Hey everyone,
We last left off with me having been sworn in as an official volunteer, and anxiously awaiting my installation into my village and FINALLY being able to settle in a bit. Well, my install was a little over two weeks ago, and insofar as I'm still here, I think it's going really well!
We last left off with me having been sworn in as an official volunteer, and anxiously awaiting my installation into my village and FINALLY being able to settle in a bit. Well, my install was a little over two weeks ago, and insofar as I'm still here, I think it's going really well!
My village is called Kekeressi, and it's a small village outside of the town of Salemata. Supposedly, I'm the most isolated Volunteer in the country of Senegal, but I have another volunteer only a 5k bike ride away, so at least we have each other. It is pretty secluded though, and it was entertaining to see the P.C. car try to make it through the hillside trail to get to my village. We made it, with all my stuff intact, no less (Alhumduillay - thanks be to God).
It's been an interesting couple of weeks, with me attempting to get to know the village and, of course, try to improve my language skills, though it's almost impossible not to improve, unless I were to not ever leave my hut, because I'm now in a situation where I have to hear, speak, and even think in only the language I'm learning, with only a little help from French with people who speak it a little. Needless to say, immersion is the best way to learn a language fast, hands down, and its definitely the most important thing for us to be doing right now, because as they say, if we cant speak the language, we wont be able to do much of anything.
However, I find myself bored after a while of just studying my books and practicing on my family, and like others have been trying to help out around the compound, going and picking cotton, biking in to the city with my father, beginning a tree nursery, basically trying to impress upon them that I want to be there to work and not be a boarder. It seems to have worked out so far, as they have acknowleged that I like to work and work hard, and have been insistent more than once that I need to rest more. Though, part of that is because a lot of the things I actually find as restful, like reading English books, or writing, or drawing, they still consider working, or studying, so they basically think I just work all the time unless my eyes are closed. This would probably explain the fact that they can simply sit and be content with just being in my hut with me, without expecting me to talk to them, even while I read a book, and we're bonding. I've also been fortunate enough to be placed in this new village where just 5 years ago, Madame Wade, the first lady of Senegal, put forth the funding to have an excellent grade school built, where students have class, eat, and are even given clothes. The piece of land for this school is completely enclosed by a cement wall, with the actual buildings only taking up about half of the space, and the rest just being open field. Ideal for agriculture projects...? I think so.
The director of the School, Demba, actually agreed to be my Pulaar tutor, and we've been meeting 3 times a week for an hour at a time, and I basically ask questions in French about the language, or ask him to speak about a certain topic in Pulaar and I try to write/understand as much as possible of what he says. I recently started showing him pics from America and asking him to describe what he sees in Pulaar, which has been fun and entertaining. He's a great guy and I know will be a great resource for my work over the next couple years, and he's been very excited about my project ideas (a school garden for veggies, large tree nurseries, educational murals), and has even said that a lot of what I want to do mirrors the aspirations that Mme Wade herself has had for the school which haven't been realized yet. So who knows, maybe I'll be working with Senegal's first lady in the years to come.
I biked in to the P.C. Regional House of Kedougou a couple days ago for Thanksgiving, an 85km, 7.5 hour bike ride that I dont hope to repeat anytime soon, but was glad to have done it for the first time and gotten it out of the way. It was definitely a beautiful ride though, despite my getting pretty exhausted and having some kids in one tiny village accidentally yank the break I had strapped to my bike for food onto the ground. It was pretty funny to try and yell at them in Pulaar, to the best of my ability, but it was pretty much along the lines of "Not good! Not good! You stole my bread!" Then I was at a lost; a new language becomes even harder to remember when youre pissed.
So we had our feast last night, and it was nothing short of glorious. We had all of the volunteers from the Kedougou region here, as well as a lot of volunteers from the nearby region of Tamba who came in, including all five of the new Tamba volunteers whom I swore in with, so its been great to see them again. We did in fact have a turkey, our PCV leader, Matt, who is a 3rd year volunteer recently appointed as the coordinator for all of the volunteers in our region, purchased a turkey from the Tamba region about a month ago, and he had since been living and being fattened up at the regional house. Yesterday, however, he gave his life to make sure we had ourselves a traditional American Thanksgiving. His name was Tasty, and needless to say, he lived up to his name in the end. The food was amazing, but in the end, it was the company that really made the night, and had everything been horribly burnt, I dont we would have had less of a good time. I'll be here at least for a couple more days, because tomorrow we have a regional meeting with the Country Director to talk about the regional goals that have been drafted as of late, and our strategic plan to hopefully achieve them. Up til now, the newbies haven't had a role in said plan, but after tomorrow they'll be more clearly defined, and I'm definitely excited to have some clear objectives to work towards...what can I say, I'm still very much an American, even after a whole 2.5 months. Hopefully I'll be back here soon to update you all again (I have to bike to the nearby town of Salemata for pretty much everything, but believe it or not, they dont have Internet). Please dont feel obligated b/c it's insanely expensive, but should you want to send me anything...I put a list up on my blog in an earlier post and my address is there as well. Thanks! (Shameless? I think so).
