first week at site

So I’ve had about my first week at site. My family is extremely nice and the village is great. I kind of mentioned both back in my volunteer visit post. I’m going to stop trying to give the play by play of everything that’s been going on here with me in Senegal and from now on the posts will be more targeted entries, specific events, etc.

The Pellel Kindessa Falls

Last week I got my host brother, Yousuphu, to head out with me in search of the Pellel Kindessa Waterfall (the Dindefelo one is great but it’s a bit touristy and I was positive my town had a more exclusive and better set of falls). We were supposed to leave immediately after lunch, but Hannah, my closest neighbor was supposed to be making her first visit to my family, of course I had no phone credit to find out when she’d actually show up. I convinced Yousuphu to wait until after the first cup of attaaya (the extremely sugary tea the Senegalese drink in shot form, imagine 12 sugar cubes in about 8oz of tea….), we drank, and magically Hannah showed up just as I had hoped. She and her host dad stayed awhile so we still got an even later start and by that point an obvious thunderstorm was coming over the mountains where we were headed. Despite my family suggesting that it might not be a good idea to go, I looked at 15 year old Yousuphu who said, yeah let’s go. Walking through open fields with my new machete in hand, as the lightning approached us, I decided that I should maybe not blindly follow the suggestions of a 15 year old in the future... Luckily I was not struck by lightning. The walk took a little over an hour and all along the way Yousuphu had to yell at the top of his lungs to scare off the troops of baboons that weren’t very afraid of us and were following us through the valley. We continued along making our own path at many points since one doesn’t really exist, as the mountains on either side of us closed in on each other. We reached a point where Yousuphu said he hadn’t been past before because he had been too afraid, we decided to continue despite the fact that it started to rain and the rock faces of the mountains on either side drowned out most of the light. This place was amazing. The rock faces on both sides went up as steep steps and there were trees that had managed to grow in them with their roots cascading down reminiscent of something from the legends of the hidden temple, or some Indiana Jones movie. We arrived at the main pool, and found that there are a number of different falls all in this one area, all on different levels. We decided to climb to the furthest point back; the view from there was wonderful. At this point I was thankful for the rain because since its still dry season here, there wouldn’t have been any water at these falls. The rain that had been pouring for about 20 minutes started to make its way down the rock front; I watched as it start cascading from 50 or 60 feet up. It was absolutely beautiful. We stood there for almost 20 minutes until we decided to climb down to where the first pool was, now we found the main waterfall pouring from the rocks that hadn’t yet started when we arrived. It was definitely an awesome sight. Judging by the rocks and where the water was dripping from just this one short afternoon thundershower I can only imagine how great this area looks during rainy/wet season. I’ll definitely be going back when that happens next month, and with a camera if I can (so no pictures this time around…).

Install tomorrow

Hey everyone, this will be a short post. Been in Kedougou for the last few days buying things for my hut, got all packed up today, we leave for my village tomorrow at 7:30am. Pretty exhausted from all the running around, and I want to be up early tomorrow. Probably won't have access to the internet for the next 2-3weeks, so I'll try to update you then. Oh and I'm now the proud owner of my very first machete! I'll try to be careful.

guess who's an official PCV

Despite my alarm not going off this morning (set it but it didn't save as 'on') and me and my roommate missing the 7am PC bus to Dakar (i woke up on my own at 7:30 and though wow it's pretty light outside for before 6am, looked at my cell phone and saw that it was 7:35 and sure enough everyone had left without us….the guards here called us a taxi and 16,000CFA (about 32$) we were in Dakar with an hour to spare before the ceremony.) It was a nice ceremony held at the US Ambassador's house, complete with lots of soda and finger foods afterwards (probably my favorite part). Either way I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!!!!! After the ceremony we got our bank cards from the PC HQ and went over to the American Club, a place with a really nice pool that we get access to for free as PCVs…and it has a cheap bar. Back in Thies now, tomorrow will be a long day of shopping in the market, want to pick up a decent hammock if I can find one. And then very early Sunday morning we're leaving super early to head to Kedougou. I'll be there until I install at site on the 19^th, so I'll have some time to put up some photos and post again.

