My December :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!!! I miss everyone back home a bunch and I cannot believe it is January already! So crazy how time just flies! In about a week I’ll be 27 years old (so weird as I feel and act as if I were still 12!) and it’ll be five months since I left the states…so crazy! I’m not too sure how I feel about this whole ‘I’m in my late 20’s now’ thing but we’ll see…I figured staying young isn’t about age, it’s about heart, or at least that’s my excuse J

So winter (as I know it) really does not exist here in Senegal. The coldest it has gotten so far has been around 70 degrees F (I think) and that is actually starting to feel quite cold to me now K heeheehee…The month of December brought me lots of things. First came an intensive two weeks of ‘In-Service’ training with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer friends of whom many I hadn’t seen since we swore in as official volunteers back in mid-October. Next came an amazing Christmas on the beaches of Poponguine, Senegal where I reflected on the meaning and importance of family and friends, successfully prepared a Mexican Christmas Eve dinner, and ate WAY too much good food and therefore probably gained another seven poundsJ Lastly, came a very calm New Year’s Eve in Fatick with my host family where I ate some freshly slaughtered chicken, headed home at about 11:30pm, bought some beignets (donut-type goodies) at the local boutique, prepared some tea, lit my Sacred Heart candle, and toasted the new year with me, myself, and I, and my Lord J Oh, and I can’t forget the massive amount of goodies my mom and my sister Emma sent me and the beautiful daisy flower stocking full of surprises that my Betty sent me J Thank you ladies SOOO much!

2 week In-Service Training: …was very long and tiring. However, I was super duper excited to see the other volunteers who are on this crazy journey with me J We were broken up into our sectors and had about 8 hours of class per day where we learned about the different types of projects that we can possibly get involved in or start in our communities. On the weekend of the 12^th/13^th some of us went to Dakar for the World-Wide Black Arts Festival. Peace Corps hosted an exposition of local artists of all sorts (jewelry makers, leather workers, painters, etc) that Peace Corps Volunteers work with at their sites and I was fortunate enough to have been able to take a local painter from Fatick. By the end of the exposition, my artist ended up selling all six of his paintings so that was really exciting for both of us J Also, at the exposition I met a handful of RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) who had previously served in other parts of the world and are now living and working in Senegal for NGOs or other organizations. One couple in particular was extremely sweet and it happens to be that the husband works for USAID and is in charge of a couple of education projects that are currently in effect in Fatick. I’ll touch on this a little later J

It’s Christmas time!:  ...and three days before Christmas Day I found myself crying all over the place. It was right after I had begun to read a chapter about mothers, daughters, and sisters from the book titled Captivating that I completely starting bawling. It was kind of funny because I seriously could not stop. So I forced myself to take a breather and asked myself what was going on and in doing so I realized that I REALLY missed my family, especially my mom. I guess this experience (especially this experience during Christmas time) is showing me how grateful I should be to have my mom and how easy it is for me to take her for granted for whatever the reasons. I know that at the drop of a hat mom will always try her best to be there for me in whatever way she can. Sometimes she can be there for me emotionally when I need her to be and sometimes she can’t and that’s fine. She’ll send me ten sports bras when I only asked for a pack of 3 or 4 boxes of Mexican candy when I only really needed a few pieces J And that’s the way she loves me and I love it! And I feel so grateful to have remembered this during my crying spell J My mother and mothers in general are just so beautiful and really, for me at least, Christmas is just not the same without my mom. However, even though I was physically away from my mom and dad and my gazillion brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews (I know you guys are laughing right now!) during the days leading up to Christmas, I still felt as if each and everyone’s love for me filled my heart, not to mention the love and support that you guys (my friends) back home have extended to me which leads me to talk about Christmas Day.

