Volunteer Visit

Formerly called demystification, although still commonly referred to as "demyst," (ohh the politics of vocabulary) I just got back from my volunteer visit today. Here is a quick low down, with more in depth details below.

In short...
I visited Kedougou in the southeastern corner of the country, an area known for its greenery as a foothill region to the Guinean "mountains," met a number of current volunteers at the regional house (who are great and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better!), went to my site in Diarra Pont, met my new family and person I will be working closely with while in village (counterpart), saw the school and women's groups' gardens, met the chef du village, was introduced to the women's group, almost was given a new name (likely Adama Jan Diallo, where I will go by Jan so I will not be confused with the mother, Adama), biked to the nearby town (Salemata) for the Tuesday market, saw the family fields, and got a ton of information about what Ian (the person I will be replacing) worked on as the first volunteer at site.

As for my future living conditions: I will be living in a concrete hut with a straw thatched roof without water or electricity, but a water pump run is about 10 minutes round trip away, and I have my solar charger for my ipod and speakers. I have a personal shower area and toilet behind by hut. There currently is not cell service, although at my family's fields I can get some (3k away). Supposedly additional towers are being put in, sometime soon (so who knows what that means in Senegalese time). The former volunteer is leaving me a machete and sharpening stone, an extra mosquito net and bike helment, a cannery (to keep water cool in the hot season), a nifty rope system suspended from the ceiling to hang things from and a blackboard that is painted on the wall! I have plans for a new bed, table, chair, stool, and hanging bookshelf! I'm really excited to move in :) There is a shade structure in the compound too that I can hang my hammock from!

More details:
So Diarra Pont is 70km west of the city of Kedougou, which is supposed to be a 12hour drive from Thies, although our driver was a speed demon and got us there (in the 4x4 with luggage strapped to the top, fixed a flat, with a lunch stop) in only 8hours. When we arrived, the current volunteers gave us a tour of the regional house, which was formerly a training center and is set up much like the one I am currently staying at in Thies, but on a much smaller scale. They threw us a party and made us Mexican food! It was delicious! The following morning, a volunteer went to the store and bought baguettes (which are so much better than in the north) so we could have bean sandwiches with the left over beans from dinner. I had an easy going morning due to the car situation (bring some people to their site in the opposite direction of mine) and I left for my site with a few others who are 5km and 10km away from me after lunch. It was about an hour and a half drive or so on an unpaved, bumpy red rock road. I was really excited to see rock cliffs in the distance, although they are in themselves probably 30-40km away from my site. When I arrived, Ian (the volunteer I will be replacing who initially started his service in Guinea, served a year, then came to Senegal for two, and has AMAZING language skills; I am thoroughly jealous), greeted me, introduced me to the family I will be living with, showed me my hut, and then we went to meet the village chief. Ian chatted it up in Pulaar and apparently when I come back, a goat is going to be killed for my "naming ceremony," (since I need a Pullo name, as "jacki" means to "chomp down" on food in Pulaar). We came back to the hut, had dinner, corn, sauce, and chicken (that Ian bought since he knew I was coming). Afterwards, the village women's group came and I was introduced. The whole lack of having a Pullo name ended up being a conversation starter and everyone wanted to name me. It sounds like the runner up as of yet is Adama Jan Diallo, although I would go by Jan Diallo, not to be confused with the mother of the household, Adama. They went home, we listened to the radio, and went to bed relatively early.

The following morning, we woke up to have a rice porridge for breakfast and we went to the other quartier of the village to meet more people and see some of the cotton, peanut, and corn fields. I met the health advisor for the community, who will also likely be my language tutor when I install. We meandered to the women's group garden, the non-women's group garden, the school, the unfinished well, the new and old water pumps, and came back to the house for lunch. Afterwards, we biked the 5km along the "highway" (unpaved road we took in from Kedougou) to Salemata. Every Tuesday is the weekly market, and after buying seasoning, vegetables, sugar, tea, and soap for the family, we walked around the town, met the local officer for Eaux et Forets (essentially the dept. of land management in Senegal). We biked home, went to the river, I did a bit of yoga, had another corn variation with sauce for dinner (having to decline a second dinner from a neighbor) and went to bed after listening to the BBC on the battery powered short wave radio (I am looking forward to the nightly news!).

The following day we knew I was going to be picked up sometime, although it was unclear. So, after breakfast, a corn type porridge, we biked 3km to the family's fields (which is the most intense biking I have ever done. Hills, sticks, mud puddles, dodging trees... I think I will be able to hit up Whistler in the summer after my time here in Senegal). It is also the closest place with cell phone reception and we were trying to find out a better timeline of when the car was coming, although Ian's phone died before we could figure that out. So, after looking at a live fencing project, we dropped the bikes off at the house, and walked down to the river. We came back for lunch, a corn based thing with sauce, and laid under the shade hut in the family courtyard until the car came. A couple hours brought us back to the regional house (also referred to as the CTC, a throwback term for when it was a community training center). A few of us went to the market to buy fabric for our swear in outfits (I got a great indigo fabric from Guinea- reason being that my village's inhabitants are exclusively Guinean immigrants, and the dialect of Pulaar I am learning is essentially Guienean), and then met up with everyone else at a restaurant. After dinner, we took a cab back to the CTC, I watched GLEE for the first time on someone's computer and went to bed. I was woken up sometime in the middle of the night when the people next to me had a wasp attack since they forgot to close their mosquito net.

The following morning, a number of people walked down the street to get bean sandwiches, but a current volunteer and I went to boutique instead. We decided to get a baguette, onion, and the equivalent of SPAM. We biked back to the CTC, fried it up, and put on mustard. Interesting breakfast, surprisingly filling, and I can't say I'm opposed to it. There is a first for everything right?! We were on the road by 8:30am and made it in spectacular timing again to Thies. I unpacked, got a brief lowdown on others' visits, made a huge laundry pile that I will hopefully do tomorrow, and went out to dinner at a notoriously good chicken place since dinner was not provided at the center for the evening.

Now I have been wasting away on the internet for far too long into the night... but there is so much to catch up on that I literally haven't had the opportunity to! There are a few new photos on facebook too! 2am. Goodnight. My day starts in 6hours.