Holiday Pre-Party has officially started

Tree, check. 

Family Christmas letter, check. 

Hot enough to go to the beach, check. 

Christmas in Kolda is looking like its going to be just like Christmas back in Cali.

Merry Christmas!  A little tree and bunches of goodies have arrived just in time to help me and my hut feel festive for the holidays.  Endless gratitude to my family for feeding my junk food, peanut butter, and tea habit from afar as well as helping me spruce up the walls of my hut with some super sweet letters from home.

Love and hugs to my family and friends back home. I miss you all very much and hope you are having a wonderful Christmas with loved ones (minus me of course).  Please eat an extra slice of pumpkin pie for me and blast that NSYNC CD I make mom play every year.

Belated Turkey day love

While I was enjoying two turkeys, some chicken and various other fixings with my Kolda volunteer family, my mom made sure to send some love from home via flipcam.  One of my favorites, posted above, features my uncle who's sporting a beard in solidarity of my voyage overseas - he's not shaving til I get back.  I think my aunt is now considering buying plane ticket home just to put a stop to it.

Its a little belated, but I am so thankful for my family back home who has been so supportive, emotionally, mentally, physically (my need for chai tea is a serious physical need, that lipton stuff gets old after a while), etc. Also a big thanks to my PC family for being available for everything from brainstorming products to showcase at a local fair to grabbing a beer on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Peanuts

I love peanut butter. a lot.

Luckily for me, Senegal is pretty big into peanuts too.  We roast 'em, grind them into flour, mash them into butter, bake them into brittle (pictured at left), etc.

To get my peanut butter fix, my old skippy jars accompany me to the market about once every week or two to get filled up for about a $.50 a jar.  My current favorite combo is then to mix the peanut butter with some honey and eating that straight up or spread it on some bread at breakfast or bananas for an afternoon snack.

But do not let the fact that I have easy access to locally made, all natural peanut butter deter you from sending me processed skippy from home - I love the sugary stuff too.

Dressing up and getting my grub on

My feet are tired from dancing, my belly full from eating and my backpack dusty from travel - its been a good couple of weeks.

The party started on a bittersweet note when Kolda said good-bye to a fellow PCV who is all done with her two years with a local band and dancing in the street outside her house (I highly recommend checking out her blog when you get a chance).  The band is pictured at left. The guy without a shirt played a drum for about 5 minutes then spent the rest of the evening dancing around shirtless, reminded me a bit of a gogo dancer trying to get people up and moving with the music.

Then it was time to head north of the Gambia to Kaolack, Foundiougne and Tamba for a couple of birthdays and Halloween with fellow PCVs - all three cities provided late nights and loud music, hence the tired feet.

I was back home to Kolda in time to celebrate Tabaski with my host family.  This Muslim holiday celebrates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael and God provision of a sheep to sacrifice in the place of the son.  As my brothers, dad and uncle went about slaughtering our sheep while we played the Koranic verses recounting the story of Abraham and the sacrifice, I was reminded of Christmas back home listening to the nativity story around the twinkling tree, except I don't understand arabic and the sheep was a whole lot messier than a tree.  Don't worry, my little neighbor picture below was closely supervised and didn't actually do anything besides pretend to saw off a hoof. After grilling lunch, we put on some new clothes to visit neighbors- my host mom had the blue ensemble I'm styling in below made for me - impressive she knew my measurements just by looking at me.

The fun hasn't stopped yet though as I'm looking forward to another great holiday - Thanksgiving - at the regional house this week.  Someone managed to procure a turkey! The joy that the fact of turkey coming to dinner on Thursday elicited in me confirms my suspicions that I've become even more of a carnivore since moving here.  Knowing where my food comes doesn't make me less inclined to eat, I actually look at chickens often and think, you'd be really great with some yassa - onion sauce.

Sanakoro: a taste of the village life

pepper from Alana's family garden

As a city PCV in a fairly patron family, I don't have to pull my own water from a well, I use a western toilet and have fairly regular electricity as well as wifi.  This past week I decided to see how the majority of PCVs live and get a taste of village life.

Sanakoro is a community of about 250 people 7 km outside of Kolda and home to a lovely environmental education PCV, Alana.

