The first time one of the counterparts did that during a session, I was completely taken aback. After all, I think most Americans would agree with me that snapping at someone like that is quite rude. Little did I know…that’s just the way things are done here. So it’s good that I learned that now rather than being caught off guard in the future while trying to run a meeting or teach a class. Also, as my part of the workshop, I worked with Byron, Alex and Alys (three other SED PCTs) on creating a skit regarding the relationship between counterparts (homologues) and volunteers. We came up with the idea of “Homologue Homme,” a superhero version of the counterpart, to demonstrate our expectations. So we wrote the skit and put it on thinking we were being reasonably clever and that everyone would find it helpful, and hopefully a little bit funny. Well to sum it up in a few short words…epic fail! It would seem that the underlying sarcasm of the idea (and the humor in general) doesn’t translate across cultural borders. While we were trying to portray things like wanting our counterparts to introduce us to people and show us around town; they thought we were expecting our homologues to literally swoop in and save the day whenever we cry for help. I think one of the homologues actually even raised their hand to point out that they are incapable of flying…no joke, haha. Needless to say the superhero concept did not convey quite what we had hoped, but it was another good lesson in the difficulties of communicating across cultural borders. In the future, I’ll have to be a little bit more careful about how I try to explain things. Last but not least…CPW was also a good opportunity for everyone, myself included, to meet his or her counterpart and supervisor. As SED volunteers, we are all assigned to work under a government agency; so the supervisor acts as our contact for whatever agency we are meant to work with. The counterpart/homologue on the other hand, is more the person that shows you around and works with you on a daily basis regarding your projects. So far both my supervisor and homologue seem like really good people. I think there’s a possibility that one might be a bit more difficult to work with, but hopefully I’m wrong…only time will tell. À la prochaine!

So last Monday, the Peace Corps FINALLY made a little room in our schedule for us to have a day off when we weren't all separated in our training villages. Obviously, we jumped at the opportunity and all 50 of us decided to head to Popenguine, an eco-tourism site on the coast, for a little mini beach holiday. I volunteered to plan the trip, but being faced with the prospect of finding transportation, renting houses and procuring enough food and drinks was a little bit daunting. Thankfully though, there is a PCV in Popenguine who, when I called him to get the number of the guy we usually rent houses from, volunteered to take care of reserving the houses. Ankith also called ahead and warned the boutiques that 50 Toubabs were rolling into town, so they needed to stock up. A couple of relatively smooth phone calls in French to arrange Alhams and texts to all the PCTs letting them know the plan and we were ready to go...

So on Monday afternoon, PC cars came and got us from the 11 different training villages and brought everyone back to the center. Then we all ran around packing up stuff for the beach and borrowing foam mattresses to bring along. We got everything strapped onto the 2 Alhams and crammed ourselves in to head out, only an hour and a half later than intended...which is pretty much a miracle for the Peace Corps and Senegal in general. Of course travel in an Alham is always an adventure and the one I was in stalled and came to a complete stop while trying to go up a hill on the way. We were thinking we'd have to push it to the beach, but thankfully it started again after 5 or 10 minutes and we were on our way.

Once we got to Popenguine, I decided it was about time to pass the torch on being in charge and enjoy myself, haha. So we stopped at a boutique to get supplies and I handed all the money to Kathryn, another PCT, and let her take over. All 50 of us piled out of the Alhams at this point, which was total chaos. Everyone was in charge of getting their own snack and drinks, but we also had to get everything we needed for a communal dinner that night and breakfast in the AM. Plus, some of the PCTs were in charge of walking into random compounds looking for ice. In Senegal, you can't just walk to the gas station or grocery store and buy ice. You have to look for houses that have freezers. Frequently, the women that live there will fill up plastic bags with water and then freeze them to sell as ice; so that's what we were after. After about an hour of running around like chickens with their heads cut off, we finally piled back into the buses and drove the rest of the way to our houses.

That day was possibly the hottest day since we arrived in Senegal, so that plus 25 people packed into an Alham equals I've never been so sweaty in my life. So as soon as we got to the house, most of us dropped our stuff and headed straight for the ocean, while a few people got started on making spaghetti.

