Leaving my mark in Africa, little by little

Ok, so in Sangalkam, my training village during Pre-Service Training, I had an aunt there who was pregnant, Fatu. During the first few weeks I thought either she didn’t like me or that she was just always angry because she had a permanent scowl on her face. However, as the weeks went by and I learned how to say some things and could actually have a basic conversation with her, it turned out that we got along very well. She was due to have her baby in October, the month I swore in, and I was hoping that she would have the baby while I was still living with them, but alas she didn’t.

So when I came back up to Thies for our all-volunteer conference I decided to go and visit Sangalkam because I really liked my family and they are genuinely nice people. They had no idea I was coming for a visit so it was a big surprise to everyone when I just showed up on the compound. When I got there I was warmly greeted by everyone, my host mom even came out running and gave me a hug, which Senegalese people do NOT do. Of course Fatu was there and no longer pregnant, so we began discussing the baby, she is a healthy little girl. Fatu asked me if I wanted to see her and of course I did. As I was led into the baby’s room she asked me if I wanted to know what the baby’s name was, what I heard next just stunned me, she told me she named the baby “Alexandra!!!” That’s right she named her baby after me, I was so touched that I had no idea what to say. I spent the rest of the day with my family and my namesake, whom I must say is one beautiful baby! My own namesake in Africa how cool is that??!!

Update from the last two weeks

Hello everyone, I know I have been MIA for a while but I have been in In-Service training for the past two weeks and after sitting in a classroom for 8 hours a day I haven’t been very up to writing on my blog. So here is a summary of what has happened. I got to Thies on Dec 2nd to attend our all-volunteer conference. Seven of us from Kedougou rented out a sept-place and headed up north. After 12 hours squished in the car we got to Thies only to be overwhelmed by all the people that were there. There were over 200 volunteers at the conference, it was nice to see some friends and it was really motivating to see other volunteers’ projects, but that’s a lot of people. The conference was interesting because we got to choose what sessions we could go to so that was nice change from just going to sessions you’re told to. After the conference my stage had our in-service training which consisted of technical training for 2 weeks. It was a very long two weeks. For the SED (business) volunteers we sat around looking at powerpoints all day long, not the most exciting thing in the world. Some of the sessions were interesting, such as one where we had local and international NGO’s come in and talk about what work they do in Senegal. It was really nice to hear what other work is being done to help the Senegalese people. Other than a few sessions that were actually stimulating, it was pretty boring. However, I did entertain myself by designing some clothes. There’s a tailor in town who is supposed to know how to make more Western style clothes, so everyone bought fabric and went to her. I designed a dress for myself that came out rather cute and I also designed a pant suit for my friend for New Years that came out really well. I’m quite proud of myself.

I had a really nice weekend in Dakar during training. It was our first weekend and there was an artisan expo that the SED volunteers set-up since we are the new volunteers and we were in Thies, we got to go. It was really cool seeing all the different Senegalese artists. Also, while in Dakar I decided to treat myself and I got a hotel room, it was so nice!! It really made me appreciate what we have in the US.

I’m going to take a moment and point out some things that we take for granted but really shouldn't.

1) Water coming out of your faucet. Think about this, when we turn on the faucet in the US we’d be surprised if water didn’t come out. Here people are surprised when it does because it cuts out so frequently.

2) Hot showers/baths. If you have a shower with running water, you never get to experience a hot shower because we don’t have hot water tanks. If you don’t have running water however, you can always leave your bucket out in the sun to heat up the water

3) The option of whether you want it to be warm in your room or cool. The temperature in my room is dictated by the weather outside and if I don’t like it there isn’t much I can do about it.

4) Appreciating the quiet as you go to sleep. For some reason the Senegalese feel the need to make as much noise as possible, either with their mosques’ loud-speaker going all night or their TV’s blaring.

5) The ability to keep your food preserved in a fridge and not worry about it spoiling overnight due to it being too hot or some animal will eat it.

6) Knowing that if some emergency arose help would get to you within minutes as opposed to hours/days.

7) The ability to drink water whenever you want and not having to wait 5 hours for your filter to finish.

8) Being able to sit down at a restaurant and order off the menu and not having to ask “What do you have today?”

9) Not having to decide in the morning if an outfit is appropriate or not by how much of your knee is showing.

10) Street names and addresses. “Keep going till you get to the third mango tree and make a left” is NOT an acceptable form of directions.

Ok now that I have given you some food for thought, I shall continue my store of Dakar. Not only did I get to stay in a hotel, but I got to visit their mall and feel like I was back in American for a few hours. It was nice. After my little American vacation I had to head back to reality and finish my training in Thies. The second week was hard because it seemed like we had been there forever. However, there was a nice little surprise mid-week, it was Tamkharit, the Muslim New Year. One of our trainers invited us to his mother’s house for the New Year to celebrate. We ate some delicious food which consisted of couscous with lamb and chicken, it was amazing. After dinner his family surprised us with ice cream!!! Now the Muslim New Year is interesting because it is a mix between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Year all rolled into one. It’s like Halloween because the kids dress up like old people and men dress up as women and they walk around asking for candy, it’s Thanksgiving because you a LOT of food, and it’s like New Years because they party till the break of dawn. It was great to experience it!

I decided to go to Dakar after IST, where I am sitting now writing this, which getting here was an adventure in and of itself. We found out that a train left Thies to Dakar at 6am so we decided to take the train in. We woke up at 5am to finish packing, by 5:45 we were on our way walking to the train station, only about a mile and a half away, with all of our clothes and books that the Peace Corps gave us stuffed into backpacks and suitcases. Once we reached the train station we were informed by some random man sitting outside the train station that the train doesn’t run on Sundays!!! So 17 of us were sitting outside the train station trying to figure out how to get to Dakar. ***(Note to my family: It was like a scene out of the book “How do we get to the zoo?”) Luckily, some of the other volunteers were lazy and had a cab take them the station so we explained to the cab driver our dilemma and the driver told us he could get us a mini-bus to take us. So we all piled into the bus, baggages and all, and headed off to Dakar. We got here around 8am and are just relaxing for the rest of the day. So that is what has been happening for the past two weeks. I will update my blog after the New Year with what I did for Christmas, still not sure what I am going to do for that. Hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Here were our sleeping arrangements in the hotel. I took up the space that is left on the bed!

Here was part of the view from our hotel!

And here is the Dakar skyline!!

And here is our wonderful New Years Eve dinner!!

Note how excited we all are for the food!

Here are some of the kids "Trick-or-Treating"

Simple things, such as ice cream, bring us great joy in Senegal!!