Volunteer Visit and Popenguine Beach Weekend

So a few weeks ago the Peace Corps sent all of us stagiers out to our respective regional houses. Considering the 12 hour drive our group was lucky to get one of the large PC buses which allowed us to spread out and sleep most of the way, the rest of the trip was spent doing my other favorite activity, snacking…(considering that I'm only now 2 weeks away from the long awaited 'Africa Diet' which will be never again getting to eat meat, being lucky if I ever see rice and….well I'll explain what we ate at my future home a little further in)

We arrived at the Kedougou Regional house pretty late after dark and thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who had just finished making us some awesome BBQ chicken pizza, a couple Gazelles (the natty lite of Senegal) later and we were in bed. The next morning an SUV was hired to take Meera, one of my good friends and fellow stagiers, and I out to Pellel Kindessa for the next couple days. The last paved road is few km from the regional house and from there on out the dirt road or sandy path that people use is basically restricted to 4WD, insane Senegalese on motorcycles (think about driving a motorcycle through random patched of foot deep loose sand…), and plenty of people on regular old fashioned bicycles. It takes almost 2 hours to get to Dindefellow, which is the only major town along the route and is 40km away from that last paved road. Dindefellow is a big tourist attraction due to the awesome waterfall there, which we visited twice (see the photos), so it has a nice mountain town feel, but seriously it's still very isolated. Hiring an SUV to take you out there is quite expensive and when you mention you need to go another 7km further to my town the rates bump up to I think something like 80USD.

We finally arrived at my future family's compound and met my ancienne, Kay, at the gate. She introduced us to the family who is amazing. They were all extremely friendly, funny, and excited to talk with us the entire trip. By the way, new family means a new name…I'm now Aamadou Souare, which still kind of sounds like Hamadou so that's not that bad, and I think the new last name is pretty fun, it's pronounced 'Souar-ray' as if it were French. We also got to see and stay in my future hut for a couple days during this visit. My new hut is awesome, I have my own fenced off yard, with a rocky front yard that's completely covered by an amazing shade structure, the hut is so cool, although you do have to crouch down to get inside. Living there with no electricity and the nearest water source being a pit well nearly 500yards away is going to take some getting used to. But I'm really excited because I have tons of room to start some gardens and a tree nursery when we move in (a requirement by the PC), oh and I also have a papaya tree growing next to my latrine, which I hope will start making fruit soon (thanks Kay for helping fertilize it for the last 2 years). The typical meals at the home are ground corn and wet ground corn with a covering of leaf sauce…sound appetizing? I'm anticipating a big weight loss, I'll be making lots of supplemental meals as well. Overall I was extremely pleased with the entire family, I was very relieved to see that I'll be living in such a great place to do my work the next 2 years, which made Kay very happy about me as her replacement.

Over the few days there we got to tour the town of Pellel Kindessa, which is split into 4 quartiers which themselves are quite spread out. I was told that it'll be more like working with 4 tiny and very close villages that seemed very true! I love my quartier which is called Jam Weli, which means 'Peace Good' in pulaar futa. I met my two counterparts Mariama Souare who is called Neene Galle (mama of the house) by everyone in town, and Daby. They're both extremely nice and extremely motivated to help the people of their little mountain town. Daby has already built (with his own money which is hard to come by in a town like this) a health hut and is almost finished with a second that will be used as a delivery room for the pregnant women of the town. I know they will both be extremely helpful over the next 2 years. We also town water tower and pump room which is a definite future project, the last 2 volunteers have tried to get it up and running again but couldn't. Seeing the town and talking with Kay and my counterparts gave me a bunch of ideas for things to do during my service. The town basically has nothing for doing anything for them is greatly appreciated there.