Everyone took a break from swimming to eat spaghetti Senegalese-style (aka 15 forks attacking each platter), but otherwise the entire night was spent enjoying the ocean. It was a gorgeous evening and the water was the perfect temperature, so it was pretty much amazing. It was nice to have a chance to unwind and hang out with everyone out from under the eyes of PC staff.

We rented 2 houses for the night, which sounds like a lot, but with 50 PCTs plus 6 or 7 PCVs who came down to join the party, things got rather crowded. So it was pretty much sleep wherever you could find enough space to lay down, haha. I, for example, ended up sharing a flimsy foam mattress with another PCV out on the porch of the big house. Thank goodness for mosquito coils preventing us from getting bitten to death, because there was definitely no where to hang a net. But I got to sleep right next to the beach and spent the night swimming in the Atlantic, so who am I to complain? Waking up there was definitely one of those moments where I have to pause and take a step back...it still seems surreal that this is my life now. And of course its not all fun times and parties on the beach, but its still an amazing opportunity to experience.

The next morning some of the girls cooked pancakes for everyone (which I slept through, wah wah) and then we spent the rest of the day hanging out in the water or around the house. Unfortunately, I missed putting sunscreen on my chest so I got my first major sunburn since getting to country...but frankly, it was worth it. It has been far too hot the past 2 weeks to even consider not staying in the water when I had the chance.

Around 5 it was time to pack up and head back to reality. I wish we could have had one more night to enjoy the beach, but oh well. Thankfully everything went off without a hitch planning-wise and everyone had an awesome time. Great trip!!

Right now we're in the middle of counter-part workshop so I'll let you know how that goes next time. Later!

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 sweetersauce - 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, hahalots 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!!

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 CorkeryCorps de la PaixB.P. 2089 NdorongKaolack, SenegalWest AfricaPar 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 to the side of my blog. 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.

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!

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!

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.

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

(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!

So the title of this post is probably more dramatic than necessary, but seriously I HATE bleach. It has really loved to screw up my life lately. And by bleach screwing up my life what I really mean is that I can’t be trusted with. So here they are, the bleach incidents:

To start, I should briefly explain how we purify our water here: First, it is put through a filter to get out the big particles, and then, after you pour some of the filtered water into your water bottle, you add a little bleach to kill whatever is left. Sounds simple enough, right? Right…but you know me; I have a talent for screwing up everything domestic. Well we got to village a week ago or so and after introducing myself and talking with my family for a bit, I went into my room to set everything up. So I put my water filter together, filled it up and set it on top of the cardboard box that it came in. And there was mistake number one (which I saw coming, but decided to ignore). It stayed up for most of the night, but then around midnight, while I was laying in bed wondering how I was ever going to be able to fall asleep in this heat, CRASH. Yep, that’s right, the water filter and its contents go spilling alllll over my bedroom floor. Luckily for me the floor in my room is just cement and my bags were far enough away that I didn’t ruin everything. So I picked it back up, set it on the FLOOR this time and decided to try again in the morning.

So the next morning, attempt #2 at being able to take care of myself (aka stay hydrated) in Senegal began. I filled the water filter back up and then went off with Sakhir, my language instructor, and the other PCTs to greet the village chief and the other host families. I was gone for a few hours and when I got back the first thing I did was head to my room for water. At this point I hadn’t really had any clean water since we left Thies the previous afternoon and there had been a lot of sweating going on so I was pretty thirsty. I walk into my room, and what do I find? Yep, the floor was covered with water AGAIN. Apparently, I hadn’t tightened the spout well enough so all the water that was filtered just leaked straight out. I know…its almost impressive. [Pause to remind everyone reading this that I have a Master’s degree. Which is proof that, in spite of how it appears, I’m actually a fairly intelligent person. What can I say? Domestic stuff escapes me.]

