The Moment We've All Been Waiting For...

...Site placements!!!

Lets be honest, we've all enjoyed eating ice cream at Big Faim, taking cold showers, using the internet and sitting on a real toilet seat...but the real reason we were all so excited to come back to Thies this week was to find out what village we would be living in for the next two years. After two long days of waiting and wondering we were blindfolded, led to a giant map of Senegal, and placed on our new site. I'll be going to Sambande, a small village 19k from Kaolack. I'm opening a new site and there has never been a Peace Corps Volunteer in this village before, so I don't know a whole lot about it, but here are the facts I have:

Site Name: Sambande
Region: Kaolack
Arrondissment: Koumbal
Population: 498
Ethnic Groups: Seereer 65%, Wolof 30%, Touka 5%
Languages Spoken: Wolof 80%, Seereer 60%, Pulaar 40%
Main Source of Income: Peanut and millet farming, gardening, fruit foraging
Cement Lined Wells: 2
Housing Provided: Grass roof mud hut w/ private outdoor latrine

If you're observant you may have noticed that while I've been learning Seereer, 80% of my village also speaks Wolof...so it looks like I'll be learning that as well. For now I'm just going to stick to Seereer though, I don't think I can handle two new languages at one time. Fortunately I'll have plenty of time during the hot season (which is well underway when we install in May) to sit around, drink tea with my neighbors and pick up another language.

My site survey says that the villagers recognize environmental degradation as their biggest problem...there isn't enough land to raise crops and poor nutrition is a big problem because of a lack of income. Malaria is also a problem year round, but especially in the rainy season. There will be both a french school and a koranic school at my site, but I'm not sure if I'll be working in both or just one. There is also a mens group that worked to plant trees in a group garden, so hopefully that means they will be interested in working on other environmental projects as well.

Next week we go for volunteer visits and I'll be staying with another PCV in the Kaolack region. I don't know if I'll get a chance to travel to my village or not during that time, but I can't wait to at least see what the area is like.

Bonus points to anyone who can find my village on Google maps or Google Earth and send me a picture/link!



Video borrowed from Mike Toso's Blog