I'm Home

          It's a simple summation to say 'I'm home'. The experience was two years of my life. Being back feels good though. I enjoy the food diversity and seeing friends and family. Didn't expect to find myself wanting to be back there so quickly. Driving around thoughts of my hut and biking drift through my head and I want it again. The cool mornings under a mango tree and days that had so much potential. Not that days here lack potential, but it felt like there was far more potential for crazy adventures to happen over there. As with anything the transition brings hard times and joy, here are some highlights.

          The first things uttered by most are introductory questions along the lines of; how was it? What was it like? Do you miss it? Was it worth it? Well it was wonderful, grueling and fantastic at times, I do miss it, and it was extremely worth while. The less glamorous part of this question is that most people don't have two days for me give a brief overview of two years of my life, so all responses feel shallow and the questions not completely answered. The polite question ends up frustrating the person to whom it is directed. I'm not really one to feel a need for talking about my experiences and thus more indifferent to this frustration than most of my peers. When you ask someone how their vacation was they have a reasonable and relate-able response because the time-frame is short. We, however, can't cram all the information into such small increments. That people can't relate to the scenario is also difficult. I can't really tell a story to it's full effect when the audience lacks a basic understanding of all the characters and underlying mindsets involved. Every story has other stories and pieces of information needed for it to make sense and that isn't concise enough for most audiences. If I start talking about how there are three kids named Mamadou in my compound, and how it was an entertaining realization that the mother's name is added to the end of the child's for distinguishing, I have to explain that there's only a handful of first names in the country and it muddles the point. As MTV demonstrates anything not easy to follow and brightly colored is no fun to pay attention to. Then you just feel guilty for boring people.

          To live and integrate into a foreign culture gives one the marvelous opportunity to examine both cultures through the eyes of the other. The very frustrating element to this ability is few people have it, and fewer want it. I want to describe individual people like my very kind and patient and hard working community counterpart Mama Saliu Balde, but people don't hear it. People have this idea in their head of a third world country poor African village, and for all I wish to try and undo the simplification, I never feel like I have made progress. Affirming that my village was poor with no electricity is about the only thing that ears absorb. The things people expect to hear undermine the things I want them to hear. I want to portray a people that laugh and go to parties and have weddings and funerals and go to religious gatherings, I want to portray a relate-able people whom I enjoyed living alongside. The motivation to categorize in one's head a group of sad, impoverished, uneducated, and sick, essentially faceless group of people, is hurtful. It is hurtful because instead of seeing the relate-able characteristics that might promote a desire to connect, the group is written off as 'those poor people who deserve pity and help, but you know........ not right now because they're different'. Simplifying a group of people makes them easier to process, and it's comical seeing Americans aren't the only ones who do this. Many of the Senegalese I lived with thought Americans were all very rich people and I had to work hard explaining things like college loans and relative prices of goods before some few began to understand(although I'm not sure if they believed) the truth. I ask readers to beware their own perceptions, while images of destitution and sad undernourished children with distended stomachs immediately enter your head, and these things do exist, it doesn't mean those same children never smile or have fun, that the adults never stop working or are constantly struggling. People are people, and one of the most profound realizations I had over there was that even thousands of miles from home with people who were very different, we always understood each others facial expressions.

           Some do not understand or wish to understand that I am different. Pieces of the first two big paragraphs combine to make speaking about the experience rather unpleasant. Lacking understanding and time required to learn the subject to the depth I have means most references to my experience have a tendency to move listeners into a disinterested glaze. So I feel like 'that guy' trying to convince people to become vegan or condescendingly describing why micro-brews are the only good beers. I'm motivated more to simply not speak about two years of my life, and two years that were colossal for my advancement as a human being. I recognize all this is rather disheartening so I'll give a shout out to everybody who has talked with me in an engaging and attentive manner. I'm also not angry with everybody else, I understand my life isn't on the top of your concerns list.