Sooo I took the filter apart again, tightened the spout, and began attempt #3 at having water. Success??? Well I put some water in the bottle, added the bleach and thought "Hurrah, I did it!" Yeah, not so fast, Elizabeth. I spent the next couple of days drinking water that essentially tasted like I had pulled it straight out of the pool at Peoria Country Club. But hey, I’d heard that the purified water here was gross and Crystal Light is pretty effective at covering the taste so I figured, no problem. Anyway, day 5 of our first stint in the village rolled around and Jackie (another PST in my village) and I were hanging out at my house under the tree during lunch. So I casually mentioned to her that I’d run out of bleach (we were given a dropper bottle full of it before we left Thies) and ask her if she wants to go to the boutique to get some with me later. Well she just kinda looked at me like I was crazy, and asked how that was possible…she’s only used a tiny bit of hers. Which of course made me think she was crazy slash hadn’t been filtering her water properly. So I run into my room to check the "Filtering Your Water" section of the PC’s medical handbook and what’d ya know...I’ve basically been poisoning myself with bleach all week. Yep, you are supposed to use 3 DROPS of bleach per liter. Which I of course knew, but had been being an airhead all week and adding 3 DROPPER FULLS of bleach per liter. YEAH. And there you have, reason number 1 why bleach is the bane of my existence. Everyone has gotten a pretty good laugh, myself included, out of what an idiot I am. Mostly, I’m just thankful that Jackie pointed out my mistake when she did. I felt right as rain all week, but I imagine consuming that much bleach on a regular basis would have started to take a toll on my kidneys or liver or something. Please don’t think to badly of me…it could happen to anyone, right?

The other reason that bleach is the bane of my existence is much less threatening to my health, I promise. So I did my laundry for the first time in Senegal a few days ago, and it was quite a fiasco. In case you harbored any ideas that we have access to washing machines or dryers here, let me just correct that misconception right now. Nope, hand washing all the way. Well I got up early one morning to do my laundry and even when I hadn’t touched bleach in three whole days, still managed to have two of my shirts get totally ruined by it. STUPID BLEACH. I was of course majorly upset because it ended up staining two of my favorite shirts (plus I was sleep deprived and that makes everything seem worse). So yes, I cried…over my laundry. What can I say? It had been a stressful week and sometimes you just need things to go your way. So when the laundry didn’t, a good cry was just unavoidable. I of course blamed this failed attempt at laundry on whoever had used the buckets before me. Surely they had used bleach for their laundry, causing my vibrant green and purple shirts to get ruined in the process, right? Wrong, wah wah. Yeah, it dawned on me a few days later that this problem can again be put down to me not knowing how to properly handle bleach. I had of course stained one of the shirts before it got washed. So I took it off, used a Shout wipe to get out the red crystal light, and rinsed it with water from my water bottle. Water that had been treated with excessive amounts of bleach. YEP. Another smart move on my part, I know. And so you have reason #2 why bleach is the bane of my existence.

And on another unrelated-to-bleach-note, when I finally went to get my laundry off the line after being disheartened by the bleach incident, what do I find? Yep, a bird had pooped all over my white bra. Which just so happens to be the ONLY new bra I bought to take with me to Senegal. Yes, have no fear, my life continues to be a joke, even on a new continent.

So there you have my "I’m an idiot" moments thus far. Hopefully they are at least a little amusing. I know I find them laughable, haha. BYE!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately! Luckily for you though, we had a huge storm in the village last night, which means that for once it is not insanely hot out! So I decided that instead of spending the afternoon laying around trying not to make myself more sweaty, I’d fill you all in on life in my little Senegalese Village.

