Barack Obama, Dinner & a Show

I don't know why...but one of my Senegalese moms absolutely cannot say the name Barack Obama enough. At least once a day I happen upon her, holding the 1 year Mariama and chanting Barack Obama, Barack Obama like a strange lullaby. The reason is mysterious...maybe she wants Mariama's first words to be the name of the American president?

Regarding biking in the world of Senegalese...it’s quite a hilarious experience. I think we all know I'm a tid bit competitive...which is why I find biking in the country amusing...maybe? The men here (most of the other people on bikes) seem to take it as a personal insult if I pass them on my bike. I will just be cruising along and surprise, some dude starts pedaling like crazy to try and win the unspoken competition. I like to work hard enough just to keep them hanging...try to wear them down a little. Mind you this is not really fair...the bikes here are pretty terrible (not Peace Corps bikes but the bikes owned by the Senegalese). If the wheels are fortunate enough to be located in the same vertical plane, then the chain is certain to be useless...my brother has to pedal backward as much as he does forward to keep the chain from falling off. Also...Senegalese people have no concept of pushing onself to the physical limit for no reason (ie my Senegalese brother getting changed into work out clothes...doing 5 push-ups...and then changing back to regular clothes and drinking some tea). They live extremely hard lives but there is a difference between working hard to survive and working hard to compete...you have a choice when you're competing...not so much when you are trying to live. Anyway...while riding into my road town last week and having one of these amusing Senegalese man versus Kelly battles I was informed by my brother that I am a good racer. He said the guy I was racing was very tired. Again, amusing since I bike at a snail’s pace compared to most biking Americans :) ooo...and their bikes also don't have breaks...unless you count using your feet in a Fred Flintstone-like manner

Rainy season is coming! Little did I know there was more nastiness in store than expected (I should be used to this by now). Now I have been wondering why on earth we eat dinner around 9 PM…it seems like since it’s pretty hard to see and batteries are expensive eating earlier would be logical. It would seem far more logical if Americans ate at 9 and Senegalese ate at 6 but I decided to stop pondering the question, until the first day after my first real Thunderstorm. The storm itself was quite the experience...massive lightning is cool and all...when you aren’t in a hut with a grass roof. And insane wind can also be an adventure…when there is something holding your roof onto the rest of your house/hut…since I have an unrestrained grass roof this new kind of raging Senegalese Thunderstorm was not exactly a calming experience…o and the rain pounding on the roof knocks the earwigs out of the roof so they can crawl between your toes or on your face. This has not happened to me yet...though it happened to the girl who lives 6k away from me, and I did have the lovely experience of reaching for an itch last night in the dark only to close my hand on a grasshopper…crawl in the dark into another room to find my flashlight…examine my bedsheet and find 2 grasshopppers! O joy ;) Anyway, back to dinner…the day after the storm the bug population exploded. At dinner time we opened the bowl and turned on our flashlight and it was dinner AND a show! I say a show because there were at least 10 winged bugs crawling among the couscous and another 5 more floating dead in the dinner sauce…we fished them out and moved indoors…but indoors here is about the equivalent of a screened in porch with large holes in the screening. Let’s just say I didn’t chew my dinner and instead swallowed mouthfuls whole. Again I ask…why not eat when it’s not necessary to attract the bugs with light?

On a less buggy note, I planted somewhere between 500 and 1,000 trees last week with the help of 2 teachers, my counterpart and a million screaming children. It was hardddddd work but it feels pretty good to be able to say I planted that many trees J We will have to see how they grow up as they are safe in their little tree nursery right now!

Food Fantasies

So….official village life! I was supposed to stay in village for 5 weeks but had to come to Kolda and stay at the regional house so I could get my money from the bank…very amusing as I needed help figuring out how to write a check.

Anyway, the day you first go to village is called install. Basically we get dragged around to meet a bunch of pseudo official government reps…boring BUT they all have air conditioning!!!

I am starting to settle into a routine…kind of. I generally wake up around 6 or 7 but lie in bed and read for an hour or 2. Go for a run or walk. Then go to the well, which is in the compound next to mine, 3 or 4 times, carrying the water on my head!!! Eat breakfast with the family – usually a kind of millet porridge or peanut porridge, salty and not amazing but edible. Currently I am starting to garden so I do a little work digging or something and alternate with reading breaks cause it’s really too hot to work consistently. I walk around and talk to the people in my village to try to see what my project for the next 2 years will be. Around 2:30 its lunch time and its usually village rice (which is like unfluffy half grains of rice) or millet (sand-like) with a peanut butter or leaf sauce on top…and always a few rocks or crunchy unknown ingredients… Continue doing whatever I was doing before. Around 6 I take a bucket bath (not that bad actually minus being attacked by flies and the occasional fear of a neighbor climbing the tree overlooking my douche looking for leaves for dinner) and then usually watch my moms prepare dinner and end up laying on the shade structure until 9ish when we have dinner…at which point I promptly go to bed. I slept SO MUCH here, I don’t know if it’s the heat or my immune system doing overtime but I’m constantly tired! It’s getting old.

