Special 6th Month Anniversary Update

As of today, I've been in Senegal for 6 months, so I thought it would be appropriate to do a special double entry.

Part 1- Dear Senegal, Happy Anniversary

Dear Senegal,

On this, our 6th month anniversary, I'd like to reflect on this past half-year and think about all of the things that I've learned, experienced, gotten better at, gotten worse at, miss about America, etc.

*Top 10 Things Senegal has Taught Me-

1) They aren't joking around when they say "hot season"

Seriously, staph infections are no laughing matter

2) Don't mess with a staph infection

3) Every person you meet will ask if you're married, why you aren't married, if you'll marry them, etc.

4) Having an awesome biking playlist is essential

5) Senegalese people are afraid of frogs

6) Most people here don't understand the concept of sunburn/suntan lotion, etc. and think I'm very odd for applying lotion multiple times a day

7) Dogs here aren't nice like American dogs. Do not try to pet them

8) People here have a hard time distinguishing between different kinds of toubabs. I'm frequently asked if I'm Japanese.

9) How to fix a flat bike tire- something I've used many, many times by this point

10) Punctuality means nothing and if something is supposed to begin at 4pm, then I should arrive around 6:30

My mural for making mosquito-repelling neem lotion

*Top 5 Things I've Gotten Better at-

1) Bargaining

2) Painting murals

3) Washing clothes by hand

4) French braiding my hair

5) My Wolof

*Top 5 Things I've Gotten Worse at-

1) Speaking English (not a lot worse, but I definitely forget certain words sometimes)

2) Being up to date on current events

3) Knowing what day of the week or month it is/having any sense of time

4) Being reliable (here it's very common to say you're going to do something and then not, so I'm technically just going with the flow, right?)

5) Driving (this one's just a guess, but I'm sure that if I tried to drive today I'd be pretty bad at it)

*Top 5 Things I Still Need to Work On-

1) My gardening skills

2) Getting angry/upset about things that I consider rude, but aren't rude here (comparisons, telling you that you can't do something, laughing at how you do something, etc.)

3) Figuring out an effective way to introduce behavior change in my village

4) Patience

5) My Wolof

*Top 5 Things I Miss About America-

1) My friends and family (obviously)

2) Anonymity & Privacy- the thought of being able to walk down a street and not have every single person immediately zone in on you and yell at you sounds amazing

3) THE FOOD!!! I could go on and on about this, but I'll save it

4) The simplicity of traveling in the US. The fact that you can just get in a car and drive yourself somewhere is amazing

5) Being able to wear whatever clothes I want (not that floor-length dresses and capris are the bad, but it's very hot and shorts would be nice)

*Top 5 Things I'll (try to) Never Complain About Again Once Returning Home-

1) The heat- nothing in the US compares to this

2) Any technical difficulties ever (Oh the power went out for a couple hours? I can't get wi-fi in this one specific place? Not such a big deal anymore)

3) Loud noises- again, nothing in the US compares to here

4) Lack of choices/variety in just about anything

5) Being bored/not having anything to do... there are SO MANY things to do

*Top 5 Things I Have to Look Forward to in the Next 6 Months-

1) Seeing my parents and brother for Christmas!!!!

2) Meeting up with my fellow American friends for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and New Years

3) My village has a big celebration in January, so it'll be fun to see what that's all about

4) Actually getting going on my work now that I've settled in and know the language

5) Linguere getting 4 new PCVs in November!

And now some silliness...

*Top 10 Favorite Things that I Have In-Country-

1) My laptop and basically all electronics

2) My ipod, speakers and arm band (who knew a little pair of speakers that I got at Dick's for $7 would be one of my favorite things here?)

3) My wonderful, fluffy American pillow

4) My bike

5) Pictures all over my room of my friends and family back home

6) My solar charger

7) My hanging toiletry case (Again, really? This is one of my favorite things? But it's amazing!)

8)My Swiss army knives

9) My headlamps!

10) Everything that anyone has ever sent from America  (especially food, tissues, and other toiletries!)

