Market yourself? RPCV job hunt… :/

So it’s been approximately 6 months since I came back to the states and the biggest struggle for me has been finding a purposeful job or career path. Most RPCVs will tell you that the biggest struggle of the job search (well once you finally begin that overwhelming full-time job in itself) is how to market yourself, or how to put your experiences and those life-changing moments to paper.

I have applied to a variety of different types of jobs from Environmental Non-Profits to GIS for-profit positions, Government Geography positions, Political Non-Profits, and still nothing. I have had ONE job offer for basically volunteer salary all over again but living in the city… my answer was ITS NOT POSSIBLE TO SURVIVE in NYC on volunteer salary and having bills again (over lurking student loan debt is just an example of one of those fun bills—ugh)…

After giving up my life to service for about 2 years and 8 months I want to be able to start a life state-side, and begin to pay off this debt, but also live comfortably and still make some sort of difference on my domestic turf. How can I do that, if not one of these employers will take a chance on me? Do you have to know someone to get hired these days or what?

I’ve been given a whole bunch of advice from my family and friends and I guess I have to practice marketing myself better as an RPCV (returned peace corps volunteer)… so here I go…

RPCVS are incredibly resourceful, adaptable, willing to go way beyond to get the job done, self-motivated language acquisitors, able to work incredibly well with people, fast-learners, great communicators, flexible, project designers/managers, grant and budget managers, data collectors and evaluators of project effectiveness.

RPCVS have experience in empowering and inspiring their community members to love what they do and want to develop their communities by first building human connections in their villages and also building partnerships and coalitions with other local organizations to build confidence in their community by strengthening the community’s network and resources towards development. They are facilitators and teachers of technical knowledge and have experience in organizing, planning, and logistics for meetings and trainings for individual, small and large groups. They were leaders of the cause in grassroots development in their communities for two whole years (and in my case, more).

How can I take all of that and put it into an effective cover letter so that employers will not take Peace Corps as some joke? There is this stigma that Peace Corps is just some 2 year vacation… I don’t even know where to begin to debunk that ‘myth’ besides writing about it more now that I am back. Employers should search for RPCVs and try to hire them.

Don’t take me for granted and please give me a chance in this big bad world.

HIRE ME.

And you won’t regret it.

 

Sincerely Yours,

Unemployed and venting RPCV-

Woah. 2 years huh?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Photo slide show above courtesy of my friend Alice Liang who came to my site last year around this time (rainy season), to do a photo essay of my site. If your interested, here’s the link: https://theseneweverydays.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Alicia%20Gray

So, I knew that I would be bad at blogging when I started this thing 2 years ago, but man that was an understatement. I guess in the almost 10 months of not blogging anything that I realized this experience to me is so personal and that I can’t exactly capture it in words to everyone on the “outside”. The Peace Corps experience is so different for every single person, but I find it so much easier to relate and talk about my day to day experiences with my friends in my site and my PCV friends here in Senegal. But I also realize I owe it to you all back home to give you an update of this past year.

UPS AND DOWNS: Work, relationships, and people in general…

So in my second year of service, I feel like I have had more frequent ups and downs than the up up up in the first year…

A lot of this has to do with exciting beginnings with projects and work partners, then giant roadblocks and challenges among Senegalese people, projects, and even other volunteers…

The major project I have been working on and trying to get off the ground since my last post, last November, is the Thilambol primary school garden and environmental education space, which the space is split and shared with the women of the village. The program was started in order to get the kids sensitized to some of the environmental issues that are faced on a day to day basis, make it a part of the primary school curriculum, and teach the children how to combat these issues at an individual level through hands on after-school programs.

The first grant that we received was a generous donation from the CT returned peace corps volunteer association, in order to fix an already established fence around the garden, add a water basin for the well that is not far from the school garden, get some tools for the school, and to finish digging the existing well structure which was thought to only be a few meters… well unfortunately, the well had a “tidi hoore” (stubborn head), and the digger basically did not reach substantial water this first time around….then the money ran out, so no tools were purchased and the well still didn’t have water…

So without water, the Environmental program had to be put on hold until we had substantial water. We only had a chance to have 3 of the 16 planned sessions during the school year because they didn’t require large supplies of water.

