Where my girlz at? Hollar!

I had the best weekend I've had in a long time. I consider myself very lucky to have as many long-term close friends as I do, and this past weekend it was time for a little reunion. I road-tripped it down to the city of brotherly love (That's Philadelphia, in case you were wondering. Don't worry, I didn't know the lingo until recently either.) to spend some quality time with my bf's from the field (aka Westfield). Every couple of months we do a mini-reunion of sorts; November we were in D.C. and last March/April we were here on my turf in NYC. 

After a delicious dinner at Haru in Old City, we were off to Plough & the Stars, a great place for dancing, drinking and just a general good time. Late night pizza was a perfect way to finish off an already fantastic day, and then we all collapsed in my friend's living room.

I learned some new things this weekend too.

1. I already knew that I'm not really cool enough for NYC. Sometimes it works, other times I can fake it, but more often then not, I just can't keep up. Don't worry, I'm not trying to be down on myself, I'm just being realistic. What I know now, is that I may be cool enough for Philly. And if I'm cool enough for Philly, I may also be cool enough for Boston and I'm assuming that I will also be cool enough for Dakar. Last call in Philly is 2am. I can totally do that! 
2. All the cute guys are in Philly. I know what you're thinking, that NYC is full of cute guys. That may be true, but I also firmly believe that a lot of the cute NYC guys are also slightly on the neurotic side. They also tend to be attached/in significant relationships. Little did I know before this weekend, that Philadelphia is full of adorable men! This brings me to my next point...
3. I think I may also be more attractive in Philadelphia, as I got hit on more frequently on Saturday night then I have in a long time. Don't get me wrong, I'm most definitely not putting myself in the same category as Giselle or Kate Moss, but Philly gave me more of an edge that I've EVER had in NYC. 
4. Philadelphia is more comfortable then NYC. You would NEVER be able to get away with going to Sunday brunch in a hoodie, but in Philly it was edging very close to being the norm. Also, I totally saw a girl at the club on Saturday night wearing Birkenstocks. Talk about comfort. 

Let me be clear, no city will ever be able to replace NYC and the special place it occupies in my heart (so Stephanie Allen can stop worrying). What I'm saying is that Philly exceeded my expectations in almost every way. I would very much suggest that anyone in the vicinity check it out. The cheesesteaks are just an added bonus.

Much love to my homegirlz (I'm allowed to write it like that because this is my blog); SB, SH, JZ, ML, PP, AG, JM, KL and JN (you were there in spirit)! Thank you for already blocking March 7 on your calendars so that you are free to respond to my frantic phone calls when I am freaking out at PC Staging. Please don't forget me when I'm living on another continent. 

Amazon.com is next to Godliness

God bless amazon.com! I have just discovered that they will ship items to Senegal. YES! As stupid as it may sound, this does ease my mind a bit, as yesterday I had my first Peace Corps freakout. What was I freaking out about you may ask? Packing. Yes, that's right, I'm totally serious. I did not freak out about being away from friends and family for two years, or the fact that I will be alone in a foreign place where I do not speak the language, I freaked out about the amount of stuff I would be able to shove into my two checked bags that cannot exceed a weight allowance of 80 lbs.

I haven't even left for Senegal yet and I'm already learning a ton of new information. For example, I now know the pros and cons of different brands of sleeping bags and headlamps (Don't worry faithful readers, you can expect lots of goofy pics of me wearing my headlamp. Just something to look forward to.). I'm also finding out how things I never would have thought of will prove to be neccesities during the course of the next two years. For example, the REI Bug Hut Pro 2 Tent.

It never occured to me, in the past 24 years of my life, that I would one day need such an item as this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the advice of returned PCVs, current PCVs and future PCVs. I now spend the majority of my down time at work fanatically and frantically researching Peace Corps blogs (especially those from Senegal and the surrounding African countires) so that I can get a better sense of what I will need with me, what I will want with me, what I should just forget and get over now, and what I should have sent to me later.

One that that I'm having trouble deciding on is what type of solar charger to invest in. I have been in several electronic stores in NYC and everyone person I have asked has looked at me like I'm from another planet. Apparently solar chargers are not the norm in Manhattan. Yes, shocking, I know. As of now, I'm leaning towards a solio charger. It seems like that's what most people are using, so I will defer to them.

Although, there is something to be said for this one from Voltaic Systems. 

You can strap it right to you backpack so that it will charge when you bicycle to work in the direct mid-morning heat of the African sun.