*Top 5 TV Shows That I've Gotten Into Since Being Here/Have Kept Up With-

1) Dexter (started watching here)

2) Mad Men (started watching here)

3) GLEE! (kept up with- duh)

4) True Blood (currently up to date)

Don't go chasin' waterfalls 

5) 30 Rock (re-watched every single episode while here- yup, it's possible)

*Top 5 Best Flavors of Drink Mixes (I'm an expert now)-

1) Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange

2) Crystal Light Lemonade + Peach Iced Tea = A delicious Arnold Palmer

3) Ocean Spray Cranberry/Pomegranate

4) Propel Lemon and any Propel Zeros

5) Crystal Light Raspberry Lemonade

So that's where I'm at, Senegal. We've had some good times (riding a camel, 4th of July, the trip to the waterfall) and we've had some bad times (my horrible toe, every single time I've had to travel here, language frustrations) but these past 6 months have been most exciting half-year I've had so far.

My first camel ride

So happy

And now, part 2 of this special double-entry...

Part 2- Let's Talk About Ramadan...

Okay, so I have officially experience my first Ramadan. One down, one to go. So let's start with the basics... Ramadan is the holiest month in the Islamic calendar, and this year it was from August 1st-August 30th. During Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. They also aren't supposed to smoke, gossip, look at unlawful things- really every part of the body is supposed to observe the fast; not just the stomach.

So my daily schedule during Ramadan went a little something like this...

4:25am- Woken up by my brother to come eat

4:30am- Eat breakfast (usually leftover dinner, like rice and fish)

4:40am- Back to bed

Day- Wake up, go about activities, lay around a lot, nap, read, etc.

7:30pm- Break fast time! We usually had dates, coffee, milk, fruit juices, and COLD WATER!!

10pm- Dinner(standard Senegalese foods- rice and fish, rice and beans, etc.)

So did I actually fast during the day? Most of the time, yes. Would I sometimes cheat and drink water? Oh heck yes. The not eating part really wasn't bad at all because you were eating, just not at the normal breakfast/lunch/dinner times. But not drinking water...during the day....in August...in the desert? Not the easiest thing I've ever tried. And what really stunk were the days when I actually would go all day without drinking water, like days when I was travelling. It's not like in America where you could go into a public restroom and sneak some water in a stall or something... here you're kind of screwed. So, unfortunately, there were some days when I did go without food or drink all day long. Those were not my favorite days. Also, I didn't observe fasting whenever I wasn't in-village, like when I was in Linguere or in Thies at training, but I wouldn't eat or drink in front of any Muslim people.

So what was it like being a non-Muslim during the holiest Islamic month? Well, for starters, pretty much every single person I met asked me if I was fasting. And not just family and acquaintances, I mean random strangers on the street yelling out, "Hey Toubab, are you fasting??" And then, often, when I would tell them that I was fasting they would ask if I was praying too. I never quite knew how to respond to this, so I would usually say that I was saying my Catholic prayers. People didn't really seem to care how I was praying, just that I was observing the fast.

Helping cook my special Korite lunch... how delicious!

Ramadan ends with a celebration called Korite, which is the first day of the new moon. So to figure out when Ramadan's actually over, people look to the sky to see when the moon has fully disappeared. This year, the last day of fasting was August 30th and Korite was the 31st. I was really excited for Ramadan to end (not in a bad way, just in a I'm-so-over-fasting way) so I was extra-excited for Korite, my first big holiday in-village.

All in all, I think I was probably more excited about Korite than everyone in my entire village. I guess I'm just used to American holidays where there's a bunch of fanfare, food and drinks, family visiting from far away, etc. I started out my first Korite with a bike ride, a breakfast of porridge, then I helped cook lunch with some of the women in my compound. As dumb as it sounds, one of  the best things about Korite was being able to drink water during the day out in the open. So, most of the day, I sipped water and helped cook. Here are some pictures of us making lunch (I apologize for how gross our food looks here).

Little sibs playing with bubbles from the US (thanks, Mom!)

My sister, Bassine, in her Korite attire

There's a special greeting the you have to say on Korite, which means "forgive me," then you respond "I forgive you," so I said that to people all day long. The most exciting part of the day was probably after lunch when we had some soda. Then we chilled around the compound all day. Around 5pm I put on some sweet Senegalese clothes and walked around greeting people. (*Another apology- people here are really bad at taking pictures, so I often have a really hard time getting pictures with me in them) And that was pretty much it. We made lunch, drank soda and greeted people. Then it was back to normal post-Ramadan life.

My youngest sister, Seyni, cheesing for the camera

So now that all is said and done I can say that...

1) Ramadan isn't too bad when you're able to sneak water

2) Ramadan stinks when you aren't able to sneak water

3) I wouldn't mind taking a vacation during Ramadan next year

4) Compared to American holidays, Senegalese holidays are kind of a let down

So that's all for now. I'm off to Dakar tomorrow for a few days of celebrating our 6 month mark in-country, then I'm going to Thies for training the new Agriculture trainees. I'm going to be in Thies until around the 19th. I'm really excited to meet the new trainees and can't wait to find out which 4 are going to come to Linguere.

