my first month in senegal

Dear friends and family,

Sorry it has taken me so long to post any updates on my first month in Senegal, but I have been incredibly busy settling in and adjusting to life here (and to Senegalese time where nothing happens all too quickly) It’s hard to believe that I have only been in country for a little more than 3 weeks – it feels like I have already been here for months.

Wow, where to begin – so much has happened already. When we first got to country we spent two days at the training center and then we all left in pairs to go and stay with a current volunteer at his/her site for 5 days. There was some confusion in what town I was supposed to meet my volunteer and I ended up getting dropped off in a random town with the only instructions to sit on the curb of the road and wait for my volunteer to come and pick me up. So there we were, probably the only two white people in the city, sitting on the side of the road of some random place with no language skills, cell phone or really anything outside of a week’s supply of malaria meds and a little bit of money hoping that our volunteer would come find us soon. As the bus left, we were surrounded by young kids asking for gifts and money and all trying to touch us. After about an hour, our volunteer tracked us down (probably by the large group of kids around us) and took us back to his town where we stayed for 5 days seeing his projects and getting a better feel for Senegalese life and culture.

After this trip, all of the new volunteers came back to the training center in Thies (the second largest city in Senegal – about a million people – but it feels significantly smaller) for training in language and technical skills as well as seminars on health, security and cultural immersion. We will be here through the first week of November. The training is 60 hours a week and extremely exhausting, but we are almost halfway done with it already.

During this time, we live with a host family. My family is absolutely wonderful and immediately took me in as one of their own. We live in a small compound that has four different buildings – two of the buildings have 2-3 bedrooms, another building is the kitchen and the last building is the bathroom. Since it is so hot everyday and the houses are small ovens (cement walls and tin roofs) we spend most of our time outside in the courtyard between the buildings. For meals, we all eat from one large serving platter. Meals are usually rice or millet based, with some vegetables, fish, and some sort of sauce. My French is improving quickly too so communicating with them is getting much easier. I have five host brothers, two of whom are my age and take me around with them in town to visit their friends. Sometimes, I feel like I’m there show and tell object for their friends, but in general I have a lot of fun with them.

Everyone here is so friendly and whenever I am walking anywhere people call me over to talk to them and tell them what I am doing here. I’m not sure if they understand why I would leave the luxuries of the US for Senegal, but they are excited that I am here and want to share their stories and experiences with me.

I hope you all are well and I promise to write on a more regular basis and post some pictures soon.