6 Months In...

    Today marks 6 months of being in Senegal...and wow, time has flown by! I am still adjusting, and know that will probably continue my entire time in Senegal, but I am okay with that :) I am feeling more comfortable though, with the culture and language. And while I do not understand everything, or agree with everything Senegalese, I have learned to accept and appreciate those that I come in contact on a regular basis.

   I have spent a lot of time at my house this past week due to several factors (waiting on a desk and chair that was promised to me in November that has yet to appear, taking care of a newborn kitten, dealing with some severe allergy issues, ect), which has been rather nice. I have been able to start planning a few projects, thinking about logistics and looking up vocabulary terms. Some projects about to start after my week escape to Dakar (huge softball tournament for expats; more to come in the next blog post): moringa presentation with my host mom's new mothers group; pepinaire to start preparing for tree transplantation in local schools during the rainy season; setting up a computer room to teach IT classes; and building a solar oven and solar dryer. Very random, I know...which suits me perfectly :) Until my return from Dakar...

Me and Punx

Celebrating my Birthday in Dahra

     Yesterday, I celebrated my 28th birthday, and had a wonderful day! First off, I went to the missionaries' house on Tuesday and made a birthday cake (they have an oven). The cake turned out awesome...just melted in your mouth. I had some issues with the icing...turns out softened butter and melted butter will not produce the same results. Thus the icing was more of a glaze, which turned the cake into an gooy mess, but it was delicious!

     So I woke up on my birthday to coffee and cake for breakfast (breakfast of champions!) and then opend up my presents (my parents had sent me a package and the missionaries had gave me one) and cards. I am so thankful to have people care and love me as much as my family does. I am truly blessed.

     For lunch, I headed over to my host family's house, where my host mom had prepared Yassa Genard for me (Chicken, rice, and onion sauce). It was delicious! Afterwards, I got my birthday present...a kitten! It's so tiny, but sooooo cute! I just hope it makes it. It is probably too young to be taken away from it's mom, but seeing how my host family reacted around the cat and kittens, it probably has a better chance of surviving with me.

      I was also able to talk to my parents and Bob last night which always makes me happy. Even though we are so far away from each other, it felt like they were able to celebrate my birthday with me :) Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes...makes me feel loved and special!

Update

So this past month, I have been working on language a lot. After my first two months at site and then IST, I felt as though my Wolof skills were not where they needed to be to start working. So I had a nice meeting with my supervisor and counterpart after IST, telling them that I needed to be more independent and work on Wolof for another month or so. I can tell that this "break" has really helped. I still don't enderstand everything, but I'm able to have more conversations and understand more of what people are saying to me. This coming month, I still plan on focusing a lot on Wolof, but I feel confortable to start work too. I'm not sure how quickly I can start projects in Dahra, but I'm going to try to start planning some things and meeting with a few of the women's groups and associations in town.

Here are a few projects that I hope to start working on within the next two months:

• waste management project (hopefully city-wide with the support of the mayor's office)
• IT training
• help out with the English club at the local high school
• planning for teaching Junior Achievement next school year
• start gardens and/or tree nurseries at local schools.

Some cross-sectoral work projects include:

•  HIV/AIDS tournee
• Moringa tournee
• Girls' Leadership Camp  
• Field Days in nearby villages.

I have also been appoved for my Capstone proposal, so I will begin working on that too. My research question is "How does social capital affect local economic development?" I will be focusing my research on my work in Dahra and throughout Senegal. I plan to graduate with my M.A. in December of 2011.

So that's what's been going on here in Dahra :) The weather has been somewhat cooler (upper 80s and lower 90s throughout the day), but we've had a lot of issues with power and water cuts. I'm still adjusting to everything, but I am enjoying my time here. Thank you to everyone for the prayers, words of encouragement, packages, and cards. I appreciate them all!

Christmas Happiness

As I am writing this, I am listening to Christmas music, compliments of my parents. That’s right, it is now January 6, 2011 and I am still celebrating Christmas. Why, you might ask? Because Christmas just wasn’t the same this year without my family, or when the average daily temperature is 100 degrees; besides, Christmas is really about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, not about presents.  I did celebrate Christmas at its’ appointed time, but decided that I would continue for another month or so, as I knew that I had a few packages on the way and several Christmas cards. Today I received 3 packages, one from my parents and one from each of my grandmothers. I am so blessed to have family that wants to make me feel as home as much as possible in a country so far away. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and who have sent me cards…I appreciate your thoughts more than I can express.