Since then, I was able to get more funding through USAID to finish the well and purchase tools. 38 meters deep and the well still does not have a substantial amount of water… so no tools round two, and money is running out. There is a small amount of money left, so I will try to continue it until the well reaches the water table with that money… but once that money runs out, that’s it for outside grant funding.

This has been the biggest struggle of my service, but it is also why I decided to extend my service 6 more months to try and get the project up and running for the next volunteer at my site. If I were to leave my site in the next month, which most of my friends that I came here with are doing, then all of the struggle and hard work that I have put in these past two years basically would have been for nothing in terms of Agroforestry work in my site… And I would end up leaving my village with a big un-resolved issue (no water at the garden), not to mention drop it on the next volunteer, so naturally for me NOT AN OPTION. I am staying here to get this thing figured out and hopefully to a point where the next volunteer can come into and have an opportunity to actually work.

On the other end of things… socially and emotionally, I am not ready to leave this place. I have fostered some incredible relationships with the people in my village and have even gotten two babies named after me, and four after some of my family members back in America. I have met someone that can deal with me, and love me for who I am despite my stubborn tendencies (Thanks for that by the way Ev. :)). And made some life-long friendships with people who have similar lifestyle priorities and I know that eventually when I go home to America, these relationships will only grow stronger.

These two years flew by like I blinked and my friends and I were at our close of service conference a few weeks ago… Weird.

Also I am only extending for 6 months, so I know the next few will also fly by, especially because it is going to be the best season of the year in Senegal, “cold season”… If you call 85- 90 degree days cold… LOL at least the evenings drop to the 70s.

So family and friends back home- I didn’t forget about you, and I love you, but I know ya’ll ‘aint going anywhere in the next 6 months so see you then!

I am coming back to America for a very short time tomorrow (I am in route currently) to go to a few family weddings and spend time with my immediate family… Here’s the thing, I will only be home for 12 days and they are already kind of booked, so please if you want to see me, either come to my house, or wait another 6 months and we’ll party it up then.

Also, side note to those of you who will see me during my small stint home, please have patience with my reverse culture shock, keep the questions not too broad and vague and large, and try to limit them to things you are really interested in, that are more specific than…

“so how was Africa?” or “how is being a peace corps volunteer?”

(one, I live in Senegal, not the entire continent of Africa, and two, that is a huge question…)

More questions like: “how big is the family you live with? Do you have friends in village? Who is your favorite person? Tell me about your favorite experience with your host family? What about your best day “on the job”? do you poop in a hole? do you shower with a bucket? What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

… even though these questions are more specific, they are waaay easier for me to answer.

I respect the curiosity, and owe it to you to share my experiences, but just give me sometime to get used to the fast-paced life again in a developed country and re-learn American culture. Please be patient with me because I sure as hell will be trying to be patient with life in America again…

That’s it for now…

 

 

 

If at first you don’t succeed.. dust your self off and try again.

The famous words of Allyiah (spelling?)… the love that I have for my friends, family, and people here in the Fouta comes rather easily. When work isn’t quite working out, I feel supported 100% by my household, and close friends here. The patience that they have for me is remarkable. Yes, my language has improved quite a bit since I came here, but there is still so much I don’t know when in the middle of conversation… the constant “huh?” And getting frustrated with myself. Most of the time my household and friends have more patience for my pulaar than I do…
Back to that quote. “Dust yourself off and try again”… try again or try different techniques to get to a similar end… Thats the way I’m trying it out.
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer means so much more than the so called “sustainable ag development work” we are supposed to essentially achieve. This agricultural and agroforestry “success” we strive for is a long feat in some villages here. These things would all seem so possible and easy given that people you are working with have both the urge to change and the resources for it.
I guess the more I work with the people here, the more I realize that it takes organized village groups and motivated people to have any “work success” -in terms of our ag framework.
But for me, the framework is not the most important aspect of what success as a Peace Corps Volunteer means to me.. what success means to me is enjoying your life both in a social and work atmosphere while working towards improving meaningful relationships with the positive people that surrond you.
The first year of my service has indefinitely shaped my reasoning behind my choice to now focus all my attention on working with the children of my village. As stated prior, when there is a lack of organized groups and lack of motivated individuals, our work seems like a mute concept.
For this second year, I could help out with the organization of my village with group building activities and record keeping activities, continue to break my back by going from household garden to garden for nothing because in two weeks sheep will be eating everything I just taught you, or I can work with the generation that has the power to make some serious change. I’ll go with the later..

