Moving to Dahra

I am on my way to Dahra, with a two-day stop in Louga. I'll try to post my new address as soon as I know it. Until then, thanks for all the prayers and encouragement!

Swearing-In Ceremony

As of October 15th, I am an official Peace Corps Volunteer :) Woo Hoo!

We left for Dakar early Friday morning to go to our swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Ambassador's residence. We were all decked out in traditional African wear (see the pics below). The ceremony took about two hours, with speeches from our country director, the ambassador, and our training director. Afterwards, we went outside to a nice spread of snacks and Senegalese cocktails (i.e. no alcohol). Then we headed to the Peace Corps office to finish up some paperwork. Lastly, we ended up at the Atlantique Club for an afternoon of relaxation :) Overall, a wonderful day, a little emotional, but really good. I am glad that I am now official :)



61 new volunteers!



celebrating at the Atlantique club

Thank you to everyone for all the support and prayers! These past two months have been harder than I expected, and I am so thankful for everyone back home supporting me!

I am being installed in Dahra on Wednesday, so wish me luck! I'll post more after I get to my new "home".

Host Family Reception

      On Thursday, we had a reception for our host families. It was really nice to see my host mom again and all the other family heads from Bayakh. It started with everyone arriving around noon, followed by lunch. After lunch, there was a group of Pulaar singers and then a short ceremony thanking all the families for taking us in, caring and teaching us for two months. It was just really cool to hear how happy everyone was to have us here in Senegal, trying to help the people here.

The Bayakh group





Bayakh volunteers and families

 

last week in Bayakh

        Well my last week in Bayakh went very quickly. We only had a few days of class, which was good and bad at the same time. It was a nice change from the excessive amount of class we had the week before, yet I don't feel like it was enough to progress any in Wolof. I did end up moving up a level of Wolof though, which was quite uunexpected. I'm sure I'll get more comfortable with it as I move into my new site; right now, it's still just all mushed up in my head.

        Over the weekend, Julia's mom taught us how to make beignets and then cooked duck for dinner. Both were amazing! I definitely plan on making beignets when I get back to the States...yum!        



Julia mixing the ingredients



       

 



before

after



Me and my host sister, Soda

So saying goodbye to my family was kind of sad. They are very sweet and welcomed me into their home for two months. I don't feel like we really communicated or connected that much, but they definitely have a place in my heart. I plan on  visiting them in December when I come back to Thies for IST. Before leaving, my mom gave me a new dress and then cooked lamb for lunch. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of lamb, but I was able to eat the rice and sauce that she prepared as well. It was very sweet of her...now she knows that I do not like lamb though... Overall, I had a wonderful time in Bayakh and will miss everyone there. Definitely a wonderful learning experience :)

me and my host mom :)









Update

My apologies for not posting anything in a couple of weeks...I have been a little under the weather and have spent all of my free time resting. I am still not at 100 %, but thought I would try to update everyone on my last couple of weeks here in Senegal.

So I started learning Wolof when I returned back to Bayakh, and wow.... It seems like it will be a fun language once I get the hang of it, but right now, my head is just spinning. It is completely different than french or english, both in grammatical structure and pronunciation. We were having class for 6 hours a day, so by the end of the day, all I wanted to do was go home and veg out...no time to process anything really. The only reason we were having so much class is because we technically only have 14 days to learn Wolof, so our LCF was trying to provide us with as much vocabulary and information as possible. That was very kind of him, however, my brain did not appreciate it. This week we kind of have a break from language which is nice, and I think when we go back to Bayakh, classes will run more smoothly.

Life in Bayakh hasn't been too eventful. As I mentioned earlier, I have been sick so I haven't spent that much time outside of class doing anything other than resting. However, there was a baptism one day that we were invited to. Baptism here are really baby-naming ceremonies. It's kind of an odd event, from my perspective at least. The baptism takes place one week after the baby is born. At some point in the morning, the Iman(Islamic religious leader) comes over and whispers the name (of the parents' choosing) of the baby into the baby's ear. After that, the mom goes and gets all dressed up (we're talking celebrity fabulous) and everyone else just hangs out at the house socializing. Up in the afternoon, the mom returns, and then everyone eats lunch. After that, the mom may go and change again for the evening party; I left before that happened. Most of the ceremonies here appear to be a good excuse for people to dress up and socialize; much like in the States, yet just seems really different since the cultures are so different.



Jamie and the new mom



One evening, our LCFs surprised us with a quick trip to the beach :) There is a small fishing community about 20 minutes away from Bayakh called Kayar. Absolutely gorgeous beach! I could hardly beleive that I was in Senegal. The trip was unexpected; the beach was gorgeous; and was a perfect ending to a rather heavy week of classes.

We also had our counterpart workshop this past weekend. This is a two-day workshop where the supervisors and counterparts for each new volunteer visit Thies to go over logistics and expectations of/for volunteers. We also put on an American Cultural Fair to show our counterparts differents aspects of American Culture that are important to us and might help to explain our "odd" behavior at times :) The 6 areas discussed were: American history and politics; the role of women; daily life and leisure activites; diversity; food and clothing; and pop culture vs. real culture. Our group presented on diversity; I think it went really well. Everyone was attentive and had some really good questions. The training coordinator even asked us to make a copy of everything for her so that she can use it when training new Senegalese staff.

Well, that's about it for now. I have two more weeks of training and then I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer :) The next couple of weeks will be rather busy, but I will try to post whenever I can. Until then, thank you for all the prayers and support :) I greatly appreciate them!