Dem naa.... (I went...)

It's been a while since I posted so I'm going to try to do my post-Tabaski time justice.

Coming from a family who takes Christmas decorations down the day after (day of cough cough), I wasn't expecting much fanfare after Tabaski and that's exactly what I got. When I went downstairs to ask what was going on the day after Tabaski my hfamily looked at me like I was crazy and said "It's Sunday." So we did what we always do on Sundays, a lot of nothing. There is, apparently, one post-Tabaski tradition that I verified with Jackie (in Pout), playing really loud drumming music through the mosque loud speaker until 3am Monday morning... that was fun.

Luckily my hfsister Fatou was staying for a few days. She's probably a little older than me, lives in Dakar, and goes to school there. Because I'm now around and we have the same name, we call her Nee Fatou (Nee meaning "born" in French).Nee Fatou is... a handful but really fun to have around. Her hobbies seem to involve asking me millions of questions and not letting me get away with incomplete answers. Everything answer creates millions more questions and they range from about my life in the States to what I know about the economic crisis (which is hard to prove I actually know a fair amount because I'm not exactly sure how to say some of the more technical words in French and they don't exist in Wolof). Probably the best Nee Fatou moment was when she and another hfsister Sally (more on her later, she's married and lives in Bambey) were looking at some pictures I had brought down to show them my family and my friends. First after examining a picture of my parents, Noah, Tara, and I after graduation they agreed with each other, "you look nothing like your mom you look like your dad." The best comment, however was after a picture of AS and I taken in Missouri right before I left, "why do you never look nice in Senegal like you do in this picture? Why don't you wear nice clothes like this here?" For the record, I was wearing shorts (NOT appropriate) and a tank top (kind of appropriate for hanging around but not for leaving the house). I stumbled around with an "umm it's impolite to wear... uhhhh that uhhhh in Senegal." I guess the plus side is my hf knows that I can look nice...?

On Tuesday of last week I got a call from PCV in Dakar and was told I had been invited (along with Jackie and a few other volunteers) to the All Volunteer Conference in Joal. Apparently it's "international volunteer week" and festivities were kicking off in Joal, a beach side town that was my boss' site where she and her husband created a very successful waste management program. In true PC style, not one to turn down a free weekend and a stay in a hotel, I agreed and got ready to leave Thursday.

The only other highlight of the week before the conference was when some girls were playing jump rope and called me over. Taking the opportunity to prove that I'm actually pretty cool, or at least that if they call me by my name I'll respond, I set down my bag and went over. Thank GOD it wasn't double dutch because that would have been the embarrassment of the century. I jumped rope with them for a few minutes and they all cheered me on (they especially liked it when I turned around - thank you jump roping unit in 8th grade gym class). After a few minutes of jumping I excused myself and got on with my work.

Thursday came around and I grabbed my bags and headed to meet Jackie. The plan was I would go to Thies, get 2 seats in a sept-place and we would pick her up (her site is about 5 miles outside of Thies on the road to Dakar). Unfortunately I was all the way in the back so when we pulled into the gas station I had to lay across 4 other people to try to wave her in the right car. She told me she only saw a few white fingers out of the car window but it was enough and we were on our way to Dakar!

Because transportation is how it is we ended up leaving Dakar with "the delegation" of other non-PC volunteers and event organizers around 5pm Friday. Sometime around 8pm we pulled into a hotel outside of Joal... problem was it was the hotel for "the delegation" not the PCV hotel. Luckily we located the APCD (assistant peace corps director) for Health/Environmental Education who was helped to organize some of it and he told us we had two options: we could go to the PC hotel where the water had been out for a few days and we could share 2 singles and 1 full with 2 other girls OR we could stay here because there was an extra room. 5 minutes later we were walking into our 2 level bungalow with 2 full beds, a balcony, and running water.

Saturday morning started with breakfast at the hotel and it was AMAZING. Jackie and I must have eaten at least 10 bowls of cereal between us (the Senegalese wanted the croissants not the cereal - win for both sides)! After breakfast we waited for the opening ceremony to start. We had been given t-shirts to wear but being the classy volunteers we are, we decided to wear nice Senegalese clothes and we looked SNAZZY! About 5 hours later the ceremony ended and we had lunch followed by a panel discussion on environmentally conscious development.

After that we hung around until dinner and went back to the hotel. We were leaving with the Health/EE APCD after breakfast in the morning (another amazing breakfast buffet!) so by 2pm Sunday we were back in Dakar.

Sunday night the older members of the Dakar region planned a welcome party for us and everyone seemed to have had a really good time. This morning Tamar was a champ and got up at the crack of dawn to get back to site. Jackie, Alyssa, and I, all with significantly easier traveling, were at the garage by 9am and I was back in Bambey by noon. Not only did I find my mailbox full of letters but I also got a few packages (thanks AGC, Grandma, Mr. and Mrs. Schlanker, AS, and my parents)!

The rest of this week is mostly preparing for my next trip to Dakar... next weekend... for the artisan expo. I'm really excited and I hope Matar sells a lot of things! I unfortunately left my camera in Bambey this weekend but once I've stolen Jackie's pictures, I'll put them on my blog.

Ba Suba,
KO