Senegal oh Senegal

So I’ve been here in Senegal for ten months. Wow, time flies. I also have not written any blog posts for quite some time, and within that time so many things have happened. Everyday I learn something new about this place, the people, the religion, other American’s living in Senegal, and of course me… This gig is not an easy gig that’s for sure. This place is not an easy one to live in… it will beat you down mentally and physically, but it can also be incredibly rewarding, and it is those days where someone tells you that you are a good person and that God brought you to Senegal…. that makes it all worth it..

Something I keep in mind often here in Senegal, is that people really only know what they see, and that most of the time stereotypes are made about who I am and what I portray as a white American woman living in the Fouta. These stereotypes have a lot to do with the only access they have to “Americans”, which unfortunately, is what they see on TV… There are many challenges that follow these stereotypes, including the marriage proposal every other day, the asking for my help to prepare the paperwork for people to go to America when I go home, the idea that I have all the money in the world… It used to bother me to the point where I would get mad and snap at people for asking these questions over and over again, but over time I realized, it is what they know and all they know, that is why these questions are asked on a daily basis.

Once you get past the awkward question asking, the people here are amazing. My new family, my friends, my village, my work partners, each and every one of them are wonderful. They have taught me everything I need to know about living here, talking to people, and getting things done. The thing about the “Foutaanke” (people of the Fouta) is that every time I take an extra 20 minutes or hour out of my day to have a conversation about my culture or about my life and step away from the norm here in the conservative Fouta, people learn a little bit more about me and the “American” culture per say. I break the stereotype down little by little every one of those weird conversations I have about culture of American relationships (marriage/sex), the culture of religion in America, the diversity of the American people, having children at a later age (sometimes not being married), mostly every child goes to school, and after that, most go to university, there are ridiculous amounts of diversity in the food we eat, the clothing we wear, I mean I could go on forever with the differences in American culture and Fouta culture…. but that’s the point right?

I talk to people not just because I like the conversation, but also because I like for people to know who I am, what I am passionate about, and where I come from. The more that my village and community know about me, the easier it is to do some good work here with my community. Obviously that is not the case all of the time, and not everyone cares, but at least I can say that I am not like the Americans you see on tv with all that money. When I talk about the money I have, I often refer to the debt I owe back in America. I find myself getting into these university debt conversations a lot. The point is to try to get people to understand that money is completely different in America as it is here and most people my age will be paying off their debt for years and years and yearss… but here, women my age are either married and have at least four kids, or they are still living with their parents taking care of the house (not often do women from Fouta go off to university).

Anyways, I am getting kicked out of the internet cafe right now because it’s Ramadan and people are hot, tired, thirsty, and hungry…

Until next time- ha gongol

Permanent site–Where the heck is Alicia going to be for the next year and 9 months?

Okay, so I realize it has been 3 months since my last post so I apologize for that, but here goes a little bit about my site…

Basic Geography

So, my village (don’t want to be too specific on the interweb…), is in the Fouta and is South of the Senegal River on the boundary of the Department of Saint Louis and the Department of Matam. It is in the North eastish of Senegal and has a population of less than 1000. My village is beautiful, just incredibly hot and dry. We are technically in the transitional ecozone in the Sahel (Sahelian Acacia savanna)

between the Trazra Desert to the North in Mauritania and the Tropical south of Senegal. But we are also just south of a tributary of the Senegal River.

There are three major seasons in the Fouta; daabunde (cool dry gardening season-now), ceedu (hot, dry season), and nduungu (hot with rains-very little- ~200 mm/yr). Right now it’s the “cool” and dry season daabunde, where it is nice and hott during the day, but the nights are chilly. You can only really garden during daabunde between Dec and Feb.

