Time to talk about my village and new home for the next two years. Anyone excited? I know I am.
Here’s some stats of my village:
Around 450 people
No electricity
No running water
60K to nearest internet
6K from main road
12K to electricity
Shady cell phone reception within village
I finally was “installed” into my village on May 19th. Installation is the Peace Corps term for getting dropped of in your village by someone from the Peace Corps admin. My installation was pretty standard, I think, except that I was so nervous/sick that I threw up twice in the car ride from Tamba to my site (roughly 60K). All throughout PST I kept having this vivid mental image of me just standing in the middle of nowhere in some random Senegalese village and just waving by myself as the Peace Corps car drove off into the distance and left me all alone to die, which was pretty much what happened, of course with the exception of me dying. It was pretty scary, and I will admit that I choked up when the car was driving away, but I pulled myself together and everything ended up being ok.
It's really hard to put into words what I feel/think about my village so far. Sometimes I struggle with just being there, but if I take it moment to moment, the days take care of themselves. During the first three months at site, we have been told to concentrate on integrating with the community and learning our local languages, and so that's pretty much all I've been doing- that and reading approximately a book a day, but who's counting, really? During In Service Training (IST) in August we will (hopefully) learn how to actually serve as efficient rural health volunteers. That said, here's what a typical day is like for me:
The sun and heat- combined with the sounds of women pounding millet, morning greetings and women gossiping as they walk to the well- wake me up.
I put away my mosquito net and outside bed, make instant coffee, maybe attempt to do some yoga, get dressed and psyche myself up to open the door to my hut and face the day.
Greet everyone in my compound (takes longer than you would think), and have breakfast (couscous and water sauce, everyday, without fail).
Go to the well with my host mom, attempt to help pull water, end up being told "a wawaaa" meaning "you can't/ aren't able to," hang out with the women at the well for a little while, get help putting my 20 liter bucket on my head and walk back to my hut, usually while being told "a wawaa" the whole way.
Hang out and attempt to be social, meaning at the very least sitting outside of my hut in case my family or any passerby's want to talk to me, and on good days meaning walking around to other compounds and greeting people, drinking tea, ect.
Get summoned for lunch by a small child who is to afraid of me to say anything other than "my mom called you." I always ask why, but the kid just stands there and looks like he/she (depending on whose mom is summoning me on that particular day) is about to cry and run away. "For lunch?" I ask, "yes or no?" I never get an answer, but I always am amused by just how scared some of these kids are of me, so I play the game everyday.
Walk to usually one of three compounds in my village for lunch, where I am told to "naam fof!" or "eat all!" and am harassed to no end when, to their daily surprise, I don't. Lunch, by the way, is white rice and peanut sauce. Every. Single. Day. If you look at my photo album entitled "Fara" there's a picture of this dish. You might mistake for mud or poo on first glance, but look again: that's my lunch.
After-lunch-sweat and nap.
Read, hang out, drink tea, maybe help pound millet with the women, maybe study Pulaar.
Evening trip to the well with my mom, repeat of the "a wawaa's."
Walk to place with reception and call Michael =)
Bucket bath
Lay down in front of my hut and fall asleep until dinner (couscous and water sauce again)
Listen to my iPod for no longer than 20 minutes (no electricity means I have to ration my happiness, aka my cell phone and iPod)
Sleep!
So there you have it: my typical day. It doesn't sound like much, but let me tell you I go to bed every night exhausted. It's hard right now because I still am not that great with Pulaar and so every moment of the day often is a struggle. I feel that I am constantly being reminded of the fact that I'm an outsider and am not good at their language. But I don't want to be an outsider. I don't want to have to psyche myself up every morning just to open the door to my hut. I'm just biding my time right now, attempting to learn Pulaar, and just waiting until the day where I feel comfortable in my village and can finally call it home. Bottom line, everything is going to be ok. This whole "integration" thing is a challenge I can overcome. I was told to expect to feel embarrassed, foolish, and sometimes inadequate. Because it’s all part of the experience. These trying times are what we eloquently call “adjustment”. They’re difficult, natural, and useful. I'm learning how to respond to novel situations and am learning a heck of a lot about myself in the process. And that, my friends, is progress.
I promise to write more soon about my village and health-related activities I have been doing (I promise, I’ve done productive things!) soon, but I hope that this post at least can suficie to catch you all up on what my day-to-day life has been like for the past 2 months. Thanks for reading and keep in touch, please!!
