IST

Hello dearest friends!

The past two weeks all the health and environmental education volunteers from my group had in service training (IST), similar to pre-service training consisting of seminars all day from 8am to 6pm. Booooo. But really, these sessions were much more in depth and helpful, focusing mainly on our specific questions and where to go from here. When returning to Mampatim, the first thing I’ll be doing is surveying people in my village on the prominent problems/needs they have and what they want for their community so I can get a more focused idea on work. On top of that, we learned how to transform our schools into eco friendly learning environments, how to write grants for projects, bed net distribution methods and malaria education. We had sessions on child and maternal health, how to cook nutritional porridge for malnourished children and ways to incorporate moringa into their diets (aka miracle plant that grows like wild fire here and just so happens to be jam packed with vitamins!)

Older volunteers came to teach us about improved technologies they’ve developed using local tools and materials such as a mud stove and an incinerator for trash cleanup. Last but not least, I received all kinds of knowledge on gardening techniques, tree grafting, live fencing, and how to make a tree nursery.  The best parts of the training days were when we actually got up to partake in hands on work instead of listening to the projects on slideshows and lecture forms. For instance, the day we learned about live fencing, we took a field trip to a nearby Mandinka village where we planted a couple hundred trees around their lake area. The locals came out to help, twas a great day!

 Fellow Fulakunda speaking friends Sarah and Alana having a jolly good time getting the tree sacks together

                          My closest neighb at site, Cibyl, planting some trees with a local boy

Afterward a delicious dinner at Massa Massa, we met up with the others at a hoppin' live music joint called Palais des Arts. We danced until 3 am!

In the running for one of the best nights here so far. Great music, great dancing, great food and great company. What more do you need in life?

Happy 4th of July! (belated)

Cheers to you ole America!

Last week I ventured down to the lovely southeastern side of the country, the sweet little side called Kedougou. There awaited my long lost friends who I hadn't seen in 7 weeks! I cannot tell you how happy I was to see everyone again! "Reunited and it feels so gooooood!!" The first two days we spent some relaxation time just walking around and enjoying the beauty that Kedougou has to offer. The regional "house" down there is not really a house at all, more or less just a hippie commune with various huts and hammocks scattered about a fenced off area in the middle of the mountains.

Saturday and Sunday night we went out for delicious spaghetti dinner from a little guy in a shack down the road from the peace corps compound. This wasn't just any spaghetti dinner. His amazing creation included noodles, beans, hard boiled eggs, onions, and potatoes all mixed together! Sounds weird, but it was so good. So delicious in fact that Ian and I decided it was a good idea to take the tandem bicycle in the pitch dark along a bumpy dirt road to go find the spaghetti. His bike was broken and I hadn't brought mine, but we were determined! The tandem bike was rigged and sketchy, probably incredibly unsafe but nonetheless so much fun! We survived, bellies happy n' all!

Monday the fourth finally arrived and so did everyone else, decked out in their red white and blue ridiculousness. Little innocent pigs were being roasted while I manged on delectable potato salad, coleslaw, and mango salsa. There was all American music playing, Bruce Springstein at his finest, while we danced like fools, popped open brews, and played bean bag tossing games all day. Go stereotypical America!

Once it got dark enough, the dancing continued as we shot off fireworks, waved a giant American flag in the air and  sang various patriotic songs at the top of our lungs. Hence, the night ended on a great note, feeling prouder than ever of my country!

time flies

En jarama sehelaabe am!

It appears it has been about EIGHT WEEKS since I last blogged! ahhh I'm the worst! I have so much to tell you all about, but forgive me if I forget some :) I want to start by thanking Grandma and Grandpa, my beautiful sister and her fiance Brandon, Paula, Debbie, and my lovely parents for the amazingly generous care packages I've received! You are all so thoughtful! Aunt Julie and Uncle Craig, thank you too!!!! I got your package in the mail today! You guys are the greatest.

Moving into my new village was surprisingly not frightening at all. I immediately felt comfortable there and everyone was very welcoming. My host dad is Dello Balde, super cool guy if I haven't mentioned that before. So Dello, being the sweet old wise chief that he is, surprised me the night of my arrival with a party! If I could only put into words the joy and amazement that was going through my head when I looked around to see beautiful African locals dancing wildly to rapid drum beats while a giant burning bon fire blazed in the background of the night sky.

Of course, they love when white people try to dance, so I was pushed into the middle of the dance circle awkwardly trying to re-enact there body movements. Ha! And I thought I could dance? yeah right. These people came out of the womb dancing! Ha, I love it!

The first week I spent most of my time decorating and painting and moving into my hut! It looks great! My room is all kinds of purple.

I have a lovely backyard with a cement pathway to my bathroom area and just enough grass space to grow a personal garden. There's even a little area in the back to snooze under the mango tree when the sun is blazzin'.