During the ceedu no one grows anything because there is just not enough water or strength for people to bear the heat. I have not seen ceedu yet but it is coming soon…. and I’m a little scared haha! Following ceedu the rains come (dabbunde) around July-August, but very infrequent and tend to be quite strong.

Here’s a blurb from something a past Northern AGFO wrote about the conditions where I am currently:

“Next time you have a chance, take a look at the Google Earth view of Senegal. To the south, we can see a dark and rich shade of green, but as we move progressively north, the view becomes paler and paler till we reach a mottled sort of tan at the top. Beyond to the north and east we can just begin to make out the Sahara desert, creeping along, its long fingers wiping away the last bit of color in Mauritania.

Our job is to stop that spread. And we have to do it in some pretty rough conditions. Ridiculous winds blast out of the Malian desert, rushing along at 20 to 40 km/h. Ravenous animals rip out any available grass or shrub by the end of cold season, leaving topsoil to get baked for the hot season. Your rainy season won’t hit its stride till late July and even then the rain will be sporadic and pitiful in quantity. Lastly, the local population often recognizes the need to plant trees, but lacks the tree planting culture more common in the south.

It’s not easy. No one will say it’s easy. But that’s why we have you. And you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t tough enough to be chiseled by the wind and forged by the heat. And with this guide, we can lean our backs into this encroaching monster and push it back to where it came from.”

-Gordon Day

No one couldn’t say it better than this guy. This place is amazing, and it is my home now, so it’s time to get to work. In order to reach our goal to increase food security here in Senegal as an AG volunteer, (it is my opinion) that our efforts be placed in this region of Senegal (Fouta), where desertification is real, and is encroaching further south everyday.

Behavior change?

Our goal as AGFO volunteers is essentially to plant trees and vegetation to aid in reducing the effects of climate change (for example: longer drought periods, severe wind and water erosion, reduction of agricultural land, and more dependence on foreign food sources), coupled with immense deforestation, and overgrazing.

The first part is easy… plant trees is easy right?

No.

That is why we as PCV’s are trained on not only “planting trees”, but in having a deeper understanding of the culture that is now our home. We are trained heavily in language and culture, as well as the technical and innovative approaches of farming and ecological practices of planting trees.

But in order to do any work or plant any trees… how do we get our communities to want to change?

You cannot just walk into a community and say hey, I think that you would benefit from this new way of planting trees… In my opinion, that is the biggest flaw in development work. Send a foreigner/NGO out into the field to fund some big project, set it up and leave without any follow up… for the people just to later on not understand how to take care of it or the importance and long term benefits of it.

So HOW?

It all starts with building relationships.

Cultural Integration

Okay, so I confess that the first 3 months I spent A LOT of time on talking to people, relaxing, learning the language, being present at events (such as: weddings, naming ceremonies, funerals, etc.), and not so much time “working” per say.

Then I realized… what I have done, is built relationships in my new home–just as important as “work”.

I get to spend most of my afternoons with the kids singing jingle bells, row your boat, and happy birthday or kicking a soccer ball around.

My evenings are spent sitting with some incredibly intelligent young people who might not ever get the opportunity to finish high school, let alone go to college because they get married really young or need to stay home and help their parents/significant other in the field or in the house. Not to mention most of the people who finish university (there are only 5 universities in Senegal:Dakar, Thies, Ziguinchor, St. Louis, and Bambey) do not have a job to look forward to after…

I also get to spend my days sitting under the very few shade trees in my village with some very wise women and men talking about life here in village and learning some Pulaar proverbs.

Other days, I hang out in the field that my host father works at called the Master Farm. This space is specifically meant for ag/agfo demonstrations to our community and the surrounding communities (but he has not yet done a big demonstration here… so this is something we will be doing this year…).

Through out this time, I have also attended local meetings with the heads of the surrounding villages, as well as my own village about agriculture, education, herders, water, land use, and health…

I have been to five weddings, three naming ceremonies, one funeral. I have made amazing friends in village, had conversations about American culture, religion, garden bed establishment, composting, and just about my life back in America.