Thoughts anyone? Which solar charger should I choose? Maybe I'll just pick the one that looks the best with my bug hut.

Anyway, back to amazon. What this means to me, is that I can ship all the pretentious public health/medical anthropology textbooks to myself that I want! YAY! Yes, I know, I'm a nerd. But what can I say, I think they're interesting. Here's what I have so far and I'm always looking for other recommendations.

• Anthropology and Public Health: Bridging Differences in Culture and Society – Robert A. Hahn, Marcia Inborn
• “Letting Them Die”: Why HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes Fail (African Issues) – Catherine Campbell
• Global Health: Why Cultural Perceptions, Social Representations, and Biopolitics Matter – Mark Nichter

I'm also trying to stock up on books to fill up my Kindle. I'm thinking that this is one piece of electronic equipment that will prove invaluable. I'm psyched that I won't have to lug an entire library with me to Senegal.  Any suggestions for some good novels that will take me a while to get through? I will even try to repay suggestions with postcards and other African goodies (no, i'm not trying to bribe anyone...).

Me talk pretty

This evening I went to my first French class. I will go twice a week for 3 hours a night for the next 5 weeks or so in the hopes that when I get to Senegal, I don't sound like a complete fool. Class number 1 was a success, although it did make me think of an excerpt from David Sedaris' book, "Me Talk Pretty One Day." If you haven't read it, please go out and buy it now. IT IS WORTH IT. I remember the first time I read it, it had me laughing out loud with tears streaming down my face. Let me be clear, the class I went to tonight was nothing like the excerpt below, I just had to share this gem with everyone that is reading this. Please enjoy.


From, "Me Talk Pretty One Day," by David Sedaris

At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and have to think of myself as what my French textbooks call "a true debutant." After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich.


I've moved to Paris with hopes of learning the language. My school is an easy ten-minute walk from my apartment, and on the first day of class I arrived early, watching as the returning students greeted one another in the school lobby. Vacations were recounted, and questions were raised concerning mutual friends with names like Kang and Vlatnya. Regardless of their nationalities, every one spoke in what sounded to me like excellent French. Some accents were better than others, but the students exhibited an ease and confidence I found intimidating. As an added discomfort, they were all young, attractive, and well dressed, causing me to feel not unlike Pa Kettle trapped backstage after a fashion show. 


The first day of class was nerve-racking because I knew I'd be expected to perform. That's the way the do it here - it's everybody into the language pool, sink or swim. The teacher marched in, deeply tanned from a recent vacation, and proceeded to rattle off a series of administrative announcements. I've spent quite a few summers in Normandy, and I took a monthlong French class before leaving New York. I'm not completely in the dark, yet I understood only half of what this woman was saying.


"If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we shall begin." She spread out her lesson plan and sighed, saying, "All right, then, who knows the alphabet?"


It was startling because (a) I hadn't been asked that question in a while and (b) I realized, while laughing, that I myself did not know the alphabet. They're the same letters, but in France they're pronounced differently. I know the shape of the alphabet but had no idea what it actually sounded like. 


"Ahh." The teacher went to the board and sketched the letter a. "Do we have anyone in the room whose first name starts with an ahh?"


Two Polish Annas raised their hands, and the teacher instructed them to present themselves by stating their names, nationalities, occupations, and a brief list of things they liked and dislike in this world. The first Anna hailed from an industrial town outside of Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked as a seamstress, enjoyed quiet times with friends, and hated the mosquito.


"Oh really," the teacher said. "How interesting. I thought that everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you claim to detest him. How is it that we've been blessed with someone as unique and original as you? Tell us, please."


The seamstress did not understand what was being said but knew that this was an occasion for shame. Her rabbity mouth huffed for breath, and she stared down at her lap as though the appropriate comeback was stitched somewhere alongside the zipper of her slacks. 


The second Anna learned from the first and claimed to love sunshine and detest lies. It sounded like a translation of one of those Playmate of the Month data sheets, the answer always written in the same loopy handwriting: "Turn-ons: Mom's famous five-alarm chili! Turnoffs: insecurity and guys who come on too strong!!!"


The two Polish Annas surely had clear notions of what they loved and hated, but like the rest of us, they were limited in terms of vocabulary, and this made them appear less than sophisticated. The teacher forged on, and we learned that Carlos, the Argentine bandonion player, loved wine, music, and, in his words, "making sex with the womens of the world." Next came a beautiful young Yugoslav who identified herelf as an optimist, saying she loved everything that life had to offer. 


