Sunday, September 21, 2008
back to the ville
Tomorrow i will be heading back to my village for about two weeks and wont have access to internet... hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Ill get in touch when i get back to the city sometime next week!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Village life
Soo I just spent the last three days in my village. Everything went very well. I have been very lucky so far with my placement. I am living in a Sereer village with just one other PC person. Most of the others were placed in villages with about 4 or 5 other volunteers. I am glad its just me and one other person because we have more one on one time with our language teacher. We have only spent two days on language so far and I have done exceptionally well if I do say so myself J My teacher is pretty relaxed and easy going with the schedule. He is tough but good. We started conjugating verb on the first day. We are never learning vocab in class because he said we should be doing that on our own. It was pretty intense at first but its starting to make more sense every hour. I like it so far….some of the others don’t sound so lucky with their placements.
My new name is Fatou Sarr. Everyone gets a new name when they move into a village. Even though I can barely communicate with my fam, everything has been going great. I have two sisters (that is debatable…I cant figure out if one of my sisters is actually a second wife to my dad??? Or maybe his daughter?? Idk) I also have three younger brothers. Names are as follows
Dad: Ablye Sarr
Mom: Xardinying Sarr
Sisters: Cuumbu Sarr and Mary Sarr
Brothers: Omar Sarr, Adam Sarr, and Alyou Sarr. Alyou is soooooo cute!
And yes, everyone says their last name every time… My sister Cuumbu Sarr is pretty cool. She has helped me out a lot because she speaks a LITTLE English and a lot of French. My French is getting better but im concentrating on learning Sereer. We have class starting at 9 am until 12 and then a break for lunch and then back to class. Usually I go home and my family makes me sit down and tell them everything I learned during class which is pretty helpful. The neighbors come over a lot and try to talk a hundred miles and hour in Sereere just so they can laugh at me when I don’t have a clue what they are saying…. Yeah, extremely annoying! I have a huge room which is pretty cool. There is no furniture in there except my bed but I don’t even care. The huge room is enough. There is a huge fenced in area around three sides of my room that has goats and ducks and horses in it. They are all racks of bones and stink but im getting used to it. My family is def going out of their way to accommodate me. They always serve me nicer food than anyone else in the fam and give me the chair to sit in….they all sit on the floor. I also get a fork to eat with. I have slowly started not accepting things and doing like they do. So now I sit on the floor with them and eat with my hands too. I took a few pics of my family. I will try to upload them but I can’t make any promises.
At the moment, I am back in Thies (city) and will be here until Monday. Next week, we are heading back to our villages for two weeks… Then we will be going to stay with a PC volunteer for a week just to shadow them. I think I will be visiting the actual family I am going to be moving in with after pre service training. As far as I know, I will be moving to the Kaolack region. I have heard that it is disgusting there but also one of the best places to live and work because there is a lot to do. As far as I know, I will be taking over for a girl that is leaving. She has finished her term and is done with PC. I also heard she really likes her village and has been successful there. I’m looking forward to meeting her and finally getting this show on the road. We have been moving at a snails pace when it comes to training at the training center. Since we are working for the government, they are very over protective of us. We spent a week going over the Peace Corps mission and diarrhea. This week has een a lot bettr because we did a lot of language training. After this weekend, we won’t really be coming back to the training center much…much I am happy about!
Other than that, I have been happy and healthy and everything is going great. I have been trying to get in touch with people at home for several days now without much success… If anyone is interested in calling me, my cell number is 011 221 77 187 87 54. I am 4 hours ahead of Eastern time... CALLL ANYTIME!!! Hope things are getting better in Indiana. I heard the hurricane did a number on a lot of people. I will be in touch again soon. Take Care!
My new name is Fatou Sarr. Everyone gets a new name when they move into a village. Even though I can barely communicate with my fam, everything has been going great. I have two sisters (that is debatable…I cant figure out if one of my sisters is actually a second wife to my dad??? Or maybe his daughter?? Idk) I also have three younger brothers. Names are as follows
Dad: Ablye Sarr
Mom: Xardinying Sarr
Sisters: Cuumbu Sarr and Mary Sarr
Brothers: Omar Sarr, Adam Sarr, and Alyou Sarr. Alyou is soooooo cute!
