For an embarrassing picture of my hair braided go here: Marallister

So maybe I can just post here when I post to the other blog and then you can go there. Make sense? Go here: Marallister

One last thing....

Apparently Tumblr doesn't have the ability to let you be notified by email when I update the blog. So if you would like to be updated by email when I write something exciting, email your email address and I'll send out an email each time I update the Tumblr. But honestly, this new blog is going to be so darn exciting you'll be checking it everyday with sheer anticipation of what I'll be writing next! Or you could  just send me your email address.

Adios!

I've decided to breakup with Blogspot. Its not it, its me. So the new blog, with a promise of more photos (!!!!) can be found at http://marieschuster.tumblr.com/

See y'all there!

Lunch is BACK!!!

Alhamdulillah, Ramadan is over! Today is the last of the three day party celebrating the end of it. This means no more hungry, dehydrated, annoyed Muslims and the best part.... the sandwich ladies are back out selling their delicious treats! All is right in my world!

I'm pretty sure my family is going to disown me because I missed the entire celebration. I came to Tamba on Sunday to get a few things for them and ended up getting pretty sick. By time I was better all transportation had stopped for the holiday. I didn't even think about the probability of transport stopping. Oops. Tomorrow is the first day that the car will be running back to my village so I'm going back then. I've talked to my family, they don't seem upset about it but I still feel bad. Other volunteers I've talked to who were in their village for the celebration said that it wasn't all that great. Oh well, its over and now I finally get this data collection stuff finished.

More exciting things- us Tambanites are doing a tourney starting on the 9th. I think there are 6 of us going around to each of our villages and a few others teaching the villagers the facts about diarrhea. Yeah, diarrhea! What everyone loves to talk about! It will be fun though. We will put together skits with props, the whole nine! I think its scheduled to last 5 days. We're biking half of it and have our security guy driving us to the super remote places. I'll take pictures to post for you guys.

And still more exciting news- Kelly has booked her ticket to come visit!!!! I can't even explain how excited I am for her to get here. She'll be here for the week of Thanksgiving. I can't wait to show her this place and this crazy life I'm leading. AND to make her poop in a hole! I got bored in village last week and wrote out everything we'll do. I even wrote out how much she should have to spend. Get this, food, drinks, transportation in country, everything will be less than $100 USD for the entire week. Its so inexpensive here! I can't wait to see her. I have a lot going on between now and then so I'm sure she'll be here before I know it.

Rant- so one of the things I came to pick up for my family was this special tape they use to make henna designs on their feet for events. They told me the tape will cost 100 CFA at the market. That's about 20 cents USD. Super cheap. So I go to the market, find the tape and the vendor tells me it is 300 CFA. This is normal for them to up the price at least 3 times what it should be. I'm white and rich, right?? So I'm trying to negotiate with her and it becomes this process in which neighboring vendors are getting involved insisting that it cost 300 CFA. I'm explaining over and over that I'm not a tourist, I live here, I know how much this cost and that its for my family who gave me 100 CFA for it and not only do they also live here, they are Senegalese! They won't let up. Jesus, we're arguing over 40 cents! But its the principle of the fact! But its still 40 cents and at this point I would pay an entire dollar to not be standing in the hot sun in front of these jackasses arguing over 40 cents. But, ahhhh, the principle! And to give in would be conditioning them to overcharge everyone they consider a tourist. Or anyone who's white. Oh the anguish! I finally shoved 200 CFA in the lady's hand and walk off. Still, I paid double what it costs. Allow me to be careful in saying that this is the only downside to being white in this country, but definitely an annoying downside nonetheless.

Saw a really, really good movie the other day. The Help. You should check it out. It lit that same fire   that A Time to Kill did.  It made me really appreciate the fact that I didn't live through that time period and inevitably loathing my neighbors. It also was inspirational since I'm doing development work. Reminded me that things can change. I'm going to start the book when I get back to village. I've heard its better, as they usually are. I saw the Losers too. Hilarious!!

Ok that's all I have for now. I'm going to go enjoy dinner... sushi with a nice caesar salad. Oh wait, that's not what's for dinner. Hope everyone is well. xoxo

Photos, finally!

Hey y'all,
I added some new photos. If you've seen the pics on FB then you've probably already seen most of these. I know there's a handful of people without FB so here ya go! I don't know it scattered the new pics throughout the older ones. Silly technology. Hope all is well.

Ramadan, eh...

Ok, lets get the heart wrenching stuff out of the way first...

I went to the hospital in my village a few days ago to greet the doctor and others that work there. (The bulk of my day is spent “greeting” people. I think in America we call it “visiting.”) I talked to the doctor for a few minutes and he tells me to meet him in one of the examining rooms. He’s already in there when I arrive. I walk in while he’s putting gloves on, standing in front of a young woman sitting on the examining table, feet in stirrups, nothing covering the baby-maker. WHOA!!! Not what I was expecting! She doesn’t look pregnant, but he is telling her to push. He hands me a pair of gloves and tells me I can assist him. I can’t remember the last time that I felt this awkward. Obviously my job title involving the word “health” has led him to believe that I know something about something. I told him that I’m not trained or prepared for this kind of thing and that I feel pretty out of place. We all hear stories about how volunteers have seen women give labor here because a lot of times it takes place at home. All I kept thinking was, “Oh man, is this going to be the time I have to see this??? Ahhhhh!” She didn’t even seem like she was in labor. I had just decided I would walk out when the doctor took his gloves off and walked outside. I followed and once outside asked him what was going on. If she’s in labor shouldn’t he be in there? Why wasn’t he in there when I arrived at the hospital in the first place? That being said, he then explains to me in French, Pulaar and broken English that she is 5 months pregnant with twins that have died because her husband beat her. WHAT?!?! There was so much going through my head. Who is she? Does she live in my village? I’ve never seen her. Why is the doctor laughing? Is he messing with me (because they would totally joke about things like that)? I had no idea what to do. I mean, there’s really nothing I can do. Women are basically property of their husbands and its not like I know her or her husband OR enough Pulaar to bust up in a man’s compound and try to change his mind about the negative effects of beating his pregnant wife. So I just went home. Later my family told me that it was true, that she lives in a town about 60 km from us and that some men went to beat up her husband. Well that’s a relief, because violence solves violence, right??? (Sense the sarcasm) Welcome to my life.

So Ramadan is making it damn near impossible to get any work done. Its fallen on one of the busiest months for farmers so pretty much everyone in my village is in the fields all day and into the evening and by time they get home they are deliriously dehydrated and angry. This is not conducive for data collection. I wish it were, because normally going around questioning people would entail having to sit around drinking tea or them insisting that I stay for lunch. During Ramadan that isn’t a problem, but them being in the field all day is. So I came to Tamba 3 days earlier than I needed to. I tried to bike here and made it about 27 of the 35 miles before the doctor from my village stopped and insisted he drive me the rest of the way. He couldn’t fathom why I would be riding my bike for exercise when I could have taken a car straight from my village. Luckily there was some work I was able to help out with in a friend’s garden. After the first day of being in the PC house, the internet and cold drinks aren’t all that exciting anymore and its much better to have something to do. The garden was fun, but my skin quickly turned to bacon. I planted a few trees though, giving me a generic sense of giving life to something or another. Saturday we had a going away party for Austin, who when asked what he would like to do for his shindig requested that we start drinking before 7am. We did. I was back asleep by noon, hung over by 2pm.

I don’t really have anything too exciting to write about right now. I need to get this baseline survey done in the next month or two. I’ve decided that perhaps I shouldn’t work for myself in the long run. We don’t have anyone breathing down our necks or strict deadlines to meet. We start, maintain and finish everything on our own. I don’t know, well see. I think if I can find my niche, a project I’m super passionate about then I’ll be okay.

I’m going to visit a friend in the south of Senegal in the beginning of Sept. He’s one of the students I worked with when I was here in 2007 and we kept in touch ever since. When I left then I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be back and be able to see him so its super exciting to get to see him again. He’s an English teacher. Oh, I started my garden in my backyard. When I got home last time my backyard was completely covered in weeds, up past my hips. I hadn't even thought of that possibly happening but since it had been raining a little they sprung up. My dad and brother cut them all down for me. I haven’t started planting yet, but I’ve prepared the beds. I needed something to outline the beds, rock or sticks seeming like the best idea. When I started looking around the village for them I realized there’s so much trash everywhere and decided to outline the beds with broken plates, dead flashlights, broken buckets, broken shoes, etc. My centerpiece being a decent size animal shoulder bone. Yeah! My family thinks I’m crazy for always toting trash into my hut. I think it will look pretty cool. It’s the closest thing to recycling that my village has ever seen.

Ok that’s all I have for now. I hope everyone is doing well. xoxo

7th anniversary of my 21st birthday!

Hey, I’m 28! Yeah! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me happen! I personally think it was a well-executed plan. =) I love you guys more than you know!

