The big deal with week two is we went to our homestays [where she will live during her three month training]. Now just keep in mind that these people are referred to as our family. I was incredibly afraid of this and had been since before I left. I wanted to run away and hide with the skinny cats.
After fretting and fretting I finally met my mom [she is still referring to her homestay family]. She instantly gave me the biggest hug since I left the airport in CR. Her name is Hkadi (hadi) Ba. She�s an incredibly nice and wonderful woman. She made me feel very welcome. That is of course after I sat in my tiny room and cried for 10 minutes. (Understand that all this time I�m dealing weird hormones, so crying at the drop of a hat�very common).
I have a mom, a dad named Counda Camara; a brother Babacar (22), another brother Ahmed (20), a sister Djeneba (18), and one last sister Aminata (16). They are all very very nice and helpful with my language. I actually just met Babacar for the first time today (it�s now Friday October 10, 2003). He�s kind of quite. But my other brother is a FREAK!!!!!! He�s totally just goofy and weird. Makes everyone I know back in the states look normal! I showed my host family my photo albums and they said how good looking my family is and how obvious it is that I love them and miss them. It was hard to look at pictures.
After the trauma of homestay families, PC (Peace Corps) felt it was the perfect time to fling us head first into our classes. I�m in the middle French class with 2 other people. An average schedule for the day: 8-10AM Language 10-10:30AM Break 10:30-12:30PM Language 12:30-2:30 Lunch/Break 2:30-4PM Tech Class (assignment specific) 4-4:30PM Break
4:30-6PM Cross Cultural (or sometimes Tech). So that�s my day.
And we go from 8am-Noon on Saturdays. It�s not that much different from the schedule I had at the bakery (mmm�.cake�).
Week two is the first full week of classes. Things went well. I had my language interview and they asked me what I did for work back in the States. I said, �I worked at a bakery� and they said, �Oh what did you do there?� (keep in mind this is all in french) I replied, �I ate.� It was funny, they laughed. (Ouly says hi Cindy)
At this point I�ve started to get to know some of the other people. And most of them seem really nice, although very little bonding has really happened yet. There�s one guy who will do anything to attract attention to him and then he�ll get mad because we�re all looking at him. Um�okay�and then of course there�s the girl who never has anything nice to say. I think today she was pissed off because her homestay parents have their own bathroom that she can�t use. Whatever. [We think this is the same person who was complaining about the amount of carbohydrates in their food, to which Paige replied, "What ever."]
Week two we lost our first volunteer. A very nice lady named Cheryl decided to go home. The first day in Philly she found out her nephew had died and she was just really wanting to be with her family. That�s completely understandable. Seeing her leave helped me realize I�m not ready to leave yet. So that was a good thing.
Okay, so we�re on two weeks of eating Senegalese food. And yeah it�s good�but so is Chinese food... if you don�t eat it EVERY SINGLE DAY! At this point I�m pretty sick of the food, rice and fish, fish and rice, white rice and fish, Burned white rice and fish. Oh sometimes they throw in eggplant just to confuse me�but sure enough it�s with rice and fish. Okay so that�s not entirely true�my family has beef every now and again. And one night we had Spaghetti and meatballs! Oh pardon me, not meatballs, FISHballs! Geez, lots of fish here. But every Saturday for lunch at the Center they feed us some Senegalese version of American food. Nothing too exciting�let�s move on now shall we?