I have plenty of pictures hanging up of everyone back home. The villagers get a kick out of photographs, especially my little host sisters!

The time I wasn't spending obsessing over the design of my new space, I was walking around with my two counterparts Abou and Chierno, meeting local officials and familiarizing myself with the area. I discovered Mampatim has about four womens groups already! Most volunteers have to start them, but my villagers are cool enough to where they already have formed their own! Great job Mampatim!

Also great news: my third counterpart, Moustapha, is the most motivated guy ever. He's the English teacher at the local middle school and I've become quite comfortable hanging out there with him and all the other teachers. They're a great group of people with awesome ideas! For example, one afternoon I was sitting with one of the students reading over his final English exam when I stumbled upon one prompt that went a little something like this: Your father wants to marry your younger sister off to a wealthy man from another country but you disagree with his plan. Write a conversation between you and your father to convince him it is more important for your little sister to stay in school. <--- bah! You can imagine the surprise on my face when reading that! The subjects they choose to discuss at the middle school are serious issues that people face here yet no one wants to talk about. One of the biggest problems is early pregnancy and early marriage, some girls as young as 13. As a result of early marriage, they drop out of school. I think its great to incorporate these topics into the curriculum in order to open the minds of the teenagers and provide them with some forward thinking. Once again, great job Mampatim teachers!

These past two months I've been helping out with the Michelle Sylvester scholarship, which has been more than a great opportunity. There's 9 girls from the middle school in Mampatim that qualify for the scholarship, but only three girls from each school are chosen to receive the money. I jumped on board with my friend Kelly, biking out to each girl's village to observe their home lives and talk with them about their interests and what they wish to become. Their responses? Doctors, teachers... the President of Senegal!! :) The first day of June we had a formation in Dabo, a neighboring village about 15K from me, where the scholarship girls gathered to hear from Awa. If you don't remember Awa from past posts, she's the most inspirational woman ever. Awa talked to the young girls about early marriage and rather the importance of continuing their education despite social norms and local pressures. We did an AIDS awareness game with them and then led them to discuss solutions for what they view as prominent problems within their community.

These girls amazed me. So bright and so hopeful with great interviews and great essays, but studying only over by candlelight. To think of their daily struggles is beyond me, yet what they still manage to accomplish. So impressive! 

The first big project we got goin' on is the community garden at the middle school. I had a couple meetings with the teachers and the headmaster about planting fruit trees and vegetable gardens for anyone who wants to contribute so the children can cook nutritious lunches and eat delicious fruit for breakfast during school hours. On top of this gardening project, I want to start a co-ed cooking club using the food from the garden to teach them about local nutrition and also possibly break down some gender role barriers! Thats right Senegal, men can cook too :) The teachers would of course be welcome to anything growing in the garden since they've helped so much! So far we have the fencing up and a couple of beds dug.

Tomorrow I shall return to village to start planting, just in time for the rainy season!

I received consent to plant some bright pink and red flowers whose vines will grow wild along the walls of the school. Its going to look beautiful once the kiddies return in September!

Other than the garden and the scholarship, I taught my host family and neighboring compounds how to make all natural mosquito repellant using local ingredients. They seemed to love it and have been using the lotion every night (or at least that's what they say to make me happy). The demonstration went really well so I'm hoping to get my women groups together to teach them. It would be great if down the road they cooked it up to sell all the time, making money for themselves and fighting against malaria at the same time!

I spend everyday trying to get better at Fulakunda. Its coming along, I guess! The importance of bonding with my villagers and my host family is number one. I want these people to trust me and to know I'm here with them to help first and foremost. It gets tough with the language barrier, but everyday you make a little progress and that's encouraging. My host mom and namesake, Bambe, is the most helpful. She's super fun and takes great care of me always.

My church is something great I need to talk about. Its so cute!! The priest there speaks English pretty well and closely resembles Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book. We had a delightful celebration welcoming the Kolda Bishop a couple Sundays ago. Lively singing, children dancing down the isle way and the priest beating on the tam tam drums after each sermon. The most exciting Catholic service I've ever attended, African style! Unfortunately, not every Sunday is like this, but its still beautiful and really really comforting to have that community around.

Its good to be in Mampatim, but its also nice to visit other volunteers close by. My friend Cibyl is only 7K down the dirt road from me, quite the really peaceful bike ride. Her village speaks Mandinka, so I can only communicate with them slightly thanks to Cibyl feeding me the lines. I may be visiting her much more often now that she got a puppy!!!!! I'll be Aunty Chelsea :)

As always, I love you guys. So so much. I never realized how much I love being home until I've been somewhere really different for a while. I can't thank God enough for the love in my life! How lucky we all are :)

Chelsea

Its official!

