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!