Arriving in Senegal

written Wednesday, March 21, 2007


I am sitting in the Peace Corps regional house in Tambacounda. Today marks one week since I left the U.S., and tomorrow I will have been in Senegal for a week. It feels like a million years. Or at least a month.

Monday last week I left my family and went to D.C. for Peace Corps staging (orientation). We had a lot of sessions that were supposed to help us prepare for coming over here, but those two days are all a blur now, and I don't really remember much they told us. It was nice to have a chance to meet the other volunteers who would be going to Senegal before we left, though.

After two days in D.C., we woke up at the crack of dawn and went to the airport to fly to Atlanta and then to Dakar. One of my bags was 13 pounds over the weight limit; I was afraid they would charge me extra, or worse, make me just get rid of some of it, but the guy at the check-in counter didn't bat an eye when I put my bag on the scale.

So the first (very small) hurdle on my Peace Corps adventure was surmounted.

The flight from Atlanta to Dakar was long but uneventful. I was surprised at how few Africans were on the plane.

We landed at Dakar airport around 4:30 am. I had been warned that the airport is really chaotic and stressful, so I was prepared for something really crazy. But the airport looked like every other airport I've seen, except maybe a little more run down. At the baggage claim there were men standing around offering to carry people's bags for them (for money). I wasn't sure if they worked at the airport or were just random people. Either way, I wasn't letting anyone take my bags. But no one approached me, so it wasn't a problem.

The Peace Corps staff met us at the airport and helped us get our bags on the bus that would take us to Thies, where the Peace Corps training center is.

From the bus, I had my first real look at Senegal. We saw some horse-drawn carts, and some commuter buses chock full of people. But despite my excitement at finally arriving in Senegal, I fell asleep on the bus pretty quickly and didn't wake up until we arrived at the training center in Thies.

The training center is beautiful - lots of green plants and pretty flowers, some huts with thatch roofs and no walls, or walls only halfway up, so that the air can go through. And of course lots of big rectangular "normal" looking buildings.

After a quick breakfast of baguettes and coffee or tea (with hot milk - yay!), they let us go to sleep until lunchtime. I'm sharing a room in a dormitory building with another girl. We have single beds with mosquito nets over them (which I love sleeping under), a table, and an armoire. The bathroom is shared for the whole side of the building (which means only about eight or ten people use it, I think). I'll write more about bathrooms and related issues in another post, as I have been a little obsessed with them.

After our naps we had a really good lunch - rice served in giant communal bowls (about five people to a bowl) with beef and lots of different vegetables mixed in. It was amazing, and I thought that if this is what Senegalese food is like, then I will have no problem adjusting at all.

After lunch some of the male Peace Corps staff played drums, and we all danced. I'm sure we all looked ridiculous, but it was a lot of fun.