Regarding what I’m supposed to be doing here…which I find more and more is just encouraging behavior change with a vengeance. It’s difficult because almost immediately after telling you they can’t afford soap to wash their hands and wounds with they will buy cigarettes. Even my grandma (she’s a traditional medicine healer) chews snuff…she claims it’s for her health…as it keeps her teeth from hurting… But to be fair, we do it in America too…I worked with a guy who owned every gaming system on the planet but had no health insurance…seems kind of ridiculous to me…but I guess we all do stuff no one else understands.

Also, it’s hard to change behavior when you can’t offer a good alternative. Kids in America have clean places to keep clean toys and when they are teething it’s relatively easy to give them a healthy teething option. Here, people can’t afford teething toys and they can’t keep them clean. So how can I tell a mom to tell her child to stop chewing on that rusty old knife that was just lying on the ground being splattered with cow poo? She doesn’t have the time or resources to dedicate to an alternative and when I take away the knife people usually just laugh and pick something else off the ground to give the child…mind boggling.

They also can’t afford diapers…which means when the baby sitting on the shade structure poos, Mom just picks her up and walks away. 10 seconds later a group of kids plays cards literally on top of the spot where the baby was. In other words the remaining poo is being rubbed onto the cards and touched by everyone… and no one thinks to clean it up unless it’s a very obvious mess.

I went to a “stay in school” talk organized by one of the volunteers. The woman leading the talk asked the elementary school age (this is a wide age range here as ages are a little fuzzy here) kids who in the class was married. I thought she was joking until 4 girls in a class of maybe 40 raised their hands. Two 12 yr olds and two 13 year olds, MARRIED! It’s horrifying but it’s culture. Many girls, women , and even men don’t want things like this happening but no one stands up for the girls when the time comes and the marriages continue…makes it pretty hard to stay in school. One volunteer tells me her counterpart loves talking about what a wonderful idea family planning is but he has the biggest family in his village and shows no signs of slowing.

So…that was some negative stuff but I promise this culture is also amazing in so many ways. Just last week someone in my family got married! This means eating a ton! Corn porridge for breakfast along with warm condensed sugar milk and a small piece of bread to dunk in it. Corn porridge is what corn pops would be if they became porridge! We typically had 2 lunches and 2 dinners and one day we even had 3 dinners…this lasts for 3 days! They also have huge dance parties every night…unfortunately I had some pretty nice sun sickness (complete with rash and fever) and felt too tired to dance for the whole 3 days…not cool L

People here like to ask you if you are having fun. They say “Ana noosa?” While this literally translates to are you having fun, what they really mean is are you eating your money? They love asking white people this…apparently having fun can only be done if you are throwing away your money. I just tell them I have no money…which really is not such a big lie.

I saw kids with a bike wheel rim and a stick running around rolling the wheel with the stick…I thought that only happened in Colonial Williamsburg?

And now…Food Crushes, I no longer think about finding a boyfriend…no no, I’m far busier trying to decide what food I am most desperately craving at any given moment. Two weeks of village food and I’ve lost it…I spent 45 minutes the other night staring at the sky thinking about food only to realize that 45 minutes had just passed…its absurd. The thing is…I eat large quantities of food…there is just a lack of nutrition. You know how your stomach doesn’t feel full until you’ve ingested all the nutrients you are craving…well my stomach can be visibly protruding and still be saying “Kelly, I’m HUNGRY. Aren’t you forgetting something…I don’t know, protein? Dairy? VEGETABLES!?” Thus the weight gain that will inevitably happen since I must eat massive quantities of rice in order to double cross my stomach. As of now I’ve lost weight…this is because I no longer have any muscle mass. I sit and stare at my legs and wonder who they belong to.

I Promise This One is Short! (Well...shorter)

I am now an official Peace Corps Volunteer...I can (theoretically) speak Pulaar at an intermediate mid level so i get to go to village! The swearing in ceremony was at the U.S. Embassador's house, so we got meet her and eat yummy food. We took the same governmental oath that president takes AND got a police escort to the ceremony (ok so it was one guy on a moped but still!)

