CBT & Site Announcements

Our one month anniversary has passed!! It's been a great month and I already feel like I've learned so much.

I just got back from an 11 day stay with my CBT host family.  It was a really great stay.  They say it's the hardest one and if you can make it through you can probably make it through the service.  I was actually really sad when I left.  I love my family so much, I'm actually sad I won't be able to stay with them for the entire service.  My dad really believes in the Peace Corps and Volunteers in general and everyone really wants me to learn the language and is excited when I learn a new word or phrase.
     So let me describe an average day at CBT.  I'll wake up around 730/8, shower (bucket bath) and eat breakfast, which every day consists of bread and nescafe with a packet of dried milk.  They gave me a big thing of chocolate spread, but that got old quick.  They had also been giving me machine made bread, which I wasn't finishing because 1. it's a lot of fluff and 2. the kids get the eat the left overs.  So they got me a different kind of local bread, which is awesome.  I love it and I crave it back at the center, and luckily for me it's super common and super cheap down in Kolda.  Coffee here is a packet of milk with a tad of nescafe and a ton on sugar.  I gave in on the powdered milk, which is actually really good, but I still won't eat the sugar.  They put sugar in everything so I think I get enough of it.  After this I attend language class.  There are two other women in my class, Courtney and Lauren, and our language teacher is Samba.  We rotate houses everyday.  We spend 3 hours in class, which is actually laid back.  When we have class at my house my family likes to sit in and listen/talk about us, and then they critique the entire lesson to me throughout the day. We also usually get some tea which is a great caffeine/sugar rush.
   After class I'll head home and just hang out or help make lunch.  Our LCF (language teacher) had a couple days off and I learned that in the morning whoever is cooking will go to the market to buy all of the day's food.  Fatou and Mariama took me with them one day and it was certainly an experience.  It was like a market in a movie, but with less space to move around in.  I didn't even get yelled at the much.  I actually got in trouble for not greeting someone who I thought I had already greeted. Ooops.  Some of the other PCTs were saying what a shame it is that the Senegalese boil all of the nutrients out of their vegetables, but after seeing the market I'm really glad they do because I'm pretty sure it kills everything.  If we want raw vegetables we have to soak them in bleach.  But anyway, lunch usually consists of rich and fish, although my family does tend to switch it up.  The day I went to the market we made fish balls (LIKE MEATBALLS) and they were actually pretty good.  They ground up the bones in the ground fish, so sometimes I'd get a pretty big bone, but otherwise I just ignored them.  We've also been eating sheep or peanut sauce (YUM) and sometimes we have cous cous instead of rice.
     After lunch we literally sit around.  Some days it gets so hot you can't do anything but sit.  Bucket baths are common around this time.  I also like to just sit and talk with the fam or do my homework.  If it's really hot I'll go in my room and lay down or take a nap.  Once it stops being so hot I'll help with the dishes.  We also have tea at some point.  Moussa taught me how to "make tea."  Making tea involved pouring it from one shot glass-esqe cup to another in an attempt to make foam.  You have to start down low and raise it in the air like a mixologist, all the while the cup is pretty hot an burning your hand.  Moussa is awesome and didn't even barely laugh at me the first time I attempted to touch the cup and immediately started crying.  They let it cool for a minute or two now before they allow me to try.  It's a really big deal that I even wanted to learn how to make tea, my family was so happy and just kept going on and on about how great it was, even though I'm pretty positive they've had better.
      Around 6 they also start cooking dinner in the one room, windowless, kitchen from hell.  They cook over a propane tank.  My main job is to hold the flashlight but sometimes I get to shuck things or grind things.  Dinner is served around 9/930 and after that I'll chat for a while and go to bed.
    It sounds like I don't do anything, but what I really do all day is try to have conversations, realize I don't understand what most of the words are, and then write them down and try to memorize them.  It's a slow process.

     We also went to a baptism while we were at CBT this time!  The baby was actually born on my birthday (woo!)  and they have the baptism a week after the baby is born.  They name the baby on this day and shave off all his hair.  The mom gets treated like a queen and gets to go to the salon to get her hair done and wears extravagent outfits while all the other women dance and shout her name and sing.  In the morning I helped cut vegetables (for literally probably 2 and a half hours) then we hung out.  The other PCTs were there so we were able to chat in English and compare experiences.  They usually slaughter an animal too, and at this baptism we had sheep with lunch.  They also rented two tents and bought a bunch of water and passed around sour milk and grain (which was actually really good).  Lunch was awesome, there were so many expertly cut vegetables.  The party went from around 9am to 8pm, when we went home and made our own dinner.  Everyone was exhausted for days.  I wore a sabba, which is a Senegalese skirt, and I looked like a baller, everyone was so impressed.

    We got back to center on Wednesday and after a long and horrible day of waiting we got our site announcements!!!!  There's a huge map of Senegal on the basketball court in the center, and we all converge around it.  We brought handkerchiefs to put over our eyes, and the staff led us to our spots and handed us a packet.  Once everyone was placed they let the tension build up before they let us take off our blindfolds and see our location.  Surprise, I'm in KOLDA!  Not really a surprise, since all of the Fulakundas are down there.  I'm pretty close to the capital, also named Kolda, in a more rural area.  It's like 7 km.  I am also one of the farthest from Dakar/Thies; like 14 hours.  Kolda is located under The Gambia, which is difficult to get a visa for and apparently supports the bandits in the south-western region of Senegal (we're not allowed to go there either, and they don't put anyone remotely close- we're all very safe).  So we have to drive around the Gambia to get anywhere which I'm sure will be super annoying forever.  So we're heading out tomorrow for a five day site/region visit, which will be great!