This past Wednesday, after a half hour bike ride down a really nice dirt road - I was hoping for more difficult route as I was supposed to try and be 'roughing it' - I dustily rolled into Sanakoro.  Once I had greeted all of Alana's family, we shared a breakfast of sweetened 'lait caille' or milk curds and took a tour of her garden - which has inspired me to take better care of my outdoor space and add in some more fruits and veggies.  Then we toured the countryside trekking through the corn, rice and cashew fields, marking the first time I had seen rice in its pre-processed form - reminds me a bit of wheat, just shorter.

Once we were back at her compound, her sister grilled up the corn we (well, Alana's cousin) had picked in the field and we chatted while waiting for lunch - great practice for pulaar and wolof.  After a traditional Fuladu lunch of okra based sauce and rice, we helped me improve my language some more as we drank attaya tea under the mango tree, discussing American music and the upcoming football finals in town.

As Alana's family walked me out to the main road before sunset, my backpack heavy with cashews and veggies from the family fields, they all reminded me to greet my family for them (whom they have never met before) and encouraged me to come back and visit soon.  It was a moment where I was reminded how important hospitality and community are in Senegalese culture.  This was reinforced as I rode out of town and heard my name called and greetings shouted the fields and houses of people who had just met me that day. No one is ever alone here and while sometimes the quickness with which people become friendly and familiar here was at first almost unnerving, I am coming to love how quickly someone can become a member of the large family here.

A big thank you to my new Sanakoro family. I'll be back soon mostly because they do feel a part of my Senegalese family, but also because I forgot to try and pull water from the well - need to cross that off the bucket list.

Brewing Byssap

This is my amazing neighbor who has been key to my adjusting to life in Kolda.

First, she introduced me to a group of local students who play volleyball most evenings at the nearby middle school - an activity that has been a great way to burn off steam and some calories while getting to know people in the community.  It has also been a cross cultural learning opportunity where I've noted that some things are universal.  For example, blocking a boy who think he's a badass is fabulous fun in any country, especially if you do it 3 times in 1 game.

She has also been teaching me a bit about food in Senegal.  The other day we wandered the market in the early morning and then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon preparing 'ceeb u quecha', or dried fish and rice.  Its much better than the name sounds, but my hands did stink of fish for two days after the meal.

While the first cooking lesson's results were tasty, I decided to take our next recipe into my own hands and proposed a juice making day.  She and her little cousin came over and helped me prepare the byssap flowers (the red leaves below) and mint, get the charcoal fire started and demonstrated proper stirring, sifting and straining techniques.

All in all, there were no complaints from my family when we enjoyed glasses of cold byssap juice after dinner that night, so juice making might have to become a regular undertaking for me.

 

A Social Sunday Stroll

After a week of sniffling and sneezing around my compound, or more aptly my room on especially yucky days, my head decided it was done being runny and achey this Sunday.  So I strapped on some sandals and went for a walk around my neighborhood.

My first weeks here consisted of getting to know other local PCVs and meeting different NGO and local government employees.  However, I have been sorely neglecting another vital opportunity to meet and greet right in my own quartier.  I realized that I haven't been spending time in my own neighborhood when a neighbor greeted me two nights ago and then asked where I had been for the past week and was shocked to hear I had not left town.  Apparently I need to get out more and say hi.

So Sunday I spent walking around the neighborhood and into compounds of neighbors I knew despite still not being completely comfortable showing up at someone's house without calling ahead or receiving an earlier invitation.  After getting over that initial hesitation, it has been heart warming to always receive a warm welcome and be asked to sit and chat for a while - a short while for now as my very limited pulaar doesn't exactly allow me to make deep conversation.

Social Sunday strolls may have to become a service tradition for me although I'll also be sure to be social the other days of the week too so my neighbors don't think I leave town Monday-Saturday.

Dust off the radio and tune in at 6 tonight

Hut sweet home!

Welcome to Kolda! After the initial drop in my stomach while watching the white Peace Corps car pull away from my compound, I have been enjoying getting to know my new home and my new family.

While we still eat lots of rice and fish and love to watch TV (when the power doesn't cut out) home now is quite different from my living situation in Thieneba, but just as welcoming and warm.  Biggest change has been my siblings. While the Thieneba crew's oldest was around 16, my current youngest is 12 years old, preceded by two in late high school and most of the older ones are living abroad in Spain or Dakar for university. This means there is less demand to play Uno or be bounced on my knees while I make horsey noises.  My host dad works for an NGO and is usually pretty busy, but always takes time to sit with the family after meals.  And what great meals they have been.  The amazingness of the food might be attributed to the end of Ramadan we just celebrated and the fact everyone is excited to be eating regularly.  So don't worry, mama, I'm eating just fine.