Here it goes…the name of the family that I live with is Barro. As is the custom when PCTs do a home stay, the first day I got here my family gave me a new Senegalese name. So these days, I spend much more time answering to Adama (pronounced just like it looks – Adam with an "a" at the end) than Elizabeth. I have my own room at our compound, with a bed and a mosquito net. The only other decorations in my room are my shiny silver water filter and huge PC issued first aid kit, which amazingly I haven’t had much use for yet (KNOCK ON WOOD). There are currently eight other members of my family living in our compound and one lodger who isn’t around much. Here’s a breakdown of the family Barro:

Aissata is my mom and the head of the household. The Dad passed away several years ago.Maimouna, my Aunt (who it turns out is actually my dads second wife. yay polygamy!)My twin sisters Awa and Adama (my namesake)Two brothers, Mamadou and Abdulaye, who are both students, ages 24 and 22 respectivelyAstou, Maimouna’s granddaughter Fatima, Awa’s 19 month old daughter And then me, Adama, current holder of the position of youngest daughter and resident Toubab (white person)

Awa and Fatima, as well as Astou are just visiting, but they’ve been here the whole time that I have. Besides the four currently at home, I have five other brothers and sisters, the oldest of which is 46 (he was born when my mom was 14!). Most of the other PCTs have pretty young families, so it is a little bit weird that I’m the second youngest in ours. Since there aren’t as many kids here, life around my compound is much calmer than in the other compounds in town. Everyone in my family pretty much spends their days hanging out in the shade of the trees when there isn’t housework to be done. There are two huge Nima trees in our front yard that form a nearly 40-foot canopy, which is perfect for the extremely hot days around here. "Our air conditioners," as my younger brother calls them.

A day in village generally goes like this…

Wake up around 7 to the sounds of roosters and donkeys, along with assorted birds pounding away on my tin roof. Take a quick bucket bath (its so hot you usually sweat a lot even while sleeping) and then eat breakfast. Breakfast usually consists of a baguette and a cup of Nescafe with about 6 cubes of sugar (to say the Senegalese love sugar would probably be the understatement of the century). Then it’s off to language class from 9 to about 12:15. We used to have class under the amazing trees at my house, but now we’ve moved to the village nursery school where there’s a FAN, which is a godsend (when the power isn’t out that is).

At 12ish, we break for lunch until 3. Yep, almost 3 hours for a lunch break. When I explained to my family that the average lunch break in America is 30 minutes to an hour they were quite surprised. But of course it doesn’t get up to 120_F in Illinois in the afternoons. Anywho, these days I eat lunch in my room by myself because it’s Ramadan and the rest of my family is fasting. Usually though, we’d be eating around a communal bowl (which is how all meals are done here) of ceeb u jen. Ceeb is a Senegalese dish that consists of rice and oil and, if you’re lucky (which thankfully I have been), fish and veggies too. My sister Adama is a great cook so all our food is pretty delicious, but I am having a hard time getting used to eating the same things every day. Going from never eating fish in America to having it with almost every meal here is a bit of an adjustment. After lunch, my family members usually take a nap on the mat under the Nima trees, while I try to entertain myself. Adding fasting on top of how hot it has been lately, everyone is understandably fatigued. Then, at 3 PM we have more language class or go talk to local business people.

After class, the other PSTs and I generally go for a walk to get a little exercise. Without getting out for a walk every couple of days to burn some energy, the pace of village life is just a little bit slower than I can handle. (I know, who would ever have imagined me objecting to laying around all day everyday, right?!) Then at 7:30 PM, I eat a second breakfast with my family when they break their fast. This has lead me to believe that the actual reason female PCVs gain weight can be summed up in one word: Ramadan. I am currently eating four meals a day, and yet my mom and sisters still tell me I’m not eating enough and need to put on more weight. This is partially due to the fact that they think they are being poor hosts if a guest loses weight, and partially because the Senegalese idea of a beautiful woman is generally much more curvy than the American ideal.

After dark, we either watch TV or, in the very likely case that the electricity has gone out again, we sit around and talk. My brothers are the only ones who really speak French around my house. My sister Adama can speak it too but she is usually busy taking care of things. Senegalese women do all the work around the house and at our house, pretty much all of that falls to Adama. I want to try and help her out, but I haven’t figured out how to approach it yet. I haven’t even successfully convinced them to let me sit on the ground for meals like everyone else. So anyway at night, I either chat with my brothers in French, or sit around and listen to the rest of the family babble in Wolof. Also, around 9/9:30 we squeeze in dinner, which is now my fourth meal of the day; in case you’re keeping score. Yep, LOTS of white rice these days. After dinner, my family drinks tea, but I usually duck out for another bucket bath (and my family thinks I’m weird for bathing ONLY two times a day). And finally, I go to bed around 10:30. And by bed I mean I go to my room, turn of all the lights and pretend to be sleeping… but usually I’m watching a movie for a few hours, haha. Anti-social? Maybe a tad, but it’s the only time I spend alone all day so it’s kind of necessary.

