Installation

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

What a day. It has been an intense one. Today, I got installed at my site. While I have been in Dakar for a few days, I was pretty much in a holding pattern. Yesterday, to pass time and support, I went and helped another volunteer get installed about an hour and a half away. I won’t go into details about his install, because it was so different (he lives in a village), yet, the course of events were very similar.

Today, started around 7:15 with me taking my still damp clothes off the laundry line and putting them into my luggage as well as getting dressed. Malcolm, the Peace Corps/Senegal Director came and picked Steve (the guy I’m replacing) and I up around 8:10 and we headed to one of the governmental agricultural offices to meet the director. It went well, but I am looking forward to being able to understand the language in a few months. I wish Christmas were tomorrow because that is what I would ask for.

We headed back to the Libertie VI (Peace Corps Regional House in Dakar) to pick up my bike before heading to the Center for Microgardening (CDH). This is who I will be working under. My counterpart was there as well. The grounds were absolutely amazing and a formation (class) was going on, which was awesome to see. We did a quick tour of the grounds and came across some students from Quebec doing some study abroad work. I don’t know what they were entirely doing, but they were doing something.

After CDH, it was time to head to my new home. The compound is amazing. The landscaping is like nothing I have really seen in Senegal yet, primarily because there is grass. My family is great too. They know English very well, which I hope I won’t rely on too much…I really need to learn the language.

Finally, it was time to move my stuff into my house. It is far from a hut. It is also far from the imaginative views many of you have told me about, of me living in a small hut with no electricity or running water, and running around in only a loin cloth, speaking in clicks. While I plan to wear a loin cloth everyday, I am very fortunate in my living arrangements. I won’t go into too many details, only because there are pictures of it.

I cleaned the room alittle bit before unpacking. The first thing I wanted to get out of my back was my G Flag. I knew I’d be home once it were up on the wall. I’m hoping on game days to fly it above my house, blasting Glory Glory.

The former volunteer who lived here preferred the mattress on the floor as well as to sit on the floor. I am a little different, so my first big purchases here in Dakar, were a bed frame and two plastic chairs. I think I got a little ripped off on the chairs, but not much I can do about it now. One of my brothers went with me to help with the haggling. He said plastic chairs were expensive. Be very fortunate you have Wal-mart…its not easy to roll-back the prices here.

We got the bed put together and I rearranged part of my room to give it more of a homey feel for me. This was the moment I had been waiting for since the minute I graduated. When I was moving around so much this past fall traveling and such, I started a list of how many places I had slept since Graduation. I just looked over the list and updated it, and since graduation, I have stayed at 36 different places, yet the number goes up if you consider the different places slept at each of them. I gave up in figuring it out. Well, its nice to have a place I can call my own now, at least for the next year and 364 days.

Also, just before an amazing dinner, I worked out with my brothers. Two of them are playing in a tennis tournament in two weeks, so they started exercising today. I probably would have waited another week to start training, but what can you do. They asked if I wanted to train with them and I told them that we weren’t going to train for two weeks but for the entire two years that I was here. I’m pretty excited about this, because I would like to get into shape while over here. Now that I am a legal resident of Africa (at least Senegal), I have to be able to hang with them on any future race I run. As for the workout, we did a lot of pushups, ab stuff, jump rope, and stretching. I’m not the best at jump roping (it is about as good as my dancing skills). We made a schedule for the future days and added a few things. My room has a pull up bar (installed by previous volunteer), so we put that on the list. Today, we are going to the stadium to put suicides into the mix as well. There is a good chance I will be throwing up, at least 4 times this evening.

Dinner was amazing. It was a combination of Western and Senegelese style, which was good We had fish, French fries, bread with an onion and pepper sauce, and salad. Afterwards, we had mango. They laughed at me for eating the skin. Apparently that is a no-no, because it can make you sick. We did it in Thies at my house so I wasn’t too concerned and I have enough shots in my body to get me through just about anything. That really isn’t the attitude to have I suppose, but I really don’t know enough about the skin of Mangos and its connection to giving you a stomachache. Overall, dinner was great and I’m looking forward to every future meal I have here.

As for the upcoming week, I have a few things on the agenda. I start work tomorrow. I am going to in a sense shadow Steve and get a feel for things before he leaves in June. Also, I plan to call a Wolof tutor by weeks end. I have the number for the guy, but I’m trying not to overwhelm myself all at once. Finally, I hope to meet of with my sisters from my host family in Thies. They go to school in Dakar which is cool.

Other than that, I don’t have anything else to say. My brain is kinda mush right now from the past two days. I should probably go out and explore, but I think I’m going to take a nap. I think it might be the last opportunity I have for awhile.

Hope all is well with everyone. Please keep me updated about yourself. I don’t want this site to just be your daily ritual to avoid boredom at work, but as my correspondence to you. Thanks for everyone who has written or called, whether it be by phone, letter, text, email, or all. There are three of you who have sent text-messages or called from Europe. I am able to receive the messages, but I just can’t send them. I know I can call Europe, although, I’m still trying to figure out why I’m not getting through to Spain, my calls aren’t going through...I apologize. I don’t know what is wrong but will try to figure it out eventually.