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 :)