We Found A Path!

October 22, 2009

Today was pretty chill. Chris discovered a new path from my house to our office which we took without getting lost (I didn’t get lost at all today!) and our morning meeting with our counterpart was fine. I successfully defended myself from being strong-armed into giving accounting lessons next week, but I am helping my boss create a lesson plan and I will be joining him in fifteen different villages to watch how he does workshops and participate when I feel comfortable. I’m sure at least parts of it will be interesting, although Senegalese meetings are a little bit like having your teeth pulled while the dentist tells you how pain free the procedure is. It will definitely give me something to do and I think staying relatively busy is going to be the key to my success these three months before IST (in-service training).

After a morning in the office, we met a couple other volunteers at Big Faim, a PCV favorite restaurant. I felt a little guilty about going to a restaurant so soon, but at the same time I’m going to be living here for 2 years and at this early stage I’m going to see as many people as I can and remain as up-beat as possible. We went with the hope of swimming in the restaurant’s new pool. The server told us we were welcome to partake since we were eating, but when one of the boys cannon balled into the pool out pops this mystery pool watcher man who demands 2000CFA for pool privileges. We were obviously all angry, but there was nothing he could do but pay. The other PCVs want me to work with the restaurant as a SED project to teach them that our food should be payment enough.

Everyone went their separate ways, but Emily and I decided to walk through the market and pick up a few things. We both picked up some string and clothes pins so we can hang up pictures in our rooms (pictures will be up ASAP) and I got a few other miscellaneous things. A lot of volunteers do very little to their rooms, but again, I’m living here for 2 years so I might as well make it nice. I was then exceedingly proud of myself because I took a different route home from the market and made it without getting lost. Granted, I know the market area pretty well from being at the center and I pretty much only used the main roads, but still I’m counting this as an accomplishment and as such I treated myself to my new favorite treat: Yogo Glace. I really can’t say enough good things about Yogo Glace.

Back at the casa everyone seemed to be in a bad mood so I steered clear and actually read the accounting manual the Peace Corps gave me. Even I can handle the type of accounting that I’ll be teaching here. It’s basic things American’s don’t even think about and the legers are really simple.

Dinner was AMAZING!!!!!! Roasted chicken, fries, and onions. My family eats really well, which I’m exceedingly happy about. I’m still planning on cooking a few meals a week for myself though. And I’m going to pick the nights when we aren’t eating chicken. Here in Senegal, vegetables signal wealth in the village, but nice meat signals wealth in Thies so while I have a obligatory carrot and cabbage in my ceebu jenn for lunch, I don’t get anything not drenched in oil for dinner. I can’t wait to make myself a salad, but only after washing my lettuce in filtered bleach water of course!

Sorry for the pretty boring post. I didn’t make a fool of myself or get lost today.

I think tomorrow is going to be a great day (aka I think the internet will be up and running)!