 

I have had the opportunity to get many local clothes made as well as getting henna’ed up (local Pulaar culture of beautification for events).

So that is how?

Yes. So far… having these experiences have opened up my community to be interested in these “trainings” that I travel so far to learn about. Without spending the amount of time I have spent with my community and the people I have built relationships with, they wouldn’t care what work I came there to do… they seem to just now be interested in my work after 5.5 months of being in Senegal (but 2.5 months technically in site).

Cultural Integration: check.

So NOW it is time to get to work…What’s my next move?

Now I plan to get on with interviewing my friends and family here in village, putting together a village meeting or two, and throwing some ideas around, just to see if what I have observed is actually what my village wants and needs… ground up.

Wish me luck!

Pulaar proverb of the day: “Sessa sessa, naggat daa wojere ender ladde”

Slowly, slowly you will catch the rabbit in the woods…

 

 

 

A day in the life of a PCT at CBT

December 1st

–SIDE NOTE: this blog post is from about two weeks ago give or take…. I am actually currently sworn in but I will write a separate post after this one that never got finished, so keep in mind this post was supposed to be uploaded 2.5 weeks ago…We have had very limited internet access over the past 2 months of training and hopefully you can understand my frustration with blogging.. hence why I am a bit behind.–

November 17th

So unfortunately…  I wrote an extremely long, a bit witty, and wonderful blog about 1 week ago about the day in the life of a PCT (peace corps trainee) at CBT (community based training), but it accidentally got erased…  so here’s my second go around in which I will try to summarize with as much detail as my brain can recall…not guaranteeing any wittiness because I am fried from counterpart workshop which we are currently in back at the training center (this is basically the time when all of our agriculture work counterparts -people we will be working with at our permanent sites- come to learn about what we have been training for etc. etc.) Also we swear in in less than two weeeeeeks~!! soo lots of tests… (I passed the final Agroforestry tech exam with flying colors yay! we just have our oral langauge exams, safety and security, and med exams left all this week–after counterpart workshop….)

This blog post is specifically about CBT (which we only are at some of the time during training… while the other time we are in sessions and classes all day long at the Theis Training Center).

First I wake up around 6:30/7 in my room (a concrete room in my house which is essentially a compound). I try to either do some yoga or go for a run (emphasis on try).. however moooost of the time I try to study my language (Pulaar du Nord) then unlock and open up my door to go grab a bucket of water from the spigot for my shower (a bucket bath–which I actually like way better than a western shower because its more time and water efficient– ) 🙂

After the shower (in the corner of my compound next to the bathroom–aka a hole in the ground covered by a porcelain plate and a concrete structure surrounding it), I head back to my room and put on some conservative clothing… I need to get used to covering up because it is respectful in the culture of where I will be serving in northern Senegal (so I have been wearing lots of clothes that cover pretty much my entire body–despite the heat of Senegal). Then I head out to my living room (aka the mat under the shady mango tree in the center of our compound) and greet everyone in my family, then sit with them for breakfast, which usually consists of a french baguette with some sort of spread (chocolate sauce, mayonnaise/onion/spices, onion sauce/little mini potato crisps, or just butter) and cafe touba (essentially a weaker spiced coffee with lots of milk and sugar). Usually my family doesn’t finish breakfast until right before I have class ~9am, so I have to rush to my teacher’s host family compound for language learning right after breakfast (luckily he lives right next door to me)…

When I get to Oumar Tall’s (my LCF–language cultural facilitator–) host family’s house, I greet his mother and host siblings as you would do anyone’s home you walk into. It is rude to not go through the round of long greetings with all the family members in the house hold. You should greet the eldest/man of the household first, then the women from oldest to youngest. Since Oumar’s host father is working abroad, his wife, Awa is who I greet first. Awa is like my second mom here at CBT… she always makes fun of me and jokes about everything with me which essentially means she loves me 🙂 LOL…

---

SIDE NOTE: I must put this in a separate format to emphasize to you all back home how important of a person Oumar is! He has basically taught me all about the Pulaar culture and how to speak basic Pulaar to be able to survive in the Fouta–up where I will be serving my two years–. Oumar is the best LCF! He goes out of his way to help us learn Pulaar and always answers his phone or calls us back when we need him. He is from the city of Ndioum in Fouta (the north of Senegal) where I will be heading in a few weeks right before I install at my final site in Thilambol. His family still lives in Ndioum so he just lives in Theis and Dakar during a portion of the year to work.

