First of all, a very happy birthday to my friend Jen C! I'm glad that I was back from Dakar in time to help her celebrate. To add to the festivities (although I'm 99% sure this was due to it being counterpart workshop and not Jen's birthday), we had bissap juice and beignets as a mid-afternoon snack. The Peace Corps has been holding out on us, because everything was delicious. I most certainly ate more fried food then I should have, but I really can't feel bad about it. For those of you who aren't familiar, a beignet is a french pastry. Here, it is pretty much the Senegalese version of a donut. In other words, scrumptious.
Speaking of counterpart workshop, it was... awkward. And I was only here for part of it. I arrived back at the training center at about 10:00am and counterpart workshop started yesterday morning. It was nice to meet my counterparts (Sadjio Ba and Moussa Jaillo); however, I exhausted my knowledge of the Pulaar language in approximately 15 minutes. This leads me to the last part of the title of this blog entry, crying. I pretty much lost it this afternoon and sobbed for about an hour over the fact that I know NO Pulaar and in 2ish weeks I will be dropped off in a village of 500 people that speak no English. Oh, they do speak other languages. French, Mandinka, the occasional Wolof. Unfortunately, none of that really helps me. The region of the country that I am going to is apparently famous for the plethora of languages spoken there. Many of which, I had never heard of until a few weeks ago (Malinka? Jaxanke?), and none of which, are English.
As I sat on a bench, crying hysterically to my friend Emma, my language instructor wandered over. I'd like to point out that I had almost stopped crying at this point. He took one look at me and said, "you have been crying." This, of course, caused me to lose it again, and I broke into the loud, ugly kind of sobs that make it sound almost like you're dry-heaving (my apologies for the graphic nature of this description). I was horribly embarrassed and didn't know what to do, neither apparently did Sidy (my instructor). Thank god Emma was there to try and smooth things over. I'm pretty sure the entire training center heard my sobs, as such was the loud volume of my hysterics. Luckily for me, I have another 2 weeks (yikes!) to get a handle on this thing.
Tomorrow, all 46 Peace Corps Trainees leave for a weekend at the beach. Another cause for celebration. We are headed to Popenguine, where all of us will cram into a house for 24 hours of fun in the sun. Caution: debauchery may ensue. It should be nice to finally have a day in which we can all just relax together and have some fun. PST really does run you ragged. I'll attribute my fragile emotional state to my level of exhaustion if that's alright with everyone. Just remember, words of encouragement are always appreciated, in any form (phone calls, texts, e-mails, letters. You get the idea).
Asalaa maalekum,
Rachel
Teehee, oh, I can imagine those sobs. Remember that you always, always laugh about these kinds of moments later, and this won't be different. C'mon, you wailing in hysterics that you can't get off the climbing tower? Me sobbing that I won't go anywhere near the lake with dead fish?
ReplyDeleteAlso, you'll be ok even if you can't speak the language so well, you might just not be able to express abstract thoughts for a while. 15 minutes of Pulaar conversation definitely covers the basics, and two more weeks of studying should notch that up a little. Have a great weekend at the beach!
P.S. I love this blog and that it means I hear sooo much more about your life.
I love you and believe in you! You can do it!!
ReplyDelete