Pre-Service Training

Hello friends and family!

We miss you all, but we are having a wonderful time in Senegal! Peace Corps has made the transition very gentle. PC staff and current volunteers met us at the airport and we were transported to Thies in air-conditioned vehicles. They even had water bottles waiting for us in the vans! So considerate, given that we were all sweat-soaked by the time we waited in the long customs line, wrestled with our luggage, made it through security, and trekked the 200ish yards to the parking lot. Phew!

Our days have been full of orientation sessions, interviews, and cultural training.  However, PC has graciously included rest time in the schedule. A lot of people have been playing soccer, frisbee, or basketball during this time, and many take the time to just chill and get to know other volunteers and staff.  Peter has established himself as a good basketball player, which is pretty hilarious (for those of you wondering how this can be true, I’ll just say that he is the 2^nd tallest Trainee, and that may have something to do with it…). I think I may try to play today. We’ll see.

During our first full day here at the Peace Corps Training Center in Thies (pronounced, Chezz), much of he day was spent rotating through various stations of the cultural fair, which was facilitated by the Senegalese Language and Cultural Facilitators (LCFs) and current volunteers. It was awesome! We learned about Islam in daily life (and how to be respectful), the holidays we will celebrate with our host families, items of note in Senegalese culture (kola nuts are great gifts, cowry shells and animal horns can be used as a talisman, acacia gum is used to starch clothing, incense is used as an aphrodisiac (!) (and to make the home smell good), the different types of fabric and what type you should wear for different occasions (dress/appearance is very important in Senegalese culture; we even learned what Senegalese lingerie looks like! It’s like netted fabric worn under a skirt. Not very risque compared to the American stuff…), the importance of greetings for establishing relationships and safety and security, the types of foods and juices common in Senegal (we got to taste hibiscus, ginger- another aphrodisiac!, and baobob juices- yum!), and how to eat meals and slurp tea properly. 

I’ll go into the eating and slurping tea a bit more, since it’s an interesting basic difference between Senegal and America.  Here, food is served in a giant bowl that is placed on a mat on the floor; many people gather around the bowl and eat together. You are only supposed to eat from the imaginary triangle of food right in front of you; it is rude to reach across the bowl and take food in front of someone else. Women are supposed to sit Ariel- style (yes, this is a Little Mermaid reference), with their knees bent and feet over to the side, and men squat rather than sitting. Some people eat with spoons (we have been doing this at the center), but most eat with their hands.  When eating with your hands, only use your right!  Your left is your poop/devil hand (used for wiping and seen as unclean) and does not have a place at meal time beyond stabilizing the bowl. When you are done eating, you should lick your right hand clean before rinsing with water, so you don’t get any chunks of food in the bowl.  Mom, you know being required to lick my fingers after a meal is pretty much a dream come true! I’ll fit right in!  Also, when drinking tea (which is a very important social tradition that happens many times a day), it’s important to slurp the tea loudly, to show that it is delicious, and to cool it as it enters your mouth so you don’t burn your tongue.  As you might imagine, this is also something that Peter and I are showing a great aptitude for. I should mention that the food has been delicious!  Most meals have been rice or bread-based, with lots of good vegetables and meat. Great spices, not to greasy, and d-e-lish! We have bananas or watermelon for dessert after lunch and dinner. We’re told we will appreciate the food here even more after we come home from our first week with our home stay families…

On Wednesday, we will begin our Community Based Training  (CBT).   We’ll live with home stay families and begin language immersion; Peter and I will be in a home stay together, which will be nice. There will be 3 to 6 of us in each community, with 1 or 2 Senegalese Peace Corps Language and Culture Facilitators (LCFs). We will have sessions with our LCF Monday-Saturday, both class-based and activity-based, to learn culture and a local language, and we will spend our “off” time with our host families. The LCFs will also be living with a home stay family, so we’ll all be in it together!  The LCFs have been here at the center with us since we got here and they are all very accessible and knowledgeable. We’re all excited to learn which local language we’ll be learning, who our LCF will be, and which CBT community we’ll be placed in (we find out on Monday)!  Between now and swearing in (when we will graduate from Peace Corps Trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers, inshallah) at the end of November, we will spend 35+ days/nights with our CBT home stay families and 16+ days/nights here at the Thies Training Center.  During that time, we will also take a few days to travel to our permanent sites, once we find out where they are, and we will also be rewarded with a beach weekend toward the end of our Pre-Service Training/before swearing in.  We have lots to look forward to!

