I have just returned from a two week stay in my training village in Ngheeho, Senegal. First off before describing what living in small town in Senegal with very little language skills or cultural understanding is like, I have exciting news! When we got back to the training center, they announced where our permanent sites would be. For the next two years I will be living in Taredji, which is a small town in the very most northern part of Senegal right on the border of Mauritania. It is a very conservative Muslim area, and many people are herders. There are two areas of the town one that has between 1,000-2,000 people and one section that has between 5,000-6,000 people. As far as the urban sites the other volunteers in my stage are going to, this is pretty small. However, many of the agroforestry and sustainable agriculture volunteers are in villages with around 200 people. I will be close to several people from my training group (shout out to Erin and Raphael) but sadly will be separated from some people in my langage learning group. Currently, another volunteer works in my site and has several projects going on including a hospital garden and a very successful demonstration garden where he holds trainings on urban farming techniques. I am very excited to get to my site and start working!
Right now, I am focused on learning the language and culture in my Community Based Training (CBT) site. This usually involves me making a fool out of myself and having my family and my language teacher laugh at all of my "toubab" (foreigner) mistakes. My family, in particular my grandmother Fatimata, has taken affinity to teaching me inappropriate body parts and making me say them to their friends. A typical morning involves me walking to class and being stopped by random old women on the street who have heard of the toubab who knows how to say "butt" in Pulaar. After this, wild laughter ensues. Pulaar is the craziest language in the world, by the way. It was a verb for every single thing you can possibly think of. Instead of having prepositions, there are different verbs for "to eat", "to eat with", "to eat for", and "to eat at". Also, there are about 20 different pronouns for different types of nouns like liquids, people, trees, etc. They each have their own version of "the". The list goes on and on.
Culture-wise, I have a very good language and culture teacher that is very strict and has a lot of attitude. Her name is Fatimata (different than my grandmother), and we affectionately call her Sassimata due to her playful but direct sense of humor. She makes sure we know when we have crossed some sort of cultural rule. My family is very helpful by introducing me to all of our extended family so I can practice greeting people, which is very important culturally and religiously in Senegal. My family has two wives and one dad and about 12 children plus some miscellaneous relatives that live in our compound. My dad works in large scale livestock business and also sells milk in the market. I frequently sit at the market in the evenings with one of my mothers (who is 24 and has five children, the oldest of which is 10) and practice my Pulaar and various ways to turn down marriage proposals. This is my favorite time of day because my mother buys me peanuts and bananas to eat while I wait for her.
I will be at the training center for four days and then will be heading to the north to stay with a current volunteer in my area to see their projects and learn about their work. I will end here because I am being eaten alive by mosquitos. Until next time!