Talk to you again soon, and thanks again for all the love and support, as usual!
-Steve "Samba" Sullivan
It's been an interesting couple of weeks, with me attempting to get to know the village and, of course, try to improve my language skills, though it's almost impossible not to improve, unless I were to not ever leave my hut, because I'm now in a situation where I have to hear, speak, and even think in only the language I'm learning, with only a little help from French with people who speak it a little. Needless to say, immersion is the best way to learn a language fast, hands down, and its definitely the most important thing for us to be doing right now, because as they say, if we cant speak the language, we wont be able to do much of anything.
However, I find myself bored after a while of just studying my books and practicing on my family, and like others have been trying to help out around the compound, going and picking cotton, biking in to the city with my father, beginning a tree nursery, basically trying to impress upon them that I want to be there to work and not be a boarder. It seems to have worked out so far, as they have acknowleged that I like to work and work hard, and have been insistent more than once that I need to rest more. Though, part of that is because a lot of the things I actually find as restful, like reading English books, or writing, or drawing, they still consider working, or studying, so they basically think I just work all the time unless my eyes are closed. This would probably explain the fact that they can simply sit and be content with just being in my hut with me, without expecting me to talk to them, even while I read a book, and we're bonding. I've also been fortunate enough to be placed in this new village where just 5 years ago, Madame Wade, the first lady of Senegal, put forth the funding to have an excellent grade school built, where students have class, eat, and are even given clothes. The piece of land for this school is completely enclosed by a cement wall, with the actual buildings only taking up about half of the space, and the rest just being open field. Ideal for agriculture projects...? I think so.
The director of the School, Demba, actually agreed to be my Pulaar tutor, and we've been meeting 3 times a week for an hour at a time, and I basically ask questions in French about the language, or ask him to speak about a certain topic in Pulaar and I try to write/understand as much as possible of what he says. I recently started showing him pics from America and asking him to describe what he sees in Pulaar, which has been fun and entertaining. He's a great guy and I know will be a great resource for my work over the next couple years, and he's been very excited about my project ideas (a school garden for veggies, large tree nurseries, educational murals), and has even said that a lot of what I want to do mirrors the aspirations that Mme Wade herself has had for the school which haven't been realized yet. So who knows, maybe I'll be working with Senegal's first lady in the years to come.
I biked in to the P.C. Regional House of Kedougou a couple days ago for Thanksgiving, an 85km, 7.5 hour bike ride that I dont hope to repeat anytime soon, but was glad to have done it for the first time and gotten it out of the way. It was definitely a beautiful ride though, despite my getting pretty exhausted and having some kids in one tiny village accidentally yank the break I had strapped to my bike for food onto the ground. It was pretty funny to try and yell at them in Pulaar, to the best of my ability, but it was pretty much along the lines of "Not good! Not good! You stole my bread!" Then I was at a lost; a new language becomes even harder to remember when youre pissed.
So we had our feast last night, and it was nothing short of glorious. We had all of the volunteers from the Kedougou region here, as well as a lot of volunteers from the nearby region of Tamba who came in, including all five of the new Tamba volunteers whom I swore in with, so its been great to see them again. We did in fact have a turkey, our PCV leader, Matt, who is a 3rd year volunteer recently appointed as the coordinator for all of the volunteers in our region, purchased a turkey from the Tamba region about a month ago, and he had since been living and being fattened up at the regional house. Yesterday, however, he gave his life to make sure we had ourselves a traditional American Thanksgiving. His name was Tasty, and needless to say, he lived up to his name in the end. The food was amazing, but in the end, it was the company that really made the night, and had everything been horribly burnt, I dont we would have had less of a good time. I'll be here at least for a couple more days, because tomorrow we have a regional meeting with the Country Director to talk about the regional goals that have been drafted as of late, and our strategic plan to hopefully achieve them. Up til now, the newbies haven't had a role in said plan, but after tomorrow they'll be more clearly defined, and I'm definitely excited to have some clear objectives to work towards...what can I say, I'm still very much an American, even after a whole 2.5 months. Hopefully I'll be back here soon to update you all again (I have to bike to the nearby town of Salemata for pretty much everything, but believe it or not, they dont have Internet). Please dont feel obligated b/c it's insanely expensive, but should you want to send me anything...I put a list up on my blog in an earlier post and my address is there as well. Thanks! (Shameless? I think so).
Talk to you again soon, and thanks again for all the love and support, as usual!
-Steve "Samba" Sullivan
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