And yes, everyone says their last name every time… My sister Cuumbu Sarr is pretty cool. She has helped me out a lot because she speaks a LITTLE English and a lot of French. My French is getting better but im concentrating on learning Sereer. We have class starting at 9 am until 12 and then a break for lunch and then back to class. Usually I go home and my family makes me sit down and tell them everything I learned during class which is pretty helpful. The neighbors come over a lot and try to talk a hundred miles and hour in Sereere just so they can laugh at me when I don’t have a clue what they are saying…. Yeah, extremely annoying! I have a huge room which is pretty cool. There is no furniture in there except my bed but I don’t even care. The huge room is enough. There is a huge fenced in area around three sides of my room that has goats and ducks and horses in it. They are all racks of bones and stink but im getting used to it. My family is def going out of their way to accommodate me. They always serve me nicer food than anyone else in the fam and give me the chair to sit in….they all sit on the floor. I also get a fork to eat with. I have slowly started not accepting things and doing like they do. So now I sit on the floor with them and eat with my hands too. I took a few pics of my family. I will try to upload them but I can’t make any promises.
At the moment, I am back in Thies (city) and will be here until Monday. Next week, we are heading back to our villages for two weeks… Then we will be going to stay with a PC volunteer for a week just to shadow them. I think I will be visiting the actual family I am going to be moving in with after pre service training. As far as I know, I will be moving to the Kaolack region. I have heard that it is disgusting there but also one of the best places to live and work because there is a lot to do. As far as I know, I will be taking over for a girl that is leaving. She has finished her term and is done with PC. I also heard she really likes her village and has been successful there. I’m looking forward to meeting her and finally getting this show on the road. We have been moving at a snails pace when it comes to training at the training center. Since we are working for the government, they are very over protective of us. We spent a week going over the Peace Corps mission and diarrhea. This week has een a lot bettr because we did a lot of language training. After this weekend, we won’t really be coming back to the training center much…much I am happy about!
Other than that, I have been happy and healthy and everything is going great. I have been trying to get in touch with people at home for several days now without much success… If anyone is interested in calling me, my cell number is 011 221 77 187 87 54. I am 4 hours ahead of Eastern time... CALLL ANYTIME!!! Hope things are getting better in Indiana. I heard the hurricane did a number on a lot of people. I will be in touch again soon. Take Care!
Village life
Soo I just spent the last three days in my village. Everything went very well. I have been very lucky so far with my placement. I am living in a Sereer village with just one other PC person. Most of the others were placed in villages with about 4 or 5 other volunteers. I am glad its just me and one other person because we have more one on one time with our language teacher. We have only spent two days on language so far and I have done exceptionally well if I do say so myself J My teacher is pretty relaxed and easy going with the schedule. He is tough but good. We started conjugating verb on the first day. We are never learning vocab in class because he said we should be doing that on our own. It was pretty intense at first but its starting to make more sense every hour. I like it so far….some of the others don’t sound so lucky with their placements.
My new name is Fatou Sarr. Everyone gets a new name when they move into a village. Even though I can barely communicate with my fam, everything has been going great. I have two sisters (that is debatable…I cant figure out if one of my sisters is actually a second wife to my dad??? Or maybe his daughter?? Idk) I also have three younger brothers. Names are as follows
Dad: Ablye Sarr
Mom: Xardinying Sarr
Sisters: Cuumbu Sarr and Mary Sarr
Brothers: Omar Sarr, Adam Sarr, and Alyou Sarr. Alyou is soooooo cute!
And yes, everyone says their last name every time… My sister Cuumbu Sarr is pretty cool. She has helped me out a lot because she speaks a LITTLE English and a lot of French. My French is getting better but im concentrating on learning Sereer. We have class starting at 9 am until 12 and then a break for lunch and then back to class. Usually I go home and my family makes me sit down and tell them everything I learned during class which is pretty helpful. The neighbors come over a lot and try to talk a hundred miles and hour in Sereere just so they can laugh at me when I don’t have a clue what they are saying…. Yeah, extremely annoying! I have a huge room which is pretty cool. There is no furniture in there except my bed but I don’t even care. The huge room is enough. There is a huge fenced in area around three sides of my room that has goats and ducks and horses in it. They are all racks of bones and stink but im getting used to it. My family is def going out of their way to accommodate me. They always serve me nicer food than anyone else in the fam and give me the chair to sit in….they all sit on the floor. I also get a fork to eat with. I have slowly started not accepting things and doing like they do. So now I sit on the floor with them and eat with my hands too. I took a few pics of my family. I will try to upload them but I can’t make any promises.
At the moment, I am back in Thies (city) and will be here until Monday. Next week, we are heading back to our villages for two weeks… Then we will be going to stay with a PC volunteer for a week just to shadow them. I think I will be visiting the actual family I am going to be moving in with after pre service training. As far as I know, I will be moving to the Kaolack region. I have heard that it is disgusting there but also one of the best places to live and work because there is a lot to do. As far as I know, I will be taking over for a girl that is leaving. She has finished her term and is done with PC. I also heard she really likes her village and has been successful there. I’m looking forward to meeting her and finally getting this show on the road. We have been moving at a snails pace when it comes to training at the training center. Since we are working for the government, they are very over protective of us. We spent a week going over the Peace Corps mission and diarrhea. This week has een a lot bettr because we did a lot of language training. After this weekend, we won’t really be coming back to the training center much…much I am happy about!
