It Begins...

Hello! Assalah Naalekum! (na lay kume) Which is the greeting we’ve learned in our “Survival Wolof” class so we can talk with our families a bit when we move in with them for training. So far we’re at the training centre for the most part, though we did go to the market today, which was SO overwhelming. I’ll tell you about that in a bit, but let’s start from the beginning:
Our day of travel on Wednesday was incredibly long, especially since I didn’t sleep on the plane from NY to Brussels, but at least I slept some from Brussels to Dakar. By the way, my phone doesn’t work here and didn’t in Brussels either so I won’t be able to get calls until I get a Senegalese phone from one of their companies. I was going to change my voice mail to say I am out of the country, but that won’t happen since I can’t even get service now. Oh well.
Anyway, we got in around midnight to Dakar. It was pretty crowded, and the way to the training center was interesting, though I slept through most of that as well. We had a welcome committee waiting for us with some “spaghetti” which I use loosely only due to the sauce. It was sort of like chili, but good nonetheless especially after over 24 hrs of traveling. All of the food has been very tasty, though I’ve heard it can vary a lot once we leave the center. We slept in until about nine the next morning and Friday was… interesting. I was incredibly overwhelmed, but right before dinner they did a “tam tam” which meant we had drummers come to the centre drums played music. A boy was teaching us how to dance and teaching us songs to sing. It was an amazing feeling being involved (they wouldn’t let us just stand there) and I felt SO much better after that. I think everyone did. Everything’s been pretty positive since then and I know there will be more difficult times, but it’s nice to know that won’t last forever.
One of the things that had me all frazzeled Friday was my French interview to see what my skills are. I was nervous, she busted out a tape recorder and I couldn’t think! My vocabulary and sentence structure was incredibly juvenile but at least I’ll show improvement later. It’s actually hard to think when people speak to you here, getting used to the language, people, culture, etc all at the same time. I also had my placement interview with Malik, who is the director of the medical program and we discussed me possibly working with other volunteers who are working in other projects like agriculture. I’m stoked about this because growing a garden would be a great way to combat malnutrition! But I don't have much of a green thumb...
As I type this I’m sitting in the “disco hut” with a bunch of other volunteers, hanging out in the wonderful fresh air and will be saving this on my zip drive because I can type faster on this computer and I know where the keys are. This whole experience is pretty great and I seriously can’t wait to get started and know the language for real. We went to the market today and it was overwhelming, but our trainers and safety officer warned us about pickpockets and things to watch for. People look at us skeptically until we greet them, then they smile. Apparantly that is the best way to make friends and ensure safety, it’s as simple as saying hello to as many people as possible. I ate lunch with my right hand today… my left hand is getting a break from life for a bit as far as interacting with others. It’s hard to remember though.

I’m not sure what else to include, so if you have questions, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them. I wish my journal had carbon copy pages… I’ve been writing in it every night so far and there’s too much to put down so I’m sure I’ve left out something interesting. I miss you, but trying not to think of home too much! We have Sundays off so I will do my best to check in each week or so. I can’t believe I’ve only been here 3 days…