Happy Birthday Mama

Happy birthday Mom. Wish I could be there. Hello to everyone else as well. Mom has my address and phone number. Get it from her. Take care and happy birthday

Pauly

Three #@&%ing languages?

The idea behind the host family program is not only in place to help Volunteers transition into a new society, but it allows the Volunteer to practice their language skills. Ive gone through both survival Wolof and Pulaar since Ive been in Senegal. With no surprise, theyre teaching me ANOTHER language, called Seereer. Out of the 42 of us Volunteers, only 2 of us are learning Seereer. My family speaks Wolof, French, English(kids), and Seereer. So its nice to sit down with them every night and talk in 9 different languages. IT gets difficult at times, though its also very rewarding. Every night I leqrn how to speak more and more Seereer and a bit of Wolof. I have to practice my Pulaar on the streets with the friendly strqngers who love white people. SENEGAL LOVES AMERICA. Since my family knows Seereer and thats the language ill be speaking for the next two years, they get to verbally beat the shit out of me for the next few months. Lucky them.

Host Family

The Peace Corps have a host family training program here in Senegal. The idea of the program is to help us trainees transition into the Senegalese culture by living with a family here in Thies. From 8 am to 630 pm we got to class at eh PC training center. After class is over, we go home to our host families. I cant speak for the other Volunteers here, but the host family program rocks my world. My family is simply amazing; They dont treat me as a stranger here because Im now an actual member of their family. Sorry American Mom and Dad. My Senegalese family lives in a very nice compound with a Mangoe tree orchard, electricity, running water, television, and cold freaking showers (which you learn to appreciate here in Africa). Baba Ngom is a botanist. Hes not only my father? hes the man of the compound. He has many brothers and kin running around the compound, but hes totqlly the man in charge. Hes super Muslim nice. Khady NDiaye is my mother. She cooks, cleans and watches over
the kids. Shes the sweetest lady in the world. Saliou Ngom is my closest brother. He speaks English very well and thinks Tu Pac is still alive. Though he does keep coming out with more albums. Hes always making me laugh. Moussa is my older brother. Hes 26. He also speaks really good English and he loves America. Moussa is a web designer and we like to talk politics. Hes not a big fan of George Bush. He wants to work in the US or France some day and I hope he gets there somehow. I have two other brothers I have yet to meet. Birane is at the Univerisity of Dakar and Pape is in Dallas Texas. As you can see, my family is loaded here for Senegalese standards. They named me after Pape and Im honored. My new name in Thies is Pape Ngom. My Tamba name is Pate Sy. I can tell Im going to have many names by the time i come home. And last but not least, I have a sister, NDeye Fatou Ngom. we call her Fatou. shes only 15 but shes smart, beautiful and byfar the sweetest 15 year old Ive eve
r met. IT will tame some time to remember everyone elses name in the compound.

Its really nice to just hang out with the family to watch tv and drink tea. I hang out with Saliou and Moussa and their friends. The Ngom family treat me like im one of their own. So theres no need for anyone to worry because im in good hands here.

Gold Bond Pudding

The food at the training center is amazing. The food at the village was bad. For breakfast we had bean sxandwiches which were a blessing. For lunch we ate rice and fresh butter. it wasnt bad but wasnt close to good. Dinner was an experience. The dish we had every night is called lechiri e haako. lechiri is mashed corn powder. Haako is a paste made from sheep fat and the leaves of a bush found outside of town. It tasted like a grassy turd rolled in Gold Bond powder. though i smiled while i slowly and painfully tried to swallow. for a treat we had unpasteurized milk with the Gold Bond Powder. I call it Gold Bond pudding. Chief warned us that if we ate it we might get sick. But i did it for the shit and giggles. Luckily i had the giggles and not the shits. I can see myself losing a lot of weight here in Senegal. "i lost 50 pounds on the Gold Bond diet."

How's your dick?

The village in Tamba I was sent to is near Bakel, on the border of E. Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali. I was 100 miles away from the hottest spot on earth. It was interesting to say the least. I stayed with a Volunteer named Glen from Alaska. If thats not ironic? Glens been there for about a year or so. He was a very nice host and he spoke amazing Pulaar. My village was interesting. They were really strange, goofy and perverted. I blended in perfectly. We stayed with Chief, who was my first Senegalese father. He named me Pate Sy, which is name that comes from a noble family of scholars. I didnt complain. The village was SO funny. They saw the knife I was carrying and instantly said I was a real Pulaar. The men said I had a good dick because Pulaar men have good dicks. Since I had a Pulaar knife, I had a Pulaar dick. The women all came around playing grab ass with us white people. They too were interested in seeing our dicks. Chief told us that Glen didnt have a good dick because he couldnt get it up. It was seriously the funniest thing Ive ever heard. Around the well, the women fetched water while they made fun of each others vaginas. our village had nothing better to do than to talk about dicks and vaginas. What a great time. Poor Glen. He should buy a knife. Then maybe he can get his dick up.

Tamba

There was a reason why we learned survival Wolof. The PC sent us out to villages across Senegal. Volunteers here for business development were sent to big cities like Dakar or St Louis. Eco tourism volunteers were sent to national parks. The majority of the agriculture group were sent to a region called Kaoloack; Kaoloack is a region of poorer villages looking to extend field crops and water sanitation. Most volunteers will spend their two years there. A very small group of us were sent to a region on the Eastern side of Senegal called Tambacounda. Tamba is the most exciting region, but also the hottest.

