Yesterday I became a full fledged, sworn in, ID-carrying, ready-to-be sent-out-all-on-my-own Peace Corps Volunteer. I am once again known as a first year.
The swearing-in ceremony was held in Dakar at the US Ambassador's residence, and included nice speeches from our various trainers, program director, country director and Ambassador Bernicat herself. The training manager, Etienne Senghor, was master of ceremonies (fun fact: his grandfather was acclaimed poet and first president of Senegal Leopold Senghor), and since we are Etienne's first stage to be sworn in he spent the day looking at us like a proud father. On other end of the spectrum, this was the last swearing-in ceremony for Ambassador Bernicat, who will be moving back to the US this summer. She and our country director, Chris Hedrick, both arrived in Senegal 3 years ago to begin their respective jobs and have significantly expanded the relationships between Peace Corps and other US agencies doing development work in Senegal.
But honestly, the real excitement of the day (beyond the hors d'oeuvres) was seeing everyone dressed in their Senegalese finest. For women, the full matching outfit is called a complet (com-play), and can range from casual to ornate. Most involve elaborate embroidery and are topped with a fantastic head wrap, called a tikka. Tikka fashion operates under the "bigger is better" principle. For men, the whole outfit is called a boubou (boo-boo) and involves lose fitting pants and a hip or shin length top. Boubous look like fancy pajamas. Unsurprisingly, real Senegalese people look both beautiful and regal when dressed in these outfits. We do not.
My full outfit - with matching shoes and purse, of course. I won the award for tallest headwrap, and it was universally agreed upon that I looked like the Chiquita Banana girl.
My roommates from the training center: Chelsea, Hilary and Mac.
Terrifyingly pointy Senegalese shoes. The ambassador complemented them.
I'm trying to upload more pictures to my Picassa album, so check those out too!
Next post coming from Kolda!
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