          Anyway...(<-Elipsis hehe)Some other notes I have had since departing Senegal. We took a week vacation in London before returning to the U.S. I had spent a week in the huge city of Dakar so was fairly accustomed to western food. One thing I wasn't ready for was STROLLERS. In all of Senegal women use a towel sized piece of cloth to tie a baby onto their backs. When we arrived in London and I saw women with one tiny baby taking up so much room on trams and trains during rush hour, I was agitated at the uneconomical use of space. On the plus side the trams, trains, and buses of London are fantastic. If you go just grab an oyster pass and you can use all three to get around London.

          Food. A constant daydream in the African bush for expats raised elsewhere is a more diverse dinner spread. I recall spending some time on the return plane contemplating pizza, corn-dogs, and toaster strudels. Returning in the midst of holidays meant food was abundant and less than health conscious. I indulged though and reversed some of the work parasites had done. Unfortunately gastronomical discomfort has become a familiarity. I noticed shifting my diet to fairly healthy for several days with even a small lapse into the more hedonistic tendencies resulted in an overall general discomfort. So I've started to eat; mixed nuts, cheese, avocados, small portions of meat, potatoes, rice, green beans, asparagus, oatmeal. That's pretty much it. I will eat other stuff and part of this selection is due to its cost . Curiosity drove me to research why so many people are developing gluten allergies and that lead me to learn most flour has almost zero nutritional value. So I try to eat as little bread/flour as possible. It works the same with diet soda. When you eat or drink something (flour/artificial sweetener) your body gets ready to process it, then when you do not get the respective nutrients or sugar, you WANT IT MORE! Diet soda is terrible because it makes you CRAVE SUGAR MORE. Most flour based foods provide a short term full feeling but having very little nutritional content then make you wish to eat more food shortly after. I don't care in the slightest that this turned into a healthy eating guide. I try to eat this way because I buy some Ben and Jer's Ice cream now and again and then the next day feel like my physical potential has decreased by 15-20%. I like feeling unburdened and ready, so I try to do it this way.

          I have been home 8 months, in many ways the experience is like an old book I read. The realities that were, are slipping into the fictional seeming memories that are. I'm greatly saddened by this process. The joys of the adventure are fading. Close friends are beginning to feel less like people and more like body-less messenger names that respond to my messages. I suppose the way to combat such feelings would be socialization but a disdain for beer, loud noises, (most)live music, and generally things associated with socialization have acted as strong inhibitors. I spend time reading about social issues and trying to keep up on the state of the world. Some things are inspiring and bring hope here and there, many induce a pessimistic view of the way the world is heading. I pulled down some thick walls I used to have at the end of service and am trying to incorporate these new elements into my interactions. I've found a job merchandising plants for local Walmarts. Pleasant to be around plants and continue with something I feel knowledgeable about.

          The end to an adventure feels like the end of a great TV show. You were so involved and each pull or push impacted you. Then it's over and what the hell are you supposed to do now? Where are the adventures and the novelties? What happened to the probability of each day being bizarre and fantastic? The essence of such a life of difficulty is each obstacle demands a new solution. Being pushed forces one to improve makes me feel so alive. Peace Corps made me feel like I was growing as a human being in leaps and bounds, and returning home is almost stagnant by comparison. I'm finding ways to compensate. Began rock climbing and I keep pushing myself and training to do harder climbs. Apparently I went too hard and put on a bunch of muscle but tendons are more slow to build and heal so I have to cut back, but I found the bounds of my capacity to move forward. Started going on hikes and reading and drinking tea. I'm trying to do what everybody tries to do, find some joy in life. Yeah I would do it again, and again and again and again......

