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!

Greetings from Dahra!

             My apologies for not posting any sooner, I have been having some internet issues but I do believe that they have been resolved. So I have been in Dahra since October 20, 2010, and I feel like I am going non-stop. My counterpart is very excited and committed to working with Peace Corps, so he has introduced me everyone in town that he feels like I should know in order to be successful. It has been crazy. It’s so hard to remember everyone’s name here because they sound so different than American names. It’s also difficult because they all remember mine since I’m the new toubob in town (“toubob” is the wonderful Senegalese word for “foreigner”…and they love to call you that…especially the children).

          Overall though, I am really enjoying Dahra. It’s really freaking hot, and I’m pretty sure I’m dehydrated everyday no matter how much water I drink. Supposedly the cool season is approaching…I will believe it when I feel it :) Everyone that I have met so far seems really nice and excited to have a volunteer. I do feel overwhelmed at times though, because they want me to fix all these problems, like lack of water or electricity in every home or build them a new school (which are very important actually), but I do not have the skills nor is it my responsibility. Also trying to explain that I am here to help the community via training, facilitating workshops or help find finance option, not just giving them money, has been a little difficult. Luckily my counterpart understands that, so he’s able to help re-enforce that. He’s also doing a great job in screening people and not giving anyone my phone number.

            So my living situation here is pretty sweet. I actually have my own house! I have a host family which lives about 15 minutes away by foot (in sand), but there are a lot of people in that household – 20+ -- so my counterpart and PC supervisor thought that the house would be best. It’s in a rather quiet neighborhood, so not much noise going on. I have a main room, bedroom, office, bathroom, and kitchen. I have a fence, but there are several holes throughout and there is no gate which invites all the local livestock to come hang out. Sheep, goats, chickens, cats and dogs all like to hang out in my front yard. Still needs a little sprucing up, but I’m really happy. I’m able to head home each night, relax and cook my own dinner  :)
       Here are some pictures of my life in Dahra...I promise to add more later :)



yes, those are Obama pens



A Tribute to Star

So some of you may know this, but probably not: I love baby goats! They are so adorable and I just enjoying watching them play. Well, my counterpart’s family invited me over for lunch one day and they had 8 baby goats at their house. I was so excited! I couldn’t help staring at them. My counterpart’s mom noticed and decided to give me one as a gift. I tried to refuse, but she insisted. So I picked one out (the runt of the litter) but said that she needed to stay there with it’s family. Well, I named her Star and visited as much as I could without the family thinking I was cuckoo. However, she passed away a week ago; she had been the smallest and not able to feed as much as she needed to in order to stay healthy and grow.  Here’s a picture of me holding her J

Vacation in St. Louis!

Last week I went to St. Louis for a few days for a Wolof language seminar. While I was there for training, it felt like a vacation! St. Louis is very nice and much cooler than Dahra since it is on the coast. We had class in the morning, but then had the evenings off so we could explore. The seminar  was great for me because it reminded that I really needed to work on Wolof more (haven’t had to really because I can communicate with my counterpart in French and my level of Wolof was nowhere near being able to communicate with people, so I kind of just shut down).  Our language teacher did a wonderful job and I hope that I can continue to improve. Below are some pictures from St. Louis:

yes, that is a baby hammerhead shark

SHEEP!!!

So this Wednesday is a major Muslim holiday here in Senegal, called Tabaski. This is one holiday I can understand and have no issues celebrating because it celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac when God asked him to, and then God provided a ram in Isaac’s place. To celebrate, each family buys a sheep (more than one if they have multiple families or have the money to do so) which they slaughter the morning of Tabaski and then eat later on in the day. Because of this, there are a ton of sheep everywhere! Dahra already had a lot of sheep, but due to Tabaski, the number has increased dramatically.



Well, on our (one of the volunteers in Linguere, a neighboring city, went to the language seminar with me) way to St. Louis, we took a bus. This bus had, I kid you not, at least 30 sheep inside the bus on the floor under the seats. Then there were about 25-30 people inside the bus. Also,there were probably close to another 20 sheep on top of the bus. We had to ride 6 hours to St. Louis with our feet up or risk being jabbed by a horn (a good Tabaski sheep is white and has massive horns). Needless to say, it was a rather interesting experience. Below is a picture, but it doesn’t do the experience justice.