The morning after swearing-in I took a sept place (sketchy old station wagon - 7 places) to Kolda! The trip went much smoother than our last trip to Kolda...don't worry the roads were still bumpy like whoa...even a jeep would struggle on these roads...BUT we didn't have to wait 5 hours to cross the Gambia river (we didn't have to wait at all) AND we go tthe legendary Gambia chicken sandwiches...and they were deliscious! While crossing the Gambian border we also meet a guard who went to school in America for 5 years, played basketball and worked at macy's in new york!

Since then I have been chilling at the regional house...each ergion has a regional house, which is like mini America for all the volunteers in the region. we watch movies, have dance parties which involve sweating profusely, sleep on the roof and eat yummy stuff...we roasted a pig yesterday (and by we I mean the other volunteers, I just helped with the eating). i bought a crazy amount of things to furnish my new hut...including trunks, which is what we use to store stuff here...its awesome cause I feel like I'm going to Hogwarts...I got my trunk, my broom, my new robes (so what if Senegalese clothes aren't exactly wizard robes). Also, my stagemates (people I was in training with) decided to split the stage into houses...I am apparently Griffindor since I have half a thumb and that constitutes bravery.

Anyway...I leave for my permanent site (Thiewal Lao) tomorrow! I don't think I will have internet access for 5 weeks although I could find it if I go out of my way a bit so we shall see! don't forget to check out the World Cup (soccer...not quidditch) cause it's in Africa!!!!!

More Random Stream of Conscious Musings

Hello Friends!

I am already getting lazy about blogging O NO! Internet here is temperamental! I spent 6 hours trying to download photos…the download failed thrice…and then internet decided it was tired and stopped working. So sad L BUT THEN!!!!!!! The photos uploaded! I have another set still to upload but anyway they are in an Album called SeneKel on my facebook!!!

Anyway…I believe that since my last blog much has happened. First we had the “Counterpart Workshop” where 2 or 3 Senegalese people come for each volunteer…we have 42 volunteers. There were over 100 people here which is crazy because the Peace Corps compound is not that big. Tea has to be made (making tea here is an excruciating process) and prayer mats have to be laid out and everyone has to be greeted…it’s crazy. The Senegalese who come are our counterparts, the people who will help us in village when we need to get things done! I am the only person with one counterpart but I will have 2 eventually. My counterpart is Amadou Gano. Gano has 2 wives and 7 children! But he seems pretty cool.

When the counterparts come they ALL speak different languages…additionally some of the volunteers speak third languages. As far as I can tell (and I’m probably missing a few) we had people who spoke all of the following languages fluently…Pulafuta, Fulakunda, Pulaar de Nord, Mandinka, Wolof, Sereer, French, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Cantonese, Zaarma, Mandarin and of course English! To help our counterparts understand how hard it is for adults to learn new languages we taught them a new language…so the volunteers who spoke languages like Mandarin and Japanese led a mini language class for them…it was hilarious…the Fulakunda counterparts had to learn German J

I also forgot to mention something about my volunteer visit in my last blog…they actually call volunteer visit demystification, or they used to…because it demystifies the business of being a real volunteer…apparently that name was too intimidating so now it’s just boring old volunteer visit.

Back to real time, while staying with my temporary homestay family I got to see Senegalese wrestling in real life! One of the Senegalese host dads used to be a pro wrestler here and he organized a wrestling tournament for the kids on the wrestling team at the school. There were speakers and a massive hoard of crazy excited people! Basically Senegalese wrestling, if I haven’t already described it, involves two huge men waving their hands cat like and slow motion at each other while slowly moving in a circle for what feels like 10 minutes….THEN they attack and the match is over in about 2 seconds…usually I am at a total loss for who won. It’s quite the experience but everyone here loves it. During the Senegalese Independence day match people ran screaming into the streets when the match ended, men and women!

If you find yourself bored please YouTube Disney’s Malaria video…”Winged Scourge” because it will unbore you! It’s super old and hilarious but does have some useful info…we watched it as part of a training…although I promise we will not be following all of the advice.

I was pretty excited to learn the other day that I have not one, but TWO songs on my iPod that are in the Mandinka language…in fact the Mandinka language instructor has the same songs on his iPod!!!!

An interesting note about the Senegalese perspectives of America..Other than the fact that one of the few American TV shows they see is Desperate Housewives…One family asked their volunteer (she’s a redhead) if people with different hair colors lived in different regions of the U.S. I think she really had to restrain herself to keep from inventing Gingerland, U.S. A.

