This
past week has been quite exciting for all of us trainees as we found out our
permanent sites and visited the Peace Corps Volunteers who we'll be
replacing. After a long day of classes
at the training center, all of us trainees gathered around the basketball court
which has the map of Senegal painted on it.
Staff members blindfolded us and then led us to the place on the map
that corresponded with our permanent site.
Standing with my friends at the edge of the court, I could barely
contain my excitement to find out where I'd be living for the next two years
and which of my friends would be my neighbors.
Staff members led more and more of my friends away until I was one of
the last trainees standing beside the court.
Finally, Youssafa took my hand and turned me in circles until I wasn't
sure where I was on the map. Since I'm
learning the language most common in Senegal, I could have been placed almost
anywhere in the country and the suspense was killing me. After Youssafa told me to stop and handed me
my packet with the information about my site, I stood there feeling around for
who might be near me. Several of my
friends were close to me, and we joined the chorus of excited voices as we
tried to guess where we were standing on the map. After an excruciatingly long wait, we
counted down and tore off our blindfolds.
I'm
going to be spending the next two years in a village of 120 people (50 of which
are adults) close to the regional borders of Kaffrine and Tamba, and very close
the Gambian border. I'll also be working
with 2-3 surrounding villages that are about the same size. The volunteer that I'm replacing lived in one
of the other villages, so I'll be starting a new site!
A
couple of days after finding out about our sites, we trainees were packed into
Peace Corps vehicles and driven across the country to visit our future
homes. Those of us serving in the
Kaffrine region were dropped off at our regional house and met the other
volunteers who are going to be our neighbors and closest friends for the rest
of our time here. An interesting aspect
about Peace Corps is that there volunteers around the country do not come in at
the same time, but come in two waves a year.
This meant that people I met this weekend either were leaving, would be
leaving in 6 months, had been here for a little under a year, or had just
arrived six months ago. Our new friends
were so excited to meet us that they cooked an American meal of flatbread
pizza, peanut butter banana bread, and fruit salad.
After
our lunch together, those of us living near one another on the outskirts of
Kaffrine shared a sept-place back to our 'road-town.' Since so many of us live in the bush, we all
have what is called a 'road town,' or a town that is on paved roads and has
transportation. Luckily, one of my new
neighbors lives only 5K from our road town and we were able to spend the night
at her place. After the drive, a stop at
the post office, and a tour of my neighbor's hut, we went in search of
dinner. Although I live in the bush, at
least a day's journey away from internet, I have the perk of excellent bean
sandwiches. For dinner, I experienced my
first bean, cassava, and onion sandwich on fresh, dense baguettes. It was
excellent!
Toting
our sandwiches wrapped in newspaper, the five of us (my three neighbors, the
volunteer I'm replacing, and I) sat on the floor to start our feast. After wolfing down enormous sandwiches, we
ate the melted chocolate bars I had brought as gifts off the wrappers with
spoons. It was a great evening of
chatting, tons of questions from me, and good food. I personally think that chocolate bars are
better when melted and eaten with a spoon.
The
next day, my volunteer took me to the garage in my road town to get a ride to
our villages. We told the man in charge
where we wanted to go, he sold us tickets to a truck that had wooden benches in
the back and a rack on top to hold our bags, and told us to wait until all the
seats had been bought and we could leave.
My volunteer told me that we would probably be in for a long wait, and
that this would be routine for me. Four
hours later, we still had not left.
We've all waited for things before, but have you ever waited sitting under
a small shade structure on hot asphalt with the African sun beating down, with
nothing to occupy your time, and you sticking out like a sore thumb? Well, now I can say that I have... and I'll
be doing it regularly. We finally piled
into the truck and I watched the beautiful scenery flash by. It's the end of the rainy season, so my
future home was still green. Green
grasses that came up over my head, green crops being harvested in the fields,
and green trees. Shade trees, palm
trees, and (my personal favorite) baobab trees.
By the time I move here in a month, the world will be pretty yellow and
desolate, but give it another year and the green will return! (Or so I've been told.)
I
spent the next couple of days being shown the villages I'll be working with and
the community I'll be living in. There
is so much to tell, but thankfully, I'll have two years to learn and
communicate more specifics. Some of the
areas that we visited that I've already started thinking of projects for are
the regional school, local women's' gardens, and regional health hut. One of the highlights of my visit was
meeting my host community. Within
minutes of my arrival, a village meeting was called and all 120 people (or just
about all of them) gathered around to meet me.
My host father gave me my new name, Yassine Ndjaye (pronounced
'Njie'). A Peace Corps regional official
came to the meeting and told my host community about how I was going to be
different since I was an American, what my job would be, and how they could
help me be a part of the community. It
was touching to see how excited these people were to have me there and they all
promised to welcome me whole-heartedly into the community.
Transportation
was the theme of my trip, and it continued to be an adventure my last
morning. To catch a Peace Corps bus that
was coming through my road town that morning, my volunteer and I caught a local
charette that was heading in the direction we were headed. A charette is a flat cart drawn by horse or
donkey. You sit sideways on it and rest
your feet on the side board. It was
about as picturesque as it could get, being slowly pulled along a dirt track from
thatch-roofed village to thatch-roofed village while watching the sun
rise. I was soaking up the new
landscape, sounds and smells when suddenly a rain storm hit... and I swear I
soaked up half the rains in Africa.
Since the sun hadn't risen yet, the cold rains deeply chilled my
volunteer and I. After riding in the
rain for about an hour, we stopped at the first village we came to and waited
out the storm under a tin-roofed boutique.
I was worried that the roads were so rain-soaked that we wouldn't be
able to continue, but our horse persevered and we arrived in our road town
completely soaked. I'm learning the
lessons of Senegalese transportation pretty quickly, so I wasn't surprised that
the Peace Corps bus I was hopping on (definitely one of the fastest methods of
transportation in the country) was delayed by six hours. So my volunteer and I explored the market
(where I bought fresh peanut butter- one of the perks of living in the Peanut
Basin), stopped at the post office, and ran errands in soaking wet
clothes. At the time, it didn't seem all
that exciting, in fact, it felt pretty miserable. But it makes for a pretty good story and I
can say that I've lived through my first African adventure!
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