Hello Again From Chilly Thies This Time

That’s actually an alliteration, the city is pronounced Ches. It’s still pretty warm but compared to the 110+ heat in the south, the training center here feels like an oasis. I got back from my site on Monday night (it’s about a 12 hour trip in a Peace Corps bus but that is the shortest it will ever be). Traveling on public transportation between Kolda and Dakar is likely to take two days since it is not always safe to travel after dark. Peace Corps has houses in every region that I can stay in so I won’t have to worry about lodging along the way. Things might change if we are able to go through the Gambia in the next couple of months (right now the Gambia isn’t letting any Senegalese transportation vehicles in) but even then the trip could still take 8-10 hours.

Over the weekend, I got to visit my village and two nearby villages where there are other volunteers placed. I met the health worker at my local health hut, the nurse at the regional health post, and my permanent host-parents. My father is the chief of the village and my mother is the president of the local women’s group. I will be their first volunteer but I think many of their children are older and studying in Kolda and there is also a teacher from the local French school who lives in the compound. The work counterparts that I met (the health workers at the health hut and post) both seem very friendly and easy to work with. I am hoping that working with them as well as living with the Chief will give me some amount of borrowed credibility as soon as I hit village.

Peace Corps recommends that in my first three months in village, I focus on improving my language skills and integrating into the community rather than trying to start health projects right off the bat. Getting to know my counterparts, my family, and my village well when I first get there will help me be a more effective health worker in the long run. I am looking forward to that time to get adjusted and settle in, as well as learn more about the projects that the other local volunteers have started since their time here. While I was visiting, my two site-mates talked to the nurse at the health post about building a Moringa garden (the Moringa tree produces highly nutritious fruit that can be added to almost any recipe without really altering the flavor but greatly increasing the nutritional value of the meal) so that is at least one thing that I can also be involved with when I arrive at site.

My village is only 7 KM away (30ish minute bike ride) from the regional capital where there are three other volunteers stationed and there is a regional house where other Kolda volunteers come to use the electricity, internet, refrigerator, and hand-painted Twister board.

In other news, biking in the sand is really really really really hard. Any momentum that you have built up from dirt or pavement doesn’t mean a thing, when you hit the sand you just stop. Over the weekend, the biking was okay… I only actually fell off once but there was a lot of walking through sandy patches and stopping and restarting. I think I am most glad that I got to practice biking so that I am not so shocked by it when I first have to move in to my village. I will also need to learn a thing or two about bike maintenance. The bike I had over the weekend had a bent chain and shifting gears wasn’t really an option, so it would have been nice to know how to fix that, but baby steps, I guess.

This week’s list of things that I miss from the U.S. include new TV and good coffee. The new season of Game of Thrones started and I am sort of bummed to be missing it but it seems like the volunteers in site have ways of keeping up to date with movies, music, and TV so no spoilers please. I just read an email from my Mom where she spoiled the ending of How I Met Your Mother, so no more! The coffee here is mostly instant and my dreams of being able to buy whole coffee beans and grind them with mortar and pestle have yet to be realized, so Nescafe it is for now.

This evening, we leave for another stay with our CBT families in Thies. We will be there for a little over two weeks so I probably won’t have the chance to post anything new for a while. Thanks for reading and Happy Trails.