The teacher licked her lips, revealing a hint of the saucebox we would later come to know. She crouched low for her attack, placed her hands on the young woman's desk, and leaned close, saying, "Oh yeah? And do you love your little war?"


While the optimist struggled to defend herself, I scrambled to think of an answer to what had obviously become a trick question. How often is one asked what he loves in this world? More to the point, how often is one asked and then publicly ridiculed for his answer? I recalled my mother, flushed with wine, pounding the tabletop late one night, saying, "Love? I love a good steak cooked rare. I love my cat, and I love..." My sisters and I leaned forward, waiting to hear our names. "Tums," our mother said. "I love Tums." 


The teacher killed some time accusing the Yugoslavian girl of masterminding a program of genocide, and I jotted frantic notes in the margins of my pad. While I can honestly say that I love leafing through medical textbooks devoted to severe dermatological conditions, the hobby is beyond the reach of my French vocabulary, and acting it out would only have invited controversy. 


When called upon, I delivered an effortless list of things that I detest: blood sausage, intestinal pâtés, brian pudding. I'd learned these words the hard way. Having given it some thought, I then declared my love for IBM typewriters, the French word for bruise, and my electric floor waxer. It was a short list, but still I managed to mispronounce IBM and assign the wrong gender to both the floor waxer and the typewriter. The teacher's reaction led me to believe that these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France.


"Were you always this paliemkrexis?" she asked. "Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun knows that a typewriter is feminine." 


I absorbed as much of her abuse as I could understand, thinking - but not saying - that I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?


The teacher proceeded to belittle everyone from German Eva, who hated laziness, to Japanese Yukari, who loved paintbrushes and soap. Italian, Thai, Dutch, Korean, and Chinese - we all left class foolishly believing that the worst was over. She'd shaken us up a little, but surely that was just an act designed to weed out the deadweight. We didn't know it then, but the coming months would teach us what it was like to spend time in the presence of a wild animal, something completely unpredictable. Her temperament was not based on a series of good and bad days but, rather, good and bad moments. We soon learned to dodge chalk and protect our heads and stomachs whenever she approached us with a question. She hadn't yet punched anyone, but it seemed wise to protect ourselves against the inevitable. 


Though we were forbidden to speak anything but French, the teacher would occasionally use us to practice any of her five fluent languages.


"I hate you," she said to me one afternoon. Her English was flawless. "I really, really hate you." Call me sensitive, but I couldn't help but take it personally.


After being singled out as a lazy kfdtinvfm, I took to spending four hours a night on my homework, putting in even more time whenever we were assigned an essay. I suppose I could have gotten by with less, but I was determined to create some sort of identity for myself: David the hard worker, David the cut-up. We'd have one of those "complete the sentences" exercises, and I'd fool with the thing for hours, invariably settling on something like, "A quick run around the lake? I'd love to! Just give me a moment while I strap on my wooden leg." The teacher, through word and action, conveyed the message that if this was my idea of an identity, she wanted nothing to do with it.


My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards. Stopping for a coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account: these thing were out of the question, as they involved having to speak. Before beginning school, there'd been no shutting me up, but now I was convinced that everything I said was wrong. When the phone rang, I ignored it. If someone asked me a question, I pretended to be deaf. I knew my fear was getting the best of me when I started wondering why they don't sell cuts of meat in vending machines.


My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversations commonly overheard in refugee camps. 


"Sometime me cry alone at night."


"That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay."


Unlike the French class I had taken in New York, here there was no sense of competition. When the teacher poked a shy Korean in the eyelid with a freshly sharpened pencil, we took no comfort in the fact that, unlike Hyeyoon Cho, we all knew the irregular past tense of the verb to defeat. In all fairness, the teacher hadn't meant to stab the girl, but neither did she spend much time apologizing, saying only, "Well, you should have been vkkdyo more kdeynfulh." 


Over time it became impossible to believe that any of us would ever improve. Fall arrived and it rained every day, meaning we would now be scolded for the water dripping from our coats and umbrellas. It was mid-October when the teacher singled me out, saying, "Every day spent with you is like have a cesarean section." And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.


Understanding doesn't mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It's a small step, nothing more, yet its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive. The teacher continued her diatribe and I settle back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult.


"You exhaust me with your foolishness and reward my efforts with nothing but pain, do you understand me?"


The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, "I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus."

I bless the rain down in Africa

Ok, so new web address courtesy of Marissa L (I give credit where credit is due, and this was WAY more creative then what I came up with). This one is much more festive/ not lame. 

Enjoy the video, it's just for fun!

