Welcome to Linguere: Where things come to die.

I just finished hosting two trainees, Ann Marie and Kim, during their volunteer visit, formerly known as "demystification" (menacing, huh?), during which the Peace Corps sends the trainees to stay with current volunteers for just under a week. It provides them with their first impressions of the villages and regions where they'll be spending the next two years and with their first tastes of daily life as a volunteer, so it's a pretty significant experience.





Luckily Ann Marie and Kim, along with Justin and Emily, the other two volunteers who will be coming out our way, fit right in. As we encountered dust, heat and a bunch of dead animals on our 25 kilometer bike ride from Barkedji, where Ann Marie will be living, to Diagaly, Kim's site, the girls and I joked about the challenges to living in one of the smallest, hottest, most isolated regions in PC/Senegal. We also pitched new regional mottos that expemlify just how hard core we really are. In addition to "Linguere: Where things come to die," we came up with, "Linguere: The forgotten region," and, "Linguere: Where there is no water."

We kid, of course. There's actually something kind of comforting about feeling like we're living at the end of the earth. And there's definitely something nice about feeling so safe among our neighbors. From a work perspective, things are looking up in Linguere, too. The influx (ok, I'm being generous with my terminology) of new volunteers will bring us up to a total of 8, and the newbies are very excited to get started on projects, both village-based and regional.





There's always a bit of a friendly rivalry between Peace Corps regions. After a successful volunteer visit, I can say this: "Hey Kedougou, you lush, green region of southeastern Senegal, you may have shown your trainees hippos and waterfalls, but here in Linguere, we made fresh limeade in my hut. Bam."