Hey guys! I'm back to Mbour after an eventful and information overloaded weekend in Thies with the other volunteers. So great to see everyone again though! Its tuely like a little family here. Of course, I was already in Thies chillin in the health area recouperating since Friday, so when my friends rolled in Sunday afternoon, I was very happy to have some familiar company again. We've been sitting in boring seminars all day everyday covering disease awareness, safety and security, Senegalese ecology, and overviews of our future jobs in the education system and health care systems. Back to reality with our host families come tomorrow, nonstop Pulaar and attempting to garden in the desert! I'll be without internet again until I come back to Thies for more seminars, which probably won't be until April something. However, I will have my cell phone!
If out of the kindness of your heart you feel the need to send care packages, cards, or letters at any time in these next two years, here's the address!
PCV Chelsea Moeller
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 299
Thies, Senegal
I hope you are all doing well back in America, think of you all the time and miss you dearly!
love love loveeee,
Chelsea
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Mariama Jallo
Hello loved ones!
Monday afternoon we packed up our stuff and piled into various buses and safari cars eager to take us away to our new site locations. Leaving the Peace Corps center in Thies and venturing on an hour long ride through desert, it was quite a sight arriving in Mbour to meet our host families. One by one they dropped us off and with just a few Pulaar phrases under our belts, I cannot tell you how nervous we were.
When my stop came, I saw my new neene (mom) waiting for me outside with all her sweet little children! They were really friendly and excited to meet me. The mom offered me rice and saucy veggies after I settled into my room. Not quite sure what else was in it, but it tasted like sand had made its way in. Mmm crunchy! They named me Mariama, after the mother of the family. The second wife, Ruby, is really down to earth and pretty much just laughs at everything I do. You can't find Ruby and the mom without the two littlest ones swattled up and tied to her back. The one little girl, Adama, I'm especially attached to. She always wants me to hold her and she always comes into my room to play. The other night she fell asleep in my lap after dinner. Awww!
The houses out in Mbour are made of concrete blocks. No roof and no floor, just sand. Honestly, it looks like I'm in Egypt with the architecture styles and Islamic influences. The door and windows are either just open cutouts in the concrete, squeeky tin, or sheets nailed to the walls for privacy.
Thankfully, its really beautiful outside and it doesn't start raining until June, in which case I'm not sure what they do without a roof. My shower consists of a bucket of water (from the well nearby) and a cup. My toliet? A hole in the ground :) Some houses have electricity, not mine. Thank God I brought a headlamp! I also have two nice chairs in my room and a bed! Not bad eh?
The hardest thing so far is the language barrier. Mainly its just been awkward silences and awkward laughing. However, my sign language and mime skills have peaked. I'm thankful for the father in my family. He's pretty cool and speaks french well. When he gets home at night from his painting job, he teaches me Pulaar by using French to help me understand. I have Pulaar class every morning with the other volunteers in the area. Never thought I would be so excited to go to class everyday! Im really pushing to learn it because the better we can communicate with the locals, the more of an impact we can make!
On Wednesday we started on our vegetable gardens at the school. The kiddies kept running over to see what we were doing, then they'd play in the sand piles and make it difficult for us to work. They're cute, but when you're tired and sweaty from digging through sand in 95 degree heat, your patience starts to wear thin. Regardless, its nice to get out of the house and be active. Working on the garden projects makes me feel like I'm actually doing something here haha.
I'm kind of bummed I missed St. Patty's Day in the states! Obviously, there's no kind of celebration here, but you better believe I'm drinking green beer on Sunday when all the volunteers come back to the center! I wore a green skirt, but that's about all I was able to do. My mom's irish bread pudding sounds reallllllllly great right about now! Picturing her do the Irish jig all day has been making me smile. My language culture facilitator (LCF), Sammba, visited my house Thursday night and lent me his phone to call my mom. It helped so much to hear her voice!
Supposedly this first week is the hardest with being homesick and frustrations of language and adapting to the rural environment in general.
