Megs in Senegal

If you are here looking for an update on my Peace Corps status check out my new blog: www.megsinsenegal.com!!

Things On My Mind Tonight.

9 complete days left in Tallahassee.

12 days until my brother will move into my room.

I am so excited to read so many books in Africa.

26 days until I leave for Peace Corps orientation in VA.

28 days until I will be on my way to Dakar, Senegal.

After 22 years, 8 months, and 13 days of life… I learned that the word candid means open, blunt and sincere… not hidden, covert or deceitful. Learn something new everyday.

I just realized that I am almost 23 and that kind of blew my mind.

Dogs that sleep like this are my favorite:

This was one of the most satisfying things I’ve eaten in a while. GF peanut butter cupcake.

I have no motivation to put any of my clean laundry away because I know I am just going to have to pack it up or give it away within the next week.

In less than a month I am going to be living on another CONTINENT.

Seriously considering getting a (or two) tattoo(s) before I leave. Mom, if you read this, don’t disown me. Dad, if you read this… don’t tell Mom.

My stomach hurts. I know why. It was my fault. That’s so annoying.

There are only two things that make me the least bit sad/apprehensive about going to Senegal for 27 months. 1) I will miss out on a lot of really great things happening in the lives of my family and friends. 2) Having a disease that can adversely affect my digestive system may not be very much fun in a third world country where toilets don’t exist.

Nitrous Oxide is quite possibly the most wonderful compound besides O2 and H2O.

Chickity China, the Chinese Chicken

I got Chinese food for lunch today. I have no idea why. I’ve probably eaten Chinese 4 times a year in my life, and even less since my diagnosis with Celiac disease. Not the safest thing to eat if you’re avoiding gluten. Most soy sauce lists wheat as an ingredient, did you know? (Sidenote: most soy sauce bottles have gluten in them, but most of the small to-go packets I’ve seen don’t. Random.) I don’t dislike Chinese, nor do I ever really crave it… but for some reason I just thought it would hit the spot today.

By far, my favorite part of ever eating Chinese food is the fortune cookie. Not because I like them (or can eat them, even) but just because I love opening them with the notion that the message inside was meant just for me. I don’t take what they say too much to heart, but its entertaining nonetheless. Here’s what I got today:

Appropriate I think

Fingers crossed that holds some truth.

Also today:

Yes, this may be the 109th time I’ve watched it. Possibly more. No, it never gets old.

“Have you seen the unwashed miscreants that go to that school?”

More

That was a longer than average minute, no?

Well I wanted to wait until I had a little more specific information to make the announcement, and I can now proudly shout from the rooftops that I will being leaving August 13th for Senegal to spend the next two years working in the field (literally) of agriculture!!

We will now transition into the Q&A portion of the post

I get asked the same questions over and over about Africa, and I surely  don’t mind ansering them (assuming I know the answer, of course) but I figured I’d cover some of them here to ease your curious minds.

Q: Where are you going, exactly?

A: Senegal!!! I will first be going to Dakar, the capital, for 2 months of training, and then depending on my technical and language skills, the Peace Corps Senegal staff will determine where I will be most productive in the country. I will, more than likely, be the only American in a rural village which may or may not be near any decent sized town.

Q: Where is Senegal? That’s in Africa, right?

A: Yes! Good job remembering your 6th grade geography! (side note: Our 6th grade Geography teacher once gave us a blank map of Africa and we had to fill in each country, capital, and major land form for a test.  Raise your hand if you remember anything besides Djibouti, Djibouti from that test.) Anyway, Senegal is the Westernmost country in Africa and its capital, the port city of Dakar, is the gateway to Africa from the Western world.

Alas! Visual aid!

In my humble opinion, Senegal looks like a praying fetus.

Q: Where will you live?

A: During training I will be living with a host family in Dakar or in a compound with other PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers <- learn the lingo). Once I am placed in my village I will most likely live with a host family, usually of respectable status within the community. I will live in their family compound, but have my own personal living quarters (a mud-brick hut, complete with grass roof!!).

Q: Will you have electricity, phone or internet?

A: No, probably not, and again mostly likely no. At least not in my village. I will be able to travel to town where I can pay for phone and internet services (I get a bike to ride!!) but most of those eccentricities will not be available to me on a daily basis.

Q: How will you shower?

A: Two words: bucket bath

Q: Will there be other American’s with you in your village?

A: Possibly, but not likely. It’s not likely that there will be anyone that speaks English. Here’s to hoping some of the villagers even speak French.

Q: How much are you getting paid to do this?

A: Hahahahahahaah paid. Good one.

There are many more questions that I have somewhat plausible, though mostly vague answers to, but I am quite tired and must retire to my bed. I will answer more tomorrow!

Africa.

More in a minute.

Also…

If someone could please find these, and buy about 100 bars for me… I’d greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

A while ago…

This post was originally titled “lately”, but then my picture uploader stopped working and I wasn’t able to post it until just now. So here’s a little recap of things that happened a while ago in pictures.. because pictures are more fun.

I played my last lacrosse game as a Seminole. We beat UCF for the first time in the 4 years I have been here.

That felt good.