So by Christmas Day the tears that had come out of my eyes three days before had diminished J I figured if God gave me the gift of tears, then I would use those bad boys up! And I did! So once Christmas Eve rolled around I was in full Christmas spirit in my Santa hat, bathing suit, and red apron with the Peace Corps logo all over it feeling enlightened after the epiphany I had during my crying spell three days priorJ I spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the 26^th at the beach in a beautiful beach house with 5 other amazing Peace Corps Volunteers whom I’m blessed to call friends. We decorated a giraffe with lights and ornaments and called it our Christmas tree, we made stockings out of my friend’s socks and some kitchen towels, we wrapped up our secret Santa presents, wrote a letter to Santa and even left some cookies and milk out for him (and a carrot for his reindeers), had a bonfire where we made smores and lit up some fireworks, and we cooked up a storm throughout our stay there. But the most memorable of things that we did (at least for me), was on the night of the 24^th as we sat at the table getting ready to eat dinner in the candlelight (since the power had gone out) with the sound of the waves crashing in the background. Each one of us very vulnerably expressed our feelings at the moment and toasted to those feelings and to new memories. We shared how we missed our families and friends back home but how grateful we were for this experience but more importantly for one another. And it is something that my friend said that caused me to have another epiphany. I can’t remember the exact words he said but after genuinely expressing his vulnerable feelings he toasted to new friends, new memories, and new family. And it hit me, that friends aren’t just ‘friends’ but that friends are family, not in the traditional sense of the word but you get my gist. This is nothing new, I’ve always heard it but somehow I never really understood it until that night. That we were put on this earth to love one another like true brothers and sisters because life is hard and because that is exactly what we are, family, all of us, whether we are white, black, brown, green, yellow, whatever, we are all family putting up with each others’ good side and not so good side and genuinely wanting the best for one another because we are all on this crazy hard journey called life trying to find happiness meaning and trying not to lose hope after taking some of life’s beatings because we all know that we can get beat up by life from time to timeJ Sometimes we look for happiness in all the wrong places for all the right reasons or in all the right places for all the wrong reasons, or whatever, but whatever it is, we are all on this journey together and  I like that J That I’m never alone because I have all of you guys and all of everyone here and more importantly I have God as I stumble and fall while trying to find my way as I travel through this thing called life (and Peace Corps J) yay! Okay sorry, I totally ranted…on to New Year’s Eve, it’ll be short, I promise!

New Year’s Eve! 5,4,3,2,1 yay!: So as I had mentioned earlier, I spent the countdown in my room with my Sacred Heart candle lit and my apple spice tea and some beignets. It was awesome but I still can’t believe its 2011! So crazy! I took time that day to reflect on 2010 and it still seems so surreal to me that I am actually here in Senegal, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer with only really a small clue about what I’ll be doing during my service here but nonetheless with an open heart and an open mind (or at least I hope so because we all know how easy it is to close off our hearts and stay in our ‘safe’ placeJ). I just feel so grateful for all of the wonderful memories and lessons I’ve had to learn during 2010. But I am the most grateful for all of the love and support you have all shown me. Yes all of you! Whether you are a friend I haven’t talked to in a while, or a friend who knows way too much about meK, or my previous coworker, or my niece or nephew, or one of my sisters or brothers, or someone who happened to stumble across this funky blog, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, really, for accepting me for who I am with all of my craziness J

So with that said, I guess we’ll just have to see what 2011 brings for me here J I hope to collaborate with the RPCV that I met at the Artisan Expo on the USAID projects on education in Fatick to hopefully help some kids out along the way to help them gain some job skills or help them realize the importance of staying in school. I don’t know yet, all I know is that I trust that I am where I need to be in life right now and I have to remind myself that I am here to serve the needs of the people of Fatick. Translation: I need to put all of my fears and inadequacies aside and trust in myself and in life. I know that I’ll fall and stumble along the way and will have to pick myself up and keep going but as of right now I will be grow visiting each quartier (community) in Fatick during the month of January to try and get a better picture of what is going on so that I can better assess Fatick’s needs and resources in order to serve those needs bestK I’ll keep you guys posted. So broken French, broken Wolof, and little heart of mine here we go…may this New Year be full of love, joy, fulfillment, and peace for all of usJ Love you and miss you all a bunch! Happy New Year!

XOXO

-Daisy

My First Three Months in Country!

Hello Everyone! I am finally updating my blog! Yay! I apologize for not writing in this thing earlier and hope you all have enjoyed the lovely pictures of my journey so far that I have posted on facebook J For my friends and family that do not know the details of my departure, here they are: I accepted an invitation into the Peace Corps program in Senegal, West Africa early July of this year, 2010. I pretty much quit my job, packed up my life in about a month, moved out of San Diego on Sunday August 1st, and took my flight out of LAX on the morning of Sunday August 8^th. I managed to somehow survive two demanding months of cultural and language training and was sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer on Friday, October 15^thJ I am currently serving in Fatick, Senegal as a Small Enterprise(Business) Development Volunteer. So, here is a summary of my first three months as a Peace Corps Trainee/Volunteer in Senegal, West Africa J