The Day I Almost Lost My Mind

As I have mentioned on here before, sometimes Senegal brings out an angry side of me that turns me into a screaming, stressed out, crazy person. And, luckily, it does this to most other volunteers too, so at least I'm not alone in my craziness. Well, let me tell you about my day yesterday- a day which will live in infamy forever.

We've been biking around to each others' villages the past few days working on projects together. Yesterday morning we were in village. We woke up bright and early with the intention of biking from my village to our regional house in Linguere, roughly 45k on bush paths. Three of us biked and two took a bush taxi because one of my friends is really sick and needed to get out of the village.

So, my morning began with a long bike ride. I had never biked from my village to Linguere before because the sand is too hard to bike in during the hot, dry season. With the small amount of rain that we've had, we thought that it would packed down enough to bike on now. And we made it... but it was a rough ride. So my morning started out with a looong, rough ride to the regional house.

We pulled up to the house, tired from our ride and anxious to see how our sick friend was doing... only to find that one of the compounds across from our house was BLASTING screaming, wailing music/chanting/yells at an insanely high volume. This is not uncommon here. People really get a kick out of blasting music and prayers, and we're all very used to the mosques going off five times a day for prayer times. But this wasn't the usual music.

We got into the house around noon and heard that the music had already been blasting continuously for over an hour. No big deal, we figured it would end eventually. Oh how wrong we were.

*Side note: My friend Justin has a much better, more detailed account of all of this on his blog, so if you feel so inclined, the link to his blog is on the right side of this page under "Justin," it's very entertaining. And I also semi-copied his blog entry. Thanks, Justin!

So here's the timeline...

12pm: Pulled up exhausted from our ride. Music/screaming blasting.

1pm: Our first video recording of the noise. Enjoy:

2pm: Attempt to sound-proof the house with foam mats and blankets. Somewhere around this time we moved our sick friend out of here to our friends' house. They're American missionaries and unbelievably generous and kind to us. So at least our sicky was able to escape the noise for a little.

5pm: Starting to lose it. Going insane. Here's my friend Ann Marie trying to explain what's going on. Notice you can't hear anything she says.

6pm: Somewhere around this time I call my mom to let her hear this insanity. She says it sounds like I'm at a concert. It's really that loud.

7pm: Enough is enough. We go over to the people blasting the music and politely ask them if it's possible to turn it down a little. Not turn it off, just turn it down. Request denied. We ask when they're going to turn down the music. Answer: 6am is Allah wills it. OH MY GOD!

8pm: Another video documenting our plight. We are actually losing our minds.

9pm: At this point I'm no longer leaving the house because I'm afraid my anger will get the better of me. Some of the more cool-minded volunteers head over to the local police station to try to get real help. The police go ask them to turn their music down. They don't. We think they might have paid the police off. Who knows. Basically nothing we can do at this point.

10pm: HALLELUJAH! THE POWER GOES OFF! Let the celebration begin! One of the perks of being in a country where power outages happen on a regular basis.

*Educational moment: "Koran" is the Wolof word for electricity.

11pm- Guess who has a generator? The people across the street. The music begins again at full force.

Around 5am- the music stops. Really? Really? 5am?

Yeah so that's my life right now. The one place I can go to get some work done- the place that has internet, a printer, actual resources... and I have to listen to this all day. Sorry for the complaining... but venting on here is a great release. It prevents Angry Fae from emerging and freaking out at the general Senegalese public. So thanks for listening, blog readers.

The silver lining to this situation was that I was able to stop by the post office in Linguere and pick up some AMAZING packages! A huuuuuge thank you to my wonderful, wonderful, wonderful family and friends (my fabulous Aunt Anne Marie, the great Edwards Family, my dear neighbors the Affertons, and my beloved AU partner in crime Jessica!) who sent me some love. At least during this crazy noise I was able to munch on delicious American goodies, and I got some great maps that I can use to make murals in my village. Again- a huge thank you, everyone! I know it's not easy sending stuff here, and I really appreciate it!!

So now I'm trying to get work done here while it's "quiet," but all I want to do is pass out. I promise that I'll do a post on Ramadan next time. Good luck with Irene, everyone! I can't believe all of that going on in America right now. I'm thinking good thoughts for all of you and hope it's not going to be too bad!