---

Okay, so I am also normally the last one out of the three of us trainees who get to Oumar’s house because my family eats so late, so by the time I get there, Justin and Eva are already sitting with Oumar on our mat in front of the white board where we do our classes every morning…

We mostly study Pulaar from between 9:30ish to like 1:30ish with many distractions (including the sheep, goats, and chickens trying to eat our plants in our garden; all of the guests of the household trying to talk to us; “toubabs”–white western people essentially–; and the kids of my family and Awa’s family sometimes coming over to hang out or greet us).

After class we each head back home to eat lunch with our families around 2:30ish. This also takes place on a mat under our mango tree in our front yard. My sisters are amazing cooks and we normally eat rice and fish and some type of vegetable (sometimes) that has been cooked in lots and lots of oil. Or we eat maffe which is a peanut based sauce (which is my favorite) with some potatoes or some type of meat.

After lunch the women clean up and do dishes and everyone else rests on the mat under the mango tree and drinks attaya (3 rounds usually). Then I grab my things and head back over to Oumar’s house for our work in the garden between about 4-7pmish. Within about a month we built 2 amazing compost piles, 3 garden beds, 5 field crop beds, a moringa intensive bed, a container garden, learned how to collect tree seeds and store them properly, built a vegetable peppiner, and a tree peppiner.

After garden work we head back to our respective houses to hang out with our families for the remainder of the evening. Most days I take a second bucket shower after the garden because of the heat and dust! Dinner is normally amazing as well because like I said, my sisters are amazing cooks and we eat any time between 8:30 and 9:30. Most of the time we have lacciri and kosam which is basically cous cous and a sweet milk with lots of sugar, but on occasion we eat either beef or chicken with pasta (cooked with lots and lots of grease) eaten with our hands and bread.

Then I try to hang out with my family and either study some Pulaar note cards or just hang out and listen to them talk under the mango tree until everyone is too tired to do that anymore. By anyone, I mean me… because I can never make it past 10 without wanting to go to my hut to sleep while everyone else hangs out till around 11 or 11:30. Then the day is over and I basically repeat this all over again during CBT stay days. It is a lot more relaxed at CBT with more hands on work than at the training center but both equally necessary in learning a new culture, language, and work.

Since it is difficult to post many photos of this all at once on here I will try to post them on Facebook. Anyways thanks for listening to me ramble about my life at CBT.

Miss you all and will talk soon –in challah–

xoxo Alicia

 

 

One month in!

Where to begin…

Senegal is a very beautiful country and is especially defined by its very beautiful people.

In the short time that I have been here I feel like I have learned a lot. Granted we were relatively sheltered in our mini America back in Thies for the first two weeks and on and off between CBT… but CBT (community based training) has been extremely eye opening in terms of culture differences and language barriers. CBT is where we spend a few weeks on and off with a family who speaks our local language where we will eventually end up for the rest of our service (After training is over and we swearin as a PCV-peace corps volunteer). This site is where we have our cultural immersion and language practice. My language is Pulaar de Nord and is primarily spoken in Northern Senegal.

I still don’t know where I will be placed because Pulaar is spoken widely all over Senegal!!! We all find out tomorrow afternoon then prepare to go to VV (volunteer visit–which we do this weekend yay!) for the weekend to visit our actual sites that we will be living and working for the next two years!!

In the Senegalese culture, hospitality is one of the main aspects, as well gender specific roles, family, greetings and salutations, religion, respect, language, food (lots of carbs and lots of meat, esp. fish and rice), ataya (tea), and cleanliness (in terms of two to three bucket baths a day–showers and sweeping the house and cleaning the house).