Another highly anticipated event is the walking tour of Thies on Monday. We have not been allowed to leave the center and explore Thies yet, so it will be fun to see what’s beyond the compound’s walls!  I’m trying to enjoy this time of [relative] calm and simplicity, before we enter the “real Senegal.” It’s a great environment for us to get our bearings and get to know the staff (there are 15+ staff, plus 17 LCF’s), current volunteers (there are around 10 at the center now), and other trainees (there are 66 of us!).  Plus, there are 30 or so volunteers from all across Africa here for a malaria conference. Needless to say, there are a lot of names to learn and people to meet in these first days!

We got some relief from classroom sessions today with a “work party,” where we helped harvest seeds from dried tree pods, prune trees around the compound, build an earthen wall to divert roof runoff, and prepare a bed for moringa trees.  Peter and I planted an aloe plant that we brought with us, stuffed in one of our water bottles; hopefully it will make it! Tomorrow we’ll have a full day of technical training in the gardens. It’s about time we got our hands dirty!

I’ll end with a note on water. It’s something we Americans usually take for granted, but it’s been at the forefront of our minds the past few days. A major water line burst in Dakar last week, which has created a major shortage in the city. In an attempt to relieve the issue, some of Thies’s water was diverted to Dakar, which created a water shortage here at the center. Given the huge number of people we have on site, you can imagine that we use a ton of water! The center was well prepared, with water reserves on hand for drinking, and well water (that we PCTs drew up) for flushing toilets (there are a number of western toilets here, as well as some squat toilets) and showering. Thankfully it rained yesterday, so the plants got a good drink.  Everyone is wondering if each rain shower we get will be the last, since we are nearing the end of the wet season. The water shortage was good practice for CBT, where we will likely be without running water, and will wash hands in bowls, take bucket showers, and haul water from the well for drinking. We all received and tested our own personal water filters yesterday, so we’ll be well equipped for CBT. 

Cheers!

Kaitlin

p.s. We received our malaria pills yesterday, and Peter and I will both be taking malarone, which has very few  potential side effects. As many of your know, I was anxious about one or both of us taking Mephloquine/Larium/the crazy pill.  Glad we dodged that bullet!

Safely in Senegal

Hi all!

Kait and I arrived safely after our trans-Atlantic red-eye at 10am Senegal time.  Our first day has been a bit exhausting, but mercifully under-programmed.  We met all of the in-country staff and some volunteer leaders. Everyone seems really nice and enthusiastic.  After meeting, and trying to remember the names of the 60ish other volunteers during our brief staging in Philadelphia, the prospect of remembering another 30+ names is a bit daunting. But it's a good problem to have!  One of the first things discussed was proper squat toilet etiquette.  I took the lesson to heart, and have tested my skills twice already.  No catastrophic outcomes yet (e.g. Poop on the shoes).  I have yet to attempt the "water instead of toilet paper" that will become the norm, but we're making small steps.  The most fun, and exhausting, part of the day thus far has been the hour-long dance party, to live drumming, we had this afternoon.  Due to bandwidth limits (and all the other trainees wanting to email home too) there won't be any pics of that uploaded yet.  Sorry!  We learned some Senegalese dances, which Kait fell into like a local, and I butchered like a tubaab (Wolof for westerner, or white person).  Kait and I were also surprised when we were led to our private room in the training center.  The other trainees are 8-to-a-room, bunk bed style.  I feel slightly bad, but am also jealous of all the inter-volunteer bonding that we might miss out on.  We're also right next to where all the language teacher hang out and drink tea... So perhaps calling it a private room is overstating it.  We're the only two people sleeping in it though.

I managed to eat my first traditional meal without using my poo/devil hand (aka my dominant hand). That was pretty great. 

The heat, and the lack of sleep has resulted in a slightly rambling and disjointed post, but I'm just typing things as I think of them.  The summary is that we've arrived safely, and are in high spirits.

In conclusion, chech out this map of Pangea with modern political boundaries.  Seems like we'd have been able to hit Jacksonville with a rock from Dakar if only we'd been serving a few eons ago... Thinking of you Ash and Pat!

Love,

Peter and Kait

Our Hut Is Your Hut: Welcome to our Blog!