I was in Thies for 2 weeks for In-Service Training. It was nice to be back at the training center and back together with my stage. I absorbed about half of the content of training. Maybe a little less. I was expecting more hands-on training in more detail, but it was a lot of powerpoint presentations and brief explanations on broad categories. Planning these trainings must be such a process and they’re always trying to tweak it to suit us, but its impossible to plan 50+ sessions in which everyone is going to be interested. It was motivating nonetheless and I have a broad array of things I can choose to work on. I am about to start what is called a Baseline Survey which entails talking to the heads of the families in my village to find out what they need, what they want, what they have already, who gets sick and why, how many deaths from malaria, etc. It’s a lot of data collecting. I think it’s a valuable thing to do and have, however, Ramadan started yesterday and from what I’m told it’s difficult to get any work during while people are fasting. Ramadan lasts for 30 days. I’ll do my best, trying to catch people as early as possible while their bellies are still full from breaking fast, but we’ll see how it goes. I still need to work on my language a lot too, so maybe I’ll just focus on that if I can’t get responsive fasters. Many volunteers fast with their families as an integrative measure. I think I’ll try it but I imagine it’s pretty horrible. Everyone wakes up before the sun comes up to eat breakfast. Afterwards they go back to bed and get up a few hours later. Then they can’t eat again until the sun goes down. They don’t drink water either. I’m not too worried about the eating part because the crap they serve for lunch is less than appetizing anyway. But not drinking water will suck and I hear that by the end of the day you feel like you’re high… on “dope.” We’ll see how it goes. Not being Muslim and all, there’s no obligation for me to do this. However, if I’m successful, my family will think I’m a total badass!

After Thies, I went to Dakar for the night with a few of my friends. Dakar is so huge! It’s the polar opposite from village life. It’s nice, in a way, to be in a big city but I can’t decide if I would ever like to live there. Because there are so many westerners that live there, you don’t have everyone starring at you because you’re white and kids don’t yell “toubab” as much. That part is great! But it’s an overpopulated city with tons of traffic and trash and things are considerably more expensive. When I was in Dakar in 2007 we ate at this rooftop Ethiopian restaurant a lot. It was the first time I had Ethiopian food and I fell in love with it! Since then I always seek out an Ethiopian restaurant every time I’m in a big city. It’s hands-down my favorite type of food! Anyway, I took 3 of my friends to the same rooftop place. It was so nostalgic to be there. It’s at the end of the block from where I stayed in 07, so it was crazy to be back in that neighborhood. I fell in love with Senegal back then and would always wonder if I would ever make it back at some point in my life. It was nice to be there, having made it back in such a short time. Plus back then I thought that neighborhood wasn’t all that nice because I had nothing in which to compare. But now that I’ve seen other parts of Senegal and villages, that neighborhood is SO nice! Andrew and I left Dakar the next day, getting to Tamba 8 hours later. Those sept place rides are so long, hot and uncomfortable. When we got to Tamba all we wanted to do was shower the day’s worth of sweat off of us, but this didn’t happen because the water wasn’t working and they had already used the reserve water. Ugh! To try to go to sleep feeling that disgusting is quite the task. Gross! But it made the shower the next morning that much better.

We celebrated my birthday last night because today 30-40 volunteers are coming in to stay at the Tamba house for an Ag Summit. It worked out that many of my favorites were able to be here for the celebration. Some of the Tamba girls made chocolate chip cookies! The Kolda lovelies had matching dresses made for us! They were so pretty! The theme for the party was graffiti meaning everyone wears a white shirt and we decorate each other’s. It doesn’t take much to entertain us these days. We made French bread pizza (sauce and pepperoni courtesy of Mom, Mac and Donnie!) and Austin made his always-delicious potato salad. It was quite the birthday celebration and I’m fortunate to have such cool people in which to share it. I think this is only the third time that I haven’t been in Greenville for my birthday. I miss the fam…

So now I go back to village. Hopefully my family is the one family that doesn’t get temperamental during Ramadan. Ha! I don’t even care if they are; I just need to get work done so hopefully they are receptive to my data collecting. Heard Amy Winehouse died. Damn shame. Hope y’all are swell! xoxo

unicorns wearing leotards?

Have you ever seen ‘Human Planet’?!?! Oh my goodness, its changing my life! It’s an anthropological documentary made by the BBC. Dad and Mac, I think that you would especially enjoy the series. One of the best ones I’ve seen so far is the one about rivers. At the very end it shows how in Meghayala, India they build a bridge by manipulating roots from Strangler Fig trees to grow across the river. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what will. Here’s a picture of a double-decker version: http://www.globaldesignvillage.com/comp_vote.php?id=128 You should check out the documentaries. I’ve definitely added these bridges to my “things to see before I croak” list.

My trip back to village last week was an interesting one. I biked back, leaving Tamba around 9am. Like a moron, I only took about 2.5 liters of water with me. Gouloumbou is about half way, and where I have to turn off the paved road. I stopped for lunch and they gave me some water. I thought it would be enough but about half way from Gouloumbou to my village I was visibly dehydrated and getting pretty dizzy. By this time I knew the Alham would be coming through soon that stops in my village so I decided to stop and wait for it. It was taking a while and I started to think perhaps it had passed before I left Gouloumbou. A boy passed with containers on his bike that are used to transport water. Brief description: Here, there’s well water, which you do not drink unless its filter with our Peace Corps issued filters; there’s robinet water which is leaps and bounds safer than well water but is not recommended by Peace Corps to drink. Hypothetically speaking, I drink it all the time. So I asked this kid if he has water and if its robinet. Both responses are affirmative. Great! Water! Evading death! All good things! He kindly fills my water bottle with green water that smells like fish. Not even well water looks and smells this bad. At the time I felt it was a life or death decision and so I added ORS (oral re-hydration salts) to it and drank it. Surprisingly it didn’t wage war on my stomach.

I don’t know if I’ve told you about the few annoyances I’ve had with my family. Summary: there are too many women in my compound and they love to pick on me. If I could stick up for myself properly in their language, we would be best friends. But I can’t. Most of the time its really funny, but sometimes really annoying. Having never had to learn another language, they don’t understand what its like and are less than helpful sometimes. That’s the skinny. So this time I had been gone for the better part of 3 weeks, having gone to Kedougou for language seminar and the 4^th. I think me being gone so long made them realize that they miss me not being around and perhaps should be a little easier on me. Also, there were 3 girls there that I didn’t even know existed. They are probably around 15 years old. They live in Tamba to go to high school. That’s the closest high school. Sad, right? They are home until school starts again in October. Anyway, these girls study French and English so they must have explained to my Neene Toubab and sister the difficulties in learning a language because now they are so much more helpful! Its great! I was only there for a week because I had to come back to Tamba for a house meeting and tomorrow I’m leaving to go to IST (In-Service Training) in Thies for 2 weeks. But I told my family and some key community members why I’m going to Thies and what I want to do when I get back concerning work. I’m not sure that one my counterparts is going to be the best as far as implementing work, I’m actually not sure why they chose him but I’m confident the other one will be helpful and I can rally others to get projects going.

I’m pleased to announce that I switched my malaria medication and all is now right in the world! It wasn’t actually that bad, but this Methaquin stuff I was on was freaking me out. I didn’t feel like myself all the time. I mean, I already have a hard time filtering the things that come out of my mouth, but on this drug it was next to impossible. I didn’t like how it made me feel about life and other important topics. The other option is Doxycycline. Methaquin is taken once a week and Doxy is taken daily. I was trying to avoid taking an antibiotic everyday for the next 2 years, but I had finally had enough with the Methquin.  I find Doxy to be the lesser of the two evils. Actually three evils, mosquitoes taking the cake. My hatred for them is growing at an alarming rate. Hate, I tell you. Pure and utter hatred! And the flies. Oh geez! The second the rainy season started the flies and mosquitoes came out of the woodwork. They bring nothing to the table and I despise them whole-heartedly. Ok, sorry, quite the rant but I’m pretty passionate about these creatures I’m being forced to cohabitate with!

I think that’s all I have right now. I’m headed to Thies tomorrow morning for IST with the other lovelies from my stage. This means lots of training for the work I will start afterwards, the excellent food that the center makes… for FREE!, and getting to see all the people that I didn’t get to spend enough time with at the 4^th. Oh, and FINALLY getting Donnie’s package, and internet that is a tad more reliable. Speaking of which, still no luck uploading pictures on the blog. I put some more on Facebook. It, of course, looks like I just party all the time, but who takes pictures of work, right? Actually, I will take pictures of work once I start work worth taking pictures. Hope all is well on that side. xoxo

Happy Birthday, America!!!!

First things first. Mom and Mac sent me a box of pure joy! It’s the second package I’ve received since I’ve been here. Well, the second one that I’ve actually been able to open. I’ve had a package from Donnie waiting for me in Thies for well over a month now. Its too sad to know that I have a box full of America just sitting there, waiting. Anyway, this package so was nice! Three quarters of the box consisted of individual serving sized packs of Cheez-its!!! There’s also dried apples, blueberries and strawberries; pepperoni; precooked bacon; Spam!; tuna; protein bars; green tea; and pizza sauce. Bliss, bliss and more bliss! Thanks M & M, you never cease to amaze me and certainly know the way to my heart. 

The Kedougou trip was a success. Being in an air-conditioned Peace Corps car for the trip down, I of course fell asleep. I woke up to us coming over a hill with the most amazing view of the jungle and mountains framing the horizon. It was most beautiful. They have grass there, for crying out loud! Their rainy season is in full effect, so there’s still hope that we’ll get grass up here once ours is in full swing. I don’t want to ask anyone who has been here for rainy season if we’ll get it in these parts.  I want a full-fledged grass revelation! Anyway, Kedougou feels like a different country all together. I loved it! We stayed in a volunteer’s village at the foot of some mountains. I'm sure they have a name, I'm just unaware of it. We hiked to the top one morning. I only had flip-flops with me and felt pretty hard-core for hiking a mountain in them. I’m still sporting blisters from that. There is a village on top of the mountain and the women had all these crazy beads on their heads. It was quite a sight. I have pictures of all these things I’m trying to explain but hell has yet to freeze over therefore I can’t upload them. We climbed out on a pile of rocks and sat staring over the south of Senegal and into Guinea. The view is one of the best I’ve seen. Hilary and I sat there for a long time, talking about how we can’t believe how lucky we are to lead this life. It’s moments like this when I think it may be impossible for me to top this time in my life. I’ve felt that way a few other times, like sitting on the beach of Pornic, France with Roxi or sunset picnicking on the bank of the Seine with Graham. It’s nice to continue to have these moments, reminding me that I am continuing to do things that amaze me. I hope that everyone has moments like this. If not, I recommend seeking them. But then again, what do I know?

