The week in hindsight

Writing this to you while in bed. A bit sick, weak and tired. To top it all off I just walked about 7 miles, in 3 and half hours under this HOT BRULING Sun. I went to pick up the names of the scholarship nominees from the school principal, which OFFCOUSRE he did not have ready, and he told me this after two hours of waiting (he told me to wait). I tell you, OH SENEGAL

 This was a fun-filling week. I got to prove my competence, prove to my family that I am competent and I do know how to do things.

For some reason my family thinks, like they think of most volunteers that we are incompetent and we can’t do anything because we don’t know the language or are familiar with our culture.

This week however, I was responsible for two students; six in the end (will get to that later). I was their mouth, map, tour, eyes, and ears.  So who are these students, you ask? They are CIEE students, a study aboard program. They are in Dakar for a semester studying, mostly always speaking English. They visit volunteers for a couple of days, to see what they do and get a firsthand look at the Peace Corps world. And most had not seen the “real Africa” till actually been on these visit; because Dakar is like a metropolitan city that can be found in the US, minus a few issues.

Most of them still take showers, eat good food, live in house, have internet 24/7, have classes in English and only fall back on their French when it’s extremely needed. So I got to hang out with them for a quick, show them my life here and the “real Senegal.” I took them to the schools I worked at, showed them my projects, did their barraging, showed them around Velingera.

One day is took them to the grand market, like a farmers market were one can find anything. We went there on Wednesday, which is the grand market day, people from the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, all come to this market. It was pretty intimidating to them, HECCK to me as well, because there are people everywhere, BUT we all make it through safe and sound. They did some shopping as well.

On the last day six of them spent the night with me. And you wonder why? Because they got a car, taxi which is called 7place, here, back to Dakar from Velingera. The other five came from volunteers in the surrounding area. This allowed them not to spend a night at the Tamba regional house, which they said had lots of mosquitoes, one of my student’s have the marks to prove it.

So I arranged a 7place for them. On that note, the first time a Senegalese person has been on time. The 7place drive told us here would be at my house by 4am and behold he was there at 4am, maybe even before that.  Four of us slept somewhere else, like 5mins away and we woke up four and when we got here the driver was already here.. IMPRESSIVE.

So I spent them back around 430am on their merry way and they made it back safely.

My week was ended on a sad note because a little girl of about 5 died and she was a friend, always asking for candy. All she complained was a headache for about two day then she died. Before I found that out I also found out a guy that I had been working with to organize a week long formation, which was scheduled for next week went back to Spain without even telling me. I tell you these people. SO the formation has been cancelled and someone was coming in from Dakar. So I may have to put something informal together, so this man can still offer his training.