So there you have it…more details than you ever wanted to know about my oh-so-exciting life in village. I promise the next post will be more interesting. AKA a recap of all the idiotic things I’ve done so far. Stay tuned.

So I'm looking at what I wrote as the final line in my journal entry from the first day we got here... It says, double underlined and in all capital letters, "SO SWEATY!" I was too exhausted from a long day of traveling and interviews to write much else, but apparently it was very important for me to get that down. Yeah...its hot here. Also, its super humid, not the dry heat I had deluded myself into thinking that it would be. I just checked the weather and there's 89% humidity at 10 PM. Also, the line above "SO SWEATY!" simply says, "I miss American food." I guess these are the things I will want to remember about my first day in Senegal...? I blame the jet lag.

Anyway, the last few days have been pretty full with oh so exciting things like training/language/cross cultural/safety/tech orientations and my personal favorite: vaccines. We got Hep A and typhoid earlier this week. Still no crying! Its quite a first for me. The typhoid shot is still making my arm sore though, and I got the shot 2 days ago. We've also started on the ever fun malaria drugs. Doxycycline and mefloquine (that's for you Mom b/c I figured you'd be curious). So far no side effects, but today is the first time I'm taking the mefloquine so fingers crossed that I don't have any crazy nightmares or get paranoid or anything.

In other news: on our second night at the training center we had an impromptu talent show, which was AWESOME. There were a couple of tap dancers, a violinist, juggling, and even an acoustic version of "Baby One More Time" courtesy of one of the PCVs. Not gonna lie, we're a pretty talented group. I thought about getting up there as well, but I figured all these people could do without my pitchy rendition of "A Part of Your World" or "The Star-Spangled Banner" (which are among the few songs I know by heart). Although, after the talent show, we were sitting around sharing stories and I contributed the one about my visit to Krakow aka "the time I almost got arrested twice in 24 hours." People seemed to enjoy the story, but I think a few of them were a little scared of that happening here. It also probably could've gotten more laughs, but I have yet to master the art of telling a funny story and not laughing so hard midway through that people can barely understand me. I don't think thats a skill I will ever possess...ohhh well.

Yesterday, after Etienne, PC Senegal's safety and security officer, came and did his best to put the fear of god in us, we were allowed to exit the PC compound for the first time since we arrived on Thursday. Some of the current PCVs took us out in groups for a highlights tour of Thies. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but seeing as this is my first time in a developing country, it was a little shocking. But aside from that, it was great to get out of the training center and actually see Senegal. We also got the distinct pleasure of experiencing our first shouts of "Toubab! Toubab!" from the Senegalese children we passed on the street. "Toubab" is a Wolof word that basically translates to, "white person." So children tend to shout it at us as we pass them. Right now I find this funny and slightly adorable (mostly b/c the kids are so darn cute), but I have a feeling its going to get old pretty fast. On the plus side, they don't speak English so in the future I can vent my frustrations with them without having to feel bad about it.

Also, last night after dinner about 20 of us got together and went to a local bar near the training center to have a beer and hang out. And by bar, what I really mean is someone's house where they have a few tables and sell beers to the locals that hang out there. It was nice to just relax and hang out with everyone away from the center though. Although, note to self: this is Thies, there are no street lamps out here by the abandoned army barracks...must bring headlamp when going out at night. Thankfully, some of the other PCTs are quicker than I am and remembered theirs so I managed to make it home without falling into a pot hole. Success!

