Pre-Service Training

Salaam alaikum! We have started our introduction to language training yesterday and that is the first phrase we learned - it is an Arabic greeting meaning "peace be with you." Unlike all the other greetings, it can be used with anyone at any time of the day and used throughout The Gambia. The appropriate response is "malaikum salaam," which means "peace be with you too." Each of the three main languages spoken here (Mandinka, Wolof, and Pulaar) have their own individual set of greetings that we are expected to know, so we started with them right away. Even though we're only learning greetings, it's pretty challenging to keep the three languages straight, but we're working on it. Early next week we will find out which of the three languages is spoken in our site, and we will be focusing on only that language for the rest of training. We are definitely looking forward to that!

In addition to starting language training, over the past two days we met with our Assistant Peace Corps Country Director, had personal health interviews, got the first of a series of rabies shots, had a training sessions on safety and security, had a training session of basic bike maintenance (unnecessary for us, but helpful for many people...and yes, we will be getting bikes!), got an overview of the technical training we will be receiving, met all the Peace Corps staff, and got a tour of the Peace Corps office. Our class is made up about 50/50 of two types of volunteers: (1) Health and Community Development and (2) Environment and Natural Resource Management. We found out that Peace Corps - The Gambia is launching a five year cross-sectoral food security program with our class. Food security is an area of interest for both of us, so we look forward to hearing more about that later. One thing we do know is that as our first "trainee directed activity," everyone in both groups will be planting a home garden in their training village, which will be handed off to community members once we go out to our sites. Should be both educational and fun!

Miscellaneous other stuff about experience thus far: It was very hot and humid yesterday, but today was quite a bit more pleasant. The current volunteers tell us that we can expect this sort of weather for the next several months. Peace Corps has been giving us a mix of American and Gambian food, being careful to make sure we are eating a balanced diet (as well as offering vegetarian options). The Gambian dishes we have had are basically what we expected: rice with peanut sauce and meat. The meat is tougher here than at home, but not too bad. Peace Corps is clearly easing us into the food both in terms of our palates and our health, as no one has gotten sick yet. We expect this will change once we go out to our training villages late next week, which is when things will start getting real :-)

Goodbye for now,
Sarah

P.S. We have wireless internet in the "transit house" where we are currently staying (also known as "the stodge" for unknown reasons) so I'm taking advantage of it while we can. No promises once we go out to our training village. If you have any questions you're curious about, post them in the comments and we will try to answer them in our next post.