After I got off the phone with my mama, I ate dinner with the fam. Not such a good idea. Yep, food poisoning. Yuck! Puked all night and most of the day Friday. My host dad called the center and they came and brought me back to Thies a day early. I'm feeling better, resting up, and am finally able to hold down some fruit. I'm sure I'll be fine and feeling 100% by tomorrow. Lets hope so! On the brighter side, I have an awesome tan.
En burini han (see you soon)
Chelsea
Monday afternoon we packed up our stuff and piled into various buses and safari cars eager to take us away to our new site locations. Leaving the Peace Corps center in Thies and venturing on an hour long ride through desert, it was quite a sight arriving in Mbour to meet our host families. One by one they dropped us off and with just a few Pulaar phrases under our belts, I cannot tell you how nervous we were.
Its hard to tell how many people are in the family exactly. Cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles all hang out together all the time, especially with the children always running around. I constantly am finding myself doing head counts once everyone is settled. My guess is 7 or 8 brothers and sisters.
On Wednesday we started on our vegetable gardens at the school. The kiddies kept running over to see what we were doing, then they'd play in the sand piles and make it difficult for us to work. They're cute, but when you're tired and sweaty from digging through sand in 95 degree heat, your patience starts to wear thin. Regardless, its nice to get out of the house and be active. Working on the garden projects makes me feel like I'm actually doing something here haha.
I'm kind of bummed I missed St. Patty's Day in the states! Obviously, there's no kind of celebration here, but you better believe I'm drinking green beer on Sunday when all the volunteers come back to the center! I wore a green skirt, but that's about all I was able to do. My mom's irish bread pudding sounds reallllllllly great right about now! Picturing her do the Irish jig all day has been making me smile. My language culture facilitator (LCF), Sammba, visited my house Thursday night and lent me his phone to call my mom. It helped so much to hear her voice!
After I got off the phone with my mama, I ate dinner with the fam. Not such a good idea. Yep, food poisoning. Yuck! Puked all night and most of the day Friday. My host dad called the center and they came and brought me back to Thies a day early. I'm feeling better, resting up, and am finally able to hold down some fruit. I'm sure I'll be fine and feeling 100% by tomorrow. Lets hope so! On the brighter side, I have an awesome tan.
En burini han (see you soon)
Chelsea
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Fulakunda!
Mbad-daa!
Today was so exciting!! We all received our site regions and the languages we'll be learning for the next two years! And guess what... my village speaks Fulakunda! Haha! So cool. A little background info...Fulakunda is a form of Pulaar. Pulaar is the second most popular language spoken besides Wolof and it has many different subtle forms depending on the region of the country. If you know a little Wolof and a little French, getting around in the country is very easy and pretty much everyone can understand you unless you're in a rural setting where villagers don't have formal language training. Some of the volunteers got lucky and are staying in a region where they'll continue to speak Wolof.
Here's the basic Fulakunda we learned today:
Hello: Musa mbad-daa!
How are you doing?: Tanaa alaa?
I'm fine: Jam tan.
What's your name?: Hono mbiete-daa?
My name is Chelsea.: Ko Chelsea mbiete mi.
Whew! yep. Its difficult. Theres actually about 10 letters in the alphabet that are crazy and weird looking and have a whole different sound! This may take a while to learn.
Anyways, for my fixed site area (meaning where I'll be for the two years after pre-service training) will be in the southeastern most region! This region of the country is really rain foresty, lush and green!! Its also considered a little less conservative area, so they're cool with women wearing tank tops and whatnot. I'm pretty excited about this, because the rest of the country is very much desert and hotter than the southeast. Also, there's about 10 other really great volunteers who are going to this region with me. yayyy!!
Starting tomorrow and for the next three months (pre-service training) we have a practice homestay with a practice host family who will also speak Fulakunda. Greatest thing of all? They're in Mbour, south of Dakar, right on the beach!!!!! You read right, I'll be on the beach for my pre-service training until May. Waaaaaahooooo!