Let's see...tomorrow we are off to our home stays for about a week. I'll be in a village about 25 km outside of Thies. Not really sure who I'll be living with or anything about the village really, so it should be interesting. There are three other PCTs headed out there with me though, Jackie, Alex and Joshua, who are SEDs in my French class. Kinda terrified about going to the home stay and having to introduce myself to all these new people, but I guess I'll just have to jump in with both feet and accept the fact that I'll probably sound like a bumbling idiot. Good thing I'm usually pretty good at laughing at myself. So yes, tomorrow its bye bye showers and food cooked to not make us sick and hello bucket baths, "squat toilets" and most likely sickness from food my body can't quite handle yet. Should be good times. But aside from that and being generally a little freaked out, I am excited to meet my family and really start integrating with the Senegalese.

I think thats about all for now. I won't have internet again for a few days, but I will be expecting emails when I get back. (HINT HINT). À bientôt!

Senegal...we made it! And so did everyone's bags so a big hurrah for that! Quick post on our first day:

Well, in spite of dosing myself with dramamine and melatonin, I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep on the plane. Thankfully though, after the bus ride to the training center in Thies and some brief introductions, we had the rest of the morning free to take naps/showers. After our rest it was time for my first taste of Senegalese food. We had a rice dish with some veggies, onion sauce, and what I'm told was probably goat's meat. In spite of my lack of adventurous appetite, I thought it was pretty delicious.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with interviews and more getting things organized. We had language interviews to assess our French, which I was rather nervous about. I'm not really sure how that went because I was kind of flustered, but I guess we'll see what there assessment is. In addition to language, I also had an interview with the APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director) for the SED program. I think that one went pretty well...she just wanted to ask a few questions and get to know more about us so she could start figuring out who should be placed where. And last, but not least we had a "medical interview" aka "here are your malaria pills. don't forget to take them." So I start taking those today....hopefully my dreams won't become too crazy because of them, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Right now we're all just sitting around in the disco hut chatting and taking advantage of the wifi before dinner...

Here are a couple of pics of the training center. The "disco hut":

And these are the buildings that we're staying in while at the training center. This one is the boys' side, the girls' is just out of the frame to the left.

All in all, I'd say things are going well so far. Today was a bit rough at times, but I think that 99% of that is due to having gotten barely 10 hours of sleep total this week. Plus, the cravings for cheeseburgers and Mexican food were hard to keep at bay given the fact that I've really only been eating one meal a day. I figure after a good night's sleep everything will feel a bit less scary. I'm also still experiencing a lot of, "wait, is this really happening?" feelings. Hopefully it will seem a bit less surreal soon, but who knows.

Bye for now!

So staging...I was up until 2:30 in the morning trying to get all the last minute things packed to leave for Senegal (and watching Star Trek just because its great). This made for a bit of a rough first day to the whole Peace Corps experience b/c I was a - too nervous to sleep and b - had to be up at 3:30 to leave for the airport. In case you are wondering, this is all the stuff that I decided I couldn't live without and thus, hauled to Senegal with me. By my estimate it all weighs nearly as much as I do...

So after some tearful goodbyes at the airport, I (and all my luggage) made it to D.C. for staging. I met up with some other PCTs at the airport and we hired a shuttle to take us to our hotel. We figured we'd shell out the $17 for an air conditioned van because hey, we're moving to Senegal, so we should enjoy the convenience while we can. WRONG. About halfway to the airport our van decided it just couldn't handle the strain of 7 PCTs and approximately 800 lbs of luggage. So naturally, the transmission breaks down when we're in the left lane going down a rather busy road in the middle of D.C. We figured this was just the first of many adventures so, taking advantage of red lights, we started shuttling our luggage out of the broken van and over to the curb. All in all, it was rather hilarious. Here's just a taste of how ridiculous we all looked...

Our driver assured us that the hotel was only two blocks further and we figured, "hey, we're in the Peace Corps. We're tough...lets grab our bags and walk it." Well, it was definitely NOT two blocks. More like 7. So we made quite the sweaty group, stopping every 1/2 block to rearrange the piles of luggage we were trying to lug in 90 degree weather. Thank goodness for the guys from PC Panama who came along and grabbed a couple of my bags for the last few blocks or I might have had to break down and hail a cab (Clearly I packed waaay too much.) We finally made it to our hotel, checked in and headed straight for the showers. All in all, it was a pretty hilarious start to our service.

