Laugh? Cry? Punch Someone in the Face?

My first instinct for beginning this post was to say that there is a fine line between frustration and hysteria. However, I feel like that line has turned into more of a big sludgy mess that I get to trudge my way trough on a daily basis. It’s not a bad thing-some of the best experiences come from situations that involve some mix of wanting to laugh cry and yell all at the same time. These situations also mean that our brains have the chance to reach their full adaptive potential. If a person is given glasses that flip their vision completely upside down, it only takes their mind a day or two to flip the images and compensate for it. Then if they take the glasses off, their world would be upside down for a time. I have only been here for a little over a month, and all of the things that seemed so foreign and exotic have become pretty normal. Im almost afraid of what will seem normal after two years here. Like eating spaghetti out of a bowl with my hands. Or hopping on a charette (a sketchy wooden platform on two wheels that is pulled by a horse) to go to the market. Or riding in a small car with a shattered windshield and 7 other people.

The rest of this week will be taken up by a workshop where everyone's counterparts from their future sites are coming to Thies so we can go over what to expect for the next two years (ha...ha...). There will be 83 people here at the center, all speaking different languages from all over Senegal. We were split up by language groups to plan and prepare training sessions. There are 5 groups, and my group (the Seereers) only has 3 people. So, they lumped us in with the Wolof group. We were supposed to translate some lessons into our local languages to present at the workshop. However, our language teacher is not here, and the only written material in Seereer that we could possibly use as a reference (in existence, as far as I know) is a Bible. Since there is nothing about Peace Corps goals and expectations in the Bible...there wasn’t much we could do. Not that it mattered since all of our workshops are going to be in Wolof anyways. I can say “good morning how are you?” in Wolof and that’s it. Oh well : ) This is going to be an interesting week.

But, we have next weekend off and get to go to the BEACH. Yessssss.