The Last Day

Spent the afternoon cooking popcorn and shrimp chips for kids. Popcorn is always entertaining because everyone here recognizes corn, it’s one of the staple foods, but when you put it in a pot and cover it and then open it to reveal popped corn the expressions are great. Nobody had tasted shrimp chips either and I thought they were tasty myself. Two bowls of popcorn and two bowls of chips would have seemed the logical means of distribution but without fail unique food and twenty rural Senegalese children make that impossible. We were forced to find an additional 8 bowls and split a little of each of the types of delicacies into each for a less chaotic sharing experience. Then I ate dinner for the last time and went to visit my work partner and say goodbye to as much of the village as possible before everyone fell asleep. So I started walking around in the dark(few lights and no moon), and telling people I was leaving. Thanked them for being good hosts and forgave all misdeeds(a cultural departing statement.) Had a few interesting conversations about the level of my language skill and the distance to Amerika. Most people think in terms of 2-20km, so I told them it was 4,000, I just looked it up and it’s actually near 6,000. Some kids were interested in planes so I told them about it being like a bus, but they make you food if it’s time to eat. I noticed the people I was greeting start to become more drowsy as I continued so I turned in at ten pm. Awoke early on account of needing to pack and finish saying goodbye to the village. Began my trek with some compounds nearby and wound back a last time to finish in my own compound. Gave away the last few items I wouldn’t take away with me or leave to my replacement. My most excellent friend and work partner Mama Saliu Balde came by to say goodbye. I cried after he left my hut, thinking I’d probably never see him again, and he’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. Packed the remaining clothes and trinkets into my bags and waited for my host mom to return from the field so I could say goodbye. Had borrowed a camera since mine broke early in service and I have very few photos. Took photos of family and friends with the intention to print copious quantities at home and send them back to my replacement, Mandy, so she can distribute to everyone. Host mom arrived from the field and I greeted her, strapped all my stuff to the bike and put on my backpack. Walked into my host mom’s room and said I was leaving. I asked her to stand up and gave her a hug, something this culture almost never does. She started crying and then I started crying, I said ‘An ko nene am tigi tigi’-’You are my mother truly truly’. Sat for a minute and then said goodbye and walked out to say goodbye to my family. They walked me to the edge of the village and I said goodbye and told them thank you for being good hosts, and that I would miss them all very much. Then I began the 4 mile bike ride to my road town to await a vehicle that would take me into Kolda city. I met one of my good friends Walli Balde just as I was leaving the village, made me really happy I could say goodbye because he had come to see me in the morning but I was out saying goodbye to people. Slowly biked the rest of the way out to the road town and started saying goodbye to the handful of people I interacted with frequently there. A boutique owner wanted some pictures with me and a woman who sold me lunch sometimes gave me a bag of dried corn to plant. Rather than the slow and cramped small buses that normally come through I got lucky and a 7 passenger car with an empty seat picked me up. Was a nice ride in and I even got the front seat. Made it into the house and unloaded my bags. Went out to eat with a small group that was hanging around the regional house. Pleasant evening of food and chatting with good people who I may not have the good fortune to see again. Stayed up all night packing and waiting for the car to show up at 4:30am and convey us on our last exit from the region that has been my home for the past two years. The ride took three of us out in a cool, foggy morning through some of the most lush and beautiful scenery Senegal has to offer, down in its Ziguinchor region (which is also off limits to volunteers so keep that to yourself.) Upon arrival we sought out the port where a boat was scheduled to transport us from zig to Dakar. Waited from 10 am to 2:30 in the afternoon to board, it was not a comfortable temperature. Boarded to discover something like movie theater seating (except flat) for about 80 people in two different rooms, with AC! Went through the safety briefing in French and Wolof, neither of which I understand, but I got a general idea from the French one. Then we hung out on deck and ate some snacks of chips and apples. Saw a little group of 4 dolphins playing near an island and they came right up along the ship for a short while, really fun to watch them jump out of the water. A few other passengers began succumbing to sea sickness as we moved out into open water but my companions and I felt fine. We caught the sunset and watched dusk blur the horizon. Then we tried to get some dinner at the alleged restaurant which was actually a little 2 meter square bar. They had had some sort of sandwich wrapped in tin foil so we figured food would be available throughout the trip. When requested though they were all gone, would have been nice to know that and bring food like everybody else seemed to have done. The chef was informed by someone that some ignorant passengers were seeking food and probably didn’t have any, so he gave us the ‘wait’ sign. Showed up a half hour later with three slightly heated sandwiches, made a nice dinner with some cans of soft drinks. Through the course of the evening people continued to drop at an alarming rate from sea sickness. The cabin cleared out fairly heavily and we watched a movie before trying to sleep. Turned in around midnight, dividing and sampling the optional sleeping places; 1 to the deck outside, 1 laying on our seats, and 1 on the floor of the cabin with a comfy little pillow of a sweatshirt(I say comfy because I was the one in that position, and it really was a decent place to sleep). Near 4 am we hit notably choppy water which exacerbated the motions of the boat and the sea sickness of our Senegalese comrades. Best estimates put 80% of the passengers out of commission from such illness, but we three volunteers were unaffected. Arrived in port at 5:40 and returned the lent blankets in exchange for the passports given to acquire them. Disembarked and caught a 10 min nap before finding baggage. Informed a variety of taxi drivers their services were not required as we awaited a local friend. Mamadou (aka Mo) a Dakar native who had spent 6 years in the United States, and been to more of the states than we three natives of the U.S. combined, picked us up and we sought out breakfast. Drove over to Presse Cafe after cramming all the things we three owned into a little SUV. I partook of a smoked salmon wrap with jasmine tea, and let me tell you, it was wonderful. Continued on to our host, introduced ourselves and unloaded before seeking out some very overdue sleep. Feeling a little better from the first good quality sleep in the past 48 hours we availed our refound hunger on 3 family size pizzas of the goat cheese and honey flavor. If you find yourself in Dakar seeking a savory slice of sustenance get on over to Yum Yum’s pizza and try it, I’ve eaten almost one daily while I’ve been in Dakar this trip, same thing the last time I was here in April. Since then we’ve been closing bank accounts and doing a scavenger hunt of signatures for miscellaneous tasks. This was my transition from village to the biggest city in West Africa. I’ll throw up a few of the photos I took but most of them will be in a later post. Thanks for reading.