Language seminar ended up being better than I expected although what we did over 4 days could have easily fit into a day or two. It was nice to spend time with a few people I haven’t seen since I left Thies. We had a good time, lots of laughs. Ben bought a massive amount of veggies that Patrick’s family cooked for us, so that was an unexpected bonus. Two nights in a row we had what we now call “the Trifecta.” Oily pasta with fried potatoes and bread.  Don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but let’s be honest…. Enough is enough. Oh, I learned some Pulaar too while there.

We went back to the city of Kedougou on the 1^st. (All but one region here has a capital with the same name as the region. So Tamba is my region and Tamba-meme is the capital city of Tamba. Get it?) The Kedougou Peace Corps house is quite different from the one in Tamba. Its not actually a house, but a series of huts in a compound. They have internet but no running water. It’s a pretty cool place but definitely made me appreciate what I have here in Tamba. I think that makes me high maintenance and I’m completely comfortable with that. Hilary and I had booked a hotel (also a series of huts in a compound, but with running water) because there would be so many volunteers coming down for the 4^th that it wasn’t possible for all of us to stay at the regional house. Usually when you travel to a region, you stay at the regional house but this isn’t possible for all-volunteer events. So anyway, Hilary called and booked our hotel a week before we went to Kedougou and then called to confirm the day before we left Patrick’s village. Everything was set, “Yes we have your reservation, see you tomorrow.” Then we show up and they tell us that not only do they not have a system for keeping track of reservations, they don’t have any extra rooms. So what exactly is the point of taking reservations?!?! “Well, there was this man staying in a room and we thought he might leave, but now he’s not.” We were flabbergasted! How do you operate a business like that and still stay open??? Astonishing! They were super nice people though and walked us across the street to another hotel, which wasn’t nearly as nice. We slept one night there and the next morning we were able to move into our original room. Since there aren’t that many hotels in Kedougou- meme, every other volunteer who had booked rooms at this hotel ran into the same issue. Actually every other hotel in town did the same thing to most everyone who booked hotel rooms. Luckily Hilary and I are easy going and didn’t let it get us down. Others weren’t as lucky. Most stayed at another hotel with a pool so we went there everyday and hung out until the 4^th.  The 2^nd involved a lot of back flips and chicken fighting in the pool of which I’m still sore from. I met most of the volunteers that I hadn’t had a chance to meet yet. There are some awesome people doing this Peace Corps thing!

On the 4^th we went to the Kedougou house where they have a buffet of dips and endless adult beverages. Most people were decked out in red, white and blue apparel. Would love to show you pictures of that too. And my America shorts! They surprisingly held up through the day and night. I was fully prepared for them to fall apart at the seams. I’m definitely no seamstress. They were sweet though. They cooked 3 full pigs to make pulled pork sandwiches. I’m not exactly sure how they cooked them but it involved wrapping them in what looked like palm leaves and chicken wire and burying them in the dirt. The pigs with coleslaw and baked beans… quite the feast!!! It was, of course, a million degrees, but then it rained for about 30 minutes. We danced in the rain and then we were freezing. I think I danced for a solid 8 hours. The next day I could barely walk between the sore legs and flip-flop blisters. Adding that to the soreness from the pool parties, I was a hot mess on the 5^th. I was going to stay in Kedougou until the 6^th but at the last minute decided to go back to Tamba. To travel, you go to what’s called a garage and buy a seat in what’s called a 7-place. Unless you show up with 6 others, then you have to wait for the car to fill up. I was with 3 others and we ended up having to wait 4 hours for the car to fill up. Its not all that bad when traveling with others, but by yourself can be excruciatingly boring. Its about a 4 hour trip to Tamba, give or take 6 hours for the components of Murphy’s Law (which by the way is what I have renamed this country). About half way through the trip…. (Mom and Dad, you don’t need to read this next part) it starts pouring rain and gets dark. We’re in the equivalent of a very beat up 1987 Chrysler station wagon with a spider web for a windshield and a driver that refuses to go under 60 mph. The windshield wipers were moving about an inch every 20 seconds and the headlights were dismal, if there at all. I wish I had a profile shot of me and the other 2 volunteers in the backseat. We were lurched forward, staring out the front windshield as though we were watching an intense horror flick, just waiting to collide with a steer crossing the road. We eventually hounded the driver until he slowed down some. It was extreme. The strange thing was that I was never actually scared; I just kept trying to position myself so that my launch through the windshield would be as painless as possible. Needless to say I never got to find out if my limb placement was good or not. The silver lining is that the entire next day I was really appreciative of the air I was breathing. This is Africa.

So now I’ve been at the Tamba house for 2 days. There have been way too many people here as they stop here overnight on the way back from Kedougou. Upside is that Costa’s been here, cooking up such delights as vegetable curry and slow cooked beef with naan. That kid needs a television show. I’m going back to village tomorrow. Biking it, yeah! I’ll only be there until the 15^th though because I have to go back up to the training center in Thies for IST (In-Service Training). This is when they will elaborate on all the stuff they touched on during Pre-Service training. Then I can start doing real work and feel useful again. I’ll be in Thies  for 2 weeks. I’m going to go up a day early to visit my family from my training village. I’m so excited to see them! Don’t get me wrong, I like my new family but my training family was SO amazing! I miss them so much! My Dad’s second wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago, so I’m excited to meet the little nugget! I’m super stoked to live at the training center for 2 weeks. They spoil us! Hopefully I can upload some pictures while I'm up there. Ok, hope everything is going well over yonder. Miss you guys! xoxo 

Heeeeeeey, goat!

So I'm riding my bike down a heavily trafficked road the other day in the city of Tamba when all of a sudden the man in front of me almost eats pavement. His bike was sliding all of the place but he caught himself without ever actually stopping. He was visibly shaken by this and looked around to see if anyone else saw what happened. Just as he turned back around to look forward, he slammed into a goat that was eating something off the road. This is Africa.

A bunch of us came to the house this week to celebrate Hailey's birthday on the way to our language seminars. Andy came down from the north, which is exciting because I haven't seen him since we installed. Costa made the best black bean burgers the other night! Oh my! They were better than any black bean burger I've ever had in the States. He also made some kind of spring rolls, that were delicious. Austin made basil potato salad, a five layer dip and coleslaw. We feasted and it was AMAZING!!! I've been introduced to a website, "foodporndaily.com" that I drool over quite often. You should check it out.

Its rained a couple of times this week. Its cool but the humidity is out of control. It floods here during the rainy season and just the amount of standing water after a couple of rains is alarming because I know its going to be so bad once it starts raining everyday. I'm not looking forward to wading through muddy-trash-water with God knows what diseases breeding in it. From what I'm told, any little cut you have on your feet will turn into some festering sore. Mmmmm... jealous, aren't ya?

Oh, we've also been making "mango Ardo." Ardo is vanilla yogurt that kind of tastes like cake batter. We cut up mangoes and mix them into the Ardo. Mangoes here are like no other mango you can find anywhere else in the world. Its worth the plane ticket to come try them.

That's all I have. Sorry, it wasn't even anything exciting. I'm headed out today (with a PC ride meaning A/C!!!) to Kedougou for a language seminar. Not really looking forward to it, but hopefully it won't be that bad. I'm staying in another volunteers village until the 1st. Then I go to the city of Kedougou and meet up with all the people I've been missing so terribly from my stage! I'm so excited to see everyone!! Then we party for the 4th! All you can eat pull pork. Yes, please! Hope all is well Stateside. xoxo

Still here...

Yeah, see, what happened was...Monday morning I was supposed to bike back with Hilary but I woke up feeling like crap. There's no way I could have biked it. Hilary went anyway and I stayed here to rest. Slept A LOT, it was great! I felt so bad for not going with her. I was going to leave the next morning but woke up to it pouring rain, which is what we were waiting on in order to go back to Manda to work on the garden. SO I'm still here. Mike and I will leave in the morning, but since he doesn't have his bike with him, we have to take an Alham. I was really looking forward to biking back. I'm going to try to bike from Manda to my village tomorrow afternoon, but it depends on how much work we get done at the garden and if I'm beat. I'll probably just suck it up and bike it. I feel so guilty for staying at the house for this long. We get "village guilt" when we're gone for a while. Leaving this house is the hardest thing I have to do here. The littlest thing can convince us to stay. Great people that speak English to hang with, access to a variety of food, power, refrigerator, COLD WATER, and internet. There's showers too but the water is hot. Its still nice to have a shower though. Its the closest  thing to America that I have readily available. I don't feel too guilty because I'll be doing work tomorrow so its not all gluttonous... but I have been shoving my face. The boys made tuna melts today for lunch! They were amazing! I'm a little ashamed to admit how much "chicken spam" I've been eating. Its so disgustingly delicious! There's no such thing as cold cuts, chicken breasts or ground beef here. Well, some form of that is here but its a pain in the butt to get plus all the meat you can find usually involves a lot of fat or bones. Whatever, I'm not going to defend my love for chicken spam. That stuff if gooooooood!

