Bonne Anniversaire

Hello!

First of all: Bonne Anniversaire, Papa! Sure, you’re not going to get this for weeks, but it’s the thought that counts, right? Right. I don’t even know where to start. I guess with the basic stuff. I feel like my French is getting better every minute. The block for me was always a fear of making mistakes, but here, you just have to do your best to communicate. We have language lessons 2 hours every morning and language instructors who live with us. We’re staying in a dormitory style compound in a town called Darda. The whole training staff is so enthusiastic and dedicated and great. The language instructors don’t speak any English, so it’s fun to try and communicate.

The food is pretty good. It’s better than at our place in N’Djamena. It’s usually chicken or goat and couscous, pasta, bread, or potatoes. Today, they had grapes and guavas for dessert! My first fresh fruit in a week! I like the seasonings, too. They use a lot of tomato sauces and everything has kind of a savory taste

How hot is it? Hot. It was about 100ish today and we were out walking around at some of the other volunteer’s sites. God, you just sweat constantly. That’s been one of the things that really gets to me. For the past week, I’ve lain under my mosquito net every night, drenched in sweat, trying to get comfortable and thinking, “I can’t do it. I can’t take this for 2 years. There’s no way.” I have been making little deals with myself every night like, “If you make it through the night without going crazy, you can use one of your Folgers singles bags.” I’m trying to reward myself for the little things, which I think I explained in my first (probably totally incoherent) letter. Last night, though, a few of us made tents with our mosquito nets, moved our bedrolls outside, and slept like babies. It was so much cooler. It was the first good sleep I’ve had all week.

What do I wear? I brought so much wrong stuff!! No jeans, no tank tops, no shorts allowed. I have worn my Eddie Bauer skirt, sarong, or scrub pants everyday. I bought a skirt (and a head scarf which I’m wearing like a gypsy right now) at the N’Djamena market, but the skirt is too hot. I’m saving it for the cool season. Tomorrow is market day at Darda, so I will go get myself some pagnes. Pagnes are the typical thing around here. Picture the typical African outfit –I’m sure you’re thinking of a pagne. They’re long pieces of beautiful, brightly colored fabric that you wear like a sarong. I think I will decorate my hut with them when I get out to my site.

So what’s a typical day like? Wake up (sweaty) to a rooster crowing/dog barking/ baby crying sometime earlyish. Take a delicious cold shower. God, I love my cold shower (which is full of bugs…oh well..) Then a breakfast of white (kind of like a baguette) bread either with eggs or plain. Today we had beignets, which were pretty much donuts. There’s a whole cooking staff here, so we don’t have to fend for ourselves. Then 2 hours of language classes. My teacher’s name is Kaddadi and he is so patient and encouraging. All of our classes are outside, either under the trees or under the Kukaru, which is a pavilion with a thatched roof. Then we have some other session (health, logistics, etc.) Lunch is at 12:30ish or whenever they happen to finish it. We have a nice 2 hour break at lunchtime but it’s not really enough time to get anything done and it’s waaaaay to hot to nap.

In the afternoons we have technical TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Languauge) sessions. I have been very disappointed with them. Of course they’re geared for beginners, but if I had no education background, I’d still be frustrated. They’re taught by current volunteers who’ve only been teaching for a year. The presentations are just very disjointed and confusing. We’ll eventually get to do a student teaching-type thing towards the end of training.

Then we have cross – cultural lessons, we’ve only had one of these. It was about greetings and gestures. It was very interesting. The thing is to greet everyone you see. If you’ve greeted everyone in a room and you leave and come back in, you greet them again. Nuts, huh? I’ve been practicing my greetings in the villages around here when I go on walks. We also learned how to greet in Arabic. That’s all I know of Arabic, so far though.

Dinner is kind of whenever they get it ready. It gets dark at about 6, but they have generators here, so they turn them on. At night, we usually play Scrabble or cards or sit and sweat. There’s lots of just sitting on mats on the ground and just talking.. It’s fun. I haven’t missed TV at all. Most of us get along really well. Tonight, a friend and I tried for an hour to carry basins on our heads. He got it really well. I was able to walk a few steps at a time, but it’s going to take practice. I want to impress the women at my site with my skills.

The coolest thing so far was our arrival at Darda on Sunday. It’s about an hour drive from N’Djamena, but the roads are really bad. This one is paved, but there are huge potholes and washouts and crazy drivers, bikes, and pedestrians. So we pulled up in the Land Rovers and there were about 100 villagers and all our trainers waiting at the compound gate. They had a sign and sang “Bonne Arrivee!” (Happy Arrival). The kids swarmed around us and giggggled whenever we smiled at them or talked to them. It was so overwhelming – so many people and colors! So then they led us into the courtyard of the compound where there were even more people. A guy explained to us in French there was going to be a dance contest with people from each of the five local villages doing traditional dances. They formed a huge circle, with the chiefs of each village sitting in chairs. Oh man – it was incredible! The first dance was a very fast paced crazy chicken sort of movement. It was just so cool, I can’t even describe it. So, of course, we were all standing around with our jaws open trying to absorb it all and praying that they wouldn’t try to pull us in. Well, guess who got pulled in first? Yeah, so I did my best, which got roars of laughter from the crowd. Over of the course of the 2 hours ish that they danced, they pulled all of us in. I think I danced every one. It was so awesome – what a rush! It was like stepping into a National Geographic!

Now I am in my tent and it is time for bed. I did my laundry tonight but my jammies and pillow are all still damp. Let me pause to explain here that my scrub pants are my pillows and my sarong is my sheet. I’m crazy allergic to the pillow they gave us and they only gave us a blanket – no sheet. It’s not a big deal. It’s usually too hot to ever have a sheet on. I will continue this tomorrow as it is time for beddy. Goodnight! Love you!

Okay. Now it’s not your birthday anymore. My treat for making it through last night was doing yoga with a current volunteer who’s here training us. It was nice. We sit all day long and I’m kind of going crazy from lack of exercise. We walked to the Darda market today and our language trainers helped us buy pagnes. Mine is so pretty. A bunch of the language teachers got in an argument about the proper way to tie a pagne. They were all hovering around me, doing the different ways on me and chattering in French and clicking their tongues. I think the click means agreement, but am not sure. So there I was feeling like a baby doll and happy with how much of their French I was getting, then I held my pagne up like a cape and tried to explain Batman to them. It didn’t go well. Haha. Such highs and lows in the PC experience!

C’est tout! I miss you and I love you! Happy Birthday, Dad! Hope you’re all okay!!!

Love,
Kate