 My backyard at the end of service. I loved hanging out back here and reading or taking care of my plants.

 Was eating an eggplant almost every other day as they began to ripen. Always enjoyable to eat something you grew yourself.

 Hut from the back entrance.

 Hut from the front, pretty empty too. Goodbye shelter of two years.

 The kids waiting (very impatiently) for the popcorn and chips.

This descended into madness once I told them they could begin eating.

Nice while it lasted.

So I’m headed home in about 50 days now. While I’m looking forward to see family and friends and play video games until my eyes dry into little eye raisins, I will miss some aspects of life here. Might even decide to stay another whole year! (but probably not)

I think the thing that will be missed most is my garden. Behind my hut I am currently growing; pineapple, tomatoes of the small and large variety, guava, eggplant, basil, watermelon, okra, taro root, young mango and cashew trees, and several local varieties of trees. It has been one of my greatest pleasures to awaken each morning and peruse my plants to look for bugs and remove branch starts so the plant grows how I want it too. Pruning and weeding and building little water catchers in the soil and simply watching everything grow has been so satisfying to me my whole service.

On a similar note I’ve greatly enjoyed the part of my work that focused on trees and their growth and care. Biking around through the woods and talking to farmers and teaching them about the best way to care for plants. It’s fun to talk to and teach people about something which you are passionate about.

I’ll miss the freedom I have here greatly. On any given day I can decide to stay in my room and read all morning, or go out to the woods and wander around climbing termite mounds and observing the plants and animals. I can go visit with people and chat about what they’re doing and answer questions about my own culture. Since cultural exchange is the primary purpose of Peace Corps all of these things are my work. I’ve always loved the feeling of having a plethora of options. I feel that upon returning and beginning work I’ll no longer be able to wake each morning and have the choice to read a book until lunch.

