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
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