Other than that, I have been happy and healthy and everything is going great. I have been trying to get in touch with people at home for several days now without much success… If anyone is interested in calling me, my cell number is 011 221 77 187 87 54. I am 4 hours ahead of Eastern time... CALLL ANYTIME!!! Hope things are getting better in Indiana. I heard the hurricane did a number on a lot of people. I will be in touch again soon. Take Care!
My new name is Fatou Sarr. Everyone gets a new name when they move into a village. Even though I can barely communicate with my fam, everything has been going great. I have two sisters (that is debatable…I cant figure out if one of my sisters is actually a second wife to my dad??? Or maybe his daughter?? Idk) I also have three younger brothers. Names are as follows
Dad: Ablye Sarr
Mom: Xardinying Sarr
Sisters: Cuumbu Sarr and Mary Sarr
Brothers: Omar Sarr, Adam Sarr, and Alyou Sarr. Alyou is soooooo cute!
And yes, everyone says their last name every time… My sister Cuumbu Sarr is pretty cool. She has helped me out a lot because she speaks a LITTLE English and a lot of French. My French is getting better but im concentrating on learning Sereer. We have class starting at 9 am until 12 and then a break for lunch and then back to class. Usually I go home and my family makes me sit down and tell them everything I learned during class which is pretty helpful. The neighbors come over a lot and try to talk a hundred miles and hour in Sereere just so they can laugh at me when I don’t have a clue what they are saying…. Yeah, extremely annoying! I have a huge room which is pretty cool. There is no furniture in there except my bed but I don’t even care. The huge room is enough. There is a huge fenced in area around three sides of my room that has goats and ducks and horses in it. They are all racks of bones and stink but im getting used to it. My family is def going out of their way to accommodate me. They always serve me nicer food than anyone else in the fam and give me the chair to sit in….they all sit on the floor. I also get a fork to eat with. I have slowly started not accepting things and doing like they do. So now I sit on the floor with them and eat with my hands too. I took a few pics of my family. I will try to upload them but I can’t make any promises.
At the moment, I am back in Thies (city) and will be here until Monday. Next week, we are heading back to our villages for two weeks… Then we will be going to stay with a PC volunteer for a week just to shadow them. I think I will be visiting the actual family I am going to be moving in with after pre service training. As far as I know, I will be moving to the Kaolack region. I have heard that it is disgusting there but also one of the best places to live and work because there is a lot to do. As far as I know, I will be taking over for a girl that is leaving. She has finished her term and is done with PC. I also heard she really likes her village and has been successful there. I’m looking forward to meeting her and finally getting this show on the road. We have been moving at a snails pace when it comes to training at the training center. Since we are working for the government, they are very over protective of us. We spent a week going over the Peace Corps mission and diarrhea. This week has een a lot bettr because we did a lot of language training. After this weekend, we won’t really be coming back to the training center much…much I am happy about!
Other than that, I have been happy and healthy and everything is going great. I have been trying to get in touch with people at home for several days now without much success… If anyone is interested in calling me, my cell number is 011 221 77 187 87 54. I am 4 hours ahead of Eastern time... CALLL ANYTIME!!! Hope things are getting better in Indiana. I heard the hurricane did a number on a lot of people. I will be in touch again soon. Take Care!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
I made it!
Sooo.... i made it and everything went smoothly during travel. We got here on Wednesday and have been super busy ever since. Not much has really happened except a lot of class and lectures. Just to let everyone know..... ITS SOOOO HOTT!!! It is the end of the rainy season and i have heard that this is the worst time of the year for the weather. Its hot and extremely humid. I have been showering 3 times a day. Everyone around here changes clothes throughout the entire day because of sweat. Hopefully in the next few weeks the humidity will subside. Sitting through classes and listening to the Peace Corps mission statement over and over and over in the heat hasnt been the greatest but tomorrow things will be changing! We finally have language classes.
We have about 40 people in our stage and everyone seem pretty cool. We have had several volunteers from other stages come back to help with our training. They have been very helpful. We have all been hanging out quite a bit. We finish with class at around 6 each day and then dont have much to do until class starts back up the next day. Lets just say there is a lot of sitting around getting to know each other. Today was our first day off so we finally got to go into town and look around. I feel like they are really sheltering us. Im slightly annoyed that we have been here for days and have had no chance to contact our families to let them know we made it ok. I have already done the whole village thing and we never had anyone to walk us through everything so i am feeling like all of these classes are a little redundant but i can see that some thing that we have learned are important....yesterday i learned how to poop in a med kit to check for parasites! It was pretty funny actually AND we also learne that we are all gonna poop our pants atleast once! lol more on that later.