Novelty is much more abundant for anyone far from home and doubly so if outside of their original culture. My days have the potential to go very interesting directions here. On one travel trip I ended up sleeping in a car with tons of mosquitoes and it was very weird and uncomfortable. But I also had not the slightest inclination that my day was going to go in that direction. Sometimes going to the market I’ll suddenly be in a new situation that dumps a cacophony of new experiences on me. Any walk in the woods can easily turn into a “What the hell is that?!” It’s great fun to not know what to expect each day.

Everybody here is AT LEAST bi-lingual. Growing up in a community that seemed about 1 in 60 or so people knew more than one language made those people geniuses. Here I can find difficulty getting around a city without knowing a little bit of at least two languages. It’s fun to make jokes in one language that don't make sense in the other, or translate things directly and realize they don’t work. For instance the greeting in Pulaar of “How is the body” sounds very odd in English. It’s fun to say stuff to someone in a language you’re pretty certain the people around you don’t understand, or yell it to someone on the other end of a bus. “I freakin hate this bus!” I’ve always had a soft spot for etymology(study of words and their history.) I like looking at how words are used and comparing a new language with the one I am familiar with. Being bi-lingual opens up so many doors. Language provides an excellent insight into culture. English only has one word for love and then we have to specify the type, many other languages have a slew of words all describing different kinds of love. Pulaar has a word for ‘to have something in the eye’. It’s just really neat being in a bilingual environment.

The food here can be rough sometimes, but it can be fantastic at others. A really good plate of rice and oily onion sauce with chicken meat is one of my favorite local dishes. You won’t hear any complaints if a plate of oily rice, fish, tamarind sauce and vegetables with a slice of lime falls in front of me either. Steamed corn meal with watery peanut sauce, leaves, and beans has been known to disappear in vast quantities when I’m around. Taste is the third best part about the food, second best is the freshness. Most times all the ingredients were growing or moving within the last 24 hours, and have no preservatives or false colorings or flavorings. The best thing about the food though is the cost. A Peace Corps volunteer learns early to become frugal, then more frugal, and when I get a nice steamy plate set in front of me for 1 U.S. dollar… I’m very happy.

Some unique potential exists here for human interactions. An interesting aspect of this culture is that it’s respect based, while in the U.S. we base much of our interactions on usefulness. If I go to a vendor of goods or services and fail to say at least several of the formal greetings, then I’m being rude. People here don’t like being treated like a means to an end. Say hello and ask about the afternoon and the work and their family, then move onto business. Not so in the U.S. where I may say hello but then move directly into “and I’d like a small root beer.” Without electricity in much of my area people spend most of their free time sitting around chatting. I felt that back home you don’t simply sit and talk with people for very long before their staring at their phone not paying attention. It’s difficult to really feel like you’re with another person and just spending time talking and joking and getting to know them.

Some specific humans I’m very fond of. Peace Corps attracts a certain type of person and the other volunteers that I’ve had the privilege of sharing time with are so fun. Diverse and with loads of stories and experiences talking with any individual for hours can feel like minutes. They all care about something enough to have come here in the first place, and being around people that have similar interests is amazing. I’ll miss the friends I’ve made over these two years greatly when I have to return home to my deadbeat friends.

It will be less fun to have the factor of unknown reduced upon returning home. Like the day I awoke to a large scorpion right next to my bed, and then a second came in my room that night. There are so many things that could randomly happen here that home will probably be boring if there isn’t a cow trying to break into my yard at 3 am, or I randomly end up chasing a 60 strong troop of baboons with a young kid. Never knowing where the day might end up is quite a treat.

