This morning I woke up in the nice, air conditioned hotel room and didn’t really want to leave for the village. I was still excited to go because many of the girls who had gone on this trip before said it was their favorite part, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave the comfort of the hotel. We all packed up our bags and got settled on the bus for what we expected to be at least an hour long drive but after about 30 minutes we arrived at the village.
At first, only a couple kids came out to greet us but a few seconds later a massive swarm of children came out of nowhere and surrounded our bus. Children were climbing over the walls to get a look at us. It was very overwhelming! A couple of us were “claimed” by the kids as soon as we got off the bus, but each one of us would have a new best friend by dinnertime.
The house we are staying in is one of the largest in the village and it is very nice, so I think we are all happy with the accommodations. The children immediately took our bags out of our hands and dropped them off at the house for us. Everyone is incredibly welcoming and helpful and we received a greeting that I’ve honestly never experienced in the U.S. The head of the village school took us on a tour of the school, making sure to stop by each classroom to show off the toubobs to all the children. I found it really cool that whenever we entered a classroom, all the children would stand up to greet us.
After the tour, we went back to the house to relax until lunchtime. We were all sitting around talking about this and that when Mrs. Brown said she had a story to tell us. It wouldn’t do her story justice to write about it in this blog so let’s just say we saw a whole new side of her! One of the classrooms had been converted into a dining room for us to eat lunch and it was amusing to see the kids peeking through the windows to get another look at us.
Back at the house, we all broke up into small groups in order to come up with the lesson plans for the next 3 days. We decided to teach the alphabet, greetings, vowels, and sounds on the first day, numbers, colors, and objects in the classroom the second day, and body parts, physical conditions, and emotions on the third day. We then taught the lessons to the entire group so we could get feedback on what would work and what wouldn’t. It was somewhat difficult to come up with a variety of fun and effective methods to teach English because we wanted to cram as much into each lesson as possible but had to limit ourselves since we would only have an hour to teach each day.
We were watching Iron Man on the TV in the living room when a little girl beckoned for me to come outside. When I went out there, another little girl named Yassi (probably wrong spelling…) was waiting for me. The first little girl spoke very good English so she did all of the talking. She asked me my name and then told me that from then on I would be Yassi. This is how the whole claiming a toubob process goes. I now had a Senegalese name and a new best friend! It really made me feel good because I knew Yassi would be by my side throughout my stay in the village and we could teach each other a lot.
One of the older girls took us on a tour of the village and we were accompanied by a crowd of little kids. The kids were fighting each other over who got to hold our hands. Some of us had up to 6 kids hanging onto us as we walked! The kids were very protective of their toubob and a lot of slapping occurred among them. I was so amazed at how territorial Yassi, the sweet and quiet little girl, got when someone else tried to hold my hand!
The tour ended and we Holton girls needed to get some water after trekking through the sand, so we went back to the house. A few minutes later the courtyard was full of kids! I felt so bad for the owner of the house because his courtyard was packed with all these kids because of us. We spent a few hours with the kids painting nails, taking pictures, braiding hair, making bracelets, etc. So many little boys and girls asked me my name, and I had to reply “Yassi” because that meant that someone had already claimed me. Eventually, we all retreated to the roof of the house because we were extremely overwhelmed by all the attention we were receiving from the kids.
The owner of the house said we could sleep on the roof, which we were all excited about because it would get cool at night and we had it to ourselves. We set up our bug huts and we were even given mattresses to sleep on. We then had dinner and went around the table and shared our first impressions of our first day in the village. The majority of us loved it and said it was our favorite day of the entire trip.
Today was definitely my favorite day of the trip because the village was so welcoming and it was such a fun day hanging out with all the kids. It really surpassed my expectations and I am really looking forward to the rest of my stay here.
-Mary 