Training in both the city of Thies and small village of Bayakh, Senegal (August 11^th-October 15^th): Okie dokie so about my first two months in Senegal as a Peace Corps trainee, it was hard! Hahaha…It was very demanding emotionally and physically but it was a very beautiful experience.  I arrived in Senegal the morning of Wednesday, August 11^th along with 63 other wonderful Peace Corps Trainees. We spent 5 days together at the Peace Corps Senegal training center in Thies and then got split up into small groups (depending on the languages we were learning) and were sent off to live in training villages for the remainder of the training. Each trainee was assigned a host family to live with so, needless to say we all pretty much jumped into the culture right away! My training village was Bayakh which is a road town of about 6,000 inhabitants. I was assigned Bayakh along with 7 other wonderful trainees whom I miss a bunch already J We took language classes and classes about the Senegalese culture for about 6 hours a day 7 days a week with the exception of a couple of Sundays that were allotted as free time. About every 2 to 3 weeks we would meet up with the other trainees from the other training villages for security, health, and technical classes at our training center in Thies. For me and the other Small Enterprise Development (SED) trainees, our technical classes consisted of learning about different projects that current and past SED volunteers had done and the options that were available to us. For our agricultural trainees (aggies), their trainings consisted of agriculture stuff and the same thing went for our agroforestry trainees (agfos).

I took French language classes for the first 7 ½ weeks and then switched over to Wolof language classes for the last week and a half. While French is officially the national language of Senegal, Wolof is a native language that is spoken throughout the country. My host family during training was just plain awesome! They were so nice and patient with me and I am just so grateful for that.  My training host parents were a young couple who were very open and excited to have me there even though I really couldn’t verbally communicate during the first half of trainingJ I swear, whenever I needed to use the restroom I would just grab my stomach and point to the outhouse! Yeah, most of my communication during the first half of training consisted of hand signals and acting out the things I wanted to do J However, I really enjoyed being humbled to the point that I felt like I was a toddler again J It was very humbling indeed! I also had a really cool host grandma who only spoke Wolof, 2 aunts (1 of whom was my caretaker and my best friend in villageJ), 1 cousin, and two little sisters who are absolutely adorable. We all lived in one compound and I had my own room. I ate all my meals with the family and even learned how to tie my baby sister onto my back! I would go to the boutique sometimes with my baby sister on my back and my neighbors would go nuts about it! They absolutely loved it! I also learned how to dance the ‘Goana’ dance and I am really starting to believe that I was perhaps Senegalese in my past life. I can get down to ‘Goana’, trust me!  I took bucket baths (no showers for me thank you!) and even learned how to correctly go number 1 in a Turkish toilet (aka squat toilet)J But most importantly, through all of the ambiguity and frustration that adjusting to a new culture and learning two new languages brings, I am most happy and grateful about the relationships I was so blessed to have been able to build with my fellow trainees, my host family, and with some community members of Bayakh during those two months of training J

In all, even though training was difficult because of all of the adjustments to so much change, it was exactly what it needed to be for me and I am just so grateful that I was able to share my tears, laughter, fears, and love with my training family and fellow trainees J

My first month as an official Peace Corps Volunteer in Fatick, Senegal (Thursday October 21^st-Today Sunday November 28^th): So my first month at site has been quite exciting and interesting and intimidating all at the same time! Fatick is a regional capital and is a pretty big city of about 26K-30K inhabitants. I have electricity, running water, and even a shower head in my new place! I feel very blessed to have these amenities since most of my fellow Peace Corps friends here live in villages of about 200-1,000 people and live in huts with no electricity and no running water. So my hat off to them for sure! There are a handful of NGOs and other organizations here in Fatick that I will probably work with in the near future. I really haven’t started to ‘work’ and probably won’t for maybe another six months as I need to focus on integrating into the community and increasing my language skills. French is coming along slowly but surely and I’ve just really started to dive into Wolof so I have a feeling it’s going to be a while before I get comfortable with the languages and I’m okay with thatJ

Life on my own as a Peace Corps volunteer here in Fatick is really neat. My host family is the family of my counterpart and they live about two neighborhoods west of my neighborhood. I have two little sisters and one little brother and lots of family friends. I eat lunch with my host family everyday and do breakfast and dinner on my own. My host mom Nabu is just about the sweetest thing to me. She does a lot of work with teenage girls in Fatick about HIV/Aids awareness and prevention. I even got the chance to go to one of her meetings and say a little something to the girls! That was really cool! My first day in Fatick was interesting. In a nutshell, I was super dehydrated and ended up throwing up in a boutique in the Marche while my host mom was trying to show me around and trying to help me buy food for the week J Yeah, I made a really good first impression! lol! After that, I spent the better part of the following two days in my bed crying. Heeheehee…but since then and up until yesterday my health has been okay. I currently have a pretty nasty cold but I’m sure it’ll go away soon; it’s just running its course right nowJ

