Tag: senegal

The post about my days at site

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I know I know, It’s been another couple months and no update. There’s a post coming soon! Watch out for it. For now here’s a little snapshot of site life #volunteer25/8 #whatdoyouREALLYdo

MONDAY – SATURDAY (aka the grind aka that PC life)

7:30 AM: I am rudely awaken by the screaming rooster. I throw rocks at it and get back into bed.

7:45 AM: The rooster comes back – bold, proud and defiant. I am defeated, I have no energy to get out of bed the second time. I cover my ears with a pillow and try to sleep.

9:16 AM: I awaken frustrated, trudge to the bathroom for a refreshing bucket bath and teeth cleansing. I cook my oatmeal then complete my morning rounds of greeting my family.

Quick sidenote: I cannot live without oatmeal. It is everything I want and need in life. I legitimately get excited for oatmeal. It is one of the things that keeps me sane at site. I panic when I realize I’m running low on oatmeal.

They sometimes go all out for ndekki (breakfast)

9:45AMish: I arrive at the healthpost and greet all the healthpost workers. If I skipped oatmeal time, I hop on to their breakfast sandwich order and get some grub.

10 AM – 1:30 PM: “Work”. This is purely subjective. It could mean reading a book, inputting health post records, painting a mural, planning a causerie (health talk) with my counterpart, chatting with the health post workers. Things are freestyled depending on the day.

A rare site of me working

2PM: By this time the hangry has set in. LUNCH TIME WITH THE HEALTHPOST! *sometimes with other people in the community, my co-workers, or family **Healthpost lunches are the best lunches so I try very hard to make those when I can

2:30PM – 4:30PM: Me time! This could be napping, reading, hanging out with the healthpost workers drinking attaaya, yendooing (spending the day) with a community member. Once again, a freestyle depending on people, weather, mood etc.

5PM: The sun isn’t tying to kill me anymore. I either go for a run, or continue with the above mentioned in “me time”

6PM – 7PM: Stretching after run, listening to music/podcast

7:30PM – 8PM: Dinner with family, attaaya time. Hang out with the family or read or put on a movie for the family and neighbours.

9:30PM: take a pleasant bucket bath, get ready for bed.

SUNDAY: (aka Sunday Funday)

A terrible picture of other sister making some attaaya (insanely sweet tea) after dinner

7:30AM: I am once again rudely awaken by that f*cking rooster. I throw orange peels at it until its well clear of the compound. Greet the fam and go back to bed

10 AM: I start organizing room and get laundry ready.

10:30AM – 1:30PM: Laundry + podcast/music. *Can be soothing and meditative

1:30: LUNCH

After lunch, if I’m not done with laundry I continue with that followed by a bucket bath or I take a huge nap and spend the entire day in my room, reading.

7:30PM: Mingle with the fam, drink some attaaya

And there you have it! It’s really not that much but its quite odd how some days go by very quickly.

Hasta la vista baby xoxo

The post about PST

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I have a little tally of the number of rice crispy treats I have left. Thanks to the benevolent EG, I started with 60 and now have about a third left. It was supposed to last me about 3 months. What is self control?

What’s going on so far:

We got to Thies (pronounced Chess. I’m having a field day with spelling vs pronunciation) on a balmy Tuesday (?) afternoon. They greeted us with some tam tam drumming and a lengthy speech on embarking on a life changing adventure and how we need to persevere in the face of challenges and strive to put our best foot forward. It was all very awe inspiring and hollywood-esque. My cohort of 68 fresh faces were wide eyed and excited. (Lol I’m actually projecting and lying. We were hella tired from traveling for 20+ hours)

The first week at our place of residence: Thies Training Center (TTC: this blog will be an acronym galore. PC loves their acronyms to an unhealthy and distracting degree) felt like a year in itself. Each day was jam packed with orientations and classes and presentations and introductions and speeches and touring and explanations and mingling — you get the gist. It was almost the same info non stop but told in a gazillion different ways. You get the impression that they really want to us to succeed and be prepared for service which I really appreciate. Nights were filled with socializing and playing board games and talking and hoping and freaking out and just being.

