Cervical Cancer Screening Training continues…

…and it’s going well. More on that later. Right now I’m signing in to Skype so that I can chat with my Gramma.

Postcards

These are actually photos of postcards. Everyone in Peace Corps/Senegal calls these large vans "Alhams," short for "Alhamdoulilahi," which I'm pretty sure means "Thanks to God" in Arabic. Many Senegalese people call them "Njig Njai" because a guy named Njai owns a large percentage of Senegal's large van fleet, and he had his name painted across the front of most of them. If I have other options (Sept-Place station wagons, certain buses, my bike) I usually avoid Alhams. They're slow, usually totally overcrowded, and break down a lot.

An Alham, Njig Njai, oto on, un mini-bus, etc 

There are traditional Bassari villages in my area, and Initiations happened in May. I went to part of one right before I installed in my site and took some pictures, but this one's really nice. It's an impressive event, even though I was only allowed to watch the dancing part, not the stylized fighting part.

Bassari men in Initiation masks

Packages!

My birthday was over a month ago, but with all the power outs, flooded roads, and finicky cell phone reseau it's been hard to get online lately, so I haven't had a chance to gush about all the great mail I got last month.

I got an amazing package from Switzerland!

The girls I used to nanny for made me some beautiful drawings and a really wonderful calendar -- it was a lovely gift, and it's going to be great to have all these photos up in my hut:

I got some pretty sweet cards and letters. 

My American family sent me this fantastic package...

... and this lovely new sunhat!

I was particularly excited about the hat, the fruit leathers, and the gel pen that was filled with glue. A glue pen! So good! It works really well, too.

This package from Troll wasn't technically birthday related,
but it was really, really awesome. 

ADDRESS UPDATE and Volunteer Visits!

Tomorrow morning I will be waking up extremely early to pile into a Peace Corps Land Cruiser for the long drive down to Kédougou for Volunteer Visits, where we shadow current volunteers for five days. I'm excited about seeing Salémata (my village) and getting a better idea of where I'll be living and working for the next couple years, even though it'll be really, really, unreasonably hot.

ALSO! Because it takes so long for things to arrive, starting now it'll be best to use my Kédougou address rather than my Thiès address, even though I won't actually be moving to Kédougou until next month. (Things will still make it to me eventually, there'll just be a delay if it goes to the Training Center after I've already installed.) This will be my address at site:

PCV LaRocha LaRiviere
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 37    Kédougou
Senegal - West Africa