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

Call Me Beep Me If You Want to Reach Me

10 points for anyone singing the Kim Possible song right now :)

Just wanted to let everyone know quickly that if you feel so inclined to call me or text (muchos cheaper) dial 011221 and then 77-118-1185. Its not crazy expensive to text so feel free to send me interesting texts every once in a while...but they must be interesting...or else. And if its the first time you send me a text say who it is because I don't have everyone's number in my Senegal phone and it would be such a waste of a text for me to ask who you are!

Also, I haven't actually tried this yet so if it doesn't work I am deeply apologetic!

For the next 12 days I'll be trying to learn Fulakunda (a language which is clearly not based in a written form and seems to morph depending on who is teaching) through French. Aka my teacher only speaks French so I'm trying to learn a third language through my second language which I never learned very well in the first place. Myself and the 3 other volunteers in my class like to joke that we speak fluent FrEnglAkunda (French English and Fulakunda) since we use all three languages together, almost always needing a combo of the 3 to form full or even partial sentences.

Obviously I'll probably be all kinds of excited for excuses to speak straight English...

Call Me Fatou Seydi

mbad-da? I am officially learning to speak Fulakunda (Pulaar de Sud or Pulaar of the South) Pulaar is the 2nd most spoken language in Senegal (after Wolof). mbad-da is essetiantially how are you? You should respond by saying Jam Tam (peace only) after which you will be asked about 10 questions rapid fire...and you just keep saying jam tan jam tan jam tan. In my case I have no idea what they are asking so I say jam tan until they laugh, which means they asked a question I wasn't supposed to say jam tan too.

Anyway, after spending some final quality time with the other peace corps volunteers at the compound and having a live guitar slash singing party we all set off to meet our Senegalese families (just our families for pre service training). My family speaks Fulakunda and I clearly don't yet...so the first night and all of the following nights were pretty ridiculous! I have a Dad and two Moms (my Dad's 2 wives). I have a 4 year old sister, a 1 yr old brother and another 10 yr old brother. The first thing the family does when the new volunteer arrives is give them a Senegalese name so they fit into the community better. I am named for my Dad's mother and am called Fatou Seydi (short for Fatumata). My family is so amazingly welcoming its ridiculous! Its considered bad for a guest to lose weight so they are constantly trying to feed me. I pretty much have to eat half a baguette every morning...but at the other meals I can just tell them I'm so full I'm going to explode and they let me get away with eating a normal amount.

And when I visit the other volunteers at their homestays you have to say hi to everyone in their family and then probably drink a shot glass of sugar with some tea in it. Diabetes is a pretty big problem in this country :)

Yesterday my host Mom took me shopping and I bought a new skirt/wrap thing and we got some crazy cried crushed cranberry cookies and peanuts and of course cold soda (since that is pretty much the best thing ever over here).

Anyway, I'll be back at the homestay for the next 12 days struggling to integrate but I'm sure i'll come back with more stories!

en burini han (see you later)!

Kelly