From White Bread to Monkey Bread

Ahh what can I say on a shaky connection and foreign keyboard to give you a drop of this side of the ocean?

I fell in love with Senegal before the plane even landed as I watched the smog-less sun set over the ocean and desert. I only fell more in love on the bumpy ride to Thies, getting to see baobabs and women carrying things on their heads such as buckets, fruit platters, and school buses. OK not the last one, but if anyone could do it, it would be them.

I'm composing this in an open gazebo-style thatch-roofed hut, to the sounds of distant drums and night songs, and closer harmonica music, a buzz of excited conversation, and jungling balls dropping. Oooh and a bat just zoomed in and went to bed on the rafters! (I can just see my mom's or Petie's faces at that... Don't worry, we get our rabies shots this week! And we need bats to combat these wretched (booboo word!) mosquitos! Because I can't live under a mosquito net, I'm developing quite the collection of bites. Even with the mosquitaire, it's too easy to stretch out in your sleep so your feet stick out. I have a bite on almost every one of my toes to prove it.)

Now I just saw a little cat scurry by; There are maybe 30 in this little compound. (Our training center is an old army base-turned-Eden). They're everywhere but kind of creepy and nothing like CHARLIE or other notable US kitties. Lizards, goats, cattle, and about 200 x the birds we hqve in CT are also abound. Training is pretty intense so luckily we don't have trouble sleeping at night, but we still wake up once in a while to hear the safari zoo outside. It's mostly from birds, owls, cat fights, and morning prayers, but there's also this weird haunted house-esque shreiking that consensus determined is probably monkeys.

Other exciting things include:

-learning how to work kerosene lanterns
-learning toilet-less paper-less potty etiquette (honestly not so bad)
-pulling water from a well
-eating cola nuts (honestly not so good...)
-sharing rice meals on the floor around a big bowl (fantastique!)
-chewing on a balantes or tooth stick (better for you than brushing! but I will continue to do both)
-tying a pagne.. badly
-learning which roots fix "male problems," which encens keep husbands from cheating, which pouridge helps a woman to obtain the seriously sought-after bigg butt (I guess I don't need any of these things...)
-trying baobab fruit juice-- which actually translates to "monkey bread"

((I HAVE TO INTERRUPT THIS TO SAY THAT THEY JUST PUT ON ELTON JOHN MUSIC))

-drinking Senegalese tea (thought of you, Heather!)
-LEARNING WOLOF

That last one is interesting. We find out the regional language we'll really be learning this week: wolof or pulaar depending on where they think they might place us. So far we've only had "survival wolof." The first several hours were dedicated solely to Greetings. They take those suckers seriously here. No "Hey," "What up," or walking by without saying anything at all. There's pretty much a script of them that includes asking how your night was, how every member of your family is... and (oooh we just saw a marmite! maybe?) we learned how to field some of the questions constantly thrown at us.

"Wolunteer Corps de la Paix laa, mangi ligeey ci mbirum wer gu yarrum..." The last three words only mean "health."

When we walk around the neighborhood, we become a "toubab" (whitey) parade. Little kids actually point and laugh at us since we're essentially clowns. But it's a lot of fun and we get to practice our shaky Wolof which they usually really appreciate (although one girl retorted, "Is that all you can say?") Most of us are pretty comfortable with french so we mostly stick to that. But people are really nice and way friendlier than in the States.

As for the meat-eating, sorry to disappoint, but it's probably not happening. One of the current 3rd year volunteers came to help with orientation and attested that it's not impossible to stay veg here. He was awesome and pretty much held a fluent stand-off in defence of the four of us for training. Then he taught us how toi explain that just like people here are mostly Muslim and don't eat pork, it's "my culture" not to eat any meat. Ci sama ada!

The other volunteers are really cool. Four hail from CT, making it oddly the best represented state in the group. One guy went to Colgate, and most of the girls donated their hair the same week I did. In our 35 hour trip to Senegal (Atlanta flight was cancelled and we bussed from Philly to JFK, flew to Brussels, the Gambia, and Dakar, then finally took a bus to Thies)-- we entertained ourselves with rousing games of charades, bananagrams, counting catch, cards.. We kept at least three other surrounding gates entertained as well. Now we've got ping-pong, frisbie, and everything else our little heads can come up with.

I can see how it will be tough to go from the fun camp-like setting to isolated in our villages. But it looks like we're all getting phones, so it won't be SO bad. Heads up other travelers-- texts allegedly reach Europe and sometimes as far as the US!

We had a dance/drum circle yesterday! I'll need to take a video or something. But right now I'm not taking pictures because it's culturally insensative. Ones of volunteers, training Ede, and trainers to come, though!

If you did'nt guess, it looks like I won't be able to update this too often. It's not sooo easy and also there are way better things to do. No offense.

On that note.....

Peace: Jamm!

K