Sunday, May 15, 2011

sewering in

Last Friday we swore in  officially at the ambassador house in Dakar. It was really nice we all got dressed up in traditional Senegalese dress and took the same oath of office that the president takes. Then we had a representative from each langue group give a speech in the local langue. It was really nice but all in all it was like every other graduation I sat through a lot of talking and went and shook hands. After that we descended upon the food like ravenous dogs. The funny part was that it was in the ambassadors garden and we walk out and the food is on tables on the grass. Which confused us because we have been walking around in sand for a long time so we were like can we walk on this I don't want to kill it. Lucky for us food is more powerful and we charged on. After gorging ourselves with food we went to the american club to fill out paper work and spend the rest of the after noon lounging by the pool. afterwards we headed back to the training center and had dinner in Thies. Then next morning we packed up our stuff and said good bye to each other as we slowly trickled out of the training center. We then headed to the regional house were we will spend the next few days buying every thing we need to install in our sites. I have spent the last couple of days meeting my new work partners. Last night we went out to this chicken restaurant that was the worst dive I have ever been in but I got a quarter of a chiken salad and fries for 1500, plus it was amazing food. After theses couple of days I am headed off to my new village for a five week stent so I will be out of contact for a while but I am spending theses five weeks learning the language. Of course it dose not hurt that our country director said if we did this he would cook any thing we wanted at his house. So heres hoping for bratwurst and potatoes.

5 comments:

  1. Good luck Jim! I'll be looking forward to reading about this month's adventures when you get back. And since you'll be gone, I'll go ahead and say this now: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You're going to be a quarter of a century old! Which means you can legally rent a car when you get back to the States. Oooooh special, lol. Now go immerse yourself! You're going to learn more than you realize your brain is capable of over the next few weeks. It will be exhausting, I'm sure, but it's going to feel amazing!

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  2. Jim - Congratulations from your Aunt and Uncle on getting through the training process - you are now officially a Peace Corpsman, along with adding Seereer to your language library!
    Congratulations, too, on (soon to be) reaching the quarter-century milestone. Happy Birthday to you!! We hope you get to celebrate your big day in style. On to the next adventure...
    Dick & Sue

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  3. Jim Dauda: Good show! And we mean that literally. We caught the Peace Corps Senegal video on your swearing in yesterday...and there you were, several times. Too bad we did not get to see you in your Senegalese finest, but hope you will send a picture. We know you will learn Sereer and learn it so well you will be nothing but fluent. We also know bratwurst and potatos are a good motivation for you. Take care the next five weeks, kiddo. We know you will do well. Love you. Dad and Mom
    PS We also caught you on a CNN video. Will send you the links.

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  4. I miss you!!! Has it been five weeks yet?? For some reason, five weeks sounds shorter to me than a month. But technically, it's actually longer. Fun fact, haha.

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