To celebrate the end of our training the volunteers in each stage (training class) rent a beach house for one night…usually a night full of stories. It’s an awesome house, gorgeous view with some fun rocks to try to hike up and it is literally on top of the ocean, the waves come right up to the base of the house. I’d have to say the most memorable moment was when about 20 of went skinny dipping in the Atlantic…someone still in the house figured this was a good time for fireworks which inspired us all to sing a loud version of the Star Spangled Banner…I’m sure we were quite the spectacle. Fortunately we all made it through the weekend in one piece…although I’d say about half the stage bleed profusely after sustaining scratches from all the rocks in the water. Pleased to report I was not one of those people! We also made some interesting French friends at the beach…although they had 2 dogs that were very awesome!

Anyway…back to real life…in preparation to leave homestay I was looking around for little gifts to give my homestay family…while shopping I was just smart enough to leave my cell phone in a boutik (shop)…well, as we walked away the store owner was calling after us…volunteer Wilma and I decided to ignore him because we figured like normal, he was just being the Senegalese sales person that won’t give up…we continued to ignore the cries as they got louder and louder…switched onto a new street, only to realize we were being chased by a motorcycle…I continued to ignore the person yelling at me from the motorcycle until he cut me off and held up my cell phone…I was so impressed that this shop owner could be so incredibly nice! An amazing example of how nice people can be here. Did I mention I hadn’t even bought anything at his shop? I returned the next day and overpaid quite nicely for a few pairs of earrings.

On that note, for my last day at homestay my mom taught me how to make this peanut butter/fruit porridge stuff called lacc…very delicious AND my Dad surprised me with a new Senegalese outfit, which was super nice!

And finally…today we had a party at the Peace Corps training Center for our families! They came and we had a super patron (that is boss in French and basically means “baller” slash the same thing as boss in the US when used in the gangsterish sense) lunch so we could impress/thank them. Super patron means CHICKEN!!!! By the way…never been so excited to see a dead chicken in my LIFE J Actually about 30ish dead chickens…I’m a wonderfully uncommitted vegetarian. Afterward we got a surprise! I don’t really know the name but as far as I can tell we had a “Gourd Band” come play for us! First, all the instruments/acrobatic equipment is made out of nothing but gourds! Drums, shaky things and a guitarish (by the way spell check just told me I should replace that with guitarfish) like object. Then they wear these crazy rings so they can make scratchy sounds on the gourds when they are drumming. They also wear the most ridiculous pants I have even seen in my life. I’m fairly certain the butt is padded and there must be a good 15 meters of material used to make said pants. By the way to word for pants in fulakunda is Touba…which I find amusing. Anyway, they were cool when they were just playing music BUT THEN they started acrobatics. Amazing, combine gymnastics vaulting and the pommel horse with straight up flipping and break dancing and drumming…all with a gourd. After that after the families left the volunteers followed up with a Michael Jackson dance party along with some others. The head of the Peace Corp Training center (Demba) came in and broke out crazy dancing to the tune of……Back That Ass Up. Clearly it was an awesome day.

That’s all for now folks!

Hut Sweet Hut!

So I finally meet my permanent Senegalese family (the family I will live with for 2 years). They gave my a new name, so now my name is Jeneba Sabaly! To get to Thiewal Lao (my new home) I had to drive across Senegal in a Peace Corps car, which involved waiting in the 100 plus degree heat for 5 hours while we waited to cross the Gambia River. The fastest way to the Kolda Region (where Thiewal Lao is located) requires crossing the Gambia...a ridiculous nonsensical tiny country in the middle of Senegal. The current volunteers promised us the best chicken sandwiches ever when we were in the Ferry waiting line...they lied, which broke our hearts. Traveling across Senegal also requires traveling on the most ridiculously bumpy paved and unpaved roads...roads which are also seriously lacking in law enforcement. In a Peace Corps car the ride isn't terrible but for most of my trips from now on I will be in the back of an ancient station wagon known here as a sept-place (7 seats). Also, on the way back to the Peace Corps Training Center (a 10 hour drive in the fast Peace Corps car), there were 10 people plus a dog in our toyota SUV which confortably fits 5 people. And I don't mean a Schnitzel sized dog...I mean a thirty-forty pound dog...awesome! Also our air conditioner broke...apparently a situation like that still beats a sept place ride, I'll let you know once I have that experience.

