On Sunday afternoon, I sat at a table welcoming counterparts (one who is a member of the community we will live in who is well respected and another who works at either the health post or school in the community) to the training center. 2 counterparts for every trainee was coming from their village in order to learn more about the Peace Corps and to develop some general action plans for the first few months. Some traveled for over 12 hours to make it. As each person walked into the compound, they approached the table and greeted everyone. They didn't just shake hands with the people sitting at the table, but also everyone in the general vicinity; Peace Corps volunteer, staff member, or other counterpart, all received a greeting as per Senegalese customs. Of course, I greeted everyone back as best I could, as some spoke Pular, Mandinka, Jaxanke, or Serer rather than Wolof or French. There was one time I was concentrating on something on my lap and didn't look up when the counterpart came over to greet me. He had to snap his fingers in my face to get my attention. As luck would have it, that person was one of my counterparts; what a great introduction.
Monday and Tuesday were spent in sessions all day where Peace Corps staff presented information to the counterparts. It was very good to have this workshop so that I was able to get to know my counterparts as bit better and so that they would better understand what we are capable of accomplishing in the village. It also gave them the opportunity to ask some questions they have about Peace Corps and to formulate a better idea of how we can best serve their communities. I have selected a few highlights of these two days to share here.
First, I want to address some interesting cultural differences that I noticed. (Just a disclaimer, these are all very broad generalizations of the counterparts and Americans-they do not apply to everyone.) To begin, they don't spend free time in their rooms. Instead, they all sit out on the porch stoop in front of their rooms (4 counterparts per room; only the bottom beds of the bunkbeds were used for them) or on the mats we set out on the ground for them. Even though they didn't know each other beforehand, they have all begun to talk and make tea together. This is very different from Americans who would just go to their rooms during free time or require food/coffee to bond over. Additionally, as I said before, when they arrived at the center, they would walk up to everyone sitting in the area to greet them. Compare this to Americans arriving for a workshop who would just go directly to the table to "register." Moreover, they are unused to the commodities that we have here. I walked into the bathroom on the first night to find a woman walking back and forth between the showers and toilets, peering into both. I walked into the toilet stall and then came out to wash my hands. She saw me do that and then went to use the toilet. They aren't used to flush toilets (or showerheads). Also, men and women used the same bathrooms until it was announced that there were gender-specific bathrooms. They must feel out of place here for a lot of reasons, especially those from smaller, more remote villages. Finally, we began the first session with a prayer led by one of the counterparts.
As one of the sessions, a trainee taught a group of counterparts another language to demonstrate how hard it is to learn a language. In my session, someone taught Spanish. Four counterparts were chosen to be in this "class," and she purposely taught fast to demonstrate the difficulties. Both of my counterparts volunteered to be in this "class." Even though one of my counterparts knew some Spanish from school, he still found it difficult because she was teaching Venezuelan Spanish which is a bit different. So both he and the others were constantly being corrected for their pronunciation as they essentially read off of the board she was writing on. However, my community member counterpart is illiterate and shy, so she had a very difficult time. Unlike the others, she had to rely solely on hearing the language which was being spoken extremely fast, and she struggled a bit with this. All in all, it was a good lesson to them to show why we aren't fluent Wolof speakers after 2 months of training.
Morning session yesterday began in a hilarious fashion. We were just sitting in the room waiting for everyone to arrive when one woman stood up and walked to the center of the room. She then proceeded to tell a story/joke. This began a trend of several other counterparts doing the same, standing up to tell a joke, all of which the room found to be very funny. My language teacher translated three of them for us. (The punch lines of the other two would apparently be lost in translation). I will tell them here to give you a sense of Senegalese humor. 1: A man goes to the pharmacy because he is constipated and asks for some medication. The pharmacists gives him some pills, but tells him to wait until he gets home to take them. The man walks out of the store and thinks, "This man must be crazy. Why do I have to wait to take these pills?" So he takes them right there. Immediately, the pills begin to be effective and he finds himself with diarrhea for the entire walk home. On the way, he passes a man who asks him how to get to the pharmacy. The man replies, "Just follow my 'trail', and you will be led directly to it." 2: There was a man who loves soccer. One day, there was a soccer game that the man wanted to attend, but all of his pants were dirty. So he decides to just wear his booboo. (This is a piece of traditional Senegalese clothing that both men and women wear. It's essentially a shirt that goes down to your knees, but you always wear pants with them.) He arrived at the stadium and went to sit down. As Senegalese men always do when sitting, he lifts the back of his shirt up so that he won't dirty it by sitting on it. All of a sudden, everyone around him stands up and starts yelling. "Did we score?" he asks. Someone responds, "Our team didn't, but you just did." He had mooned everyone around him. 3: This story relates to a Senegalese belief that if you say someone's name while they are burying someone, that person will soon be buried (will die soon). A group of men were burying a man. Nearby, a group of children were playing soccer. At one point, the b all went over the cemetery wall, and a boy called over the wall, "Mamadou Jaay, can you throw the ball back over?" The man replied, "Bamba, your father, brothers, uncles, and cousins are all here. Why couldn't you have asked one of them to throw it over for you?"
And finally, last night, after having a soccer game of trainees vs. Peace Corps staff members (we lost unfortunately), we returned to the training center for an impromptu dance party. Someone played the drums, while we all attempted to dance Senegalese. My counterpart saw us all trying to dance and came over to dance in the center of the circle. I was very happy that even though she was so shy, she had come to dance. (Senegalese love to dance.) She tried to get me to dance, but I don't know how to do it yet. Afterward, I made clear to her: Dinga ma jangale tacchee ci vilaas bi. (You will teach me to teach in the village.)
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