A new home

Well, it's really started now. I am installed and (mostly) unpacked in my own place, in my new hometown. How to describe my first week there? I don't know even where to begin! So I'll stick to straight-up description. I now live in a hut, a pretty spacious one, in fact, and a backyard "douche" area that is fenced with "sakhet" - village fencing, which is dried stalks wired together so you can't see through them. Mine, though, are old so there are a couple small gaps, which means I try to bathe at night, which feels so wonderful anyway. Back to the hut. It came equipped with the following: a bedframe and a set of shelves where my clothes and books are now piled, several cracks in the cement wall that I will need to fix, a brand-new lock on my aluminum front door, some nice wall paintings done by the previous Volonteer, and two cats. My cat's name is Lola - also a souvenier of the girl who lived there before me - and her grown kitten "doom u Lola" (Lola's child). These two charming felines have made themselves right at home with me. Their favorite activities are tripping me by winding around my feet when I'm trying to dress, climbing onto my lap when I'm reading, hovering around the lunch bowl and occasionally trying to steal the fish, and eating lizards on my floor. At least I have no rodent problems! However, my hut is a favorite hiding place for frogs, who try to come inside to escape the heat of the day. I end up chasing several of them out in the mornings; they like to hide in the corners or under the bed. My backyard is actually really nice! My "toilet" is discreetly located in the midst of several bushy plants, some with flowers, one a producing eggplant and one normous basil bush. When I go out there the scent of basil welcomes me. Also, there are a few baby fruit trees (mango and guava) which I water each evening with the water I have left over from washing myhands or bathing. It's not too soapy, and I hate to waste it, and so far the plants don't seem to mind.
My new name is "Abbi Gueye", which is super-easy to remember since it sounds exactly like "Abigail", so I lucked out there. And my family is great, too. I live in the compound of my counterpart. My hut is one of five: one for each wife, one for the dad, one extra (or visiting kids, I think) and mine. We share the courtyard with fluxuating families of chickens, ducks, goats and sheep; next to my yard is a space where hay is piled and two horses and a donkey are hobbled. There's a cashew tree in the middle of it all where my dad ties his charette when it's notbeing used. The livestock only slightly outnumber the children, however. Xale yu bare! Of all ages and sizes, they are everywhere, all the time, and mostly adorable, though also very curious. It's commonplace for me to see crowds of kids staring into my hut, or following me to the boutique, or sitting on the mat where I am. It's cute, really. So, my week has been a little crazy, as this is the first time I have really and truly been on my own here in Senegal. I spend lots of time each day walking through the village, chatting with different families (trying to get them all straight) or sitting down to have a cup of tea with them, or help harvest peanuts from the mountains of plants that are scattered all around the village. This is the major activity at the moment. Everywhere you go peanuts, peanuts, peanuts, with women and children crouched around the edges of the pile, reaching in to grab a plant and pulling off the nuts. They do this all day long, and when all the nuts are gathered they sell them in town. It's not physically hard work, but tedious and so far never-ending. Yesterday I went to a peanut field for the first time to see how the harvest is done. My dad hooked his horse up to a kind of plow, while the kids (and I) hurried ahead to pull up bean plants that had been planted alongside the peanuts. The machine digs up the plants by the roots, and it's slow work. Once they've been uprooted, women followed along behind gathering the plants into piles which will be easier to collect and load onto carts to take into the village, where the peanut pulling will happen. There's something very satisfying about working in a field, sweating alongside everybody else and getting your hands dirty, seeing the fruits of your labor slowly increase before your eyes. It gives a real sense of accomplishment.
Mostly, though, I've spent my time wandering aorund, greeting people and introducing myself while trying to orient myself in my new home. It's a mid-sized village, with enough amenities to keep everybody happy. A man with a cart comes through every morning selling fish, and there are two boutiques and a tiny vegetable market. In the center of town is one well, very deep. The women pull water in the morning and evening, when it's not too hot, and carry full buckets of it on their heads. I've tried this but it's so hard! I'm determined to learn, but mostly they just laugh at me and somebody takes my bucket for me. I will do it myself at some point, though! It will take practice. The first time I took a bucket home I got soaked, so now I use "bidons" (yellow tubs with handles and lids) which are more convenient anyway, though also heavier. Everyone has been very nice to me so far, and I'm slowly making the rounds and meeting them all. Each morning I must greet the imam, the village chief, and my grandmother - luckily all of whom live near my hut. The rest of the day I divide among my family and the neighbors, sometimes talking, mostly helping with the peanuts and letting the fast-paced Wolof conversation roll around me.
This experience is different from anything I've ever done before. Nothing I have accomplished thus far in my life really could have prepared me for it, but I am happy to be here. There's so much to do! At the moment I am in Kaolack again. The Volonteers of the region are gathering here for a bonafide American-style Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant in town. I'll stay here one day, then take a sept-place car down to Nioro du Rip and walk (or, maybe, hop on a horse or donkey charette) back home.