My goodness! Has it really been since Easter? The past few weeks have flown by! Since the last post, my health is back to normal and things are better than ever. We went back to Mbour for more pre-service homestay, then back to the Thies center for more sessions and language training. So many great stories, but oh so hard to remember them all! The ones that stick out in my mind have all occurred in the last week. 

Thursday afternoon in Thies, one member from each homestay family came to represent the family in an all day celebration for having finished pre-service training! 

Delicious frood, dancing, awesome African entertainers and one of the greatest cross-cultural experience yet, my friends Ian and Paterick jammin' out a bluegrass song while the african musicians joined in on their drums! 

Awa gave a beautiful speech (what else is new) while the families and volunteers congratulated each other on getting through :)

The next morning, we were up bright and early around 6 am, dressed up and ready for our official "Swearing In" ceremony in Dakar. We arrived at the Ambassadors house (mansion), accompanied by various scary important government members from all around the world. Everyone looked so fancy! Especialllllllly us!! The trainees had beautiful traditional Senegalese attire bought and made by local tailors just for special events like this, worth every penny!

We sat patiently as our training leader, Etienne, said some sweet words of wisdom and hopeful thoughts followed by four of my fellow trainees giving speeches in their local languages. So proud! The ceremony came to a close after we raised our right hand and swore our oath to serve.

Arriving back in Thies, we packed up all night and said our bittersweet goodbyes and good lucks all day Saturday as each group ventured off to their separate sites. The Kolda group departed the next morning on Sunday at 6 am! Wheew! I piled in with my roadtrip buddies Alana and Cibyl, then we were off! Ironically, only a half hour into the trip, our car's back wheel had come loose/fallen apart. Yep.
This was the start of an incredibly exciting adventure to Kolda! Ha. luckily, there was a mechanic nearby to fix it. Only, the mechanic took TWO HOURS to show up! Alana, Cibyl and I decided to just go with it and relax, maybe buy some omelette sandwiches and hang out with the locals until the mechanic was done. Another two hours later, he finished and the car was good to go!

Typical roadtrip activities ensued- picture takin', trail mix munchin', great laughter and conversations flowin', but mostly snoozin'! So much so, that we failed to observe the exact road our driver was taking to get there...

BAM! hello, we are awoken by the Gambia police! Nice enough fellow, simply asking us for our passports, but in our heads, we were definitely not supposed to be at the Gambia border. Uh oh! Poor driver wasn't informed of the Peace Corps rules, taking us the fastest way he knew in order to get us to Kolda before curfew. We passed through just fine, riding a farry across the Gambia river and straight on through.

 *Gambia river

*cars packed onto the farry

 *Cibyl hangin out of the car for some fresh air

There were a few minor speed bumps along the way, like a fender bender with an alhum bus, getting lost again once in Kolda. However, there were also a few lucky moments, just as Peace Corps usually goes.  Driving with the windows down and a nice breeze, listenin to great music and waving at locals passing by makes ya realize how incredibly lucky we are for this whole thing.

Besides the deep thinking and moments of pure joy, arriving into Kolda an hour after curfew and still being allowed in was pretty great too!
Today we went shopping for supplies, furniture, and decor for our huts. So so excited to decorate!! I've been hanging out at the regional house with the others, catching up on tv shows, American food and good company. Tomorrow morning i'll be moving into my new village! Many mixed emotions of fear and excitement :)

I'll be without a computer for the next few weeks, but feel free to call me anytime on my phone! I miss you all like crazy and am eager to see you when I officially return for my sister's wedding at the end of August! I hope you are all in good health and peace.

Wish me luck, here I go!

Happy Easter!

Greetings friends and fam!

There hasn't been much to write about this past week, because I've been bed ridden since we got back from our Kolda visit. :( Last Thursday when I met my new homestay family, I started feeling like death. We took a two hour car ride to the regional house Friday and met all the older volunteers who were hilarious and crazy, but all I wanted to do was sleep. They probably think I'm pretty boring unfortunately. Really I just had 103 degree temp and a stomach that was unforgiving. Not quite sure what it was from, possibly a parasite, yuck! Anyways, I laid around while the others went goodwill shopping for the ugliest outfits they could find, all in preparation for the dance party they were throwing later that night. This is my friend Costa cooking us dinner in his Aladdin lookalike outfit..

So bummed I missed out!! Regardless, it was great meeting everyone and touring my hang out spot for the next two years.

The doc put me on antibiotics so that knocked it out. Thankfully she advised me to stay behind and rest up at the center in Thies instead of going back to my village in Mbour. Feeling so much better since yesterday. Hooorayyy! Healthy just in time for Easter! My good friend Emily caught the bug as well, so us sickies were here to comfort each other. A couple others arrived back to the center a day early, so we all were able to celebrate Easter Sunday together! Sunday was also Emily's 24th birthday! So whatever activities we did that day had to be her choice :) We went out for a delicious brunch that morning, coffee, chocolate bread and egg and cheese sandwiches mostly. MMMm!