Pulled straight from the PC website:

Senegal’s pre-service training (PST) is very intensive and occurs during an 8 1/2-week period. PST will consist of four components: language, technical, cross-cultural, and personal health care. Safety training is integrated into all of these components, particularly in the cross-cultural and health care components.
Most activities and learning during pre-service training will take place in the communities where we are hosted. About one-third of the days of pre-service training will be with the entire training class. The remainder of training will occur in villages and small towns, where small groups of trainees, along with one or two of our Senegalese staff language and cross-cultural facilitators, will live with host families in the community. Focus in this setting will be on language learning (either French or local languages, such as Wolof, Pulaar, Mandinka or Jaxanke) and cross-cultural integration. Every one or two weeks, trainees will be brought together as a group for technical training, and safety and security, administrative, and medical briefings. 
  • Technical training involves structured sessions and practical assignments working in the community. 
  • Language training typically involves classroom lessons five days a week in small groups. In addition to classroom lessons, I’ll have speaking practice assignments with my community host family.  During pre-service training, my language proficiency will be tested at the end of pre-service training to assess my readiness to serve.  😨
  • Intercultural and community development training will help explore Senegalese cultural values, those of my host community, and my role as a Volunteer. Training will guide me in considering concepts of time, power and hierarchy, gender roles, communication styles, relationships and self, and resiliency. I will also participate in cultural events and learn about local history and way of life.
  • I will be trained in health prevention, basic first aid, and treatment of medical illnesses found in-country. During the safety and security training sessions, I will learn how to reduce risks at home, at work, and during your travels. I will also learn various strategies for coping with unwanted attention, how to identify safety risks in-country, and about Peace Corps’ emergency response and support systems.

TLDR; I’m in an intensive 10 week bootcamp. By the end of which, I should be semi fluent in my language and capable of integrating into my permanent site.

TTLDR; I’m a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) for the next three months until I’m sworn in May 3rd as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Insha’Allah (God willing)

Back to Thies Training Center (TTC):

I got roommates for the first time! Their names are Jenna and Alex and they are incredibly friendly. Like a n00b/ idiot, I got hyped over bunk beds and chose the top bunk. Which I’ve discovered, has a ridiculous number of drawbacks; the main one being descending in the dark. I ate shit the first night. Lesson learnt.

Second week rolled in with an introduction to Survival Wolof! Fun fact: 84% of the country speaks Wolof so it’s essential to learn how to greet, ask directions and say thank you very much!

Wolof is a vowel heavy language so my Communication Science & Disorders (CSD) transcription skills came in real handy. Greeting people is a HUMONGOUS deal here and there are about a dozen different ways. Watching it happen IRL is fascinating and sing-songy. Everyone follows the script to a T. They begin with Asalaa malekum, then ask how you are, how you slept, how your family is doing, if your mother and father is well, whether you slept in peace, how the weather is etc and on and on. You can imagine how quickly you can pick this up if you have the same interaction with everyone you see.

During this second week we had our language placement reveals. Language placement gave you some idea what region your permanent site was going to be in. It was all pretty suspenseful and dramatic, we were all hyped/stressed. The languages available for our stage were Pulaar du Nord, Pulafuta, Fulakunda, Jaxanke (p: Jahanke, X=h sound), Mandinke and Wolof. With Wolof being the main language and every other language being a minority language. The number of trainees learning minority language were pretty slim (15 out of the 68). During the whole reveal, I was one of the last people to be called (flash back to when you’re the last to be picked for a team 🙃) and by then I already knew I wasn’t getting a minority language however, being told that you’re going to be a Wolof speaker doesn’t really narrow my permanent site. Except I knew I wasn’t going to be in the south.

But language placement now means a Language Cross Cultural Facilitator (LCF) and a Community Based Training (CBT) site!!! I’m currently at my CBT site typing this and will go more in depth once I’ve been there longer.

✌🏽 peace

Counter:

– 35 rice crispy treats

– 43 granola bars

– 51 fruit roll ups

Things I’m currently grateful for:

– my mosquito net that was doing so well but now is harbouring one mosquito

– my CBT site mates

– my CBT family’s cooking

– my mum

– my aunts

– Hannah/Ben/Nora/Jenna

– my partner

Intro

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Hey there!

I actually don’t have a grand idea as to why I’m creating this blog atm. I just want a digital footprint of my PC service and a place to ramble.

I don’t know if I’ll even have electricity at my site so here’s to hoping 🙂

We out. — Harriet Tubman 1849

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