Because of the various ways we travel its impractical to bring a lot of stuff with you. Therefore, I left my towel and pillow in village. There's usually extras of both here. This time there's not. The maid hasn't washed towels in a while and the pillows that I can find are scary. So I've been using a pillow case as a towel and a pile of my clothes as a pillow. This is an example of situations where we say, "T.I.A." (This Is Africa). And yes, we have a maid at the house. The volunteers that live in Tamba pay house dues each month. They're 5,000 CFA = $10. Part of that goes to pay Aissatou, the maid. She's worked here for 9 years or something. She must think we're completely crazy. The house is always so dirty. There's stuff everywhere. All of our laptops lying around, empty beer bottles, piles of dishes, people's bags, magazines, mattresses, etc. She comes in and mops around our stuff and washes the sheets and towels. Well, sometimes.

Oh I forgot to tell you. I found out that my host Mom is not actually my Dad's wife. She's his brother's wife. Her husband lives in Paris because he works there. He called the other day and she had me talk to him. It was a pretty difficult conversation in my broken French and janky Pulaar. Someone else in my family lives and works in America, but my family doesn't know exactly where. Since Senegal is so small, they just assume that America is too. Its funny. Because they've heard that it snows in America, they assume everywhere there gets snow. I still don't think that they believe me that in the southern part of the country it can be almost as hot as Senegal. Anyway, I hope I'm around the next time the guy who lives in America calls. I bet he's either in NYC or somewhere really random, like Montana. Whenever I meet people who have been to America or know someone who has, its always somewhere random that they've been.

I think that's all I have for now. I'm going to try to stay in village til the 24th. I'm coming back that weekend for Hailey's birthday and then Hilary and I have to go to Kedegou (where there's waterfalls!) on the 26th for our language seminar. We'll spend 4 days with the other 3 volunteers that learned Pulaar Fuuta from our stage and our language teachers. That's over on the 1st and then on the 3rd and 4th is the 4th of July party at the Kedegou regional house. Its my first all-volunteer party. There's 240 of us "in country" now! Should be an interesting party, to say the least. Hope all is well in Amurka! xoxo

The day I almost dug a hole...

I have work to do!!! I've never been so excited to have something to do! I feel like I have purpose now. Geez, I wish I would have found this weeks ago.  I'll try to give you the short. An agriculture volunteer, Mike, has a Master Farmer site, which means you help a local start and maintain a hectare sized garden in order to teach them all you know in the hopes they will continue after you leave. Mike just started this site and had only measured out the beds when I heard about it and jumped on board. The garden is in a town called Manda, which is about 50k south of my village. Hilary is doing the Master Farmer project with me too, so we biked there Friday morning to meet up with Mike. Oh, Hilary and I don't know ANYTHING about this agriculture stuff so poor Mike will have to hold our hand for a bit. But we'll catch on quick, hopefully before he gets too annoyed with us. So the plan was to get there at 8:30, dig for an hour or so and then head to the regional house. In true Senegalese form, Mike had trouble catching a ride up from his town so Hilary and I sat around with the Master Farmer, Mamadian, until 11am when Mike finally got there. (*If you're reading this Mike, I know, it wasn't your fault. AGGH!) Mamadian is probably the coolest person I've met since I installed. And since he speaks French, Pulaar and a little English, he's super helpful in my quest to learn Pulaar. Once Mike got there we attempted to dig the first hole, realizing all too quickly that the ground is rock solid and we should wait for the first rain to come...any day now. It was also scorching by this time so it didn't take too much to convince us to pack up and head to Tamba. We then, of course, sat around waiting for the mini-bus to leave until 3pm. (I can't call them "mini-bus" anymore. That's a description of what they are, not what we call them. They're "Alhams" to us. Mentally jot that down.) So once it rains, we'll go back to Manda and actually dig holes. Eventually they will put a tool shed out there and a water source and then we can camp out there so we can start work super early in the mornings. I've just got to bite the bullet and bike a 50k so that I know I can do it. I did the 35k the Hil's village last week and it wasn't all that bad. I left at 7am so the weather was nice. I'm loving all the biking. I prefer it to any other mode of transportation. Well, except air-conditioned Peace Corps rides, but that never happens.

Random things: For lunch yesterday I had steamed carrots, sliced tomato and a hard boiled egg. No salt. No seasoning. Just plain vegetables. I think its the 3rd best thing I've had since I've been here.

I'm losing the battle of trying to keep sunscreen on me and that sucks! My arms are so tan and feel an undercooked pound cake. "Just put on more sunscreen and more often" is simply not possible, but I can hear you thinking that.

All my clothes are falling apart. I need clothes.

I've bought material to make my 4th of July outfit. I'm making "America shorts." You can expect pictures... if internet allows such an upload. And yes, I'll wear a shirt too.

I have a package from Donnie waiting on me at the training center in Thies and I won't be able to get it until the middle of July! I want to go get it SO bad! I know its full of goodies and I want them! Its too far and I have other travel/work stuff between now and then.

Ok I don't have anymore random thoughts right now. Need to start writing things down again. Tomorrow Hilary and I are biking back to our villages. Its 30k to Gouloumbou, where there's a hotel with a pool that we fully intend to swim in, with hopes that its impossibly cold. Afterwards I will decide if I have it in me to bike the 25k to my village or wait around for the Alham that comes through at 6. Hopefully I can bike it. I'm so excited to go swimming!!! And tomorrow is Gouloumbou's market day so I'm going to buy a giant bag of veggies for my family! Yeah!
Hope everyone is doing great. xoxo

Grab a snack, its a long one...

I think 9 days is the perfect amount of time to stay in village. I was super productive, got to know my family, set up my hut (decked it out, really), had a mini-meltdown, recovered from said melt-down and learned a little Pulaar. Now I’m back at the regional house with good people, awaiting the arrival of more good people so that we can have a relaxing, American-inspired weekend.

So my family is HUGE! I would say there are about 12-15 adults and maybe 20 children that live in the compound. From what I gather, my Dad has 2 wives. The first wife is who has been designated as my Mom, but the second wife “Neene Galle” (literally “House Mom”) is more of my caretaker. She makes sure I’m fed and she’s my go-to person when I need to know how, where or when to do things. I think my Mom is a retired “house mom” so as far as I can tell, she doesn’t do all that much these days. The house mom, who I’ll refer to as Neene from here on out, does most of the work… pulling water, cooking meals, cracking peanuts, etc.  There’s so much to explain, I don’t even know where to start and I anticipate that it won’t be as descriptive as it needs to be to make you understand. This may as well be an alternate universe. 

I won’t tell too much about my hut because I fully intend to post pictures, although today’s internet strength has failed miserably. Hopefully tomorrow will be better for uploading purposes. My family is great. My Dad is the chief of the village and a man of few words. I think he likes me, and I’m pretty sure he respects me as an equal, which is a huge deal here. That’s how I feel anyway. He may not feel the same way, but I believe that people act as you condition them; therefore he respects me as an equal. I really want him to be overprotective of me but I’m having difficulty conveying that to him, as I’m not used to playing the damsel in distress role. Last names are a status symbol and since I share his last name, I hope people associate me as the chief’s daughter. Oh yeah, they changed my name from my training village name, Salimatou. I knew my last name would change but was trying to convince my counterparts to go back and convince my family to let me keep Salimatou, for no other reason than I dig the name. My new name is Aminata Kanté. Everyone calls me Ami, pronounce “ommy.” I’m so used to responding to Salimatou that it took me a few days to start answering to Ami. I don’t mind the name in itself though. There are definitely worse options.

All of this will sound funny because I don’t really know all the facts, not being able to speak enough of the language and all. I’m pretty sure my family is mostly peanut farmers. If I had to guess, I would say most of the village men are. So a lot of the day is spent shelling raw peanuts. In no way am I expected to do this, but if I want to spend time with the other women without just staring at them while they work, then it means shelling peanuts. This doesn’t sound all that bad but once you hit the 1000^th peanut your fingertips start to crack and peel. They take the peanuts in between their knuckles and crack them on the ground and open them one handed. I tried this knuckle method and it equates to bloody knuckles. So I just hold them in between my thumb and index and hit them on the ground, but still have to use two hands to open them. I think its odd that they don’t make a separate pile for shells and nuts. They just sift the nuts out later. Such is life, I guess. We open SO MANY peanuts everyday. The upside is that it’s an all-you-can-eat peanut buffet. Lunch is usually white rice with an oily peanut sauce. Dinner is usually what they call couscous, I call sawdust, with a watery peanut or leaf sauce. I don’t eat much at dinner. I try to fill up on peanuts beforehand. I make my own breakfast which is instant coffee that takes like nuclear wastes should taste, and oatmeal or protein bars until I ran of both. Send protein bars!!! 

I try to hang with Neene during her work throughout the day, but I can’t. I don’t even come close. I can pull 4 or 5 times from the well before my arms fail. She can pull, well, she could just keep pulling water all day. Its amazing how many buckets she’ll pull. The pulley system fell into the well the other day and she was still pulling water by just pulling the rope up and over the well! I couldn’t believe it.

Since I don’t spend any money while I’m in village, I don’t ever think about money. That’s one of the best things about being in village. However, water is my new currency. I have two buckets for water storage and my water filter and a clay pot that I store filtered water in to keep it cooler. When all 4 of these water storage devices are full, I feel rich! When they are running low, I know I have to work soon. The entire day is spent obtaining and maintaining the 3 basic human needs: food, water and shelter. I can’t explain how nice it is to live so simplistically. I should also explain that even though pictures depict this place to look like a “save the children” commercial, it is in fact NOT a “save the children” commercial. The people I live with are content and laugh more than any group of people I have ever spent time with. Pulaar people are especially charismatic and have a sarcastic, insulting sense of humor. I fit in well!