These first few weeks are meant to be spent settling and integrating into my new home. This has meant lots of meetings with local leaders, government offices and NGOs; to which my counterpart has graciously accompanied. It is also the time to practice the language(s).  Conversations have often flowed from French to Wolof to Pulaar, which I like to think helps me practice all of them at once.  The most helpful person to this end, besides my local tutor, has been my host grandma.  Sitting outside our gate with her in the evenings, greeting passer-byes has been key to properly pronouncing 'jam tun', which means peace only, as well as learning the many various ways of asking how life is going.

To hear my three languages in action and if you are lucky enough to be in Senegal, you should tune in at 6 pm tonight to hear Rougui (my new Senegalese name, pronounced "Roo-gi" hard G at the end there) introduce herself as the new small business volunteer here in Kolda, excited to work with current and budding entrepreneurs on anything from marketing to accounting.

But it hasn't been all work.  I've lazed on our back patio reading and usually take a bike ride or two around town each day - partially to work off all the carbs I am eating.  These explorations have brought forth some great discoveries such as a woman who sells what is the closest approximation of a baked cookie I think I can find in town as well as a small local library complete with books in local languages. Photo to the left is on a ride home past my neighborhood 'lake' which is probably just the result of bad drainage during rainy season, but still pretty!

Much love and many hugs from my new home in Kolda.  Also thanks to everyone in the region who came out to celebrate my install and show me around town and a special thanks to my wonderful new site mates. I'm lucky to be just a short bike ride away from some pretty incredible individuals.

A missionary, an aid worker and PCV are walking down a road...

A fellow PCV just posted this and made me giggle as well as do a bit of reflecting, so I'm passing it along.


"A man falls down a well and calls for help. A passing missionary hears his pleas and drops a Bible down the well. Next an aid worker stops and drops down some money. A Peace Corps Volunteer hears the man screaming, drops down a bag, then leaps into the well. “What are you doing?” asks the startled man at the bottom of the well. “I’ve come to live with you,” the PCV replies."


Thanks for sharing, April!

Officially a PCV

This past week I said goodbye to my amazing training host family, pictured at left, and became a Peace Corps Volunteer during a lovely little ceremony at the new ambassador's house yesterday.  It has been a busy week and thus a fittingly demanding end to an exhausting, wonderful, and busy 9 weeks of training.

Here are some highlights of the past few weeks:

- I was and will continue to learn two local languages: Wolof and Pulaar.  Which means if I can get the languages down I could call myself quad lingual!  A big shout out to my awesome training buddies in Thieneba and my two Language & Cultural facilitators who patiently told me the verb for 'napping' at least twice a day.

- Overindulging in yummy laak, a traditional yogurt porridge, at a baptism can make my tummy feel funny.

- Kolda is my hometown down south. I visited my new site for a few days in the middle of training and I am so excited for the amount of fruit available year round as well as the work potential in the regional capital.  A thank you to Natalie, my ancienne, for a wonderful tour and also for a great example of what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer.

- I can now cook pretty awesome beignets, thanks to my host mom.

- Going to help out on the family farm in the heat of the afternoon is a really bad idea.  Just because my little 12 year old host brother can do it everyday does not mean I can.

- Skippy Peanut butter tastes SO good and starburst can brighten any mood.

- Two months went by quickly. I want to really appreciate each of the next 24 months and not wish away any time, be it good or bad.  I hope to be invested in each moment here and I'm excited to get started this week as I officially install into Kolda this coming Friday.

En ontuma! (until next time in pulaar)

my aunt's parting gift - braids!

Two weeks in Thieneba

Fishermen at the beach

I'm back in Thies (with wifi!) after two weeks in Thieneba living it up Senegalese style; lunching on rice and fish, playing lots of uno with my little brothers and sitting around under our garab tree chatting in broken Wolof.