I’ll miss the challenge of not being in my own culture. When my phone rings I get a mini panic attack because I’ll need to problem solve or at least comprehend potentially important details… in another language. If I go to the market I run into problems there and they need to be thought through and overcome. I need to plan ahead to avoid dying from dehydration or sun stroke. I have to make sure I can fix my bike if it breaks when I’m on a stretch of road that has nothing for six miles in either direction. Overcoming challenges isn’t only a way to make oneself feel competent it is the best way to grow as person. I have grown quite a bit since starting here two years ago. Hopefully this will actually be posted on Sept 23 2015 which is two years to the day that I left home and started all this.

The final thing I’ll miss, at least some of the time, is a lack of electronics. Sometimes you do want to read a book or work out or do something productive or to better yourself, but then you simply watch netflix and play candy crush. One of the reasons I joined Peace Corps was so that I could remove these options and only have self improvement things to choose from. I’ll miss the times when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to work out or read a nonfiction book, but then realized they were my only options.

I’m in the mindset right now that I want to be home and playing computer games and eating cheese and meats and ice cream which I’ve been without for much of the past two years. But I’ll also be home missing the times when kids saw me and got way too excited, or when I greeted old people in their own language and they thought it terribly funny or fascinating that I knew it. Early into service another volunteer came to my road town and got off the bus, then we started greeting one another back and forth in the local language. The old man sitting down was so confused and entertained by two obvious foreigners knowing his minority language. Greeting people on a bike path from behind is always fun because they respond and then when you pass them they realize that you are NOT what they were expecting. I suppose I’ll miss being able to wear the same clothes for every day of the year and not get too cold. It’s been an adventure and I’ll be sad to have it end for these reasons, but that doesn’t mean the next thing I do won’t be an adventure.

To exemplify much of what I’ll miss I want to write a little story of one of the days I’ll have difficulty forgetting. My work partner and I had biked to a neighboring village. The bike ride was about 3km on a cool morning, it had rained recently and was still fairly cloudy. Just prior to the arrival at the village we needed to move through a flooded lowland filled with rice fields. It was very charming with the frogs croaking. After whatever it was we did at the first village we headed to a second village only a half km away and it began to rain slightly. We passed tranquil peanut and corn field with big baobab trees in them. One of the baobab trees had a big opening about 4 meters from the ground and I thought about hiding in it. We arrived at a friend of my work partners and greeted everyone in the drizzle. Then it began to rain harder and we were ushered into a metal roofed building. Some younger boys returned from the fields and unloaded ears of corn they had picked. They began grilling them on hot coals. In the meantime the matron of the house brought us a rice porridge with a soured milk/ yogurt on top. We ate breakfast while observing and listening to the rain. Chatted a little when the rain softened on the metal roof. After the shower the boys gave us an ear of corn each and we biked back to our village while nibbling fresh cooked corn. I think that was really a morning that exemplified what I came here to do as the experiences of the morning were so varied but so enticing and quaintly real. It has been a fulfilling time.

You won't be missed.

This is a compilation and explanation of things I will not miss after returning from Peace Corps service. Expect gross negativity and downright rude observations, but remember that after this is the piece about all the good things. After writing some of this I realized that some of the points I intended to write about were aspects of life here that are caused by the specific environment. As such I’ll attempt to avoid those to keep from sounding like a privileged yuppy.

I suppose the most noticeable component of being here was that I wasn’t born here. Which kids that don’t know you (almost all of them) are wont to remind you. For the most part being a foreigner is simply a novelty that children do not often have the chance to interact with, so they say ‘foreigner, hey foreigner’ in the hopes of some sort of interaction. This is annoying for a whole slew of reasons. Primarily because it is very rude to try and speak to someone without greeting them. I can’t help but perceive that they are being rude because I don’t think ‘Hey foreigner’ is a greeting. A rare specimen of child will say ‘foreigner hello’ in french, but I still wish they’d just say hello. The underlying implication here is that foreigners are treated differently. Children aren’t the only ones doing this either. Frequently adults will begin speaking to me with ‘foreigner, blah blah blah’. It is difficult to make locals understand that being treated differently isn’t what anyone wants, and often they don’t know they’re doing it. Another volunteer was having a long conversation with Senegalese and laid down the scenario that they were visiting a village to which they had never been. You see someone you’ve never met, what do you do? The reply, ‘you greet them and then ask their name’. After a moment of sinking in the local person made the connection. We simply want to be treated the same way anyone would be treated. Greet us and then ask our name if you want to interact, ‘Hey foreigner’ is rude because it isn’t how you would treat any other person.