Love you all. Stay safe. And be courteous to your neighbors and don't blast music for an entire day.

Team Djolof combats malaria

I can safely say that these past few days have been my most exhausting, busy and productive days in-country thus far. The 13 members of Team Djolof (aka the 13 volunteers in the Linguere region) decided it was time to kick malaria's butt and go on a 4-day educational tourney to 11 different villages. We came together and used our money (which is quite limited), artistic abilities (also quite limited), language skills, theatre experience (ha), and patience to create a fabulous presentation which we presented in Wolof in 8 villages, Pulaar (a different language) in 2 villages, and both Wolof and Pulaar in one village.

We were helped out by a fabulous PC staff member, Tidiane Diaw, who herded us and our supplies around to the various villages and gave a lovely speech at the end of every presentation in the local languages, ensuring that the villagers understood our attempts at Wolof and Pulaar. Couldn't have done it without you, Tidiane!

Setting up in Mbeuleukhe

Anyway, we ventured around the region for 4 days and my village, Mbeuleukhe, was the second one we visited. Below are some photos from Mbeuleukhe's tourney. We had quite the turn out. Pretty much every village had huge numbers because any time a truck pulls up with 13 toubabs, the villagers are sure to come out to see what's up.

The crowds of Mbeuleukhe

I was really nervous for the presentation in my village! My Wolof is getting better gradually, but it's nowhere near as good as the volunteers who have been here for over a year. And Senegalese people LOVE making comparisons (ex- "She's prettier than you," "You don't understand anything but that guy speaks Wolof really well," "You know your friend, the one that's fattest?" etc.) so I was really nervous to roll up to village with a bunch of PCVs that have been a year up on me.

But, luckily, I think it went really well! After we came in and introduced ourselves, whoever's village it was would give a brief description of why it's important to learn about malaria, what it is, etc. Then it was theatre time! This was without a doubt the best part, both for us and for the villagers. Our first theatre was all about debunking myths. Skit 1 involved debunking the myth that unripe mangoes give you malaria. Skit 2 (in which I starred) was about walking in the hot sun. Skit 3 was about spirits, 4 was about milk, and 5 was about too much dancing. Yes, these seem very silly. And, yes, we all know that drinking milk and dancing too much cannot give you malaria. But almost every single time we would ask at the end of the skits, "So, do unripe mangoes give you malaria?" people would shout "YES!!" The two most popular choices were unripe mangoes and evil spirits.

Chanting, chanting and more chanting

So, obviously, the next part of our presentation involved a lot of discussion about mosquitoes, the real cause of malaria. We also made neem lotion, a lotion made from neem leaves which repel mosquitoes and it REALLLLY easy and cheap to make. And oh did we chant. We chanted about mosquitoes, we chanted about mosquito nets, we chanted about everything. I will never ever for the rest of my life forget the phrases MAT MAT YOO INDIE NA SIBURU or NATANDE BOO DI ADDI JONTINOJI ("mosquito bites bring malaria" in Wolof and Pulaar).

I'm pretty confident that the knowledge sank in because everywhere we go now people scream the chant at us and talk about neem lotion, mosquito nets, etc. And it didn't occur to me beforehand how crazy it is for villagers to see 13 white people together performing skits and yelling into a bullhorn. I think everyone in the region definitely wants to do more group projects because it's a chance for all of us to work and hang out together, and the villages really benefit.

Team Djolof with Tidiane and our props

Highlights of the tour included playing the "find the house baby" contest (in which we each sought out the cutest village baby that we could steal and keep in our volunteer house), all the dance parties which spontaneously began in nearly every village, and dressing our PCV guys up in fabulous Senegalese dresses and head wraps for the skits. It was also fun whenever you were in a village that didn't speak your respective language (in my case, Pulaar) because you had to memorize lines in a different language and the entire presentation you just nodded your head as people were speaking a languages that sounded like "biddi boodi boddi bendi bloopi bondi biddi bippi"

The good people of Mbeuleukhe

And, finally, the truck rides. Oh the truck rides. There were 13 of us plus our PCV staff member, Tidiane. So 14 total in a truck.  A regular, normal-sized truck. We usually did 6 people inside, 8 people outside plus all of the supplies outside. Senegalese roads are bumpy. All of us have left this experience with incredibly bruised butts and lots of cramps going on. But the view was usually really pretty.