After leaving Pellel we spend a day and a half in Dindefellow where we got to visit the beautiful waterfall that's below in the photos. It was amazing and I'm very excited that I get to live so close to this during my service. Kay also told me that there are 2 waterfalls right next to my town which no one goes to so I'm excited to go exploring and find them. After making 2 trips to the amazing waterfall we biked back to the regional house the rest of the 40km, it was a lot of fun despite my bout of explosive diarrhea, yay living in Africa, at least I got medicated enough to stop it for the 12 hour trip back to Thies the next day. In the end, the visit was great and I can't wait to get back there.

The front of my future hut!

the back of my hut (caution low entrance)

Me and Kay (my ancienne)

Pellel Kindessa and some mountain from on top the water forage

an awesome chameleon Ifound at the Dindefellow waterfall

us at the Dindefellow waterfall

We had a counterpart workshop at the training center, which was long and all business. Neene Galle came and it was good to get to talk to her more about the next two years and the PC Senegal Health Project plan called PROSPERE. Either way as soon as it was done, Saturday morning we arranged for 2 alhums to pick all of us up and bring us to Popenguine, a ridiculously pretty beach town. There are some pictures below. We had a great time relaxing, swimming, eating, and drinking a little bit….suffice it to say it was an extremely fun and relaxing weekend for all of us despite the fact that the towns water supply was turned off the entire time (this happens often in a lot of places in Senegal) but 40 people and no running water meant running to the ocean for a bucket of water to flush the toilet every time…it was probably good we were there only 1 night.

Counterpart workshop in Thies

Views from the house in Popenguine

I'm writing this post at my homestay in Sangalkam during my last week here with the Ba family, which is sad, but there are important things ahead, 2 weeks to install ceremony on May 14^th. This post will be up online after I'm back at the center so excuse the time discrepancy.

a quick update...sorry

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry that I haven't gotten the chance to update in so long. A lot has happened since the last post. This is just gonna be a quick update, I'll get a chance to write the long details (hopefully) over the next week. There's tons of new pictures up on my Picasa! so look at the link to that on the right side of this page. I took a trip to my site to do a volunteer visit with my Ancienne Kay, who is COS-ing (close of service) and I'm her replacement. As I mentioned more details on that in the next post, but until then you can read her awesome blog if you can't wait to hear what my future town of Pelel Kindessa is like click here. We also got to take a trip to a turtle reservation nearby our homestay town, went to the beach at Lac Rose again but this time for a full day (sunburn included...) and this weekend our entire Stage is going to Popenguine beach, where we've rented a house for all 40 or so of us, should prove to be fun. Next week is my last week at my homestay! it's gone so fast. Either way enjoy the pictures and I'll have the good stories up soon, thanks for reading!

I'll be pooping in Guinea

Hey everyone, sorry for the long delay since the last post. Internet in this country is difficult for a PCT to get a hold of. At the training center there’s one wireless router which at any given point 35 PCTs are trying to use to upload pictures to picasa or facebook, which makes it impossibly slow for everyone. If that doesn’t impede our access to the new world there’s usually a blackout (they happen everyday in this country) which knocks out the internet, or they just turn it off for no reason because the last ‘Stage’ of trainees abused the privilege and were antisocial. Anyway I should talk about something more interesting than the internet, which by the way I kind of don’t miss every much at all except for the fact that I literally have no idea about anything that has happened in the news since I left the US, rumors speak of healthcare…