It was an intense 14 days of language, trying to get to a proficient level before I start my second local language - as I'll be working in Kolda I need to learn Pulaar in addition to Wolof.  While I'm a little nervous about being in a language class by myself for the last 3 weeks of Pre-Service Training (PST) I'm hoping the one on one attention will help me progress quickly.  Even though the two weeks were a lot of work it was great for immersive practice in the language and I feel as if I am starting to really communicate with my family and people in the village.  For example, I can now joke with my 12 year old brother that he is useless since he can't cook or clean and I can now talk with my youngest aunt about what she wants to do after she finishes high school next year. Its exciting to start having conversations in Wolof, a language I didn't even know existed a few months ago.

While we did work hard these past two weeks, we did get to play a bit too.  My language class met up with the rest of the trainees - the 17 of us have been divided up into groups of about 2-4 in different villages - for a day trip to the beach.  It was wonderful to swim in the ocean again, especially as the water is actually pretty warm here.  We also took a break from our daily rice and fish in the form of a long long lunch out at a restaurant back in Thies starting with a pain au chocolat and ending with a banana split.  The lunch was actually a great practice in language too as we had to travel to and from Thies on public transport without our language instructor - Joe shows off the interior of one such taxi, please note the chord as a door handle.  

For the grand finale, my class rewarded ourselves for a successful two weeks with a beignet cooking lesson with my host mom - Thieneba's local donut baker - on our last day in village.  It was awesome to hang out with my family and my classmates with such yummy fare, but it was also not as fun to see how much oil and sugar goes into those donuts my mom hands me most mornings.

Tonight its back to some more technical training as we welcome our counterparts and supervisors from our respective sites to Thies for a two day training session.  Over the next few days we will learn a bit more about one another as well as put together a plan for the first two months in village.  Tomorrow also marks the start of Ramadan, which means all Muslims (95% of the population of Senegal) will fast from food and drink from dawn until dusk for the next month.  As a show of respect, one must eat and drink in privacy so lunches will have to be indoors and water bottles stashed away in bags.  It will be interesting to see how Senegal changes as have heard from other volunteers that the pace slows down a great deal  as people just lose energy during the end of the day.

Ramadan also means that I am only 19 days away from swearing in (Inchallah, God willing) and moving on down to Kolda.  I will miss the familiar faces of my fellow trainees, but I'm also excited to get to work!  Please note that my mailing address in Thies is no longer valid as mail won't get to me before I move, but I'll be sure to post a new address soon.

Love and hugs!  And a special big hug to mama and dad for an amazing care package - I am currently exercising a great deal of self control to not eat an entire box of peanut M&Ms while writing this.

Site: Kolda!

Today, our group of trainees learned where we will be for the next two years!  I'm heading out at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning to Kolda to meet with my ancienne, the volunteer whose work I will be taking over, as well as some potential work partners, my host family and volunteers who will be around the area during my service. Kolda is a regional capital, located in the south of Senegal, below the Gambia, and is supposed to have a pretty great selection of fruit year round.

Here's what the Peace Corps has been doing in the region and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Sama Turondo

Here is a pic of me and my turondoo, or namesake in Wolof, Nene. She is my host grandma (host dad's mom) and the elder of our house.  She wakes up early, makes coffee for the family and then heads out to sell lots of good food stuff in the local market.

She has a quiet and strong spirit and never fails to make me feel right at home.  I feel quite lucky to have such a strong female figure around the house and even luckier to have the honor of being named after her.

Happy 4th!

While I wish I could teleport for a night of s'mores and fireworks on the beach with my family this 4th, I get the next best thing: eating Pumba.  A couple of fellow trainees have dug a hole and a nice pig is roasting in that pit waiting to be eaten pretty soon here...

Tomorrow morning I head back to my host family for a few more days of language training, which I desperately need. New resolution is to really focus on prepping questions before I hang out with them so I can practice of course and also I need to speak as much as possible before my first language exam this Friday.  Each volunteer needs to be at an intermediate level, conversationally competent and also able to converse on a technical basis, before we can start working and right now I feel a long way off hence the self inflicted homework.  But Friday is also the day we all find out where we are going to be working for the next two years!


Happy 4th friends and family!  Hope you have a s'more for me :)

Community: week 1

Dancing at a baptism

Community is a big and heavy word, so I didn't know what to quite expect when our "community based training" began, but after a week I have grown to appreciate my new Senegalese community in its many forms.