Oh, the meltdown. We were told that being here will make you feel bi-polar. I think I’ve explained this in previous posts. I didn’t get it, having never been bi-polar and usually having a pretty good grip of my emotions. Being sarcastic and insulting, they always make fun of everything I say in my butchered Pulaar. I always laugh with them and make them explain how to fix what I said. Then one morning we had a misunderstanding on trying to go to the market (which is a one shot deal as there is one bus that goes to the weekly market) and we missed the bus. No one was upset, I just didn’t understand what had happened… still don’t. It was 6am so I went back to bed. When I woke up and came back out to hang with the family, all of a sudden their laughing at me was really annoying. I tried to brush it off but was getting more and more frustrated. Having never tried to learn another language, they don’t understand how frustrating it can be. I took a sip of water and choked on it. They kept saying I was sick so finally I said, “Yep I’m sick. I’m going to rest.” I laid in my backyard the rest of the day, questioning what the hell I had gotten myself into, why the sky is blue and how will my grandchildren pay for college. Those kinds of things. I actually read two books in their entirety. That was the day I decided to come to Tamba for the weekend. I rallied the troops and here we are. The days in village after the meltdown were fine. Its nice to get away though.

I brought a bunch of photos of my family and friends with me. The first time I showed them to my training host family I thought that I was in too many of the photos. I wished I had more of just other people without me in the photo. Now that I’ve made a “picture hanging contraption” and have to look at photos of myself everyday, its reassuring to see that at one time in my life I was clean and looked decent. It gives me hope that one day I can return to that and feel some resemblance of attractive. I don’t necessarily mind being dirty and unattractive here because we all are and it helps us bond. In village I don’t look in the mirror for days on end. I don’t wear makeup or my contacts. When I come back to regional house I put my contacts in, slap on some mascara and get dressed up by wearing earrings. These are the little things that make me happy.

Well, I’ve been procrastinating on finishing this and now its an hour before I have to catch the ride to village. I’m going to try kind of, sort of hard to stay there this time until June 20^th. This may be unrealistic, I’m not sure yet. I’m going to attempt to bike the 30k to Hilary’s village at some point so maybe getting out for a day will help me to stay there longer. I’ve been at the regional house for 5 days and I think it’s a little too long to hang out here. But it was SO much fun. A bunch of us came in and cooked up a storm, watched movies and played lots of games. I had some skirts made while I was here too and love them! I didn’t think I would want to wear skirts here because I don’t in the States hardly ever but they are so much cooler than pants. Shorts aren’t an option here. Those knees will get you starred at, for sure. Women will sit around topless, but you bust out a knee and you’re a tramp! Oh, I never succeeded at posting pictures on here. I don’t know why its so much harder than posting them on Facebook. So the pictures of my hut are on Facebook. This might be a reoccurring problem so if you don’t have the Facebook and care that much about seeing the pics, you should get an account. Ok, I’m going to go sweat my life out in a mini bus for 3 hours. You sit back and have a glass of something over ice. xoxo 

And now I sweat...

I've been in Tamba-meme (the capital of the region of Tamba) for 3 days now. For lack of a better vocabulary, its hot. Sticky, nasty hot. The other volunteers from the region have been staying at the regional house with us to help us buy everything we need to take to village with us. (I don't know why but we say "to village" instead of "to the village.") Its nice to spend time with people who have already been through this process. They have been so helpful, offering support for our near-future breakdowns. Their stories are funny about their own breakdowns. A lot of little things will happen throughout the day and you'll suck it up being a strong PCV and all, but then your pen runs out of ink, literally not figuratively, and you can't stop crying for an hour. I anticipate these moments and look forward to laughing about them later.
Yesterday I bought a big metal trunk that will act as my closet, one pan, two spoons, one fork, a tupperware container, two plastic cups, one metal cup, an obnoxious plastic mat with a picture of a lion that will be a barrier between me and the concrete, a metal tea kettle, a plastic kettle (aka toilet paper), two plastic buckets with lids for water storage, a big yellow baignoire for washing clothes, a bucket of white primer, red, blue and yellow concentrated paint to add to the primer to make pretty colors, rope, thin metal wire, two foam mattresses because I'll have an indoor and an outdoor bed, and a small gas burner. Today I need to buy gardening tools, a plate, a solar charger, a short wave radio, soap, sponges, salt and pepper. I'll also have a trunk kept at the regional house where I can store stuff like the clothes that I won't need in village, like the cashmere sweater and peacoat that I wore to staging in DC (its too funny to me that I actually have those things here with me) and my laptop.
All in all, I'm really excited to move into my village. Its just going to be a lot of work today and tomorrow involving lots of sweat. I can't wait to unpack my suitcases for good. I've been living out of them this whole time because I've been back and forth between the training center and my host family. I'm excited to establish my own routine and to cook my own breakfast. I'm ready to learn enough of the language that I can get the basic idea of what locals are saying and can convey my basic thoughts. I feel as though that's the first hurdle and then learning more technicalities will come easier afterwards. Once my Pulaar is at the level my French is now, I think I'll be comfortable. Quite a few volunteers are really advanced in their languages and I hope to achieve this. Its those volunteers that seem the most integrated and have a good time with even the little, monotonous interactions. I have high hopes of establishing relationships like I had with my host Mom and sister during training. I think the sooner I can do that, the sooner my time in village will be much more enjoyable. Just people to have comfortable, relaxed conversation with when I'm bored, that are receptive of my random thoughts and feelings. I'm looking forward to getting my biking ability back up to par. I miss riding in France everyday. I hope I don't let the heat deter me from riding as much as I want to right now.
Like I said, its hot here. After the hot season is the rainy season and apparently it floods. Even with it being hot and dry right now there are plenty of places you must walk that are so littered and dirty, I can't even imagine how gross it will be once its flooded and/or muddy. Wish I would have brought my goulashes! C'est la vie.
Ok that's all I have for now. Maybe I'll update this again before I leave tomorrow. If you're reading this and you love me, call me during the next 5 weeks to check on my mental stability. 221 7767 20361.
Hope everyone is doing well. Make your A/C a little cooler in my honor. xoxo

Last day of cool weather...

I passed my final language test! Yay! And haven't thought about the language since. After Wednesday I'll have no choice but to learn it, so I'll worry about it then. Swear-in in Dakar at the Ambassador's house was great. The place is HUGE and so American... its refreshing to come across things like this. We had a ceremony where our country director, training director, the Ambassador and some other uber important people talk to us. We're the first stage to swear-in in Senegal this year and its the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps, so that's pretty cool. I've obviously never been to another swearing-in so I don't know if they did anything special for us or not, but it was a good time regardless. They made a compilation of footage from the ceremony and put it on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTL-u1UM4oI
After the ceremony, we had hors d'oeuvres in the Ambassador's posh back yard. Good thing I was wearing my fancy clothes because it may have been a little too classy for me. I mean, she has green grass in her backyard. Whoa, haven't seen that stuff in a while. The food was so good! Little toasts smothered with guacamole topped with shrimp! Meat on a stick! Quiche... multiple types of quiche! Fataya! Frozen creme puffs drizzled with fudge! AND ice in bottomless glasses of soda! America overload, for sure! Afterwards, we went to the Atlantic club (which yesterday I found out used to be the American club until 9/11 when they changed the name so it wouldn't be targeted. Interesting) for cocktails and swimming. We came back to Thies and went to dinner, where I enjoyed the most delicious goat cheese and beef pizza! A bunch of people went out dancing afterwards but I was so beat, I couldn't go to sleep fast enough. BUT now I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer instead of PC Trainee. Pretty exciting! But now I have to take care of myself, like finding transportation and stuff. The security blanket is definitely being ripped off. I'm ready.... I hope!
A little more than half of our group left today to go to their regions. Its pretty sad. I won't see them again until the 4th of July party. Its kind of a sad tone around here, like the end of summer camp or something. I've never actually been to summer camp, but I would imagine this is what it feels like. I'm one of the lucky ones who get to leave tomorrow, the only downside being that its at 6am instead of 2pm like today's group. Not too bad though. The Tamba peeps have chosen the theme of "black tie affair" for our install party. We have to buy everything from a "fuky jye" (definitely butchered that spelling, but its phonetic). A fuky jye is basically like Goodwill in the States. I don't know where they get these clothes from but sometimes they still have Goodwill tags on them. Its just huge piles of clothes in the market that you can sift through and buy what you want. You know I love thrift stores hence I love fuky jye. Have to find out how to spell that.
Ok, have to run. I'll try to update this again before I leave Tamba-meme. Oh, CNN followed one of the chicks here around while we were in DC for staging and they aired the footage the other day. If you pay attention you can see me. And I posted more pictures on Picasa. Love to all... xoxo
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/05/14/baldwin.peace.corps.at.50.cnn?iref=allsearch

Final days of kushy Africa...

I had to say bye to my host family yesterday. I only lived with them for 6 weeks and I was so incredibly sad to leave them. I can't even imagine how hard its going to be to leave after living with a family for 2 years. There's stories of people that don't like their host families so its easy to leave them, but I'd prefer to really love my family even if it means its super hard to leave them. I just hope I have women in my new family like my host Mom and sister in my last family. They quickly became my friend and I genuinely looked forward to spending time with them. One of my last nights there the three of us laid in my Mom's bed and had "girl talk" for a couple of hours while the men sat in the foyer and made tea. It was one of those moments where you're reminded that when it comes down to it, everyone on this planet really is the same. Those moments are great... and a large part of the reason I'm here. Oh, and men make tea here. Its small shot-type glasses and tastes as though it could be equal parts sugar and water. They drink tea at least twice a day.