I heard from my grandparents today, it was so sweet of them to call!
Erica, I'm sorry I missed you babe, but please skype me soon!
Anyhow, I'm sure I'll have a lot more to write about once I've stayed with my pre-service host family, just wanted to inform you all of my new locations! I will be there for a week at first before taking a break and coming back to the peace corps center in Thies, so its goodbye until then!
peace,
Chelsea
Today was so exciting!! We all received our site regions and the languages we'll be learning for the next two years! And guess what... my village speaks Fulakunda! Haha! So cool. A little background info...Fulakunda is a form of Pulaar. Pulaar is the second most popular language spoken besides Wolof and it has many different subtle forms depending on the region of the country. If you know a little Wolof and a little French, getting around in the country is very easy and pretty much everyone can understand you unless you're in a rural setting where villagers don't have formal language training. Some of the volunteers got lucky and are staying in a region where they'll continue to speak Wolof.
Here's the basic Fulakunda we learned today:
Hello: Musa mbad-daa!
How are you doing?: Tanaa alaa?
I'm fine: Jam tan.
What's your name?: Hono mbiete-daa?
My name is Chelsea.: Ko Chelsea mbiete mi.
Whew! yep. Its difficult. Theres actually about 10 letters in the alphabet that are crazy and weird looking and have a whole different sound! This may take a while to learn.
Anyways, for my fixed site area (meaning where I'll be for the two years after pre-service training) will be in the southeastern most region! This region of the country is really rain foresty, lush and green!! Its also considered a little less conservative area, so they're cool with women wearing tank tops and whatnot. I'm pretty excited about this, because the rest of the country is very much desert and hotter than the southeast. Also, there's about 10 other really great volunteers who are going to this region with me. yayyy!!
Starting tomorrow and for the next three months (pre-service training) we have a practice homestay with a practice host family who will also speak Fulakunda. Greatest thing of all? They're in Mbour, south of Dakar, right on the beach!!!!! You read right, I'll be on the beach for my pre-service training until May. Waaaaaahooooo!
I heard from my grandparents today, it was so sweet of them to call!
Erica, I'm sorry I missed you babe, but please skype me soon!
Anyhow, I'm sure I'll have a lot more to write about once I've stayed with my pre-service host family, just wanted to inform you all of my new locations! I will be there for a week at first before taking a break and coming back to the peace corps center in Thies, so its goodbye until then!
peace,
Chelsea
Saturday, March 12, 2011
culturally submerged... almost.
Assalamaaleykum! (Wolof greeting for "peace be with you") Everyone says that here, no matter who you are! The usual response back is "Maalekum salaam", which means "peace be with you also".
People are so peaceful here! It is seriously all about the peace. Other than that, I've never seen such friendly genuine smiling and happiness all the time, the Senegalese are really friendly people, its pretty nice. However, they love to mess with you and joke around which as an American, can be confusing haha. I always assume they're making fun of me, which I guess they are. But they do it to each other as well. Most of the pre-service training at the Peace Corps center has been education on culture. We did a Culture Fair yesterday where we went around to different stations and discussed the Islam religion, their food and table manners, their bathing and bathroom habits, and their awesomely ridiculoulsy beautiful dressing styles, among other things. The women always look great, with gorgeous jewelery and long dresses, it makes us volunteers feel like pretty dirty scrubby hippies most the time. Anyways, we drank some popular fruit juices, tried different types of couscous, learned about the trees they use for natural remedies, and chewed on tree branches, one way they clean their teeth, like tooth picks.
Today was great. Really hot though! And apparently really hot to us is pretty chilly to them (90 degrees almost). Hmm... I'm not looking forward to possible 130 degree heat, which may very well be the case in the summers, depending on my permanent village site. I got a lil pink on my arms, not too bad though. Thank you mom for the 50 spf sunscreen! Good call!!