Anyway... we are having class on Monday and then Tuesday moving out to our villages. I found out i will be speaking Sereere ?? in my village. I dont know a word of it and havent had any language classes so far so i think its going to suck majorly for the first few days in village. Keep in mind, no one speaks English!! I think we are learning basic phrases tomorrow in class. Tuesday is my birthday so im looking forward to starting a new year in a village. I have "heard" where i am going to be placed but wont know for sure until the end of Sept. I think i LOVE everything i have heard about it so far. I am pretty sure its just south of Thies and Dakar. I think here is less muslim families and more catholics in that region so it seems like it is a little more relaxed. Im hoping its as cool as what i have been told.
Sooo all in all everything is going well and i am looking forward to the week coming up. Wish me luck!!
We have about 40 people in our stage and everyone seem pretty cool. We have had several volunteers from other stages come back to help with our training. They have been very helpful. We have all been hanging out quite a bit. We finish with class at around 6 each day and then dont have much to do until class starts back up the next day. Lets just say there is a lot of sitting around getting to know each other. Today was our first day off so we finally got to go into town and look around. I feel like they are really sheltering us. Im slightly annoyed that we have been here for days and have had no chance to contact our families to let them know we made it ok. I have already done the whole village thing and we never had anyone to walk us through everything so i am feeling like all of these classes are a little redundant but i can see that some thing that we have learned are important....yesterday i learned how to poop in a med kit to check for parasites! It was pretty funny actually AND we also learne that we are all gonna poop our pants atleast once! lol more on that later.
Anyway... we are having class on Monday and then Tuesday moving out to our villages. I found out i will be speaking Sereere ?? in my village. I dont know a word of it and havent had any language classes so far so i think its going to suck majorly for the first few days in village. Keep in mind, no one speaks English!! I think we are learning basic phrases tomorrow in class. Tuesday is my birthday so im looking forward to starting a new year in a village. I have "heard" where i am going to be placed but wont know for sure until the end of Sept. I think i LOVE everything i have heard about it so far. I am pretty sure its just south of Thies and Dakar. I think here is less muslim families and more catholics in that region so it seems like it is a little more relaxed. Im hoping its as cool as what i have been told.
Sooo all in all everything is going well and i am looking forward to the week coming up. Wish me luck!!
Monday, September 8, 2008
The beginning of the BEGINNING
I finally made it to my staging today.... It has been a veryyy long day but a good one at that! I got here (Philadelphia) this morning sooo early. Luckily i was able to check into my room early and squeeze in a much needed nap. I made it down to orientation and sat through hours of mind blowingly boring lectures. We basically went over all the rules and paperwork today. Tomorrow hopefully something cool happens... Im just wating for someone to freak out and have a panic attack and get shipped home... it wont be me btw! Dont get any ideas :) I dont think anything exciting will be happening until Wednesday. We will be catching a bus to New York and going to get vaccinations.... then flying out. I wont be writing again until i get in Senegal. Just thought i would let everyone know i made it and everything is going well... Hope all is well in Indiana!
Friday, September 5, 2008
A few last good-byes.....
Well... today is my last day of work. I know i have a million things to be doing within the next half hour but i just wanted to take a minute to write a very big thank you to all of my co-workers at Harrison County Hospital. I LOVE the camera and have spent half the day eating cookies and other goodies. I really appreciate everything. :):):) Also, thanks to everyone that went out for sushi last night... VERY nice!
I will be flying out Monday morning...this is getting weird! Unfortunately i dont have anything too exciting to be writing about like sugarplum fairies and snicker doodles (Sarah) but hopefully my blog will be filled with a little more entertainment in the near future!
Also, Angie, MC Hammer WILL be making it to Senegal... dont worry... You work on the Roger Rabbit and i will work on my "Cant Touch This".... i think there are plenty of African children that need to know about him!
More to come soon!
I will be flying out Monday morning...this is getting weird! Unfortunately i dont have anything too exciting to be writing about like sugarplum fairies and snicker doodles (Sarah) but hopefully my blog will be filled with a little more entertainment in the near future!
Also, Angie, MC Hammer WILL be making it to Senegal... dont worry... You work on the Roger Rabbit and i will work on my "Cant Touch This".... i think there are plenty of African children that need to know about him!
More to come soon!
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