We swear-in this Friday! I can't believe training is almost over. It flew by, slash I feel like I've been here forever. We all get dressed up in our new fancy Senegalese clothes and go to the ambassador's house in Dakar for the ceremony. We take an oath to not kill anyone here, then they feed us (yay for food made by Americans!) and then we come back to the training center for a party. We picked out fabric and had our outfits made. I had them make me an extra huge head wrap. Don't worry, there will be pictures! The traditional Senegalese outfits are so pretty and elaborately decorated with embroidery, but no matter what you do, you still can't pull it off like the Senegalese do. We just look awkward in them. Its fun times though to get dressed up. On Sunday we travel to our regions. It takes 8 hours to get to Tamba from here. I think there are 7 of us that are moving there from this training group. We stay at the regional house (with a big "install" party one of the nights) for a couple of days and go to buy all the stuff we'll need for our huts, like beds, buckets aka "showers," floor mats, paint, etc. Wednesday we go around and meet all the officials like chief of police and then we "install" into our villages. After that we're on our own. My closest PC neighbor is 30k from me. Yikes! Our country director has given us a "5 week challenge" to stay in our villages for the first five weeks. Basically means not going to the regional house where there's wifi, electricity and a refrigerator. Those who succeed are invited to an "American" dinner at his house. I'm going to attempt this five week challenge but I don't think I'll attend the dinner regardless because he lives in Dakar and its far. Who knows, maybe after 5 weeks in village I'll be willing to travel 9 hours for a cheeseburger. You just never know. Oh, speaking of food... Hilary introduced me to website "This is why you're fat." Google it. Its so amazing! We drooled over it for an hour today. Jackie, there's tons of great ideas on there for the Porkatorium!

I've spent the better part of the day online trying to upload photos. Only twice did I envision throwing my computer through the wall. I also switched email addresses, in case you didn't get the mass email I sent out. Uploading pictures to the blog still takes the longest so I dumped them on Picasa. I think I've posted a link on the right side of the blog now so you can see the pictures through Picasa. Let me know if you can't. I really hope that works because I'm running out of options. I'm the antithesis of computer savvy. Its pathetic. The new email is marieschuster361@gmail.com. Oh yeah, also on the right hand side is where you can put your email address and then it will email you when I write on here. If you want... no pressure. =P

Ok, I have to go study for my final language test. Ahhhh, if I don't test into the appropriate level then I have to stay here an extra week to work one-on-one with my language facilitator. The only downside to that is missing the install party. You know I can't pass up a good party. Its a themed party, too.

Hope everyone is doing great and happy! xoxo

guess what I had for lunch...

I didn't realize exactly how much of a "foodie" I really am until I got here. Its definitely a reoccurring theme in these blog posts. I think its a phase and eventually I won't be missing my previously taken-for-granted access to food. I'd still give up a smaller toe to walk through a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods right now.

So once again I feel like I don't have much to tell you. I'll try, but excuse the lameness. Last week we were in our training "towns" and it went by pretty quickly. We had a lot of language classes. A bird tried to take my head off. That kind of fun stuff. We had 2 days off, one of which was Easter. 90% of the country is Muslim and the other 10% is Christian, which means Catholic to them. If you're Christian, you're Catholic. No other denomination here. But its nice because the Muslims help celebrate Christian holidays and vice versa. There's complete respect for the other's religion. *Take note, rest-of-world* I can't hang with the Senegalese when it comes to celebrating holidays. Saturday night they partied until 4 am for Easter! Then they went to church in the morning and partied all day and night until 4 am again. I attended a neighborhood Easter party for about an hour which basically consisted of the men sitting around, drinking glasses of straight whiskey, waiting for the women to cook them huge meals. Its times like this that it is nice to have the status of a male here. What am I saying, its always nice to have male status here. As Americans, we all have that. I mean, I not going to de-feather and gut chickens, you know.

The last day I was with my training family, they installed an "American" shower. They told me they were going to do this the first week I arrived but since its been 5 weeks I assumed they were just dreaming of doing nice things for me. They followed through, but unfortunately I only have 6 more days with them. But it will be 6 more days that I don't have to bathe out of a bucket.... not that I mind it at this point. I'm glad they'll be able to enjoy the shower though. Man, do I love this family! I'm going to miss them so much. I dread saying goodbye to them next week. I'm going to cry, for sure. I've promised to come back and visit. I want to bring Dad there when he comes, mainly because it will be a nice transition for him between Dakar and my actual village. Also, because they are just amazing and it would mean a lot to them and to me to have them meet Dad. I think Peace Corps has the right idea on having us stay in training villages first to let us gradually get use to Senegalese culture. It would have been intense to go straight from the training center in Thies to my permanent village.

Ok its late here so I'm done racking my brain for stuff right now. I'm here, with internet, for another 2 days so I'll try to write more. Hope everyone is fabulous. xo

Its official, I'm extremely racist towards mosquitos.

So remember how I was hardcore complaining about eating rice all the time??? And how I was referring to my training site of 16k people as a “village?” Yes, well in hindsight those statements are ridiculous!

This past week we did our “volunteer visits” where we briefly saw our future sites and met our host families. The rest of the time we stayed with host volunteers. My village is 25k off the paved road meaning I can claim the hardcore status of living out in the bush. My hut is bigger than I expected and the well is right outside my door, which is such a relief. I would have bought a donkey to carry my water had my well been outside the compound. I might still use one to pull my water because the water table is 30m down!!! Maybe I’ll just have man arms when its all said and done. My family seems really cool. My dad is the village chief; he has two wives and doesn’t know how many kids. Can you imagine??? Its part of my job to find this out so this should be an interesting survey. Most villages of similar size to mine only have a health hut or health post but the French NGO, Kinkilibe, just built a really nice hospital in my village! And by hospital I mean a 2000 sqft building, but it has solar panels for electricity and an actual doctor. There’s also a Kinkilibe school in my village. I’m excited to swear-in and move to the village, but now that I realize how far it is from everything and how little Pulaar I speak at this point, I’m no longer counting down the days til swear-in. I’m enjoying every moment of time with these other 44 Americanos and the delicious food the training center is providing.

Oh, so about the food. I now see the progression and I’m glad they let us down slowly. When we first arrived here and were eating the training center food, we all thought it was pretty good but we would kill for pizza, salads and hamburgers. Then we moved to our training sites and started eating the real-deal Senegalese food with gluttonous amounts of rice and we couldn’t wait to come back to the center to eat their swanky food. Now that I just spent 4 days in a real village, eating nothing but pounded corn and millet with watery leaf sauce I’m so appreciative of everything else I just mentioned. Pounded corn literally tastes like saw dust. No lie. And there is rarely any meat or vegetables involved. Just saw dust and watery sauce. Mmmmm….

My host volunteer, Amanda, warned me that it would be hot in Tamba so I was aware but… actually I don’t have the vocab to explain it. Weird things start happening when its that hot. The first day that I was there during the heat of the day, I seriously spent the entire 4 hours laying on a mat in her back yard area, under a shade structure, carefully making sure that no part of my body was touching any other part of my body. I took a shower 3 times that day. Ha, shower; I still use that term so loosely. Bucket bath, I took a bucket bath three times that day. The second day wasn’t as bad. The sad thing is that it was only 105ish those days and eventually it will reach 120. I heard after a certain temperature it doesn’t much matter if it gets hotter because you can’t even tell.

What else? I forgot to make a list this time. One of the days I was with Amanda we rode 7k to the nearest health post so she could show me what it was like there. While we were there she sees a lady from her village that had a baby two days prior. We talk to the lady, blah, blah, blah. On our 7k bike trek back, 1k of it being off-road, the same lady who popped out a baby two days ago, passes us sitting on the back of her husband’s bicycle! She was straddling a 3-inch wide, metal luggage rack while holding the baby! I couldn’t get over it! Most women in the States don’t leave the hospital for 2 days after having a baby and this lady is off-roading it on a 3-inch saddle. Unbelievable! Being here is definitely desensitizing me. I feel like anything is possible here. If a man walked through the door wearing an actual horse’s head as a hat, you wouldn’t get a rise out of anyone here. Anything is possible. Earlier we passed a bus with no front to it. Just the driver sitting behind nothing, driving down the road, working his route. That being said, its difficult to tell people back home what’s going on because I no longer realize what’s interesting to others. Does that make sense??? I’d probably tell you about the man wearing the horse’s head if that were to happen but less crazy things don’t seem note worthy anymore when 6 months ago I’d be excited to blab all kinds of stuff. Hopefully that makes sense.

I have to give a quick shout out to the bestest friend a gal could ask for, my main man, Donnie Vann! He sent me the coolest care package ever!!! I'm telling you it included a 3lb bag of Haribos, people! Among many other great items! Love you to pieces, DV!

Ok well, I can’t think of anything else right now. I’ll start keeping the list again. Tomorrow we go back to our training towns for 5 days. We come back to the center for a counterpart workshop for a few days and then we go to the beach for the weekend. Each stage rents a beach house at the end of their PST and throws a “rager.” Should be interesting with all 45 of us in one gigantic house. At least we all get along…

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying all kinds of American pleasures. xoxo

Pictures

Ok so I just spent entirely too much time trying to upload pictures to this blog, unsuccessfully, obviously. I can however post pictures easily on Facebook. Coincidence? Perhaps. So here's a link to my Facebook album. Hopefully it works. Let me know.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097819&id=1039699944&l=91b8c5f30a

Heat is setting in...

