Ndigil Ndigil?

Really? Really?

My host brother loves when I say "Ndigil ndigil," which means "really?" or "Is that true?" or "Yes, it's true!" Apparently it sounds funny the way I say it...just try it out...deegal deegal...haha

Well that was my reaction today when I found out from a Volunteer who has now completed his two year service (whom my fellow Serere speaking trainee, now known as my "Serere brother," will replace), that when I swear in (Inshallah!) I will become the first EVER Serere-speaking Health Volunteer in Senegal! Whoa! I confirmed with my awesome language teacher and APCD that this is a fact. That's a lot of pressure, huh? Now what does it mean, exactly? Well, I will receive my official site placement on Friday (woot!), but I think it means I will probably be at a new site that has never had a Volunteer before (or if they did, it was agriculture or environental ed). Health volunteers are grouped in regions, so it's possible my site will be a small Serere village in a mostly Wolof region or on the edge of one of the Serere regions or something like that, meaning I will not be the only Health Volunteer around my neck of the woods, but I may be a ways away from them, but I'm totally just speculating right now. It also means that I will have to work with my Language Trainer to create a list of health vocab in Serere, since the other languages already have them. There's going to be some groundbreaking and it will be tough as the only Serere Health Volunteer in Senegal, but I'm also freakin' excited about it. I really love the sound of the Serere language, so this will definitely encourage me to kick up my language skills as fast as possible, which isn't yet happening to the degree I want.

Along those lines, this week is our first week of evaluations. PCTs are evaluated during weeks 4, 6, and 8 (right before Swear-In), to check our overall progress in training, to make sure our language skills are at the basic level required, to check our cultural integration with our host families, to check our understanding and competancies with the culture and our fields (health, for me), and check our medical and safety/security understanding. We are always in a constant state of observance and practice, but things are kicked up with tests and such this week. This morning was my language evaluation and while I don't know exactly what level I tested into, talking with my trainer, I didn't do as badly as I had worried about (esp after an off-language day yesterday) and actually did pretty well, but it was good knowing that both she and I recognized the same problems I am having and can work on targeting them. Not surprisingly, I have the same issues with certainsentence structures and not paying enough attention to certan verbs, that I have with French, lol. Things to work on. Language will come, but it's definitely the main focus of PST and I actually find myself sad and annoyed days that we only have one language class. I definitely wouldn't have predicted that at the start of PST! I'm such a nerd, haha.

We've also started to getmore into our subject/technical fields, which is exciting. I will try and post soon about my daily life and more on the health tech classes, but that may be another few days.

Thanks for the mail, prayers, emails, good thoughts, etc. I miss and love you all!