A lot of this happened…

…eating that is.

And they smile sometimes between bites.

Using my food baby as a table top for maximum food intake happened.

Balanced with a glass of red wine of course.

Work has happened a lot.

Thats Paulette. She’s the black grandma we never had.

Stephen’s birthday party at the barn happened.

Doesn’t he look thrilled?

An insect (and reptile?) attack happened during the party. Madness ensued.

We survived… barely.

While all my teachers were at an Archaeology conference (what?!) I had a week off and went home!

Lunch in Melbourne with the hottest Gramie and some other hunk happened.

She’s where I get all my good looks from

These guys aren’t so bad either.

In our family… matching usually happens coincidentally.

Domination of this happened too. All by myself.

Yes, that was gluten free, amazingly.

While home, a little walk around Lake PeePee happened. That is actually the name of the retention pond in our neighborhood, according to our neighborhood directory. No lie.

And I saw one fatty of a catfish.

I love Oviedo.

Then a stroll down to Pappy’s Patch for some strawberry pickin’ happened!

All my strawberries received 10′s from the judges (Doc and I).

Also, just because they’re funny…

I’m Baaaaaack!

Does that remind you of this movie?

Miss me? I know. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

A lot has been going on, no I still don’t know anything from the Peace Corps. They said “probably the end of the month”. They have 3 days. I’m not holding my breath.

I will update about the recent goings-on, I promise… but first. Please watch these. They might make you pee your pants, especially the last one. (I’m sorry they’re all sideways, I always forget that you can’t rotate videos like you can pictures when you upload them. Turn your head, it will be worth it. Promise.)

This is Peter’s rendition of “Scurvy Pirate”. He likes to change the “pirate” to a “seashell”. Interesting choice considering Peter has a lisp. Enjoy.

An interview with Peter about his race car. Again, note the lisp. Do they come any cuter?

Here’s Rowan’s interview (Peters twin brother). He’s my favorite. I know your not supposed to pick favorites with children, but they’re not mine or anything so I think its allowed.

And last, but certainly not least. There are just no words.

He wore his underwear like that all night until I made him fix it before getting dressed for school. I love him.

My Poor Sore Soles

This morning I walked downstairs to my car. Walked from the stadium parking garage to Bellamy. From Bellamy to Wescott fountain. Walked back across campus to the parking garage. Walked from my car to class in the anthropology dept, and back to my car after class. Walked back up my stairs, walked from my car into the grocery store, and back to my car again. Then I put on shoes for the first time all day.

In total, I probably walked about half a mile without shoes this morning. At most. And my feet are KILLING ME.

Seriously, they hurt so bad. I love being barefoot, but even walking across the paved sidewalks on campus all day made the soles of my feet feel raw and sore. All I want to do is stand on pillows covered in marshmallows.

My feet hurt so bad.

But the pain is greatly minimized when I think about the millions of children that grow up barefoot all over the world. Young children that have to walk miles every day just to secure clean drinking water for the day. They walk through burning hot sand, over rocks and pebbles, risking cuts and injuries because they don’t have a single pair of shoes. If I had covered any sort of dangerous terrain today and cut one of my feet I would have put some neosporin and a bandaid on it and gone on my merry way. But these children risk their lives by going barefoot every day. Every cut risks infection, and every infections has the possibility to take a life.

Today, all over the world, people took off their shoes for a day to raise awareness for Tom’s Shoes. For every pair of Tom’s shoes that someone buys, they give a pair of shoes to a child in need. I encourage you to take a look at the Tom’s website, take a look at you bank account, and take a look at what is important in your life. Can you spare a couple dinner’s out on the town? Can you forgo that new dress or sweater you’ve been thinking about buying? Personally, I’m obsessed with frozen yogurt. I have literally been going to Fuzions- the only self-serve froyo place in Tally- every day lately… but not anymore. I’m going to intentionally sacrifice some the frivolous things I spend money on every week and put it towards something that will make a difference for someone besides myself.

We have the opportunity to make a difference. Buy yourself a new pair of shoes. It will make you feel good, because the shoes are really cool. But more importantly, you will impact a child that deserves… in the least… a pair of shoes.

Beer Can

Don’t worry this post has less to do with beer than one would gather from the title. I can’t even drink the dad gum stuff I sure as heck aint gonna waste precious blog space on it. (Rebec, does the fact that I wrote “aint” bother you?)

My sissy informed me the other morning that if you say “beer can” with a British accent, it sounds like you are saying “bacon” with a Jamaican accent. Go ahead, try it.

For some reason when I first tried this I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to say “beer can” with a British accent. It sounded more like the Terminator. But then I decided to work the problem backwards (like you always used to do  with mazes when you were little right?! That was the trick to finishing any maze in record time, in case your mom never taught you that trick) and I started saying “bacon” with my best Jamaican bobsled team impersonation. And its true!

I think there should be some kind of grammatical term for a word that sounds like another word with a different accent. What would you call that? Can you think of any others?

The only other one I know if is from the British punk band Blitz’s song “4Q”. If you say “4Q” with a British accent it sounds like… well I’ll let you figure that one out for yourself. Enjoy