We did some agriculture training today! So fun! I love playing in the dirt!! Who knew? We practiced preparing vegetable gardens and tree nurserys so we can plant them with the women and children in the villages or at the schools in order to incorporate some organic healthy food into their diet. Nutrition education is one thing we're going to work on with them, as well as prevention of malnutrition. Deforestation is a big problem too, so by teaching them how to plant trees and sustain them will hopefully catch on. Its so cool how health and environment ties together!
After gardening all day, we headed to the market and walked around for a bit to see what the world looks like outside of the peace corps center! A little culture shocked, but very cool. I'm slowly starting to get comfortable with the feeling of sand in my shoes all the time. You just can't avoid it. They have some paved roads, but not really. I was comforted to find little shops with ice cream, coca-cola, and some French treats I remember tasting while studying abroad. I came back with some chocolate cookies :)
We all met back up at a local pub for some brews afterward, then headed back to the center for pizza! We are all very well fed here at the pc center, and from what I hear, our host moms feed us even better! Only one more day here at the training center, then off to submerge myself in Senegalese life while living with my host family. Kinda nervous about this, I don't even know what language they speak yet! I've been studying up on my Wolof and French, but they all have native village languages like Pulaar, for example. At least if I know Wolof, I should be okay. Everyone everywhere speaks that as well as their village language.
Thank you for the emails, I'm loving them! Internet is here and there lately because all 50 of us are trying to connnect with our families at once. Sorry for any delayed responses!
A bientot,
Chelsea
People are so peaceful here! It is seriously all about the peace. Other than that, I've never seen such friendly genuine smiling and happiness all the time, the Senegalese are really friendly people, its pretty nice. However, they love to mess with you and joke around which as an American, can be confusing haha. I always assume they're making fun of me, which I guess they are. But they do it to each other as well. Most of the pre-service training at the Peace Corps center has been education on culture. We did a Culture Fair yesterday where we went around to different stations and discussed the Islam religion, their food and table manners, their bathing and bathroom habits, and their awesomely ridiculoulsy beautiful dressing styles, among other things. The women always look great, with gorgeous jewelery and long dresses, it makes us volunteers feel like pretty dirty scrubby hippies most the time. Anyways, we drank some popular fruit juices, tried different types of couscous, learned about the trees they use for natural remedies, and chewed on tree branches, one way they clean their teeth, like tooth picks.
Today was great. Really hot though! And apparently really hot to us is pretty chilly to them (90 degrees almost). Hmm... I'm not looking forward to possible 130 degree heat, which may very well be the case in the summers, depending on my permanent village site. I got a lil pink on my arms, not too bad though. Thank you mom for the 50 spf sunscreen! Good call!!
We did some agriculture training today! So fun! I love playing in the dirt!! Who knew? We practiced preparing vegetable gardens and tree nurserys so we can plant them with the women and children in the villages or at the schools in order to incorporate some organic healthy food into their diet. Nutrition education is one thing we're going to work on with them, as well as prevention of malnutrition. Deforestation is a big problem too, so by teaching them how to plant trees and sustain them will hopefully catch on. Its so cool how health and environment ties together!
After gardening all day, we headed to the market and walked around for a bit to see what the world looks like outside of the peace corps center! A little culture shocked, but very cool. I'm slowly starting to get comfortable with the feeling of sand in my shoes all the time. You just can't avoid it. They have some paved roads, but not really. I was comforted to find little shops with ice cream, coca-cola, and some French treats I remember tasting while studying abroad. I came back with some chocolate cookies :)
We all met back up at a local pub for some brews afterward, then headed back to the center for pizza! We are all very well fed here at the pc center, and from what I hear, our host moms feed us even better! Only one more day here at the training center, then off to submerge myself in Senegalese life while living with my host family. Kinda nervous about this, I don't even know what language they speak yet! I've been studying up on my Wolof and French, but they all have native village languages like Pulaar, for example. At least if I know Wolof, I should be okay. Everyone everywhere speaks that as well as their village language.
Thank you for the emails, I'm loving them! Internet is here and there lately because all 50 of us are trying to connnect with our families at once. Sorry for any delayed responses!