Last week on Friday we convinced our LCF (language and culture facilitator) Jeeba, to take us to a place near Sangalkam called Lac Rose or Pink Lake. It’s supposed to be Pink due to the salt content and apparently it was supposed to be beautiful so we begged her to take us. Despite it only being 8km away the transportation was a bit more extensive than one would expect. We walked to the main road and got on an Alhum or an Alhumdilliah which means “thank god” and is written across the front of these huge rickety vans. These Alhums were purchased probably back in the 1960s and are everywhere. In the US they’d probably be approved to carry 20 people. They are also tricked out with stickers and photos all over the front windshield and other windows, tassels and flags attached to the mirrors and bumpers as well. Either way we had to take an Alhum down the road a few miles, get off, take a taxi down another road a few miles, get off, take another Alhum a few miles down a new road, once we were in the Town of Lac Rose we took another taxi to the actual Lake. The lake wasn’t actually Pink but I did get to see camels! And then we discovered that the ocean was right there as well. After walking 15minutes through the nicest sand ever we got to the water and it was very fun and relaxing. 3 Alhums and 2 taxis in the dark later and we were back in our Homestay Village.

a mural we painted at the local health post

Alhum ride to Lac Rose

Me and a Camel!!! at Lac Rose

The Beach at Lac Rose (lake isn't pictured b/c it was ugly)

awesome jelly fish at the beach

We’ve been at the training center since Saturday, they gave us Easter weekend and Monday off, which was the most amazing time ever. As a trainee class is constant and never-ending, I go to bed exhausted most night, so having the weekend off was great. In summary of the weekend…we just ate a lot. We discovered this restaurant here in Thies called Big Faim which is a Eng-French of Big Hunger, which is exactly what their amazing Cheeseburgers get rid of…if you’re ever in Thies it’s a must. Class started again yesterday so days have gotten long again. We’re learning a lot of interesting stuff. The best part is later this afternoon we’re going to find out our site placements. In other words that means I find out exactly where I’ll be living for the next 2 years! So I’ll finish writing this post after I find out. Until then….

PELLEL KINDESSA!!! Kedougou, I’m going SOUTH way south, in fact so far south that my squatter (toilet) as I was told by the country director and 5 other current PCVs, my squatter is actually in Guinea, that’s right another country. Apparently my compound where I’m moving in far far south and ridiculously scenic Kedougou is right on the Senegal-Guinea boarder. I’m very excited because my site is apparently also at the foot of the mountains and next to the scenic Kedougou waterfalls, it’s going to be amazing. My Ancien or the PVC who I will be replacing when I move in, in late may wrote up a very nice site description and I’m very excited to get to visit it soon. In fact next Saturday a couple other PCTs and I will be going to stay with my Ancien for a Volunteer Site Visit. So I’ll post pictures and more information about my town then. Until then here’s a few tid-bits of what I know now. My town population is 1040, they speak Pulaar Futa which comes from Guinea and makes sense since it’s so close. The town is open to doing a wide range of different projects so I’ll have some flexibility which is also exciting. I will not have electricity or running water and my 1 room thatched roof hut has no windows, but according to my ancient I will have a pretty “sweet” shade structure out back my hut. My town is 7km further down the road from our country directors old site, which he described to me as the end of the world, so I’m 7km past the end of the world, and also according to him, 4WD vehicles can’t really get down those 7km very well at all…so I’m remote, but the region is apparently gorgeous and I cannot wait to get to see it next week. Here’s a couple of photos from the site placement event we had today. They blindfolded all of us and then shuffled around a ground mural map of Senegal, when we were told to open our eyes we were all standing on our sites and next to our neighbors. It was a lot of fun. There’s some pictures of this too.

Look for the green arrow at the bottom of the country

me squatting over the Guinean boarder on the map ground mural

Site Placement FUN!

Hamidou Diogo Ba, and the PC Sick Hut

So I have a lot to catch up on since my last post. Internet access here is pretty scarce for the time being since we’ve been cycling between the training center in Thies and my homestay in Sangalkam. The internet sucks at the center and has not been invented yet in my homestay village. I’ll try to section this post off into headings since there is a lot to say, especially because the reason I have internet is because I’m at the medical sick hut (aka the resort in Dakar where sick PCVs and PCTs in my case go to get better) oh no Eric is sick? Read on if you want to know more.

