Training

(Drying laundry at the training center....scenic, isn't it?)

We finally finished our first week of training, and it is a grueling schedule. We start classes at 8a.m., but I try to be there by 7:30 to eat breakfast (which is tea/nescafe/hot chocolate, and bread. WAY too much rahter nasty white bread.) and settle in before we get into the grind. Wolof lessons are tough - it's been forever since I learned the basics of a language, and I'd forgotten how much I disliked it. But, all things considered, it is going well. I can now greet people on the street: "Naga def? Naka waa ker nga? Alhamdullilah!" and that's about the extent of my language skills. We are learning to make basic sentances now, which I try to practice with the family, but that is slow going. However, I am optimistic that I will meet the minimum language requirement for the Peace Corps. Meanwhile, we are also learning come useful cross-cultural tidbits, which we are trying to apply in daily life. This is easier said than done, I find, but I am determined to try! Eating etiquette is fairly straightforward: don't take all the vegetebles, don't reach across the bowl into someone else's area, don't sprawl so nobody else can fit, and don't ever use your left hand! Right hand only. For pretty much everything. Which at least is consistant! I need to work on paying more attention to which hand people are using, though, and really concentrate on which one I offer; at home, whichever hand is convenient is fine, but here using your left hand could be considered very rude. I have more trouble with the rules governing people's interactions. They all still feel awkard to me, and I'm never quite sure when I should wander away from people I've greeted, or whether they are still including me in the mostly-unintelligable conversation...my family is great about this, and they help me a lot, but on the street it gets confusing. Speaking of streets, the Peace Corps gave us our bikes this week. I never liked biking at home, especially not on the street, and here I enjoy it even less! I always feel like I'm risking my life whenever I swing onto that bike, and especially when riding down the road, and unsure of what the many other vehicles are planning to do. It really is the most practical way to get from my home to the training center, though, so I will figure it out. This afternoon I walked home instead, though, and that was nice. A lot hotter, and it took awhile longer, but I felt signifigantly less terrified. So I may walk a few days a week from now on. This first week we focused on learning the basics of Wolof (many different pronouns to keep straight!) as well as some general information about Senegal's government and ecology, and a basic overview of what we Sustainable Agriculture volonteers will be doing. Nothing very hands-on yet, but hopefully soon we will get to start our own garden plots and learn some other useful activities to prepare us for work in the field. And in two weeks, we'll finally have our site assignments! It will feel good to know where I'll be going, and I am impatient to find out, as is everyone else. But there is plenty to occupy us in the meantime! No cell phone yet, though I will try to get one soon. But I have loved both letters I got - thank you Heather and Arwen!! People should write me more letters. This was kind of a boring blog post; there is lots to say, but as to my activities I spend ten hours a day in training, which leaves time only really for geting home, breaking the fast, relaxing for a bit, watching T.V., eating dinner, and then turning in while everybody else stays up until I-don't-know-how-late. So that's my life for now. In a nutshell, it's good.