Further under the list of being a foreigner is the perceived connections and ties we have. Most of this problem lies in foreigners coming abroad to vacation. Nine out of ten white people are wealthy and here on vacation. Those vacationers like to give money and treats to kids because they can afford it and it makes them feel good. I however am poor as hell and do not have the resources for that kind of stuff. Complimenting this is the fact that one of the basic tenets of Islam is giving alms, so there is no reservation about asking for handouts or anything. People think, ‘if I ask maybe I’ll get something, but if I don’t then I certainly won’t get something’. So they ask… constantly. With less access to social media and in a culture where ideas don’t travel as quickly, I can explain all of the reasons why I don’t have anything to give, but then there are still 40 more people that I haven’t explained this to and will keep on asking. Being American doesn’t help because everyone thinks of the U.S. as the land of money and simply because I originate there I have access to it. I can explain that I personally don’t have money but then people think surely my parents have money. Here almost everything one earns is put into a family pool, children aren’t really expected to function independently. More often as soon as adolescence can work they’re paying whatever they can into their parents livelihoods. I’ve been asked to purchase people iphones and give them all my possessions upon leaving, a handful of people have asked for assistance in paperwork to get to the U.S. The thing is, as a citizen, I never needed to do that and therefore haven’t the slightest idea how. Only after most of my two years have I thought to ask the askers if they can help me with getting paperwork for Senegal, wait for the inevitable ‘no’ and then have them explain why and turn the same logic back on their initial question.
The final part of being a foreigner is simply dealing with the less noble elements of society. Adolescent boys and girls trying to look cool in front of their friends have a very offensive term for foreigners, and I hear it much more than I’d like. I mean I gave up two years of my life, family and friends, other potential jobs and all that to come here and help and this is how I’m treated. Anyone selling anything with a flexible price has in their mind 2 prices, one for locals and one for anyone obviously not born here. I want my replacement to know never to ask a vendor how much something costs, always ask a person NOT selling it to you first. Many vendors simply believe that a foreigner can afford it and wouldn’t know the difference so why not double or triple the price.

On food there is light in the tunnel, but it’s still a tunnel. My host brother dislikes the steamed ground corn so he never buys it. While in village I have literally eaten rice two times a day almost every single day of service. The rice is topped with a watery peanut butter sauce, a slimy sauce of ground baobab tree leaves, or another leaf mixed with okra. Occasionally the rice is cooked in oil and maybe once or twice every two weeks some fish or vegetable. This is every day for most of a two year service. I can’t wait for my family to decide to eat breakfast anywhere between 7am and 11am because then I can’t go out and work early and miss most of the morning. So I eat a small handful of roasted peanuts for breakfast. Food in village can be good quality, they make good food for festivities and also if I buy all the ingredients. It has been one of the bigger mysteries that people don’t just keep small gardens to supplement their diets with vegetables. I also question utter lack of creativity among food. There exist about 8 set dishes that are made in rotation depending on availability of ingredients for every meal. Never does anyone just take the ingredients and do something new with them.

I was going to write about transit, but it’s less a choice and more a result of using what you have.

The weather. I arrived at village at the very beginning of a seven month dry season. Dry means dusty with no rain to clean anything. Then when the rains do return it rains so frequently, every two or three days in the middle of the rains, that washing clothes is dooming them to be damp and likely mold because they’ll never get a chance to dry. My bedsheet had to be washed twice to keep a fine white mold from overtaking it when I left village for days at a time. At times during the hot seasons we can see temperatures of 115 degrees fahrenheit.