I found out my assignment this past Thursday. I'll be moving to the region of Tambacounda. My village is 55k southeast of the city of Tambacounda. I have yet to memorize the name of my village, too many vowels, but its not googleable anyway.  I'm the first volunteer to be placed in this village. The population is 1117. The Peace Corps is building me a mud hut with a thatched roof. I won't have electricity or running water. Someone told me that he has lived with and without electricity and that he prefers no electricity because when you do have it, it goes out all the time anyway so its easier to just acclimate to no electricity. I'll try to keep that mentality. Someone told me that there's monkeys in my village. That's pretty cool. I'll be in the jungle and they say it gets hot there. Hmmm...

Once again, I forget if I told you how they told us our site placements. The basketball court at the training center has a big map of Senegal painted on it. They blindfold everyone and lead us to our site on the map. Then everyone takes off their blindfold and sees where they're going and who will be closest to them. A film crew from the news came and recorded it. I think they're using the footage for some Peace Corps media too. I'll have to look into it. Everyone in my stage is pretty cool so I'm near people I like, but my two closest friends are pretty far from me. They're in the desert though, in a region that has the slogan, "Where things go to die." They can come visit me. =) But it has put a sadden tone to training because there isn't much time left and I spend all my time with these guys. We've become so close in only a month. Training forces you to get to know people. Its an interesting process.

So the weather has be great here up until yesterday. Everyday before then has been 85 during the day, maybe high 60's at night. Yesterday and today have been hot. It puts a twist on things. The only thing I've been dreading is the heat. Its nasty. Of course I'll acclimate to it, but I'm not looking forward to the process. Its not even close to how hot its going to be, either. Gotta suck it up!

I just got back to the training center today from a whopping 2 day stint in the village. A little pointless, but whatever. Went to the beach, so that was nice. I'm here until Tuesday and then we leave for "volunteer visits" where we will go to our region and stay for five days with the volunteer who is closest to our site. I talked to my host volunteer the other day and she said its hot there. Good to know. She also said that they are throwing a party at the regional house the night we arrive so that we can meet all the volunteers in my region. I think there are 6 or 7 other people from my stage that are going to Tamba.

Ok, that's all I have for now. I literally just got back but since my village peeps arrived first I want to hoard the internet before the rest get back, creating a wifi traffic jam. Now I must do laundry and shower. I hope all is well. Heard the government got their act back together (well... you know what I mean). Yay, America! Love you guys! xoxo

If you send me mexican food, I'll name my first born after you.

Longest stint in the village is over! 13 days. It wasn’t all that bad, but it’s a long time to be there with only two other Americans to talk to. Luckily my site mates are pretty cool. We aren’t allowed to leave site until after the 4^th week which will be the end of next week. Four other trainees live 3k from my village in a bigger town. I’ll go hang out there when I’m allowed to leave on mine own. There’s a bigger market and more restaurant options. What am I saying… the other town has restaurants, period.

I actually kept notes of random things that I consider blog worthy this time, so I have substantial things to write. Here goes…

There’s a coconut tree in my compound and the kids love trying to get them out of the tree and cracking them open. It was the first time I’d had fresh coconut. Tastes nothing like the fake crap in the States. It doesn’t have much flavor. I pretend its yogurt. Its pretty good.

My site mates, Larocha and Hilary, and I planted our garden. I think I may have mentioned this before. Well, this time when we went back to site some of our plants were missing. Goats are a problem when it comes to gardens but this was obviously not goats. The first day a few plants were missing. The next day half of them were gone. We were so let down. Mostly because our garden is only visible to people, mostly the kids at the school, who know its there. So it must have been the kids but they helped us plant it. Its frustrating because we’re only at this site for another 5 weeks so its THEIR garden, not ours. So why are you stealing from yourself? I have a feeling that I’ll come across this problem again.

Ok, so comic relief. I like to look at situations here and think of how it would look if it were happening in America. Like the other day when I was sitting out in front of Hilary’s compound and a 90 year old grandma came hobbling around the corner carrying a large pick axe. It was hilarious to us. Or when hug steer being followed by a random dog cut across your path on the main road. Its totally normal here. Even better, I was trying to explain to my host sister that people in the States have dogs and cats for pets. My host family has a dog but its only because they are well off. No one has pets here, just farm animals. So I’m converting the currency to explain to her how much it would cost to buy a rare poodle and she can’t get over it! I explained that people let their dogs sleep with them in the bed, that some dogs have shoes and outfits. I’m still not sure she believes me. She refused to believe that a dog can cost more than a chicken. And why on earth would you want to buy a dog when you could buy a chicken, or 40??? It was a great conversation. I heard her telling people about it all week and loved seeing their reactions.

Oh, so I don’t remember if I told you about my room the first time I got back from the village. Its huge by African standards but very much feels like a prison cell. Just a bed and a window. Well, this time when I got back they had put a “tapestry” down for me and hung up a sheet as a curtain. Very exciting! I hung a map of Dakar on the wall and now its much more comfortable. I would love to have a table in there but if I buy one I’ll have to leave it there so I’ll wait until I move to my permanent site.

I don’t know if you remember the Snake game that used to be on cell phones but my score is so high that my phone tells me I’m the “Snake Master!” I like the title. I’m a snake-addict.

The stars here are freaking ridiculous. They remind me what they looked like in the middle-of-nowhere Australia, or the middle of the Sahara. They are so bright and beautiful. If only my camera were quality enough to take a decent picture of them.

So Hilary is from Georgia and Larocha is from Berkley. That being said, Hilary and I talk about Chick-fil-a on a daily basis. Everyday we vividly describe our ideal meal. Mine usually consist of a Chick-fil-a sandwich and/or enchiladas, my grandma’s mac and cheese, and some random vegetable. Oh, and a bowl of queso, of which I would proudly submerge my hand and lick clean. Hopefully my Dad will have a direct flight to Dakar when he comes and can bring me a Chick-fil-a sandwich. Even if its not a direct flight, I’ll take my chances with the salmonella. Have I told you about the food here? I think I have. If not, an example: my host mom makes me scrambled eggs sometimes in the morning. This includes half a stick of butter in the pan, a quarter cup of oil whisked into the eggs and then a little more oil on top while they’re cooking. Its insane. I don’t quite feel like a whale yet, but I’m well on my way.

We’re supposed to filter the water here and then add a few drops of bleach before we drink it. I tried this once. Ever had bleach in your mouth? I didn’t do it again. Luckily I haven’t gotten sick. I mean, its run through a pretty thorough filtration system so I’m not worried about it. Man, it was so sick drinking that bottle of bleach water. I had that bleach film on my tongue forever. Gross!

Oh this is great! So women’s breasts here don’t mean anything! I love it! I’m reading a book written by a former PC volunteer and she makes the analogy that in West Africa boobs have the sexual appeal of elbows. I think its especially nice for me having lived in Florida where at least half the women try to get their shirts’ collar to end just barely above the nipple. I wonder if they lived in a country where men didn’t gravel at cleavage if they would still wear shirts like that? BUT you can’t show your knees. Ohhhhh no, knees are off limits. Cover your knees, you little hussy.

The power goes out daily here. I’ve come to enjoy it when there’s not power at my host’s house. It means no tv and we sit around joking, talking and the kids dance. We’ve had some hilarious moments.  My family is great. I’m really going to miss them when I move out for good. I taught the kids to do cartwheels. They think I’m amazing because I can do a handstand. They also think I’m really smart because I can thumb through the dictionary instead of turning page by page. I translate American songs for them, that they know every word to but have no idea what they mean. I translated an entire Rhianna song the other day, earning mega cool points with the older kids. I’m kind of a big deal! =)

Something else that’s strange and will take some getting used to…. When you really like something you say that its disgusting and you hate it. If you see someone with a new baby, you tell them that their baby is hideous. This is a compliment. I haven’t tried this yet, but I imagine it will be difficult. I think I’ll always be waiting for a horrible reaction. I mean you are literally supposed to say, “Oh your new baby, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen!” Maybe I’ll bring this back to the States as a new trend. Try it with your friends who have babies. Let me know.

The book I mentioned earlier is pretty good and anyone interested in more insight into the PC should check it out. Its called ‘Nine Hills to Nambokana.’ The author is Sarah Erdman. She served in Cote d’Ivoire which is pretty close by so a lot of the cultural explanations and traditions are the same. She’s also a health volunteer and explains a lot about her job. You should check it out. Parents, that means you.

Ok, well I’m beat and have a day full of meetings tomorrow. Its always exciting to come back to the Center until day 2 of nothing but meetings. Its not all that bad, but definitely redundant. Hope everyone is doing well. I’m going to try to get some pics on here while I’m at the center this time. We’ll see. Xo Oh, I find out on Thursday where I’ll be moving! Super, super exciting! I’ll let you know the outcome.

Back to the village...

Its pretty evident now that my posts on here will be random and sporadic. I've had internet for 3 days now but our days are so filled with meetings, debriefings, tech sessions, logistical crap, etc. They gave us so much info on this trip to the compound, that I'm actually a little excited to be in the village for a solid 13 days just so I can thoroughly read and comprehend everything. Plus I haven't studied my language once since I've been back at the compound. This trip to the compound has mostly focused on gardening,  the Senegalese government structure, health structure and NGO structure. They try to tell us everything, but I think they know that we won't really get it until we are involved first hand. I won't, anyway.