Zooming around Africa

So that's all I have about malaria for now. Team Djolof also currently has some basketball court projects and a Girl's Camp project going on. Here's the link for the b-ball court, and the girl's camp stuff will be up soon.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.peacecorps.gov%2Findex.cfm%3Fshell%3Ddonate.contribute.projDetail%26projdesc%3D685-182&h=8AQDndOVDAQCUJ57h31LNARRi0CC3Mncpt7EfpG3crdY28w

So I'll be updating again hopefully soon about the wonders of Ramadan. Remember... mosquitoes, not mangoes, bring malaria!

Exciting Times at IST and the Dermatologist

My past three weeks have been so unbelievably crazy I don't even know where to begin! First I travelled to Thies with my fellow Linguere-ians for our IST (In-Service Training). All of us were so excited to get to the big city and eat pizza, drink beer and speak English for a little while, AND meet up with all of our friends.

The actual training part of IST was usually pretty interesting. We had two weeks of all-day sessions. Training consisted of a lot of "how to" projects... how to make nutritional porridge for malnourished babies (which by the way is DELICIOUS and all of us kept eating it), how to make mud stoves, how to write grants, etc. So that aspect of training was good. Other sessions (maternal health in Senegal, the Senegalese school structure, etc.) were more repetitive and boring. But, all in all, the actual training part of IST wasn't bad.

Side note: Team Linguere decided to rep the wild, wild west of Senegal and all wore our Team Djolof shirts the first day of IST (history factoid- our region is referred to as "The Djolof" because it's used to be the Djolof Kingdom back in the day). And, yes, the back of the shirts say "where things go to die," because we're badass and live in the desert. Represent.

So that's what was good about IST, what was bad was that my toe is mean and never wants to heal. One of the first days of IST, our Peace Corps doctor stopped by the Training Center for a med session. I asked if she would take a look at my toe because it still looked pretty gross, and once she saw it she sent me promptly to Dakar for some real medical attention. So I went to a dermatologist who proceeded to cut out half of my toenail and a lot of the infection on the toe. This was fine because I preferred having stitches on my toe for a few weeks as opposed to having my toe eventually fall off. What was funny was that the doctor and I didn't share any common languages except for my very limited French, so he was making a lot of big hand gestures to demonstrate things like "now I'm going to numb your toe," and "don't touch this for three days!" So that was a fun experience.

Then it was back to IST, where we continued learning, and being social with other Americans. Our social activities included many movie screenings including HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART II!! All of my friends at home will appreciate the importance of this for me. The highlight of the film viewing was that all text was written in Russian. Yay for bootleg movies in Africa!

After IST was over, a lot of us hung around the Training Center to attend a meeting for SeneGAD (Senegal's Gender and Development initiative). SeneGAD has a lot of on-going projects that I'm interested in working on and some that I've already been able to help out with, like a scholarship to help village girls continue and fund their education. I decided to run for one of the board positions that was opening up and I lucked out and won! So now I'm SeneGAD's new Training Coordinator, which means that I'll be travelling to Thies to help train the new trainees/volunteers about SeneGAD projects, gender issues in Senegal, plan events with our PC staff, etc. I'm excited to get to meet all of the new trainees when they arrive in-country, and help them learn the ropes.

In fact, I get to go back to Thies really soon- August 17th- to do some sessions with the group that arrived here in June. We also get a new group of Agriculture trainees at the end of August and I'll be able to be with them right off the bat. Selfishly I'm really excited about this because my region will be getting 4 new volunteers from that August Ag Stage, so I'll be able to scope everyone out. We currently have 13 people in the Linguere region (one of which will be leaving very shortly), so 4 new people is going to be really exciting! The people in your region become your closest friends/confidants/support system. It's like the friends you meet at college or camp or your job in America, except that you're the only people around who share a common language and culture and ethnicity.

So, anyway, then I headed back to Dakar to get my stitches out. The stitches came out fine, but my doctor isn't too happy with how my toe's healing. I'm ready for it to get cut off at this point. So that stunk, but luckily this time in Dakar I was able to spend a few days and eat at real restaurants, go to a happy hour, and wear a skirt above my knee. So scandalous! Dakar was fabulous but definitely not within the price range of a PCV. I'm going to have to save up for my next trip.