Other than that, Staging was awesome. Staying awake during all the policy sessions was a little rough on zero hours of sleep, but it was great meeting everyone. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but there are 48 people in my stage. Everyone is either a SED (business) volunteer or some sort of agriculture volunteer. So far the group seems really cool, plus its just nice to see that I'm not the only one who is a little freaked out by all of this.

Day 2: Got up early and headed to the clinic for our yellow fever vaccine. I didn't cry, woo! Might sound lame, but I hate needles so that was quite an accomplishment. After the clinic we were off to the airport. We got there about 6 hours before our flight boarded so there was a lot of waiting around, but it also provided a last minute opportunity for American food. Yum pizza and Ben & Jerry's!

I've been promising myself I'd write a blog post for about two weeks now and I figured, with tons of packing to do and 17 hours still to go on Rosetta Stone, there's no time like the present... So here's the deal: on August 11th I'm off to Washington, D.C. to meet up with the 50 other fabulous Peace Corps Trainees for Senegal. We'll be in D.C. for a fun filled day of orientation and more shots than I care to think about, and then its off to Senegal on the 12th. If all goes to plan (and I certainly hope it does) we'll land in Dakar on August 13th and then take a bus ride to the Peace Corps' training center in Thiès (pronounced "chess"). I'll be taking my laptop with me and they have free wifi at the training center so feel free to send emails/write messages for me to read when I get there (hint hint). Anywho, we'll have 4 or 5 days of training type stuff in Thiès and then we're off to homestays in the area for more training and integration into the Senegalese culture. All told, training lasts for 9 weeks and once its done we'll swear in and transition from PCT (Peace Corps Trainee) to PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) sometime around mid-October.

In other news, I talked to the Country Director for PC Senegal today and he said that I will "more than likely" have electricity and running water once I get to my site (which will be a few days after swear in) so hurrah for that! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be internet as well, but I figure I better not push my luck. He also assuaged the fears of numerous members of my family who have voiced their concerns about my being able to get sunscreen in Senegal. I felt rather stupid for asking about it, but he assured me that "its the Peace Corps' responsibility to make sure you don't get skin cancer" so I'm set. Chris also mentioned that they are thinking about starting up some Junior Achievement programs in Senegal, which would be an awesome idea in my opinion. I taught a Junior Achievement class to 3rd graders in Champaign last spring and it was tons of fun. Nothing spells a great start to your day like a bunch of kids clamoring to give you a hug and tell you about what they learned from you last week.

Hmm, other info...oh, well I'll be serving as a Small Business Counselor in Senegal's Small Enterprise Development Program. Basically I could be working on any number of business related projects from teaching business classes to expanding the ecotourism industry to exporting the goods of local artisans. For more information (and because they put it much more eloquently than I could), check out the SED section PC Senegal's website.

Oh and last but not least, I've posted my contact info on the right-hand side, but I'll put the address here to. My address during training will be:

PCT Elizabeth Corkery

Corps de la PaixB.P. 299Thies, SenegalWest Africa

Some simple guidelines for sending letters/packages: Be sure to write "Par Avion" and/or "Airmail" somewhere on the envelopes so that they have a better chance of getting to me. Its also best to number your letters so I know what was written when in case they come out of order. As for packages, probably best to seal everything inside in plastic bags so nothing gets to them. Oh and write on the customs forms that everything inside is "Used" (and preferably not worth a high dollar amount) so it doesn't cost as much for me to get them back from the Post Office.

I think that's about all for now. I'll try to make my posts more entertaining/witty in the future but well, its me, so I make now guarantees. See you all in a few years!

P.S. Everyone (including the clerks at the stores where I've been spending all my money these days) keeps asking me how I'm feeling, so here it is in brief. At my graduation party a few weeks ago one of my uncles (and I'm sorry, I forget which one) asked me this same question and listed three possible answers: "excited, nervous, scared ****less?" Well let's just say, he hit the nail on the head with that last one!