Pat's Post // 'Bout Baba

It’s official. I have been in Senegal for over a year now.  The language feels proficient and the hair is long enough to be put in a proper bun (albeit the language could be better and I could probably use a maintenance haircut haha). So much has happened in the last three months, where do I start…. Portugal (That's not Senegal...?): In my last post, I left y’all mid-month after my training in Tambacounda and a last minute decision to spend the holidays in Portugal. If you did not read my thanksgiving catastrophe in the last blog post, I would implore you to do so; It’s a good laugh, but good reason to not want to spend the holidays at site.   Portugal has been on my list of places to go since study abroad in 2014, but I never had the time or money.   It was worth the wait.   For any foodie and/or history buff, there is no shortage of fun.   Actually, for anyone there is something to do. Even the sidewalks are beautiful.   Not being able to go home for the holidays for th

Just a few more months have passed since the last post, but so much has happened! Projects Since the last post, I have started up several projects. Some big and some small. The most notable would be the Middle School Health Club. I worked with the school staff to select 30 students to be apart of the first health club here in Gainth Pathe. I was ecstatic to see my Wolof was strong enough to lead the 45 minute introduction meeting by myself, but now I am actively working with guest speakers and health post staff to convey messages and health principals to the next generation of health workers and volunteers. What makes a health club so important in Gainth Pathe is that these students come from many villages, some far far away; by reaching out to them and having them practice these principles and teach these concepts in their communities, we have just exponentially increased the number of people reached over a large geographical area.  Most recently, the students had a Q&A sess

IST through the first 6 months in Senegal (July – September. Roughly.) Intermediate Service training (IST) IST was an intense two week training back in Thies with all the new health and business volunteers once again under the same (metaphorical) roof. Side note, IST is the French abbreviation for a sexually transmitted disease and caused a comical amount of confusion for the French speakers at the health post. It was similar to PST in the sense that we had class all day and lost sleep all night trying to catch up, be social, and revel in the ability to speak English.  Where it differed was in the content in the training.  While PST spent a lot of time discussing what to expect in Senegal and how to speak the local language, IST dove into future projects, how to write grants, and the resources available to succeed in these projects. The last few days, we all had our counterparts from our respective sites come and partake in the training with us.  A counterpart is someone sharing

Pre-IST (4 May - 14 July 2019) Install:     After feeling on top of the world, we packed our lives into sept-places and headed off to our respective regions first thing in the morning, lacking sleep and proper hydration after celebrating swear-in. And reality set in. In Kounghuel, my road town a few of us bought all of our furniture over a couple days with the help of nearby, older, volunteers. And then I was dropped off in my new site, with my new hut, and my new family, and it was all very real. Wolof Rekk.     Here I received my new and final Senegalese name: Babacar Sy . For better or worse, this is also the name of a well-renowned religious leader and I sometimes get called Serigne Babacar Sy. It took a couple days to adjust, but I am blessed to have some key people in this town that have made my integration as smooth as possible. They are: Marie Ndaiye – Selected by the village to come to Thies and learn about Peace Corps and help me integrate. She is a mother, she is