Kaolack

Here is a picture of the Sustainable Agriculture group, with Youssoupha our tech trainer. He is awesome - he bought us ice cream to celebrate the end of training! I am writing this from an internet cafe in Kaolack city. As you may have surmised by now, I made it safely here with all my things. So far I am loving it! I feel very lucky to have ended up in the Kaolack region. There is a real sense of community among the Volonteers here, and there are a lot of us, so it is hard to feel too nervous or lonely. Our regional house is small but still there's plenty of room for us to relax, which is a high priority for everyone now that we are done with training. Now, we make our own schedules. At the moment, the house is cluttered with people's stuff - suitcases, water filters, stoves, mattresses, all tossed into semi-orderly piles around the place. These will gradually diminish as people are installed, one by one, in their sites. I will be among the last; the Peace Corps car is picking me up on Friday to take me to my new home. I haven't had much time to mull over this, thankfully, since we have kept busy since our arrival yesterday. Kaolack's claim to fame (among its other charms, which I'm sure I will learn during my stay in this region) is that it can boast the second-largest covered market in West Africa. It is truly an experience unlike any other. The market spills out into the streets, with garish items for sale on every corner. There is some organization. It seems like the used clothes are sold in one area, fish in another, and vegetables in a third. There is even a "gris-gris" market. Gris-gris are a popular fashion statement among Volonteers. They come in many varieties, from what I can tell mostly involving a string or leather thong with beads or something hanging off, and they can be enchanted (I don't know if that's the right word...blessed, maybe?) to provide protection. I think you can request them for specific situations, too. Somebody mentioned once that a Volonteer ordered one specifically to get a good grade on the LSAT. Every little baby I've seen has one around their fat bellies, and sometimes in necklace form as well. I haven't bought one for myself yet, but if I'm anything like the rest of my Peace Corps coworkers I too will soon be walking around with gris-gris hanging off all my limbs. We new Volonteers are in the midst of our installation shopping spree, buying all the things we think we might need. As I know next to nothing about my site, I'm trying to cover all my bases. So far, I bought a few buckets, some plastic bowls and plates, a couple chairs, cooking pots and utensils, mugs and cups, a village broom (dry grass stalks bound together at one end; they work so much better than plastic brooms!), a woven mat, a mattress with foam pad, a gas stove, a strainer, sheets...and the rest slips my mind. I have a lot of new things, but I think now most of it has been bought, as the rest will need to wait until I actually see my hut and know definitively what I need. One of the cultural aspects I dreaded most before coming here was bargaining. Not being a naturally pushy person, I didn't like the idea of having to battle down a price, especially not knowing what the proper price should be. But - surprise! - I like it! Probably I still end up paying more than I should for some things, but bargaining is easier and much more fun than I ever imagined. You just greet the seller as you would anyone else, then ask them how much it costs. If you don't like the price (and I've heard some outrageous ones in just two days. Two-thousand cfa for that second-hand tee-shirt? You must be joking. Four hundred, maximum.) you tell them another one, and they'll drop a few cfa that way, but often you have to pretend to lose interest and walk away. Then, if they've decided they want your business after all, they'll hiss to call you back and you start bargaining again until you finally get the price you want. I feel so grateful to have learned Wolof, too. Everybody speaks Wolof and they are usually so surprised (I'm not good enough with the language yet to say they are impressed) that I can communicate, it makes talking the price down easier. I wish I could describe the bustle of the market. The narrow alleys, people crowded on all sides selling and buying, some carrying spectacular things on their heads, and everywhere loud colors jostling for supremacy. It's a sensory adventure, both good and bad, the bad mostly having to do with smells I'd rather not mention. But there is a spice section of the market, too, and walking into that fragrant street made me realize how exotic and wonderful this place is. There is a lot still to learn about Kaolack, but this is my regional capital so I will come here fairly often. Breakfast today was a bag of millet beignets and a chilled sack of bissap juice from a street vendor - so delicious! My plan this afternoon is to curl up with a book or maybe watch a movie, and basically gather myself for more excitement that will inevitably come when I venture back into the vibrant marche tomorrow.

