Juice!

Another great day! I decided that I will do my best to write a post whenever I have internet. I realized yesterday that the internet and electricity I have here at the training center is the best it is going to be for the next two years... which by American standards is not so great. So I'll take it when I can get it.

Highlights of the day:

• A cultural presentation given by the center staff where they taught us about eating, drinking, greeting and dressing correctly in Senegal. 

Turns out I won't have to kick my sugar habit while I'm here! They put tons of sugar in their tea, have sugary juices, and have amazing fruits that taste like warheads. Senegal is the bomb.

I also CAN'T WAIT to go dress shopping. The fabrics here are incredible and the tailors can make just about anything. I am so excited. If you want me to have a dress made for you, leave a comment or email me! You can either send me a picture of something you want or I will pick out the style for you.

• We had 'interviews' with staff today to go over how much French we knew, what we wanted to do in the country, and to go over our medical concerns. 

I don't know a ton of French but I think I got by okay. There is a big range in the proficiency here and I think I am somewhere in the bottom middle. I'm not entirely sure what it means if I can or can't speak French because I will be learning a local language as well and as far as I know mostly using the local language... we'll see.

I got a shot in med for typhoid and started the precursor to mefloquine, which begins with a 'deoxy' and will protect me until the mefloquine kicks in. I don't know if I will have mefloquine dreams right away. I am a little nervous.

In my tech interview I said that I liked everything. They asked a little bit about my background and what I wanted to do in Senegal, whether I wanted to bike or not (yes!!), and what other projects I was interested in doing on the side. I am pretty psyched about having a community or school garden at my post, something they said would be quite possible. Maybe I'll even get to have chickens! There are agricultural volunteers here at the center helping out and one of them was very generous today and took a group around to teach us about what he was doing. I now know how to make a level out of just sticks, string and a rock and I know how to make a berm, which protects plants from the intense rains of the rainy season. It was great.

• The slackline I brought was a hit! Some of the center staff even joined in!

I feel like sending this to Gibbon as some kind of testimonial advertisement.