Mid-March

On the Ides of March, what do I have to say for myself? Well I have just past the six months anniversary of my arrival date in Senegal. March 13th was also the day the 39 members of the new stagé entered the country. My stagé is now the “sophomore” stagé. No longer the newbies and supposedly now we are “forgotten” i.e. not the focus of Admin any more because by now we have good idea of the hang of things. There are usually 4 stagés in country at any given point with a few from a fifth that are on their way out and are just closing up at site, getting ready to hand over to the next volunteer and doing their last medical checkup. That is the point my sitemate, Erica, is at. She’ll be flying out on May 10th. Before that there is lots going on in my life.

I am currently in Kaolack for the night to get caught up on internet stuff as well as to celebrate Tayo’s, the PCV stationed in Kaolack, finishing with his TB meds. He also had a small chance that he had TB when he entered the Peace Corps and had to take medications “just in case”. He was on the 9 month plan but I was fortunate to be on the 4 month plan which was far more expensive but Montgomery County’s TB control program paid for it.

Next weekend I am going down to the Gambia for Easter or Paak as its called in Wolof. I’ll be there for three nights and it will be my first official vacation while in the PC. I’m really excited to go and I have to take a ferry and I love ferries! You have to take vacation days if you leave the country. For stuff like going to Kaolack or other in-country stuff you don’t, particularly if the trip involves service related stuff such as if you go to observe what another volunteer is doing in another part of the country or you help someone with a training or you yourself go for a conference.

I also was in Kolda during the first week in March. Kolda is a city and also a region south of Gambia. There are only about 14 or 15 PCVs in that region so it is far less populated than the Kaolack region that I think is at 39 right now. The “Kaolack” region is really made up of three different government regions but Peace Corps groups them together. I don’t mind it because that means our regional house is in Kaolack which is a great place for shopping and internet is pretty cheap. About 65 cents an hour. Anyways, I really enjoyed going down to Kolda. I saw a few people from my stagé as well as a couple others I knew from other groups. I hung out at their very nice regional house, enjoyed cooking with them, watched movies, spent lots of time talking, walked a long the river, explored their main market street. It was a really good time. I’m not sure if I’m going to go again during my service so I am glad I got to get down there and see the place. One thing I noticed is that animals in the south seem to have no sense of the danger of vehicles. They just start across the year despite the fact that there is a big bus heading straight toward them. I also at lots of vegetables that I usually never eat because one of the PCVs down there is a vegan…. Ocra, eggplant, zucchini….
Raja is getting very big and he is a wonderful source of entertainment. When I sit down he still comes bounding in from the other room to sit on my lap and kneed my belly. I’m very glad I have him. He’s started to spend the night outside now. He’s big enough I think that the other males cats in the area can’t kill him to protect their territory and his claws are very very sharp. I have plenty of little scratches to prove it!