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.