Thank Peace Corps Volunteer Wilma for Figuring Out How to Post This

Lots of stuff to tell! First some random funny things that are everywhere in Senegal and amuse me…

- Akon…they LOVE him, mostly because he’s from Senegal! Unfortunately he speaks Seerer, not Fulakunda like me so I can’t communicate with Akon in Senegalese L

- Family Matters – yes…I watch Family Matters, dubbed in French, with my Senegalese family

- Marriage Proposals – every Peace Corps volunteer gets proposed to on a regular basis, possibly because we’re so attractive but maybe its really cause everyone wants to get to America

- Awesome Clothes – my love for crazy colorful clothing has an outlet! Everyone here has awesome beautiful crazy colored clothes. Including me, since I just had a traditional Senegalese outfit made. Bright green skirt with a multi-colored polka dot shirt J

- Yummy Food (pretty much anything lacking in Fish – which can be slightly hard to find) – the Mom of one of the volunteers sells benyays and coffee, hot fresh sugary and delicious! The coffee here is yummaliscious. We can also get lots of delic fruit and some other crazy foods, like peanut butter oatmeal (as named by me) We also get ice cream whenever we can lay our hands on it and had some Senegalese burgers the other day. Sounds sketchy right? They were AMAZING! Eggs, cheese, fries, a burger, ketchup, all on a roll…yum. And then after that I returned home to find that my Mom had of course saved me lunch which clearly I had to eat( fish L ) only to find out that about 2 hours later I was to be served my fav Senegalese meal, fishless salad (which means I have to stuff my face unashamedly to make sure they understand its my fav). I then laid on the floor for several hours digesting. Yes, I know my standards of amazing cuisine have clearly droppped.

- Little Children screaming toubab – Toubab is basically the word for white person, when white people walk around in Senegal they are constantly accompanied by a hoard of under-10 year olds screaming toubab and trying to touch you…now I know what Akon feels like. While watering our garden one day one of the volunteers decided to dance with the kids, after which I had to run dancing out of the garden to get them away from our poor trampled plants. This resulted in a hoard of 100 plus kids hoarding around us begging us to dance and all trying to talk to us and touch us. We had to hide in someone’s house while some adults cleared the riot. CRAZY.

- American music – even better when my Senegalese brother who speaks no English sings along to Beyonce

- Show Jumping on TV – I got so excited I think my Senegalese Mom was worried. I was like HORSES!!! JUMPING!!!!

- Braids – it was pretty much mandatory that my hair be braided for the 50^th Celebration of Senegalese Independence Day…so I could fit in!

- Mud Stoves – we build stoves out of mud and donkey poo…apparently they are more efficient than many of the Senegalese stoves

- Murals – we painted a mural in the health center…FAIL…painting murals is REALLY hard. There were back injuries involved.

- Babies – my neighbor’s newborn was named Fatou, after me! So exciting. One volunteer had a baby named after his American name…so I’m aspiring to that.

- Beach Resorts! – my training site is a 25 minute walk from a resort…and one volunteer works there so volunteers are allowed to go hang out there and sit on the beach/swim in the ocean/drink pineapple vanilla floats/eat curry chicken…on our infrequent days off.

- Kids with ridiculously high pain tolerance – the braids are pretty much ripped out of the kids heads, it took me 2 hours to gently remove the braids that my mom can pull out in 10 minutes. But the kids don’t even flinch. We had to cut the earrings to get them out of my 5 year old sister’s ears because her ears we so infected…an American child would have been screaming his or her eyes out and would need a parent to sit on them, Koumba didn’t move an inch or make a sound.

- American Clothes – ever wonder where your used clothes go? Senegal. Want Proof? I finally met another PA volunteer (there are no PA people in training with me) and she went to CB West/East, I can’t remember. But she was out in the wilderness and passed someone wearing a North Penn Knights (yes, as in Lansdale, PA) Championship T-Shirt.

- Kittens – I already patially adopted one because people here are afraid of cats, thus they kick sand at little baby kittens that should still be with their Mommas, and I clearly needed to save every kitten in this condition. I’ll try not to get ringworm.

Finally, my most exciting news! I know where I will be living for the next 2 years! A village called Thiewal Lao in the Kolda region of Senegal. That is in the South (lots of good fruit, very hot – I’ve heard as high as 130F, skin diseases galore). The volunteer that just left built a health post so I have a lot to live up to! Peace Corps tells us where our permanent site is by blind folding us and placing us on giant map of Senegal and then we all open our eyes and see our new sites and what volunteers are near us. It was so crazy exciting!

If you read this whole post I’m impressed…I wasn’t even brave enough to proof read it. I miss everyone mucho mucho mucho!

PS – I’m feeling a bit sad about the McNabblessness