American goodies :)

Christmas Time in Dahra

Merry Christmas from Dahra! So I decided to spend Christmas in my site this year instead of going to Dakar, St. Louis, or Popinguine with some other volunteers. I am really glad that I decided to stay in Dahra. While Christmas wasn’t the same as in the States, I had a wonderful experience :) . On Christmas Eve day, I went to the missionaries’ house here in Dahra for a delicious turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, salad, and pies :) . Afterwards, we all hung out and played some cards. They even gave me a Christmas present – a decorated container with some candy inside :) . I am so grateful for having other Christian believers nearby. They were also kind enough to loan some Christmas decorations for my house:

Afterwards, I went to a Senegalese wrestling match (very “Christmas-y” right?). As in true Senegalese fashion, the match started about 3 hours late, which meant the sun was already setting. Of course, just as the match started, the power went out…lol. I used this as my time to escape to my host family’s house to eat dinner with them. The Senegalese people celebrate the 24th for some reason with a big meal of chicken…I don’t even think they know why they celebrate from what I gathered. *Sidenote: There was also a Gamou going on near my family’s house that I was invited to; a Gamou is similar to an Islamic revival, so needless to say, I did not want to participate. Luckily with the power outage, I was able to avoid that and not offend anyone. So my family wanted me to come have dinner with them; they were so awesome….they prepared half a chicken just for me and gave me my own bowl with that, French fries, onion sauce, lettuce, and bread…it was delicious! I hung out with them a little bit until the power came back on and then headed back home. Once home, I was able to Skype my parents who were at my grandmother’s house with the rest of my mom’s side of the family. I was able to talk and see everyone for a few minutes, so that was incredible. I am so thankful for technology…it has made this whole experience so much easier!


On Christmas, I spent most of the day at my house just reading and watching Christmas movies. Late that afternoon, I was able to Skype mom and dad over at my other grandmother’s house so as to talk to all the family over there :) Afterwards, I went out to a local Christian-ran clinic where they were showing the “Jesus film” in Pulaar (and no I do not understand Pulaar, but I know the story :) ) There was a good gathering, so that was encouraging to see. After the film, they served dinner and some sort of fruity drink (which I am pretty sure is the cause of my violent illness later that night…better now though). Afterwards, I made a short appearance at an AIDS awareness event and then went home to call it a night. Overall, a wonderful experience that I am very thankful for; definitely not your typical American Christmas, but I am in Senegal…

All-Vol and IST

Hello! My apologies again for such a long delay between postings; I’m new at this whole blog thing. So I spent the last 3 weeks in Thies for our West African All-Volunteer Conference (All-Vol) and In-Service Training (IST). All-Vol is when all the PC volunteers in Senegal and some from neighboring countries gather together to share best practices in the field. The conference was for 2 ½ days filled with presentations from all sectors; all of the presentations that I went to were really interesting. I’m not sure how much they relate to possible work that I will be doing here in Dahra, but it was still really cool to see success stories from other volunteers. One of the best parts about the conference was actually the night before All-Vol started when we had a conference call with Steve Radelet, author of Emerging Africa. I am taking part in a development theory seminar that our Country Director is facilitating, and Emerging Africa was one of the books that we had read. Steve Radelet is very knowledgeable in the subject area of development, and is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, so he was very helpful in discussing PCV’s role in development.



After All-Vol, I had two weeks of IST with all of the other volunteers in my stage. IST is when we are supposed to gain more technical knowledge that will help us better execute our projects. Overall, I enjoyed IST. I feel as though I did learn a lot and it helped me to focus on what I really want to accomplish over the next two years. However, it was a lot of time stuck inside watching PowerPoint presentations. It would have been nice to have some more hands-on activities or some more cross-sector classes. In the middle of IST, we were able to go to Dakar to visit the Artisans Expo. This is when PCVs that are working with artisans bring them to Dakar to showcase and sell their items to ex-pats that may be returning home for the holidays. I bought several things :) My favorite purchase is my new chair; it may not look that comfortable, but it is…also, the engraving is really cool!

Wish List

Hello!
   So with Christmas approching quickly and my birthday soon to follow, I thought I would provide you all with a wish list of some sort, in case anyone would like to send me packages :)  Please see the list below my mailing address. These are items that I would like throughout my service, so feel free to send them at anytime :) Of course, I will be happy with anything that is sent to me and I would love to receive cards as much as anything else. Thank you in advance!