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Long overdue fist post
11 may
Hiyo friends and family in America! Yes, this is Amber, and yes, I somehow have managed to survive almost 2 months in Senegal almost completely unscathed. Are you all proud? I certainly hope so because I am not near hardcore enough for this country in any way, shape, or form, but am slowly but surely morphing into a quasi-hardcore PCT (Peace Corps Trainee).
I realize that this first blog post is a little bit late, but I just haven't had that much time and have not really been sold on this whole "blogging" thing. Anyway, the main reasons I am just now attempting to write and post my first blog entry are:
1. I'm really not sure if anyone will want to read anything I have to write. Even back in the good ole days when I could depend on those then unappreciated language parts of my brain to speak and write intelligently, I was never that great of a writer, so it’s pretty comical that now that I for some reason I still have not realized I decided it would be a good idea to attempt to write a witty, inspiring, and insightful blog (shaaaaa right), which leads me to reason #2:
2. I really don’t know why anyone would ever want to take time to read about the incessant jumbled mess of thoughts perpetually battling for attention and importance in my mind. I obsessively over-analyze everything and have a killer case of low self-confidence, which combined with my obscene indecisiveness can only lead to a cluster of thoughts that are probably a lot better off just staying inside my head, rather than being posted for all the world to see, and by whole world I mean hopefully at least 5 people that haven’t forgotten me back home and think I'm cool enough for them to want to keep up with what’s going on with me while I'm in BFE Tambacounda desert Senegal for the next 2 years.
3. I miss everyone of you all from back home and hate that communication is so unreliable here and I just feel like I’m losing touch with stupid stuff that I loved like work and boy gossip, you know? Just know that any seemingly stupid response here, face book wall post /message, or random e-mail never ceases to bring an incredible amount of joy and encouragement into my day and I really do appreciate knowing that there are people in this world who understand me and even miss me.
4. I have to say it. I’m more than slightly skeptical about this whole blogging trend and so naturally am especially wary of both the seemingly self-important people who write them and the creepers that read them. I really just hate the fact that people that blog appear to be trying way to hard to fashion portraits of themselves as curious, reflective, wide-ranging individuals. I would just rather spend my time reflecting and ranging wide.
For all of these reasons, I have only made a few feeble attempts over the past 8 weeks to even type out anything I thought anyone would be interested in reading but then just got annoyed with myself and stopped.
That, said, I’m going to attempt to hit the high notes of my past 8 weeks here in a somewhat cohesive manner, but I don’t really think in a cohesive manner anymore so I'm going to apologize in advance for my haphazardness.
I was going to write some about these past 8 weeks of training, but so much happened and I went through so much personally that I don't even know where to begin. I think I can best write about what's going on with me now.
On Friday we officially swore-in in Dakar and are now PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers) instead of PCT's (Peace Corps Trainees), and I, for one, couldn't have been happier. I am so ready to be done with the rigid structure of PST and finally be in my permanent village and actually doing development work. I was supposed to be heading to Tambacounda with two other people whose sites are in the region on Saturday to hang out at the regional house for a couple of days and then be officially "installed" in my village on Tuesday, but I have to stay in Thies for another week of language training. Why? We all had language placement interviews last week and were required to test at least "intermediate low" in whatever local language we have been learning. I apparently only tested "beginner high" in Pulaar and so myself and 2 other volunteers have to stay here another week and take more language classes.
By the way, Pulaar is freaking hard, in case you were wondering. There were 3 of us in my Pulaar class, and out of the 3 only one person got intermediate low, if that says anything.
French is the official language in Senegal and hence the language of the formal education system. There are also 22 national languages. Pulaar du Nord, the language I have been learning, is spoken by about 25% percent of Senegalese people, according to Lonely Planet. It's a beautiful language, but it by no means comes easy to me like learning Spanish did. For example, the English language has 2 articles: "the" and "a." In Pulaar, there are 24. Yes, 24 different articles. There are articles for liquids, quantities, different types of animals, ect., and we won't even be learning any of these until IST (In Service Training in August). Awesome. I really feel like going on a rant about Pulaar right now and the many ways it's a linguistic nightmare, but I think it's best to not let all of my frustrations out here, right? The main thing I have learned throughout all of my language learning difficulties is that not everything comes easy to me, Pulaar being one of those things. In a frustrating way my daily battles with my attempts to learn Pulaar are actually humbling and daily lessons in perseverance.
I know I haven't really caught you all up on much, but I hope that you all enjoy the pictures I have posted and I promise to write more soon. Hope all of you all are doing well! I miss and love you all!
