So after a long flight from DC (made even longer by a two hour wait on the runway). I have finally arrived in Senegal! Honestly it really has yet to hit me that this is my new home for the next two years. We were picked up from the airport by the Peace Corps and immediately shuttled to the Peace Corps training compound in Thies. I will be here for a couple of days getting shots, safety training, and cultural training. Soon I will find out what language I am learning, then I will be dropped off in village outside the city of Thies, to live with a Senegalese host family.
Peace Corps Senegal has recently switched to a Community Based Training model (CBT). With this model, I will spend the majority of my time in a small village setting, living with a host family that speaks the language I will be learning. There will be 4-10 other volunteers living in the same village and learning the same language. Once every couple of weeks we will return to the training center in Thies for technical, medical and safety training.
Life in the training center is great. The compound is lush, green, comfortable, and has western toilets with toilet paper! We have very little contact with the “outside” world. In fact we jokingly call the training center the “American Compound”. Life here is good, but I am anxious to leave the center and to start living in the real Senegal.