Afterward we walked around the market and shopped for pretty fabric. Its so cheap and easy to buy fabric, take it to the local tailor, and have a dress made!

When we got back to the center I busted out the Easter candy my mom sent me and we relaxed all day until it was dinner time. We decided on a nice French restaurant that was somewhat fancy but so worth it. Everything was amazing! Emily and I split a goat cheese cinnamon apple hors d'oeuvres served on toast, a greek salad, and macaroni and cheese. YEP. who knew I'd be eating like this in africa?

One of the older volunteers, Claire, hung out with us all night. She went all out for Em's birthday and made her a chocolate peanut cluster concoction that was incredible!

 Birthday candles and all!

So sweet! What a great Easter! Hope you all had a great holiday as well, dying eggs and eating delicious food! There's nothing as great as spending time with family though.

new address!

hello loves! here's my new address:

PCV Chelsea Moeller
B.P. 26
Kolda, Senegal
West Africa


Tuesday morning at about 5 am, we all hopped on a bus and drove 12 hours down south to see our new villages!Arriving Wednesday afternoon to the village of Dabo,  my friend Alana and I  toured our host volunteer Dave's site.

We stayed there until yesterday then headed back on the road about 15K to  my new home! The village is Mampatim (pronounced Mom-Paw-Team). Its so so so cute!! the main road literally divides the village in half, heavily populated right off the outskirts of the paved road. there's a long stretch of boutiques and fruit and veggie stands where the local women make their money.  Its so nice to walk 5 minutes out of my compound and stumble upon delicious bean sandwiches, coffee and fresh mangoes for breakfast!

Everyone is super friendly, and because I stick out like a sore thumb, they were quickly recognizing me as I walked back and forth to either side of town. I met my elementary and middle school counterparts who I'll be working with on most projects, but more importantly i met my new family!!

my mom is my namesake, Bambe (pronounced like the city Bombay). she is really sweet. fed me mangoes and papaya and peanuts all afternoon! My new last name is Balde! That's right, i now have the coolest alliteration name Bambe Balde! My dad is pretty much exactly like Yoda, a 70 year old wise chief dressed all in white and two missing front teeth. he's adorable! what's even more adorable are my little siblings!

my father said he had 12 daughters and 3 sons, but 5 of his children have passed away. Unfortunately thats not an uncommon thing here. to make my visit even crazier, my father also informed me that he has 45 cows! I saw about 15 of them hanging out by our well, and who knows where they keep the rest. we also have about 6 ducks, two donkeys and about 8 little piglets. i'm living on a farm!!

My hut's roof is still being constructed, but its going to be so sweet! probably will be the most decorated hut there is.

We headed  back on a two hour bumpy bus ride to the regional house in Kolda where all the local volunteers come to hang, relax and get away for a day or two. We'll be partying it up tomorrow night once all the others arrive! Can't wait to meet everyone!

Sunday night we'll be getting back to Thies then its off to Dakar for a day to tour the big city. Hopefully I can skype with some of you Sunday night!

Talk to ya then :)

My future site: Mampatim

TODAY WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS! All of us have been eagerly awaiting the news: the day we would be told about our homes for the next two years and all about the villagers we'll be helping! It was exciting the way the staff did it. Theres a map of Senegal painted on the basketball court here at the center. They blindfolded us and individually led us out to stand on the court where our villages would be!

 On 3, we all took our blindfolds off revealing our perminant locations and the volunteer friends we'll be seeing everyday!

Mampatim!!!!!!!!!!!! my new village in May!! woooo! I had a fairly good idea I'd be in the Kolda region since that's about the only area that speaks Fulakunda, but it was still exciting to learn about my specific village! Turns out its pretty large, about 3,080 people! If you can't find it on the map, its cool. I'll try my best to describe it! Since Senegal is kinda shaped like a pacman that's facing with its mouth to the east (its mouth being the Gambia river).

 I'll be south central of the Gambia. Mampatim is right off the main paved road (the red dot) that goes between the city of Kolda to Velingara.

 I'm the first volunteer the village has ever had, so I sure will have my hands full! My new host dad is the chief of the Mampatim, which will give me some legit props and security :) I'll have my own hut with grass roofing and a cement floor, including my own fenced off backyard for private bathroom and shower activites! I'll be visiting the village on Tuesday with my host volunteer Dave who lives 15K west of me in Dabo. There's about 8 other incredible volunteers relatively close, but my friend Cybal will be the closest, only 6K away!

Crazy thing is I'll now be 12 hours south of Thies. Whew! Long car ride to the center! Regardless, Kolda is supposedly lush and green and tropical and full of monkeys and mangos and bananas and waterfalls! Hells yeah!

Gots to pack up for the Mbour village stay again tomorrow. I'll be back to the center on Sunday! Love you!!