An explanation of sorts

I feel like I should offer an explanation of sorts. I’m sure some of you who are reading this are thinking, “the Peace Corps? Rachel? Really?” And to that I have to say this, give me a little bit of credit people! I like to think of myself as someone who puts a lot of thought into things before actually going ahead and doing them. And that is exactly what I did when I decided to do this.

While some of you (you know who you are) may think that this doesn’t sound like me and that this doesn’t sound like something I’m going to be able to do, you’re wrong. The Peace Corps is something that I have been thinking about doing since I was a junior in high school. I remember going on my first college tour and seeing a flyer for the Peace Corps. I thought to myself, “that sounds like something I would really like to do.” I started an application my senior year of college and did not finish it. It just wasn’t the right time for me. But now is.

I’m not naïve, I never said I thought that the next 27 months would be easy. But I sincerely believe that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. I’m sure that there will be some days when I want to quit and come home. I hope that those days will be few and far between. Perseverance and resilience are two qualities that I think will be most important in getting through those bad days. It will also be my friends and family back home that I will think of when I don’t think I can keep going any more. I know they will be supporting me, and that will be enough for me to make it through. 

A language dilemma

As you may or may not know, French is the official language of Senegal. Did I mention that I don't really speak French? I took it for three years in high school, but since I wasn't very good at it then, I can't imagine that it will all suddenly come flooding back to me and I will be praised from all sides about my fantastic lingual abilitites. So, it was with this fear of being unable to communicate in a new language, in a new land that led me to sign up for a French class at the French Institute Alliance Française. I start next week, and all I can hope for now, is that I am a much more motivated student than I was in high school. Check back with me in 6ish weeks to see if this blog will be written exclusively in French (If I were you, I wouldn't be holding my breath).

If only learning French were to be my only language hurdle. According to the material that I have been reading, only about 20% of the population of Senegal actually speaks/understands French. Other common local languages include; Balanta-Ganja, Hassaniyya, Jola-Fonyi, Mandinka, Mandjak, Mankanya, Noon, Pulaar, Seereer-Siin, Soninke and Wolof. I'm not sure that I'll be able to find a class in New York City that would allow me access to any of those particular languages. There is also the question of which local language I will need to familiarize myself with. That information will not be available to me until training starts in March.

Words of advice from anyone? Wolof flashcards? Should I start writing notes to myself exclusively in Pulaar? And RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) reading this? Tips would be greatly appreciated, just saying.

I hope to say that when I return in 2+ years that I am tri-lingual. When I do get back, will there be anyone to even practice my Mandinka with?

The cat's out of the bag!

So it's official. Everyone at Sloan-Kettering knows and now I can shout it from the rooftops, I'M GOING TO SENEGAL WITH THE PEACE CORPS!!! Can you tell that I'm a little excited? Also, a teensy tiny bit terrified, but I guess that's to be expected. I'll be leaving on March 9 for training in Philadelphia and then a few days later, Dakar here I come!


Now on to some details for all of you readers (is anyone reading this?).


Within the Peace Corps, I will be acting as a preventative health educator within a program known as PROSPERE (PROjet de Sante Preventative et d'Education Relative à l'Environnement). This health project is designed to address behavior change related to the main contributors of disease; for child health this includes malnutrition that compromises child health, making children susceptible to illness and death. Infectious disease such as acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and malaria account for the greatest proportion of infant and under-five mortality. Hygiene promotion plays a major role in mitigating the impact of both diarrhea and pneumonia illness and disease. 


My main role will be to work as an educator, a facilitator, a catalyst, a liaison and a mentor to assist my community members to work collectively and individually to:
1) Address the major environmental health and nutrition problems of their idea through non-formal education (with youth, women and other community groups) and community actions (funded and non-funded projects). Environmental health includes access to potable water, improved sanitation conditions, solid waste management, prevention of mosquito-borne diseases, access to clean energy, land restoration and tree planting). 
2) Improve the health of vulnerable groups (mothers, babies and children) through the implementation of communication for behavior change strategies and the promotion of good health practices. 


Phew! That was a lot! I'm tired just typing it all out. But honestly, it sounds great to me. For those of you that don't know me well (or in some cases, at all), this is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. Now it's finally the time for me to just dive in head first and see what happens. I've thoroughly enjoyed working at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for the past 2 and 1/2 years, but I can't wait to have a job that allows me a more hands-on focus. I want to be able to see the people I'm trying to help as opposed to just talking to them over the phone. 


Thanks for reading, I hope you all come back soon!