Now I'm back in Linguere at the regional house preparing for a malaria tourney throughout the region that we're going to do in a few days. We're going to go to each of our villages and perform skits about what does and does not cause malaria (mosquitoes do, green mangoes and evil spirits do not), teach people how to make a lotion that repels mosquitoes, promote the importance of sleeping with mosquito nets, etc. Also, Jenn and I are planning on recording two radio shows which will air in September. We're planning on doing one called "Tea Time with Jenn & Fae" in which we discuss how people make tea in different countries, how too much sugar is bad for you, the truth about caffeine, etc. And we'd like to do our second one on family planning and reproductive health. And we'll obviously be interspersing the educational segments with Glee songs, maybe some new Britney Spears, and Senegal's national pride and joy, Akon.

So that's what I'm currently up to in my life, planning skits about how spirits can't cause malaria and making radio shows about reproduction. I hear that exciting things are happening in America... like shark week, the new season of the Jersey Shore and my bff Kyle getting an awesome new job! Keep me posted on all of the exciting events, everyone. Also, a HUGE shout-out to my parents, my Aunt Anne Marie, and the fabulous Park family for the fantastic packages that were waiting for me upon my arrival back in Linguere. Especially exciting was Kyle's article from Philly Beer Scene magazine about his "Saison de Senegal" beer that he brewed for my departure, photos of family from home, and toys for my little siblings in-village.

I'll be back in Dakar on the 16th to have a follow-up at the dermatologist, and then heading to Thies for my SeneGAD trainings with the new kiddos. I'll be sure to do an update then. And I'm sorry that I somehow disabled my comment feature on here.. I can't figure out how to enable it but I'll get to it eventually. I'll check back in a few weeks with pictures of the malaria tourney. We're making mosquito costumes and have a bullhorn, so get excited!

Just Some Cultural Ramblings...

So, I'll start with the medical report: the antibiotics started to kick in on my toe and I was able to go back to village. Yay! I missed everyone after spending a week out, but I was only able to stay in Mbeuleukhe for a week before leaving again for my In-Service Training (IST) in Thies, which I'm leaving for tonight.

Village was village. The same as always. My family was very interested in my toe and I was asked many times a day how it was. A lot of times in Wolof when someone asks you a question there's a response that goes along with it, no matter what you actually would like to respond. (Examples: How's your family? They're there. How's your morning? Peace only.) So when someone asks how any illness/injury is, the response is supposed to be "it's healing," but sometimes to keep it lively I would say other things like "it's ugly," or "it's dead," and my family seemed to get a kick out of that.

The highlight of my week in village was one night I was showing the kids some of my pictures from home. I showed them one of me at the White House and told them that that was me at Barack Obama's house. They seemed semi-excited but then very enthusiastically asked if I had a photo of me at Akon's house. Unfortunately I didn't. Here Akon > Obama.

Also very exciting- my parents sent me some toys for the kids and they LOVED them. Standard American stuff like crayons and a coloring book, a little slinky, stickers, colored pens, etc. It was cute seeing them play and hearing them practicing the word "slinky" over and over again.

On that note, I'm going to go on a tangent about Senegalese people and words that start with "s"... Some of the names here begin with the letter "s", like Samba or Seyni (my youngest sister's name), and everyone here has no problem pronouncing those names. But every other word that begins with "s" gets an "es" sound before it (spaghetti becomes espaghetti and our dog Sparky is Esparky). It's the weirdest thing. I can't quite figure out why they can say some things with a normal "s" sound but then other things get the "es" sound. So anyway, the point is that the kids keep saying "eslinkyyyyy, eslinkyyyy" when they play with the slinky. It's entertaining.

Also, while I'm talking about language, I'll write about my own problems. No matter how clear my Wolof is, people here can't seem to understand anything I say. And it's not just me. My friend Jenn and I were getting breakfast one morning during our Kedougou trip and we asked the woman if she had any mustard. The word in French/Wolof for mustard is "moutard," which really isn't any great stretch for us, but we literally said it 20 times and she just kept looking at us blankly. We would mime putting it on bread and she said say, "Oh, butter?" And then we would say it again and she'd go, "You want milk?" So finally I went over to another seller's breakfast stand and held up his mustard and she goes "Ooooh, moutard! No I don't have that" Sometimes it's like I'm on Planet Toubab where I'm the only one that understands what I'm doing/saying.

The same kind of thing happens every time we go to  a garage to get a car anywhere. Everyone runs up screaming "DAKAR?! DAKAR?!" because we're white, and when we say "No, Linguere" or wherever else we're going, they grab our bags and say "THE CAR FOR DAKAR IS OVER HERE!!" These are the kind of instances when yelling just makes everything easier, because these people will literally push you onto the car for Dakar.