Since a few of us were being sent to Tamba, we had to learn another language other than Wolof. Pulaar is a very interesting and difficult language. Though after some practice Im able to hold a simple conversation. The people of Pulaar spend about 5 minutes greeting each other.

asaala maalekum...maalekum salam

no mbad daa...jam tan

ada selli...ko mawdum al hamdolilah

The language is bequtiful and the people are sweethearts. But learning both Wolof and Pulaar at teh same time will be hard.

Wolof

There are many languages here in Senegal. The official language is French but the villages all have a local language. so the PC was nice enough to give us survival courses in Wolof. Wolof cqn be found in almost every village bc its easy to learn and it was the official language here before French. Survival means that we can have simple conversations in Wolof, find and bargain transportation, order food and drinks, and to understand directions in case we get lost. There was a lot of information thrown our way and im starting to get better at it everyday.

Nanga def? Mangi fi rekk.

Ba beneen yoon!!!!!

Senegal 5 0

The first day in Thies(chie ez/ Tea ez) I introduced myself to the local policemen thqt guarded the compound. These guys are tough SOBs. Every day four new guards come to the compound to increase our security. They get a small area at the compound in which they must all stay for a straight 24 hours at a time. They take shifts to sleep and eat but they usually just sit and chill the day away. I had the honor of being the first American to go hang out with them. We had lots of down time the first few days in Thies, so I spent most of my day and night talking and of course drinking tea. We drank tea 9 times every hour. I promise you, I didnt sleep the first two days I was in Senegal. I had to learn how to get use to tea here.

The Senegalese are very funny people. They are always smiling; always joking. I tend to be the same way so I fit in very nice here. Well, the four guys i met are named Papa Alioune Faye, Mamadou Lamine Ciss, Pape Sy MBaye[my new Pulaar kin], and Papa Laye Diop. They gave me phone numbers so Î plan on calling them soon. They were all pretty cool dudes.

DAKAR

When we landed in Dakar at 5am, we took a bus to Thies. Only 20 miles and 2.5 hours later, we finally made it to the Peace Corps compound. The staff greeted us with music, dance and smiles. The 42 of us settled into our assigned rooms. At the training center we had many meetings dealing with medicql, culture, food, etc... We also participated in a cultural fair. Here they set up different areas around the compound so we could learn aspects of Senegalese culture. The first stage was dress and romance. they taught us about the different fabrics offered in Senegal, the prices of the fabrics, and the different styles in which we could have the fabrics tailored. They also showed us how couples expereince romantic evenings in Senegal, because its very important in their culture. They must think Americans like to do it like bunnies.

 

They also showed us the local religion, Islam. They taught us the logistics of the religion and what to expect from all Muslims here in Senegal. The third section of the culture fair was useful items founf in Senegal and not in the US. This was my favorite class. They showed us the foods we are not use to, how to make juices from different trees and their fruits, and other items not found in America. The last class in which we participated was in food etiquette and tea drinking. In Senegal, families eat in a community bowl. There is usually rice, vegetables, and sometimes meat. Everyone sits around the bowl and you use your "right hand" to eat the food in your section of the bowl. They dont use their left hand for eating or shaking because your left hand is for cleaning your ass.

 

We also learned how to take tea. Tea time is a long process so its a good time to socialize. there is three rounds of tea. each round has one shot of tea and every round gets sweeter and stronger. The tea is VERY SWEET and VERY HOT. Though I really like it. Its my favorite past time here in Senegal.

Philly

i have been in Africa for about two weeks now, though it seems like it has been months. i have ,met so many new people and it feels like i have known them for many years. I left my family and friends on 09/25/2005. Though from the moment I landed in Philly I knew that this was going to be one hell of a ride. When I finqlly got settled in at the Sheraton in Philly, I met my first couple of friends, Jane and Kari. Both of these ghirls are total sweethearts in my book. We all met in the hotel conference room, all 42 of us. We played an ice breaker game in which we all received a paper with 42 "fun facts" and we were supposed to walk and meet people and guess their fact. Of course my fun fact was boring...."Comes from the HAKEYE STATE". I guess its a huge deal that i'm from iowa. Im the official agricultural genious since of course i live on a farm and harvest corn on my spare time. Staging in Philly was really boring. Though they did give us $160 to throw away on two days worth of beer and bad food. At least it was a great time to get to know everyone. A few beers seems to open everyone up.

 

After our two days in Philly, we got ona bus going to JFK airport in NY. It was my first time in NY so its finqally out of my system. It wasnt anything special, so i dont plan on going there anytiome soon. I accidently overpacked for my African Safari. I had to make a few changes with my bags in the tyerminal. Instead of paying an extra $125 to check a third bag, I stuffed everything I could fit in 3 bags...in 2 bags. Houdini would be proud. I actually ended up throwing away a perfectly good suitcase. I just left it in the middle of the terminal. I bet Homeland Security was happy about that one. I had an estimated time of about 3 minutes to repack my bags. Guess what? I almost had my first anxiety attack, but at least i saved $125 on my car insurance. Visit Geico.com