Ko mi Wolunteer Corps de la Paix!

 Hey guys! So I’m officially a PCV!  Yea!  Training is finally over!  I seriously felt like this day was taking forever to get here.  But we swore in—on October 15^th.  We all had to dress up nice in our traditional clothing: that meant complètes for the women and bubus for the men.  Check out the photos!  We had such a great time in our Senegalese clothes (oh and BTW, my outfit was the same one I used for Korité).  So all of us volunteers went to Dakar and sore in at the US ambassador’s house.  The ceremony was about two hours and it consisted of numerous speeches including 4 from volunteers in the local languages: Wolof, Pulaar, Seerer, and Mandinka.  It was pretty cool to see some of our own present; they did such a great job.  After the ceremony we all had food.  It was primarily “finger food” because it was small individual sizes, but it was delicious.  I pigged out on desserts!  There were BROWNIES! (more of a cake-like consistency…I prefer the fudgy ones, but it definitely satisfied the craving!)  I seriously ate like 4 of them in addition to the apple tarts and what looked like a lemon tart but tasted coconut-y and a little like cheesecake dessert (not sure what it was).  So worth it!  When it officially ended we headed to the main office for paperwork and followed that with an hour or so of swimming at the pool in Dakar!  We eventually made it back to Thiès for a late dinner (I ate pizza), and most of us “new” volunteers spent the rest of the night dancing at a Senegalese discothèque—which was super fun!  I stayed out ‘til four am dancing then came back to the training center to shower and finish packing. My group left for Kolda 2 hours later…..it was an amazing day! J

Me and my Fulakunda group.  We've been learning the language with our two LCF for the last two months!

Me and my roomies at the Thies training center: Kelsey, Me, Meagan, and Liz