But I can't say that we weren't warned in Pre-Service Training that here you need to repeat everything many times to get your point across. Even with the breakfast woman in my own village, if I ever splurge and spend the 25 cents on breakfast I'll need to tell her about 4 or 5 times what I want. And even then there have been several instances where I'll notice her about to put something completely wrong on my food because even though I said 5 times that I didn't want mayo, I probably really do want mayo. One of the fun things you get used to here. Just repeat, repeat, repeat.

One final cultural thing while I'm on a roll... In America if you didn't know where someone/something was and someone asked you where that person/thing were, you respond "I don't know," because you don't. In Senegal, people NEVER respond "I don't know;" it's better to just make up an answer than say you don't know. Saying someone's at the market when you actually have no idea where they are is completely fine. But this has been a trait that I just can't seem to adapt to yet. When people ask me where someone is and I don't know, my knee-jerk reaction is to say "I don't know," and since no one here ever says that, they then either 1) keep asking over again until I give a place or 2) think that I don't understand the question and rephrase it or 3) (my favorite) say "You don't understand Wolof" to me. So there have been many times where I've responded to random questions with responses like "I understand the question but I don't know where my mom is right now. Maybe she's at the market, or maybe a friend's house. But I don't know right now. But I do understand that you're asking where my mom is. I just don't know where she is right now" And usually once I've finished a speech like that the person semi-understands that I don't know. So that's been fun to have to either make up answers or give these long drawn out speeches whenever I don't know the answer to something.

Now that I've bored you with all of this cultural/language stuff, I'll get to more interesting things...

I'll be in Thies for the next 2 weeks, which means I'll have internet for 2 WHOLE WEEKS! I'll be able to e-mail, skype, facebook, blog, everything! It'll be like I'm in a first world country or something! So get ready for e-mail responses and skype dates because Fae Patton/Mariama Diaw will be connected.

And, I'll wrap this up by begging for more stuff. In case any of you wonderful people were intending to send anything my way, these are the latest things I could use/I'm craving (and yes, I've asked for many of these things already but my friends and I are creatures of habits and continue to crave things like mac and cheese on a regular basis):

Stuff:

·        A Frisbee

·        A cheese grater (not for cheese- I use it for soap to make lotion to repel mosquitoes for my village)

·        Maps -World, US, Africa, Senegal (even if they're just printed off the computer that would be great)

·        Photos of my friends, family, favorite places

·        Schick Intuition razor blades

·        Small tissue packets, wipes

·        Magazines!

·        Sharpies

·        Double A batteries

·        Anything small that the kids would enjoy

Food/drinks:

·        Drink packets (Crystal Light, Ocean Spray, Propel, Gatorade, etc.)

·        Hot chocolate mix, Chai and Earl Grey teabags

·        Peanut butter

·        Granola bars- Kashi GoLean! chocolate caramel, Nature Valley peanut butter, any Clif bars (but in particular Black Cherry Almond, Banada Nut Bread, Chocolate Almond Coconut or Chocolate Dipped Coconut- yummm)

·        Cereal!!! A box or the little variety-pack boxes or even loose in a ziplock bag. (Rice Krispies, Cheerios, Life, Peanut Butter Captain Crunch, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, basically anything)

·        Oatmeal packets (Maple & Brown Sugar's my fave, but I'll take any)

·        Raisons, Craisons, any small dried fruit

·        Mac & Cheese! (to save space you can just send the cheese sauce, I can get macaroni here)

·        Any dry snacky stuff (Cheeze-its, pretzels, cookies, Animal Crackers, Wheat Thins, Goldfish, Fig Newtons, Chex Mix, graham crackers, Sunchips, Teddy Grahams, etc.)

·        Peanut Butter M&M's (orange bag, my fave), Plain M&M's,  Skittles, anything chocolate

·        Hard candies for my village (Jolly Ranchers, Jolly Rancher Pops, Tootsie Pops, Dum Dums)

·        And if anyone would like to attempt to send baked goods to Africa, be my guest!

I know that's a lot of stuff, but they're just thoughts. Don't rush to send it all at once; I can pretty much guarantee that I'll still want peanut butter and drink packets throughout my entire service.

Like I said, I'll be online, so hopefully I'll talk to everyone soon! Byyyeee!

Independence, Waterfalls and a Really Gross Big Toe

So I celebrated my first 4th of July in country, had my first big trip, and developed my first major ailment. All in all I would say it was it was a very successful Independence Day. Here's a play by play...