My CBT family is amazing and big (kinda like my family at home) and its very nice. My host mom (Mayram Dem) and dad (Ablay Ba) have 7 kids ranging from 19-35, 3 of them do not live with us (they live up North in Fouta with their families) and 4 of them do.

Dgibi Ba (my oldest brother in the house- 30) is married to my “tokkaram” or namesake, Binta Ba (26), therefore my name at CBT is Binta Ba (very common in Senegal to name babies after someone else in the family – its an honor). In peace corps training you get three Senegalese names, one at CBT, one at VV ( volunteer visit–which we do this weekend yay!), and one at our permanent site.

Then there is Samba Ba (my next oldest brother in the house,  28). He is married to Mayram Jallo (21) and they have a four year old son Sedu.

Then there is Sali Ba, my sister (23) she is not married anymore, but has two kids, Paisa Lee (5) and baby Hadgititu Lee, she’s adorable! As are my nephews aswell!

Then my sister Habi Ba (19) and she’s not married yet.

Also in the house are my three boy cousins Yu, Ibrahima, and Momma. They are between 15 and 20 and my tokkaram’s sister Mayram Njai. All awesome people!

We stay at CBT site on and off for these first three months of training before Peace Corps Volunteer swearin after thanksgiving in November.

So far it has been an amazing experience. My LCF (language cultural facilitator- Senegalese -Pulaar de Nord and employed by PC) lives in the compound right next door to me (like us he has a host family for training, but he’s actually from the north of Senegal) at CBT which is also nice, and we have 5 other PCT (peace corps trainees) in the same village (Nghehok) also living in host families and we meet for language each day and work in our gardens aswell.

Bottom line… this month has flown by because when we aren’t at CBT we are in Thies at the training center with limited internet or free time because of training classes every day, tests, safety and security, health, etc…so I did want to let you all know I am alive and well over here! And just to give you a small glimpse of what I’ve been up to over here so far.

Eventually pictures will come (when I have free time and access), so stay tuned! Especially after this weekend at VV!! Btw I may just shoot a quick blog about my region as soon as I find out tomorrow 🙂 we are all so excited over here!

Also side note…the PCTs purchased a turkey for thanksgiving haha (one agressive one from another PCTs CBT site that we want to eat) and we will be at the beach that day so that’s definitely something to look forward to at the end of our initial training before swearin!

We also have a talent show the day before Halloween and a Halloween party to look forward to with us all together 😀

Basically the support and love from all of the trainers, med team, current volunteers, staff, and pcts is felt here every day so thats awesome and I figured id let y’all know 😀

That’s it for now I gotta go eat lunch!

Love and miss y’all but your here in spirit and pictures 🙂

By the way family back in the states, I talk about you all the time to my host family hehe all good things and in the most basic way of communicating in my novice high language level right now lol!

Anywho-

haa gonngol (until next time in Pulaar)!

Xoxoxo

And we’re off!

Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the copious amount of love and support that my friends and family have left me with these past few weeks and especially yesterday. Sending my love to you all and will see you soon! 2 years will go by quickly (probably quicker for you than me haha)…

I can definitely say that the excitement has kicked in and that this staging event has been a great opportunity to meet some of the volunteers that will be serving with me the next 26 months.

Everyone seems anxious but excited and it is actually really refreshing to know that I am not the only one feeling that way.

Also a little glitch on the first day….we were supposed to head to JFK an hour ago (5pm) but the buses are not here yet (6pm)…Soo we will see if all 60 of us will make it to our flight in time (9:30) yikes! Awesome we are shuttling it instead haha getting ready to go now!

Welp I just wanted to give you all an update of where I am and how its going so far (goood) and to let you know that you’ll be hearing from me when we get to Senegal!

Yay the day is finally here!

Ba benen yoon!

Awaiting my departure for Senegal with gratitude and excitement!!

A great friend of mine (Sarah Schulwitz) got me a journal to write in while I am away and on the first page she wrote this quote:

“What counts in life, is not the mere fact that we have lived, it is the difference we have made in the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” -Nelson Mandela

I love it Sar! Thanks so much will miss you and Moose to the moon and back 🙂