Sangalkam – The Homestay

I live with the Ba family in Sangalkam which is halfway in between Dakar and Thies. The reason for living there is immersion in the language I’ll be using for the next 2 years of service in the southern region of the country. That language is Pulaar Futa, and it comes from Guinea, a lot of people from Guinea live in Sangalkam therefore…I live there now too. My host brother is the main patriarch of the compound and also my namesake, Hamidou Diogo Ba. So that’s my new name here in Senegal Hamidou Diogo Ba but you can just call me Hamidou… Either way, the original Hamidou is a teacher in Dakar, and his wife Aissiatou basically takes care of me, she is awesome and we’re basically best friends now. She literally does everything for me, including carrying the water for my bucket bath, which is a little strange since she’s only a few years older than I, so is Hamidou. My mom is actually Hamidou’s sister-in-law and her husband the missing elder brother (my dad…) lives in Dakar and I only met him for a minute literally. The whole family is very nice but speaking a new language is difficult after only a little over a week of training. Luckily for now and unfortunately for the future, my sister does not speak that language so we only ever use French, which has simplified things so far. Below are a couple of photos of the family. The best photo is the one where my sister took her wig off and put it on her 1.5yo son Baba’s head (that’s right his name is Baba Ba).

my House, my room is on the left

my room

my sister and her son Baba

the men of my house, Hamidou is in the light blue boo-boo

the women of my house

Training In General

So these 2.5 months of training are very jam packed. In the homestay villages we have language classes from 9am until nearly 2 some days, then there is a break for lunch, then we have to meet again to practice and then around 6 we’re required to do something for our group garden at the local middle school (see pictures below with some of the many local kids who like to help out).

Then we return home to never-ending children screaming and chaotic family time where we try to practice the language. I usually pass out around 10pm which leaves little time for homework and almost no time for revision. When we’re not in the villages the days are filled with shots (not the good kind, had probably close a dozen injections since we got into the country), and back-to-back talks about technical training we’ll need for when we’re eventually in our final site. As hectic as it is it’s a lot of fun and we’re all having a really great time.

the group from Sangalkam

Being Sick

So Tuesday afternoon I started feeling achy, by 1am that night I was standing in a cold shower trying to bring down a high fever. The fevers came back the next morning which forced me to skip some talks at the training center but I was well enough to get on the van for the afternoon ride back to the villages. Half way through the trip I started getting chills and I basically went to my homestay, said hello and that I was sick and went to bed immediately with a fever of 102. This continued, fevers sweating and chills for the next 3 days until medical finally said I needed to go to Dakar to have blood drawn. So that’s where I am now. This morning I got half-way through my language class and a PC driver came to pick me up. The “medical hut” as they call it is a full apartment with a kitchen dining room, common rooms, TV, AC, WiFi, free calls to the US, and lots of rooms for sick PCVs….it’s amazing after being in the shack I was in laying in a pool of sweat night after night shivering…wish I had called to be picked up a day earlier. The hut, or as I am calling it “club med” since it’s like a resort, is on the ground level of the Peace Corps Senegal Headquarters in Dakar, which is an embassy like building that is pretty cool. I’ll have to venture down the street to a real supermarket just like in the states to buy some food for dinner….i can’t wait I’m a bit sick of onions and fish, my host bro/sis insisted on giving me proper sick people food which consisted of 3 whole fish, salad covered in onion sauce and an entire baguette one night, and a pot of the spiciest soup I’ve ever had last night, which I approximately 45mins after my last fever broke, but the soup left me feeling like I was in a sauna.

It seems as if medical wants to keep me here until Monday morning, most likely because there won’t be a driver on a Sunday, but the extra day of rest will be good for me. The blood tests did come back and my awesome nurse Vonnie said no malaria and that I have “perfect blood” so it had to have been a virus. I’m looking forward to feeling 100% better and getting back to my village on Monday morning. Thanks for checking in. I’ll try to get a Picasa photo album up and linked on this page along with addresses and other info since I think this is the most reliable internet I’ll ever have here in Senegal.