Travels with Tavish

Thanksgiving at the Thies Training Center has come and gone in what feels like a whirlwind. It is hard to believe the holiday was less than a week ago. Last Thursday I helped cook a Thanksgiving dinner with about 10 other trainees. We cooked for about 80 people: the trainees, the LCFs (Language and Cultural Facilitators), and the kitchen ladies who cook for us every day. We started cooking at 2:00 pm, right after lunch. I was on potato duty. The first orders of business were cutting up the potatoes and garlic and getting a giant pot of water boiling on the gas stove. The stove was a little tricky to light (with matches), so we had to have the kitchen ladies help us. After watching the process a few times, I am now pretty confident that I could light it successfully if called upon to do so. In addition to the standard Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, we were planning to make candied sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are not possible to find in Thies right now,...

I have completed my final technical exam and have submitted my written responses about my readiness to serve in the Peace Corps. Now all that stands between me and swearing-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on November 30th is a short group presentation with my fellow Jaxanke-learners, a Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) to ensure that I have reached the minimum required language level (Intermediate-Mid), and Thanksgiving. All this will happen in the next week--training is quickly coming to a close! I have spent the majority of the last three weeks with my local home-stay (CBT) family in Mbour. As usual, most days I walked to Jaxanke class in the morning and to the garden in the afternoon. The amount of garden work that we have had to do has also been winding down, allowing us more free time with our families and sometimes a Jaxanke lesson in the afternoon. In addition to the garden work, the temperature in Mbour has also, thankfully, been decreasing. My walks to and from class eac...