It's Official

The papers are signed, selections of the ceremony shown on national TV, and the boubous packed away. As of yesterday when I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, I am a fully-fledged, no-more-skirting-around-with-beurocratic-lingo Peace Corps Volunteer. We all dressed up in colorful clothes - mine is really pretty, a complet in tan-colored wax with big, bold designs in brown and red, but I can't put the pictures up yet because this Internet cafe has no disk-drive. Anyway, it was a nice ceremony. They kept it short and sweet, which everyone appreciated, as there was a buffet afterwards. A note on buffets: in the US, people are very good about standing in lines. We understand that if somebody gets there before you, the proper thing to do is wait for them to be served, and as long as the person behind you also follows this unspoken rule, everyone will get through the buffet line without incident. Forget about those rules. Americans are the easiest people to take advantage of in a foreign buffet. Everyone else is fighting for a place at the bar to order a drink, barging through your neighbors to reach a plate of hors d'oeuvres, and all-around jostling for position. Meanwhile, the polite Americans placidly wait their turn on the outskirts, until they get thirsty enough to be unnaturally pushy. It's amazing! I probably stood in the same place for half an hour waiting to get a drink, while some people were on their third glass. I learned my lesson afetr that and mobbed the poor servers carrying trays, along with the others who had clued-in, to grab snacks. Depsite the atmosphere - every man for himself in this buffet - I had a wonderful time. The food was delicious, and contrary to the actions of us all madly grabbing at it, there was more than enough. I stuffed myself silly, knowing that it's going to be a long time before I eat such wonderful things again. Mini-hamburgers, tiny cheeze pizzas, tomatoes stuffed with creamed shrimp, chicken dumplings, and the sweets: jam-filled crepes, fudge brownies, and creme puffs. Oh, I'm salivating again! The party was at the Ambassador's residence in Dakar. A very elegant place, though unoccupied at the moment, as apparantly Senegal is between-Ambassadors. Afterwards we did more paperwork (with the government, theres always paperwork involed) and headed back to Thies for a little relaxation before enjoying a big dinner with our host parents. That was the end of our stage, and the last time all 39 of us will be together until IST in February. Some people left this morning. My taxi is heading out tomorrow at around 6am, so I spent today packing up my things. They barely fit into my baggage, and I have a lot of loose stuff now: the medical kit, water filter and bulky mosquito net issued by the Peace Corps, as well as my bike. At the moment it's hard to imagine how all my stuff will fit in a single 7-place taxi, but I'm prepared to be amazed because tomorrow I and two others are sharing one to Kaolack. There, I plan to go shopping for things to "make my hut a home". It'll be fun!

Naatango = counterpart

By popular demand, here is a photo of me in my red outfit, dancing (all alone, don't I look cool?) at the tam-tam. I have to say, I really love reading everybody's comments and stories from home. It's inspiring to be writing for such an appreciative audience! For those writing me letters and/or sending packages, I'll post my new address as soon as I have it, which may be awhile, as this is my last weekend in Internet-available Thies. But I'll do my best. Now, onto the blog post!
This week was probably the most stressful so far, as our counterparts came from all over the country to meet us and have a two-day Peace Corps crash course. My two naatangos from Keur Ali Gueye arrived last Wednesday afternoon, and left just yesterday morning. That meant two and a half days of discussions in broken Wolof, awkward pauses, and trying to make sense of the people I'm going to move in with next week. Actually, I'm very lucky. My counterparts are extremely motivated and, as I am the fourth Volunteer going to my site, they kind of know how Americans work. However, with that experience comes high expectations, which I hope I can meet. They were friendly, though, and sound eager to help me integrate into the community, so though it was a little nerve-wracking I am excited to be heading there soon. It's hard to believe training is almost over! Providing I pass all my tests, the swearing-in ceremony will be held this Friday in Dakar. Apparently it is played on nationwide television. Yay. But I bought some pretty fabric and gave it to my sister the tailor, so I should at least look fabulous! It's going to be difficult not to spend all my living allowance on new clothes, because the fabric here is so beautiful, and the outfits are amazing. Hopefully in a village setting the temptation to buy new clothes will be easier to resist. Meanwhile, I am really enjoying being a homebody in Thies. My sister and I have the routine of cooking dinner together every night, and she gave me recipes for some of my favorite dishes. I'm going to miss this family! They really welcomed me and made me feel a part of their home. At least I will be able to visit in February, when we come back to Thies for in-service training. There are lots of things about this little city that I will miss. In just a few days, I'm off to the mysterious unknown! But, I have some good books, just barely enough Wolof, and a great sun-hat, so I'm ready for anything.