Once I got to my site I met my nearest white person/peace corp vol neighbor (6k from me through the bush). She has a Senegalese dog named Nacho and I spent my 5 days in Kolda living in her village while visiting surrounding villages. Aside from literally reaching 120 degrees in the middle of the day, there is also a constant buzzing in your ears whenever you are in Kolda...due to the evil flies. There are also bugs everywhere and apprently it will only get way worse when rainy season starts. We saw a dead scorpion while strolling through the woods searching for cashew apples and mangoes to pick and eat off the trees...it was gross. Also saw some rather intimidating spiders and learned that having bats and lizards in your room is commonplace. One volunteer even had a snake in her room...but that is abnormal, so are scorpions...hopefully. On the other hand, there are much nicer animals all over the place...including the roosters that seem a little confused about when dawn actually occurs. Cows just wander around along with goats, sheep, etc. I even carried a little baby goat. everyone sleeps outside here and Amanda (my nearest neighbor) said she used to wake up with a cow ten inches from her face on a regular basis. Many other things impede your sleeping...like the goats which sound like yelling children all night and the sheep which sound like drunken freshmen all night long. Also the mosque seems to feel that chanting all night is a neccessity. Even the cows make awful noises after one of the cows is killed. Its crazy...luckily I sleep like a rock.

While in village I also ate bush rabbit, freshly killed by amanda's dog, Nacho. Bush rabbit is vile...I had to hold my hand over my mouth to avoid choking the meat back into the bowl...yum. Otherwise the food in village (peanut butter or leaf sauce over rice) was delicious! Even the village water is good. I am supposed to only drink filtered water but when you run out of filtered water and are traveling you kind of have to drink straight well water. I have now had unfiltered well water in 3 villages and I'm still alive!

To get food like bread or coffee I have to bike 18k along a bush path to my road town (Dabo). Luckily I have an amazing brand new bike! My road town has a weekly market where I can get any of the Senegalese things I may be craving...like bissap juice/ice bags...basically a sandwich big filled with frozen bissap juice or any of a variety of yummy Senegalese juices. I can get coffee and a bean or egg sandwich any day of the week in my road town. Also, another volunteer lives in the town and he has electricity!

While in village I also had to practice my Senegaleseness and greet EVERYONE...not only everyone in my village but also everyone in the next door village. In the space of 2 days I figure I shook hands with somewhere between 500-1000 people. I visited each families compound, sat down for about 2 minutes awkwardly then moved on. The sitting down is apparently a very important component of the greeting. I was allowed to hold a baby that was less than one day old! On that note...a week or two ago some people started speaking to me in Woloof (I didn't understand a word) but I somehow agreed to go visit their house. So I followed them around town (at this point i didn't even know where I was going) and into their house, at which point I had to sit down of course. The two women proceeded to hand me both of their children, I think 4 and 5 months old. We do not share a common language at all and I had no idea who these two women were. I sat there for about 10 minutes and finally just stood up handed the babies back and left...even now i don't know who they were or why that happened...hilarious.

Anyway back to the village visit...my new Senegalese mom (one of 3) reminds me of Lynne Hathaway...which is interesting. I have now reached such a state of horselessness that while biking the other day I heard I sound coming from behind be...I though one of the bikes had a flat tire...turns out it was a cantering horse...

Also, i decided that the well pump in my training village was placed their by coach Kish...for a pump it is distrubingly like rowing...and its also ridiculously hard to use. I get the pleasure of using this pump everyday.

Sorry for the long update...lots happened in the past few days, hope that all made sense!

peace out girl/boy scouts

How to Cure Eczema While Watching Polar Express

While gardening yesterday the school gardener informed Peace Corps Volunteer Wilma that he knew how to cure her eczema. Simply place detergent, salt, and water in a bucket...wash skin 3x. Eczema cured. Wilma still has eczema today...she must not be able to find on of the ingredients :)

Also yesterday...while sweating my eyes of in the 95 degree heat I went into the "living room" to see what the fam was watching...they were watching Polar Express...for serious. It was ridiculous!

One of our language teachers who speaks something like 5 languages fluently was telling us about someone's age the other day and he was speaking English (probably the 5th language he learned). He speaks English very well but informed us that someone's host mom was "Kind of 25" which was quite amusing. It really just makes me feel better about all of the awkward phrases I will be saying over the next 2 years.

I will try to upload pictures sometime in the near future! I haven't taken many yet because whipping out you camera only leads to constant requests for Senegalese photo shoots but I will man up!

Also, I probably will forget to respond to blog comments but I read them and love them! If you want me to respond send me an email and I promise I will answer (not quickly but eventually).

Ciao!

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