Hello! We have officially entered the Blogosphere!  In keeping with the third and final goal of the Peace Corps mission, “To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans,” Peter and I will be chronicling our time in Senegal through this blog.  We aren’t exactly sure yet what shape it will take, but our intent is for this to be a place to share our experiences, to promote discussion, and to help us stay in touch with family and friends. Our hut is your hut!

We have spent the past 6 months whittling down and organizing our personal belongings and preparing to move abroad for 2+ years, working on farms, traveling around the East Coast and Midwest for all manner of celebrations- graduations, reunions (official and otherwise), weddings (official and otherwise)- and spending time with family and friends along the way. It is a spring and summer we will forever cherish, and we are incredibly grateful to our families, who have been so supportive of this dream and helped make it a reality.  

Highlights include time with the Fritsches and Josts in Colorado; working on Many Hands Farm with the Palumbo/Bravesnows; driving to Grinnell, Iowa (via the Adirondacks) to see Sally Fritsche graduate from college; driving to North Carolina for the Schwonder wedding festivities; staying with the Curries for Memorial Day

Driving north from NC to ME with Caroline and Peter for our 5 year Bowdoin reunion (time flies); working on Fieldsong Farm with the Collinses; spending time with the Fritsches, Gardners and Santoses in Matunuck, RI; learning how to process chickens with Uncle Gene; 

Vibodeo’s wedding on the Vineyard; attending Stuart’s college Parents’ Weekend in Uncle Rick’s stead and staying with Nana in Woodstock; sailing the Maine coast with Lindsch and Chris; spending time with the Maeders and Hammersleys in Maine; Meemaw's 90th (!) birthday party weekend in Indiana; spending some time in Sarasota with Mom and Dad; seeing Pat and Ash in Jax and Alex and Linh in Orlando; and having several fabulous goodbye parties with our beloved friends. Phew!

The hardest part of the transition thus far has been saying goodbye to Tybee, our dog. For the past 3 years, she’s been central to our daily routine. She’s an absolute joy- the best snuggler, traveler, rodent exterminator, and adventure partner you could ever imagine. She’s now living the good life with Sue and Phil Hammersley (my parents), Lily (pug) and Elliot (devil cat) in Florida, and possibly getting more treats and attention than she did here in Maine with us. She’s loving chasing all the lizards and squirrels and accompanying my Mom around town (she’s already been to a waterfront restaurant and Home Depot!). They've been enjoying long walks in the mornings, before it gets too hot. It’s comforting knowing she and my parents have each other, but I know we will continue to miss her each day. Keep the Tybee updates coming, Mom!

       

We are now winding down from our domestic adventure, and gearing up for our departure to Senegal on September 24, 2013!  We’re slowly learning survival Wolof (lingua franca in much of Senegal), per our Country Director’s request, with the hope that we will have a leg up on language learning and able to at least properly greet people when we arrive.

Before we take off on September 24th, we will attend a 48-hour Peace Corps Staging Event in Philadelphia, where we will meet others in our “stage” (others headed to Senegal with PC- we expect there will be around 50 to 60 people), attend seminars on the history of Peace Corps, what is expected of volunteers, and what we should expect upon arriving in-country. We’ll fly straight to Philly from Missouri, where we’ll be delivering our darling old Subaru, Blaze, to the Fritsches.

Once we arrive in Senegal, our Pre-Service Training (PST) begins.  For 9 weeks, we will rotate between a home-stay family and the Peace Corps Training Center in Thies (about an hour east of Dakar), focusing on 5 training components: language, technical, cross-cultural, personal healthcare, and safety and security.  If we successfully meet the training requirements, we will be sworn in and “installed” at our permanent sites in late November/early December (we won’t know where our permanent site will be until 5-6 weeks into PST, but we know we will be placed together).  Then, after 3 months of practicing language skills, building relationships, and conducting a needs assessment at our site, we will reconvene for PST2, the more in-depth technical phase of our training, which I believe is 2 weeks or so.  After that, we’ll be trained and ready to go!

We obviously have a lot of learning ahead of us, and are both excited and a bit nervous about all of the upcoming challenges. But, with each other’s support, and that of our families and friends, we feel well equipped to take on the joys and frustrations of PST and beyond. Please be thinking of us; we will certainly be thinking of all of you!

Jamm rekk (Peace only, in Wolof),

Kait and Peter