Hi everyone,
It’s been a few weeks since I sent out an email and I’ve been too busy to know where to begin. Right now, my Pre-Service Training is almost finished; I swear in as a Volunteer on October 16th in Dakar. PST has been hell, but everyone says it’s the hardest part of Peace Corps service. If/when I survive this, the next two years at my awesome island site will be cake!
A few weeks ago, right around the time I’d be celebrating Rosh Hashanah with my family at home, I experienced my first Korite with my homestay family in Senegal. Korite is the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and, as I am staying with a Muslim family in a conservative Muslim town, I got to witness the goings-on firsthand. I spent the day helping peel and cut onions and potatoes (thank you, Swiss Army knife) which ultimately went into a lunch of goat, fries, onion sauce and random raw veggies like cucumbers, green peppers and lettuce. Sounds weird; tasted delicious. (And even though I didn’t see the veggies get a bleach rinse, I still ate them, enjoyed them, and miraculously didn’t get sick.) In the evening, we got dressed up in our best and paid customary short visits to family throughout town. And…that was it. Not going to lie: for all the hype, Korite was a bust. Lunch was the day’s highlight.
Last weekend, we had our second of three language tests for Wolof. Peace Corps Senegal has a policy that every trainee reach a seemingly arbitrary level of Intermediate-Mid in their target language before they are allowed to be sworn in as volunteers. There is a lot of emphasis put on the oral language tests, but they are hard to take seriously. (Especially in my case, since Wolof isn’t the dominant language at my site!) To celebrate the test being over, my language group decided to venture out into the homestay village for lunch. There’s plenty of street food here in Senegal, but not a lot of restaurants in the traditional sense of the word when you get out of the cities with large toubab (white, foreigner) populations. We found a very unfinished-looking restaurant/stall, ordered mystery meat sandwiches and hoped for the best. Again, this dining adventure sounds weird, sounds careless, sounds sure to result in some horrible GI problems, but was absolutely delicious and surprisingly stomach-problem-free. First street food experience was a success!
Earlier this week, in an effort to maintain/save the volunteers’ sanity, we organized a beach trip to the “resort” town of Popenguine. The trip lasted less than 24 hours but allowed us plenty of time to drink a lot, sleep very little, and swim in the ocean for hours on end. It was wonderful! There were more street food experiences which were again yummy and positive. Ultimately, with the sun and the alcohol and the lack of sleep, it was more exhausting than restorative, but it was worth it. My friend Alyssa has some nice pictures from the beach trip up on her site [Alyssa's Pix] and there are a few new pics on mine, too [my pix]. Alyssa’s site also has some ridiculous pictures of my language group eating street food and trying to dance Senegalese-style. Those alone are worth clicking the above link.
Final note: This past week was especially hectic due to the CPW – Counterpart Workshop. As volunteers, we all have two community members whose job it is to show us around, help us integrate into the community and find motivated work partners. This workshop was a chance to meet them before we get installed at the sites in three weeks. I only got to meet one of my counterparts, and then only briefly, but I have a really enthusiastic, cool (dreadlocked!), and intelligent guy who I think will be a great help over the next two years. More on him as I get to know him!
Well, that is it for now – sorry for a ridiculously long email which barely covers a single percent of this experience! I hope you’re all well and happy and healthy. Continue sending me emails – even a few short sentences absolutely make my day on the rare occasions when I get to check my inbox!!!
Love, love, love and hugs,
Tamar
Wish List: (Please note that I still don’t have a mailing address for my site in ML~, where I’ll be after around October 20th-ish. Since mail has been taking forever, it’s too late to send things to the training center in Thies. This list is for all the packages you are sure to send me after I get installed on my island-paradise.)
- bug repellant and anti-itch
- Backpacker’s Pantry-style instant meals (and similar)
- RSVP fine point pens
- Photos
- dried fruit/beef jerky/Jelly Belly jelly beans
- college-lined paper
- pumice stone
- spices for cooking
- mail/email/love in general
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