Lunching with my fellow language trainees

A big piece of my new community is adopted host family.  I was dropped off at a house and introduced to my adopted mom, dad, 2 grandmas, 2 aunts and many new siblings last Wednesday, along with me new name, Nene, pronounced 'naynay'.  There is about 20 of us in my compound and I think I finally have everyone's name down - although I still mix up our set of twins occasionally. My family has been a great place to practice my very basic Wolof language skills and also understand more about living in Senegal.  For example, a younger sister has to continually remind me to not lean on my left hand when we are eating around our communal lunch bowl or to always let my elders know when I'm going to class or heading to bed.  Besides correcting my faux pas, the kids have also been great to entertain and take a break from all those pronoun memorizations that I have to do for language training. We made shadow puppets for hours one night and I don't know if I have ever played so much Uno or laughed so much while trying to learn to tie up my hair in a headscarf like my younger sister.  When I am not playing with my new siblings or asking basic questions of my new parents, I am stumbling through Wolof with a few fellow trainers and our wonderfully patient instructor.

This second family, my volunteer family, has been indispensable.  It is amazing to be able to speak to someone without requiring a great deal of gesturing or compare photos for cutest little host sibling.  They are a wonderful group to come back to after an exhausting week of language and cross cultural training and I am so thankful we have a family calling plan here in Senegal, so that even when we are off in our different sites, we can still  support one another.  And sorry, mom, actual family can't be added to our plan.

Made it!

I'm In Senegal safe and sound. After a lengthy flight I couldn't sleep on, we got a bit of rest. Currently we are getting to know our training facility, one another, and instructors for training - all are amazing. We've already started cultural integration with a dancing set alongside drums tonight I'm a bit tired (as you can see in the picture to the left we are ALL tired) and French is rusty but overall a great start :)

Getting ready for the Safari

The Riggs' clan is planning a safari in Africa and I haven't even left the States yet :)

I'll be en route in just a little under 36 hours and in true last minute Lisa form I have a few things left to do. First on the list is a test on Wolof, the language I will most likely be using in addition to French. I've been hoping that listening to basic conversations over and over will just make the language clear to me - not much luck yet. When I'm not repeating "Asalaam Maalekum" (peace be with you, the equivalent of 'hello') I'm out buying those American snacks I know I'm going to miss, ignoring the fact I promised myself I wouldn't overpack.

The excitement of finally going is tempered slightly by all the goodbyes I have had to make these past few weeks as well as the realization that I don't have a Mary Poppins bag.

But while I'm going to desperately miss people and food, I am excited for my journey as a volunteer in Senegal.

Ba beneen yoon - see you next time!

Family, Friends and Food

The last few days stateside will be about loved ones and good meals - probably to the detriment of my packing.

I started off with a trip up the California coast to the Bay for some time with my friends a.k.a my second family.  We enjoyed farmer's markets, a yummy BBQ dinner and of course dim sum. I'm now home with some of mama's enchiladas and somehow managed to talk my entire family into making our traditional Christmas dinner - complete with egg nog (a sign of how much they love me, egg nog isn't around in June).  Hope for many more good eats and great hugs to continue for the next two weeks and then the coming two years!

 

Some of the best mango BBQ chicken wings, I've ever had, compliments of Chef (and now certified teacher) Anna.

From one Corps to another

On Friday the 13th, I had the misfortune of leaving an incredible group of GOOD people.

For the past year, I have had the pleasure of being part of some pretty awesome work projects alongside kind, amazingly talented and overall superstar individuals. I want to say thank you to my former co-workers for being amazing people who inspire me everyday to be a better person and shown that with a little creativity, lots of hard work and a googledoc or two, we can help change the way this world works for the better.

But while this parting was more than a little sad, there are some positives.  Former colleagues will soon have a tour guide in Senegal more than willing to share her living space with you (provided you bring enchiladas fixings with you) and I know that I have learned much that will serve me well as a PC volunteer.

I will be following up on all the great work they are doing both at GOOD and GOOD/Corps - who was recently featured in the New York Times - and know that I expect to continue to see greatness!

I also expect quarterly magazines and some Stir Crazy cookies to be sent every so often :)

Thanks for all the GOOD times!

What I will really miss

Family, I expect skype calls, cause I'm gonna miss your faces!