Hiyo friends and family in America! Yes, this is Amber, and yes, I somehow have managed to survive almost 2 months in Senegal almost completely unscathed. Are you all proud? I certainly hope so because I am not near hardcore enough for this country in any way, shape, or form, but am slowly but surely morphing into a quasi-hardcore PCT (Peace Corps Trainee).
I realize that this first blog post is a little bit late, but I just haven't had that much time and have not really been sold on this whole "blogging" thing. Anyway, the main reasons I am just now attempting to write and post my first blog entry are:
1. I'm really not sure if anyone will want to read anything I have to write. Even back in the good ole days when I could depend on those then unappreciated language parts of my brain to speak and write intelligently, I was never that great of a writer, so it’s pretty comical that now that I for some reason I still have not realized I decided it would be a good idea to attempt to write a witty, inspiring, and insightful blog (shaaaaa right), which leads me to reason #2:
2. I really don’t know why anyone would ever want to take time to read about the incessant jumbled mess of thoughts perpetually battling for attention and importance in my mind. I obsessively over-analyze everything and have a killer case of low self-confidence, which combined with my obscene indecisiveness can only lead to a cluster of thoughts that are probably a lot better off just staying inside my head, rather than being posted for all the world to see, and by whole world I mean hopefully at least 5 people that haven’t forgotten me back home and think I'm cool enough for them to want to keep up with what’s going on with me while I'm in BFE Tambacounda desert Senegal for the next 2 years.
3. I miss everyone of you all from back home and hate that communication is so unreliable here and I just feel like I’m losing touch with stupid stuff that I loved like work and boy gossip, you know? Just know that any seemingly stupid response here, face book wall post /message, or random e-mail never ceases to bring an incredible amount of joy and encouragement into my day and I really do appreciate knowing that there are people in this world who understand me and even miss me.
4. I have to say it. I’m more than slightly skeptical about this whole blogging trend and so naturally am especially wary of both the seemingly self-important people who write them and the creepers that read them. I really just hate the fact that people that blog appear to be trying way to hard to fashion portraits of themselves as curious, reflective, wide-ranging individuals. I would just rather spend my time reflecting and ranging wide.
For all of these reasons, I have only made a few feeble attempts over the past 8 weeks to even type out anything I thought anyone would be interested in reading but then just got annoyed with myself and stopped.
That, said, I’m going to attempt to hit the high notes of my past 8 weeks here in a somewhat cohesive manner, but I don’t really think in a cohesive manner anymore so I'm going to apologize in advance for my haphazardness.
I was going to write some about these past 8 weeks of training, but so much happened and I went through so much personally that I don't even know where to begin. I think I can best write about what's going on with me now.
On Friday we officially swore-in in Dakar and are now PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers) instead of PCT's (Peace Corps Trainees), and I, for one, couldn't have been happier. I am so ready to be done with the rigid structure of PST and finally be in my permanent village and actually doing development work. I was supposed to be heading to Tambacounda with two other people whose sites are in the region on Saturday to hang out at the regional house for a couple of days and then be officially "installed" in my village on Tuesday, but I have to stay in Thies for another week of language training. Why? We all had language placement interviews last week and were required to test at least "intermediate low" in whatever local language we have been learning. I apparently only tested "beginner high" in Pulaar and so myself and 2 other volunteers have to stay here another week and take more language classes.
By the way, Pulaar is freaking hard, in case you were wondering. There were 3 of us in my Pulaar class, and out of the 3 only one person got intermediate low, if that says anything.
French is the official language in Senegal and hence the language of the formal education system. There are also 22 national languages. Pulaar du Nord, the language I have been learning, is spoken by about 25% percent of Senegalese people, according to Lonely Planet. It's a beautiful language, but it by no means comes easy to me like learning Spanish did. For example, the English language has 2 articles: "the" and "a." In Pulaar, there are 24. Yes, 24 different articles. There are articles for liquids, quantities, different types of animals, ect., and we won't even be learning any of these until IST (In Service Training in August). Awesome. I really feel like going on a rant about Pulaar right now and the many ways it's a linguistic nightmare, but I think it's best to not let all of my frustrations out here, right? The main thing I have learned throughout all of my language learning difficulties is that not everything comes easy to me, Pulaar being one of those things. In a frustrating way my daily battles with my attempts to learn Pulaar are actually humbling and daily lessons in perseverance.
I know I haven't really caught you all up on much, but I hope that you all enjoy the pictures I have posted and I promise to write more soon. Hope all of you all are doing well! I miss and love you all!
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