Greetings

Greetings Friends and others who’ve come across this blog! A lot has happened since my last blog post. I’ve been in Senegal for 2 months and it already feels like I’ve been here for years. The Peace Corps does an incredible job facilitating us to be as well adapted to the Senegalese culture as possible. Before I decided to sign up for the Peace Corps I remember people talking about how the volunteers do nothing; they just go to foreign counties and start a girls soccer team-- we do so much more than that (and also those girls soccer teams do a lot for the girls in developing countries). For now I can’t really speak about what I will be doing project wise because I haven’t gone to my village yet and I haven’t asked them what the issues in the village are. But we do have a project plan of things we need to accomplish; such as Environmental Education volunteers need to do 500 tree sacks (pepineeres) and so much more!! but that's one I'm incredibly excited for because tomorrow I'm going on a seed scavenger hunt. They’re changing their ways so they have more things to measure at the end of services particularly in the year 2015. I feel really fortunate for how well our training has been organized; and that's saying a lot because there are still times where we find ourselves thinking Peace Corps is not organized at all, but in all reality they did an amazing job at changing their training styles to better accommodate us to have an easy/smooth transition period through everything.
The previous volunteers said they were never given the opportunity to visit their future site while they were in training; so they were in these amazing training houses and then the day they were installing into their future site was the hardest because they realized their hut was smaller, they had no electricity, they were really far from the roads/city/houses, etc. But we were able to get a preview of our future life, walk around with the volunteer, find out the hot spots, hear the gossip, know who to avoid, etc.
So training comes to an end this Saturday; that's when we go to Dakar and get sworn in as real volunteers. It's a pretty formal ceremony, which I'm really excited for. It's scary but I'm excited! I had my last language test (may 11) and I think it went pretty well. I have to score intermediate mid, which means I have to be able to engage in conversation, ask questions, and get my ideas across -- would you like me to be more vague?! :) But I really think I did pretty good, I think I reached that goal, which is also kind of scary because I feel like I have no language ability and if I did reach that goal then it's scary to think I'm going to be able to survive on my own for the next few months with the little language skills I have. But once again, once you're actually doing this stuff you realize how much you can actually handle. That's the most exciting thing about this process the fact that no matter what's thrown at me I can handle it. I've always known I could, but now here's the proof. I'm putting myself in a completely different situation than I would ever put myself in, and I can do this. I'm learning more about myself, and I'm also learning how to not be scared to be the goofy person I am in public. (Cheesy-- I know). It's just fun being around the Senegalese people! It's funny how in America if you're dancing "weird" people mock you, but in Senegal if you're not dancing, you're mocked! They're all about having fun! I feel like sometimes that's forgotten in America because people are always so nervous about what others are going to think.
I'll update more later, but I just wanted to give you guys a brief update so everyone is kind of caught up to speed. If you have questions post 'em in the comments and I can answer them!

Love
Hadiel