So I'll be in the village for 13 days which means no internet. Feel free to call my cell phone. PLEASE call my cell phone. Its so nice to talk to Americans when I'm in the village. I think my phone number is on the second or third post. I think this will be the longest I'll ever have to be in the village at one time. That's good to know, but kinda makes me dread the stint. Found out that the next town where other trainees are is only 3 or so miles. Rumor has it there's a bar there. Mission accepted. After we get back from this stint we find out where we'll be living after training!!! Super exciting! There is a huge map of Senegal painted on the basketball court of the compound, and I'm told that  they blindfold us all and walk us to the spot on the map where we'll be living. Then we can see who we'll be living closest to. I can't wait! I already know though that I'll be in the southeast, the furthest from the coast because that's where my language is spoken. Its the jungle though with lots of waterfalls, so I'm ok with that.

What else? What else? I always just think of random things I want to write on here. And then I cant remember what they are or what I've already written on previous posts. We had another session on more potential, probable diseases we are susceptible to. Its pretty scary. Worms and flies that literally get under your skin and you cant kill them until they mature because they release too much toxins when they're young. Seeds that we are required to plant that release toxic vapor that will give you a poison ivy-like rash no matter what precautionary measures you take. I got over my paranoia of staph from shaving and started shaving again. Well, once. Perhaps I wont do it as often as at home. Im sure if I ever actually get staph it will put an abrupt end to shaving. Malaria is pretty scary too. You get cold/flu like symptoms for a day or so, then you get better for a day or so and then it sets in really quickly and you could potentially be unconscious in a short amount of time. Don't worry though, Im now well educated on the matter and have emergency blood malaria test kits. Its still scary though, of course.

I should start writing things down when I'm not around internet because now I can't think of anything to write. I can't wait to move to my permanent site. We're constantly packing and unpacking between the village and the compound. I want to completely unpack, buy furniture, decorate, etc. I want to cook my own food too. Senegalese food would be amazing if I were eating it once a month or so. Its so monotonous. (I think that's how its spelled.) I would kill to have my bamboo steamer here.  

So someone responded to the mass email I sent before I left and I re-read what I had written. Definitely wrote "right" instead of "write." Wouldn't be that embarrassed except I sent it to a couple of my former professors. If you're reading this, I promise you didn't waste your time teaching me things above an elementary reading level! =)

Another person went back home the other day. Everyone talks about it when that happens. Its sad. The first girl to leave was pretty upset and I think it was probably an easy decision for her. This girl seemed to be fine from what I could tell so I imagine that it was a very difficult decision for her. I'm so glad I don't have that internal battle going on. I still love it here, even though they are overloading us with knowledge right now. It helps that my host family is so great. My host mom and sister have called or text me everyday since I came back to the compound. I think me being there makes the house a little more exciting, so they miss me. I'm definitely comical to them because I butcher the language. Sometimes when they tell me stuff to say, I'm convinced its just so they can laugh when I say it. Its a good time though.

Dad and Graham have started planning their visit over in December. I can't wait! I know by then I'll know all the cool stuff to show them and hopefully have a badass garden and some community projects going on. I know they'll really like Senegal too. The people are so hospitable and have great sense of humor!

Ok, I have to go pack and make some calls. Hope everyone is doing well! xoxo

Day: Who's counting anymore...

So I just got back from my "village" after a week of being there. I wouldn't consider it a village, I'd say town. Let me preface this post by saying that in my town there is no alcohol; all 50 of the Peace Corps' trainees' towns or villages didn't have alcohol. So the second we all got back here, to the kushy Peace Corps compound, we dropped our bags and ran to the bar for a celebratory beer.... or 4. Anyway, my host family in Darou, my town, is AMAZING! With my host family experience in France and now in Africa, I seem to luck out with the host families. My family here gave me the African name, "Salimatou Barry." They are supposed to give us African names so that we can integrate into the community easier. My family consist of my host mother, whom at first I would compare to Whitney Houston because of her diva ways, but is actually very down to earth and hospitable. I have a host father, and his second wife (super common here, not even thought twice about it). Between the 3 of them, there are 14 children in my compound. It is a well oiled machine in that place. They are so hospitable and won't let me do anything to help out. Its pretty nice, I won't lie.
So there it's me and 2 other PCT (Peace Corps Trainees) in this town of Darou and we're the first trainees that the PC has placed in Darou. All the adults are super cool and greet us, ask questions, welcome us, etc. The children however, treat us like celebrities because we're probably the first white people they've seen live and in person. Of course for the first few days its comical to be yelled, "Bonjour" and "Toubab" at all the time. (Toubab means Westerner) After a while its a bit much but I figure its better than them running away from white people, screaming in fear.
There's too many details to give so I'll try give the highlights. Ummm.... I've been using a turkish toilet the whole time and still don't like it. I hate bucket baths. When the roosters wake me up at 4am I have visions of slaughtering them, even though I've never had a desire to kill even a bug in my life. And every hour after 4 am that they wake me up I want to kill them. These Malaria drugs give me the craziest dreams about people I haven't thought about in years. On two different occasions I found mice in my suitcase. My room at my host's family's house is kind of like a prison cell with just a bed. I plan to buy a bedside table while in Thies these few days. I'm trying to devise a plan to convince my host family that I can't eat anymore white rice, white bread or tea with a full cup of sugar in it. Holy cow, I don't know how everyone in this country doesn't have diabetes.
Ok so I just typed a super long blog and lost all of it except for the parts before this, which I was able to recover. Since its almost 1am I'm going to go, but I'll write more during my stint of internet at the compound.
Hope everyone is doing well on that side of the pond. Don't worry, I absolutely love it here! Its still so much better than I ever could have imagined!

Day 4

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is so great! Its like all the advantages of the military without ANY of the disadvantages! Ha, well, so far anyway. I mean with the camaraderie, acronyms, etc. Its like a special society. Sounds silly, whatever.

Today we did tons of hippy stuff. Learning how to cultivate gardens. Its required that we have a personal garden at our site (that's what the place is called where we'll live for 2 years- "at site." Before that, the host family we live with for the duration of training is called IST, In Service Training). Apparently we have a lot of time on our hands after we move out of the compound this Monday so gardening is a huge time killer and super beneficial to our village. So we were taught today how to "double-dig" the earth and lay "amendments" such as ash, manure, charcoal dust, neem leaves for pesticide, etc. We were also taught how to transplant seedlings and how to fill "tree sacks" with manure and sand. Man, we worked with so much manure today. We have to sift it through this 4ft by 2 ft screen and with the crazy wind here its pretty impossible to avoid being downwind from it at all times. Yikes! Apparently cow, goat and sheep manure are the best, in that order, but horse manure is not good; hence the term, "horse shit!" Learning all kinds of fun facts here. Anyway, seems like gardening is going to be a huge part of our lives here regardless of our jobs, which is completely fine with me. I'm confident that if I can make things grow in Africa I can make them grow anywhere! They said that its a good idea to have seeds sent from the States since they don't have everything we could grow readily available here. So feel free to send seeds! And other fun things, like enchiladas and bottles of Gran Marnier!

After a morning and afternoon of gardening we were taught how to fix our not-yet-issued bikes. Two things about this... They brought in a bike expert to teach us (his heavily Ghanianly-accented English) everything he knows about bikes and how to fix them, in an hour's time. All I kept thinking is, "I'll just call you when my bike breaks." Such an American way of thinking. There's no way I retained more than a tenth of what he said. The second thought about this is that they are issuing us Trek 3700s or 3800s. Those are anywhere from $300 - $600. I'm pretty confident that sometime in my service something will happen to that bike whether its a stolen seat, wheel or the entire frame. They said that if its "negligence" we will have to pay for it. Interesting. I'm sure it will be fine since 200k+ other people have dealt with the same bike in third world countries. I was just shocked that they are giving us such nice bikes.

After bike time we went to the center of Thies to the market. Our compound is so nice that I had completely negated any thought of real Senegal and all its "different" smells. The funny part is that since its not hot at all right now the smells are at a minimum and they are still harsh. I've been here during the hot season and know how bad it gets so I feel bad for those who were complaining so much about it today. Their nasal cavities have a rude awakening in a few months. The markets are so eclectic and busy, as with most other markets around the world. Then there are the children who beg for money. It sucks  to be lacking the proper terminology in their language (Wolof) to tell them I'm sorry and to go away. Although its so nice to have French to fall back on with all the adults that I need to converse with along the way.

After market time, we went to the bar that's about a block from the compound. Cold beer was nice! Turns out the bar isn't a bar at all. We walked up to a double iron door and knocked on it. A man, "Micheal" (pronounced Michelle) let us in to his house's courtyard which he operates as a bar. It was legit though. Apparently the Peace Corps compound keeps him in business. Nice courtyard, good people, cold beer. All I needed. Some other volunteers (people out of training are called "volunteers" we are known as "trainees," there's definitely a line there) were with us which is always fun to bombard them with questions of what its really like once we're out of the nest. So far, so good.

Well, that's it for today, I guess. Tomorrow is more language and culture classes. We find out what language we'll be learning which will give us a slight hint as to where we'll be placed after training. They, of course, don't let us know the actual place until "swear in." Hope everyone is doing great. Miss you guys. xoxo
PS- I'm blaming the entire thing on this whacky Malaria medication but my spelling is completely out of control lately. Lots of "wear" instead of "where," "there" in place of "their." So excuse this and don't judge me!