A bientot,
Chelsea
Thursday, March 10, 2011
yeahhh i gota cell phone!
Salut my lovely family and friends!
Nanga def? (wolof phrase for 'how are you?')
Day two in senegal, and we have cell phones now! for those of you whom I tried calling today, I forgot to give you the country code! silly me. its 221! so feel free to call me anytime! i'll always make time to chat because i miss you ;)
here's my cell numba: 221-77-672-0357
ba beneen, (wolof goodbye)
Chelsea
Nanga def? (wolof phrase for 'how are you?')
Day two in senegal, and we have cell phones now! for those of you whom I tried calling today, I forgot to give you the country code! silly me. its 221! so feel free to call me anytime! i'll always make time to chat because i miss you ;)
here's my cell numba: 221-77-672-0357
ba beneen, (wolof goodbye)
Chelsea
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Bismillah!
Hello all!!
Yes! We have arrived safely in Senegal! Woohooo!
After a long uncomfortable red eye, all 47 of us arrived at 6 am stepping off the plane to the sweet salty smell of the ocean breeze. We were greeted by our country director, Chris, and a few other new PC staff faces. I was beginning to feel confident in the names of all my new PCV friends, now I must start on all the staff members! I have my work cut out for me. We took a snug hour long bus ride across the city to our PC training center in Thies and this is where we'll be for the next couple days!
It is SO BEAUTIFUL! I'm talkin perrrrrfect 70 degree weather, sunny and smelling like a vacation spot. Gardens and flowers everywhere, and soft sandy ground to walk on.
Since we've been traveling for two straight days now, I believe I've managed to get a total of 5 hours of sleep, but I'm full of excited energy and ready to get started. We settled in our bunks and ate delicious bread and jelly with hot tea for breakfast.
There's a group playing volleyball behind me and the rest of us are relaxing around the complex eagerly awaiting lunch. I cannot tell you how awesome all these people are! A big group of liberal french obsessed environmentalists friends is never anything to complain about ;)
After this week we'll unfortunately be separated into our various village sites. We'll finally be meeting our host families on Monday! Super exciting. I can't wait to tell you about them. I'm sure they'll be great! This is so surreal to be here. I don't think its even hit me yet, but on the bus ride over to the training center I peered out the window observing men on donkey carts and goats walking around the villages with women balancing bowls of bananas on their heads dressed in traditional African clothing. Oh man! How sweet is that? Not to mention the bus full of beautiful kiddies pulling up next to us. Sooo cute! Later around noon-thirty we gathered in the dining hut for a delightful treat mixture of rice, raisins, green beans, carrots and beans (there was meat bowls for the meat-eaters). Spicy and amazing, we sat on the floor and dug in, three people to each big bowl. Pretty much everything here is served in a giant bowl and everyone helps themselves with their spoon.
After lunch, four amazing drummers from the staff started up a beat and encouraged us all to start a dance party in the sand. No joke. I can honestly say that today, I learned traditional african dances with real african drummers, and this went strong for a whole hour! They LOVE to dance here! Then to make things even sweeter, a couple of angel baby little girls walked over from across the fence and joined in!! Ahh!
Now after a long day of dancing, medical shots in the arm, preventive health placement interviews, uno card playing and spaghetti dinner, I'm sitting in the disco hut winding down drinking tea under African skies and listening to some fellow volunteers rock out on guitar, fiddle, and harmonicas they brought! Man oh man. Can't get much better!
I am already missing everyone like crazy, but gladly I was able to write and update you on my arrival. Internet is pretty nice here at the compound, for the week we're here at least! So if you want to email me with your free time, maybe we can figure out a good skype session!
*Wolof mastered phrase of the day: Naka waa ker ga?
*Translation: How is your family?
Pictures to come!!
love, Chelsea
Yes! We have arrived safely in Senegal! Woohooo!
*Wolof mastered phrase of the day: Naka waa ker ga?
*Translation: How is your family?
Pictures to come!!
love, Chelsea
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