July 1st- Seven of us left our house in Linguere together to make the trek down to Kedougou. There are many various forms of transportation in Senegal, and one of them is called a sept-place (seven places). It's a station wagon that can fit seven passengers and a driver. We were very lucky in getting exactly seven of us, and the ride down was more or less calm and easy (compared to most travel in Senegal). After many hours in the car, we arrived in Tambacounda, the region right about Kedougou. We stayed overnight there at the Tamba regional house.

        At the Tamba house I mentioned that my toe was bugging me. I think it started out as an ingrown toenail, but I hadn't been able to fall asleep the night before because it was throbbing so much. I'd been taking advil, but it was starting to really be annoying. One of the older volunteers decided I probably had a staph infection. Onto the next day...

July 2nd- A bunch of us rented out a van and travelled to nearby Wassadou, a beautiful park where you can see hippos and baboons! All of us from my area were very excited about this because we have sand and camels, so greenery and hippos is like a whole other world. Four of us from my region decided that we wanted to keep going south and make it to Kedougou that night, so after a very long and complicated afternoon of begging for a ride, we finally got a car down to our campement. After briefly greeting our friends there we all crashed.

July 3rd- A down day. After walking around Kedougou for a bit, we ended up spending the majority of the day in the pool. At this point my toe was starting to look pretty funky, but wasn't hurting as bad as it had been earlier.

July 4th- We got up and hung around the campement for a while, and started making the journey to the 4th of Juky party around noon. The party was at the Kedougou volunteers' house, which is really more of a hippy commune than a regional house. It's comprised mainly of huts, so most everything is outdoors. The ideal location for a huge gathering of volunteers to celebrate their nation's independence. The party was awesome, despite the fact that my toe was becoming really ugly really fast.

July 5th- I woke up and called my PC doctor, who put me on antibiotics. We rented two cars and drove to Dindefelo, a nearby village with a waterfall. The small hike made my foot very unhappy, but the waterfalls were beautiful and I'm so glad I went.

July 6th- The worst day I've had in country thus far. Jenn and I caught a 5am bus from Kedougou to Tamba, and in order to catch said bus we had to wake up at 3:50am. We arrived in Tamba around 9am and began the great wait for a car. We had breakfast at the Tamba garage and waited. And waited. And waited. By 2pm we finally filled up a car and got going. Around 7pm we arrived in Touba, not too far from Linguere. Then we had to negotiate a car from Touba to Linguere. Long story short I ended up screaming at a man who turned out to be my friend's host cousin and after resolving our differences he invited me to his house sometime for yogurt and dancing.

        *Note: I used to have a calm temper, but it doesn't help to be calm here. Yelling seems much more effective and people don't get upset by someone yelling in their face the way they do in the US. In the future, if I ever write that I was yelling at someone or fighting with a stranger, don't think that I've lost my mind... I'm just adapting to my surroundings. And maybe losing my mind just a little bit.

        Anyway, we FINALLY got back to Linguere. Jenn and I sat down to eat and stretch out a little bit. This was when I realized that my toe no longer looked human and that my entire foot was swollen. I called my doctor (truly a saint for dealing with all of us volunteers all hours of the day and night) and she put me on a stronger antibiotic and told me to e-mail me a picture of my toe. I'll spare you the photo on here, but it's in my latest Facebook album for whoever wants to see it.

July 7th/8th- I spent the day of the 7th catching up on e-mails, doing laundry and trying to stay off my foot. I was able to skype with my parents and aunt Anne Marie, which was nice! I was originally planning on getting my act together and heading back to village now, since I've been out for a whole week for the 4th; but I've been advised by the older volunteers that that's not the best idea right now. So now I'm sitting around uploading pictures and writing this really long blog entry. I'm hoping the antibiotics will start to heal my toe soon and that the pain will go down. For now I'm just waiting and trying to stay off it as much as possible. I really just want to get back to village because I'm going to leave again for my In-Service Training (IST) in Thies on the 17th. Had this occurred in the middle of August when I'm not so busy I would've loved the opportunity to chill for a few days watching movies and using the internet. Can't this stuff ever happen at the right time?

So that's what's going on in my life right now, just waiting to see if my toe falls off. Hopefully you won't read another blog entry for about a week because that means that I'm able to go back to village. I'll keep everyone posted.

Also... it's Cait Mac's 23rd birthdayyyy!!!!!!!!!! Happy birthday, you crazy girl!

Bye, everyoneeee!