Post by Lara
9 July 2012
Today was pretty much awesome. For one, we’re settling into life as Peace
Corps Trainees and working on becoming familiar with our training area. We know
where the markets are as well as the supermarket, and we have made not one but
two trips for chocolate and cookies to snack on in between meals. For foodies
like us this is a big step toward independence.
Mostly, though, today we got our site assignments. Though we can’t disclose the exact location,
we can say that it is in a district capital which means a bigger town with at
least one internet cafe and fairly nice roads. Also, we’re going to be living
in Mende land where our host family is from. Our host mother was very happy to
learn that we would be “nearby” (3-4 hours by bus and yet only 52 miles). Tomorrow we will start our language lessons
in Mende, and over the weekend we will pay a visit to our site for the first
time! Things are rolling along.
11 July 2012
After two Mende lessons, Kevin and I have noticed two
important things. One: we are BAD at Mende. Comically bad, actually. It is
nothing like any language we’ve ever seen before, so we’re starting from
zero. The second thing we’ve noticed is
that learning Mende has opened our eyes to just how good our Krio is. We can
hold conversations in Krio, ask directions, tell a story, even make our
families laugh (sometimes on purpose!).
I think our confidence in our Krio got a real boost from just a few
hours looking at this new language that makes us feel like infants again. The good news is that with a solid foundation
in Krio, we can communicate with the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans. The
Mende lessons will come in handy in our village where Mende will be the go-to
language, but at least we have a grasp on the language that everyone falls back
on when speaking to someone who isn’t a native Mende speaker.
I feel like I'm in Africa! Okay maybe not really.
ReplyDeleteYou guys should look to see if you can put an RSS feed on your blog. That way we can get notifications by email that you've posted something.
Also mom is getting stuff together to send to you, is there anything that you want me to get together to send with?
You should be able to go to the bottom of the main page and click on "subscribe to posts (atom)". Depending on what browser you are using it should bring up options for Reader, etc.
DeleteAhhh sweet! You should post language posts :3 Diagram that mess up.
ReplyDeleteAlso apparently there's been some bad cholera outbreaks over there? My parents say "don't drink the water". :P Hopefully no one you know has gotten sick!