So the weather here is probably the biggest threat to my health. It is HOT! Like really hot! And this is winter so I’m not too excited about spring and summer K But luckily I’ve been drinking lots of water, wearing lots of sunscreen, and I have been wearing my little hat to keep myself from dehydrating againJ The majority of the people here in Fatick have been just so nice and patient with me. Mostly everyone speaks French but Wolof and Sereer are the two languages that are spoken at home. So even though people speak French to me, they don’t necessarily speak French to each other so that’s where learning Wolof comes into play for meJ The food has been really delicious and I’ve actually even gained about 7 pounds. There is jugo de Jamaica and Tamarindo here and a dish called ‘mafe’ that is super similar to my mom’s Mexican peanut mole J As you probably have already guessed, I absolutely love that dish!

In all, my first month here in Fatick has taught me to slow down and smell the roses and daisies J Learning two languages at once, adjusting to life on my own in a foreign country, and integrating into a new culture is obviously no easy task but I’ve learned so far that taking it slow and taking each day and minute as it comes is the best thing I can do for myself out here. It’s funny, I came here to grow in the virtues of love, patience, respect, and humility towards others and I’m finding that in order to be a more loving, patient, respectful, and humble person towards others, I first have to be these things towards myself J  So with that said, let’s see what lessons I learn next J Love you all and lots of hugs and kisses!

XOXO

-Daisy

Packing up my life...

Okay, I don't know what to write as I'm trying to get used to writing to myself and about myself to you guys. Everyone is going to have to forgive me as I will be really focusing in on myself and my feelings vs. actions. Okay, let's see, for starters I'm leaving to Senegal in just about a little more than a week and oh how I have SO much stuff to do :( I kinda want to cry but big girls don't cry so no crying for now Daisy, not yet, lets save the tears for when you actually board the plane and leave....:) and :(...
Okay, I need to figure out how to work this thing and I need to learn how to post some pictures on here so that you guys can see my adventures:) I need to finish packing and oh lets not forget that I need to move too....that's a big one...
Okay everyone (Or no one because there is no one following this thing yet! hahaha!), I'm going to have to brainstorm on finding a way to write on here that works for me so that I don't sound like a complete nut case talking to myself while trying to paint the picture for you guys of what is going on in my life :)

Alright, down to business, I love you all and I'm especially going to miss my parents, brothers, sisters, niece's, and nephews. You guys have been so much more supportive than I thought anyone could ever be. I've been having some moments lately where I forget why it is that I am leaving because I get so overwhelmed with the things I need to get done before I leave and so I become flustered and lose sight of my heart's yearnings. You guys however, always manage to keep me on track. The out pour of love and support I have gotten this past month since I accepted my Peace Corps invitation has been truly amazing and moving. I can't believe I have such a wonderful support system. I am truly very lucky and blessed to have you all in my life. Please keep me in your prayers as I want to remain loyal and faithful to my heart and to my Lord. Okay, so here are the reasons I joined PC so that you and myself can keep me accountable when things get rough.
-I'm very blessed and grateful to have realized that there is so much more to life than a 9-5. That the term success shouldn't be defined by how much money you make or what your title is at work, but should be defined by how fulfilled and happy you are with what you do. I want my work to serve people who are in need.
-My parents come from nothing, from a little teeny tiny village in Mexico. I always had it in my heart that I wanted to get a taste of how they grew up through living abroad in a developing country. I want to live a simple and humble life.
-And the best for last: I want to grow in love and trust for God. I want to learn how to completely lean on my Lord and not on myself. I have been through quite a bit in this short life of mine and the most important lesson I have learned so far is that nothing absolutely nothing in my life is complete without God. I can do great works, but if I don't open my heart and trust in God in all that I do, then I do things in vain and I do them out of selfishness and not out of pure love and service. I want to grow in love and trust for God.
Okay everyone, so there we have it, my first blog...woo hoo! I will continue to write as I approach D-Day which is Sunday August 8th.
I love you all and thank you again for your love and support <3
-Daisy