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.