Once again just as much has happened and it will be incredibly hard to update anyone whose still reading this, but I'll try my hardest. If you have questions feel free to ask them in the comment box and I'll get back to you; its easier for me to feed off of people's questions.
Right now I'm in Thies for my IST (in service training) for the next 2 weeks I'll be getting intensive training over the heavier projects I'll be doing in village. We'll be going over more in depth information; including how to write grants or the process we have to follow in order to submit our grants for our bigger projects, transplating/outplanting our tree pep, and so much more. It's really exciting to be back in Thies for IST which is surprising because it's really tiring, I have to wake up at 6am everyday and wait for my transportation at 6:30am (I'll be making the commute from my CBT site to Thies everyday- more on this later) after this I'll be in class from 8-5 everyday. Our breaks include breakfast, second breakfast, lunch rekk (only). It's comforting knowing that I'm doing something, I've been bored in site and I know that after these 2 weeks I'll be able to accomplish something, and dive into projects.
It's also scary that I'll be able to dive into projects, because I feel like there is still so much I don't know about my village and my language skills are not up to par to hold a meeting. Other volunteers give us advice including we aren't the ones who should be holding the meetings, it should be others in our community, like our counterparts. But I don't know if I can rely on my counterparts to do that in a manner that represents my work properly, they haven't really been proving themselves lately. But I'll be able to track down someone in the village who knows what the work of a Peace Corps volunteer really is and they'll help with the meetings, I have confidence this will work out properly as long as I plan for the worst and the best.
The greatest thing about the next 2 years are the skills and knowledge I'm going to be obtaining and sharing with others. I feel like I'm attempting to obtain so much information and resources so I can teach these people in order to make a truly sustainable project work without the "toubab" presence. (Toubab means white person). The hardest thing about the next two years is going to be making sure the projects are actually sustainable -- yikes!!
So I don't know what kind of stuff you guys are interested about hearing, stories of village life, stories of my work, etc. ask questions and i'll answer accordingly. Here's a story about my experience in the village just last week; don't judge you guys- just laugh.
I went to the school to go water the pepinere and of course was followed by a bunch of children, which is fine by me because they normally listen to me and help out with watering the trees. It's a fun time and they're really helpful and incredibly counterproductive but they have nothing better to do. Well it all went sour when the kids wouldn't turn off the water, and in their defense they were trying to water the other completely dead garden beds (that have been abandoned -- whole other story), anyways I kept asking them to turn off the water because we were done watering the trees, and for the past few days the robine hasn't been working so for "water saving" reasons I didn't want to use too much that day.
The kids wouldn't listen to me so I ran up to them and asked again to turn it off, and the kid just kept staring at me and laughing, which made me incredibly mad and I kept yelling and one kid finally came up and turned it off (i was on the other side of the fence). I was outraged that the kids wouldn't listen to me at that moment, one of my fears in the village is to have the children disregard my authority and having to call in an adult because the adults just hit the kids which then the kids hate me and will destroy my work- fact. Anyways I screamed at the kids to go home because I was tired of their behavior, they wouldn't listen kept laughing, etc. An adult heard and told them to leave; thank god (this rarely happens).
So the next day I go to water the pepinere and I'm a little nervous I'm going to run into those kids again and do some damage control so they don't hate me because of my outrageous reaction. All was good but some of the kids started throwing rocks at the school (to kill a lizard- I hate it when they do this) they kept hitting the school building and taking chunks out of the wall. So of course I tell them they can't be at the school and that the building is not there's to destroy and they'll have to pay for the damage. They thought once again I'm so funny!!
Some kids of course were sticking up for what I was saying and were telling the kids they should run away before I hit them - All the kids here think adults just beat children, because that's what they know - I've told them I don't hit kids so they know they've got that cushion and they can misbehave and not get punished. (P.S. one boy kept his distance cuz he was scared, and the other kid was the same one who was playing with the water the day before) BUT! This time I told them I'd tell my father, all the kids in the village are scared of my father, so I asked one of the little girls what the boys' names were and if she'd come to my house to assist me, one of the boys heard and came up to hit her, so I stand in front of her and yell at him again that he can never hit a girl and that I'll tell his mother and she'll beat him. He responds, if you come to my house my mother will beat you. Oh hail no!
So here I am, 22 years old, arguing with 10 year olds about their behavior in a language I can't even speak. This is not what I expected for my Peace Corps experience. Let's just say everything was resolved because an older boy (16years) came up and calmly soothingly asked "Penda, what's wrong? Talk to me" So I told him the issue and that I was going to tell my father, and he didn't really understand what I was saying so this little girl came up and told him in her much better Pulaar, the older boy turned to the younger boy and told him to stop tormenting me and that he shouldn't break the school and that he'll beat him himself if he continues. It sounds horrible but it was really reassuring knowing SOMEONE will stick up for me whose older than 8 years old, because only ONE ADULT came up when I was screaming at the kids and all he said was "stop," then went home; really sir? whose that helping?! So this older boy told me to go home and tell my father and I told him I didn't want to have to do that, I turned to the younger boy and told him to promise he wouldn't go into the school and I wouldn't tell my father. Later on that day I went up to the kid and asked if we were still friends (if he's already behaving that way I need to make sure we're friends so he doesn't do these things to my future projects) so we shook hands about our friendship, and he said sorry. All in all it was completely resolved.
So about homestay during IST, I went back to my CBT site in N'Guekhov but I couldn't stay with my family because the father had passed away and everything has been really hard on them, so I stayed with the family that our language teacher stayed with, which is totally fine because I knew the family and we had class there everyday. Also, there's a little boy there Omar, and he only talks to me. He used to tell the family that he wouldn't speak to anyone until I came over to their house (this was when my language teacher still lived there), but his behavior wasn't any different when I was staying there. I'm now staying at the Thies Peace Corps compound with all the other volunteers, except the ones who decided they wanted to keep going to their CBT house, I just couldn't do it because of traveling back and forth. The road was way too hard on my body; I got motion sickness and was taking motion sickness pills every morning and evening for the trips. The volunteers were able to convince Peace Corps staff that we'll be responsible enough to stay at the Thies compound and won't disobey the rules. The reason PC staff doesn't want us to stay at the Thies compound is because other stages had ruined it for everyone else, because they got drunk on compound grounds, would skip classes, or come back to the compound really late. But the volunteers brought up their issues with us not staying on compound grounds and how it was stressful for us all, etc. So now we're able to stay here which is awesome but I had to say goodbye to the family one more time, which sucked because I really do like these families in N'Guekhov, like more than my village family. I didn't realize how good I had it during CBT compared to now. My "real" CBT family welcomed me with hugs and kisses, and everyone was soooo happy to see me. One little boy, my little man was bailing when they had to pull him out of my arms and it was my last goodbye until I'm able to come back and visit then later in my service. But still, what if he's not there?-- This little boy is my buddy! They were so sad I wasn't going to be able to stay with them because of the death that struck.
Alright so I think this is a pretty good update. I'll try to start writing some things to post more frequently while in village.
Loves!
oh p.s. i went to a restaurant today with some friends and there was LIVE music, and the man was singing in english and it was some good english songs, and it made me think of people in America.
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