My Hut
The translation of "jam nde" is something along the lines of "peace only." You can pretty much use it as a response to any Serer Noon greeting, of which there are many.
I've been in Senegal now for just over four months. My first two were spent in what is called Pre-Service Training, where we learn our language (in my case Serer Noon, more on that) and some technical and cross-cultural skills to ease our adjustment. Following that training, myself and the other 35 volunteers in my group were installed in our village. It's really a crazy day, after so much training and structure to be dropped off in a small African village with a wave as you watch the car drive away.
As an Environmental education volunteer, my first three months at site are supposed to be devoted to site discovery and completing an Environmental Assessment. This report basically includes all the information that I'm able to collect about my village, from the details of their basket-making industry to the quality of the soil in their area. Most of this information I've collected informally, just by walking around and talking to people and asking a lot of questions. I've also had a lot of help from my counterparts (people assigned to work with me) and some of my closer friends in the village. Thus, so far my Peace Corps experience has largely been social, lots of walking around, trying to communicate better, and asking questions, which is taking a lot of getting used to. I think I came eager to work and get things done, but that hasn't really happened yet. My fingers are crossed.
In August I go back to the Peace Corps training center for yet another three weeks of training, this time heavily focused on technical skills needed for our assignment. In the meantime I'll keep asking questions...