The entire concept of borrowing. Senegalese have the very interesting perception that anything borrowed is to be kept until specifically asked for it to be returned. Mixed with the complete disregard for object value makes lending anything a terrible experience. In concession since almost everything here is very easy to break and then replace cheaply, people don’t really learn to care for their belongings. Regrettably when they don’t care for my expensive belongings… I get rather frustrated. My family borrowed the nice knife I was given by Peace Corps to do my tree grafting. Then they lost it. They also borrowed my rake, then someone borrowed it from them, and they don’t know who, but coming back to the policy of objects are only returned when requested, and one cannot make a request to an unknown individual… my rake is gone forever.  

I’d written kids but I think I’ll extend it to animals as well. They’re noisy and ignorant. Animals will get into everything(my garden) during the dry season looking for food because everything else is dead. Last year a cow plunged its horns into my bamboo fence and started trashing it so it could have access to a small bush I had on my side. I did not appreciate waking at 3 am to tell a cow to leave my stuff alone, also had to fix the fence. Kids don’t respect anything at all ever. Any person entering my room, but primarily kids, treat it like a candy store and just ignore me and stare at my seemingly mundane stuff that they’ve seen before and constantly ask for it. ‘Hey, give me this, give me this then, well give me this.’ THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT SOME STUFF IS, but still want it. Animals also feel the need to wake up 1 hour prior to sunrise and yell at one another to make sure everyone is awake for morning prayer. For most of my service I have awoken before dawn to every rooster and donkey in village making their respective noises as frequently as possible. Then tried to fall asleep for another two hours. Both of the antagonists to this paragraph also love to relieve themselves all over everything everywhere. Kids don’t have pants and I watched a little kid peeing next to the food prep and then as he was finishing up he just sorta swung into the wooden mortar bowl. No doubt that a few drops went directly into lunch.  

Hygiene is also less than a priority here, as the previous sentence demonstrates. To some extent one cannot blame the people for lack of access to needed supplies. But for washing hands, in a region of the world where the left hand is toilet paper… I think some exceptions need to be made. For instance, people rarely wash hands. I’d be more accepting of this if it were possible to ensure separation of things touched with one hand from things touched with the other. But there isn’t. Women cooking unavoidably switch something from one hand to the other to free up their dominant hand, that means cross contamination right there. Now the reason people don’t wash hands is because… Soap costs money. Not a lot of money, but people don’t have a lot of money so they skimp when they can. I’d be far more accepting of this situation if they never bought soap at all, but they do, they buy soap all the time, but only use it on their CLOTHES! People here value immaculate clothing over clean hands. Plus kids get worms and a symptom of that is itchy anus! Which means they scratch and then MAYBE, and I do mean MAYBE, rinse their hands before coming to the communal food bowl… with worm eggs and jazz all over their hands. I simply think that if you gotta have grungy clothes for a little while in order to wash your hands a little more that such is a wise trade.

I’d written a few other things but I realized they mostly constituted things that were a product of the environment of a poor community. So I’ll leave them be. Thanks for Reading. And I’ll put up the positives in a few weeks hopefully. Should be more of them as I eliminated half of the negative list.

Ah yes. My host Dad here also passed away on Sept 17th. He’d been ill for several months and was having trouble sleeping and eating as of late. I remember once he tried to teach me numbers in Pulaar after I’d already been in village for several months and had a good handle on numbers. He could be a little abrasive but loved his grandkids as one could tell by his interactions with them. I’m glad that the last thing I said to him was “Alah okku maa cellel”(God give you health). He was also the chief of the village and there was a big turnout for his funeral which actually lasted a day and a half longer than most. You’ll be missed Bacari.

Like the sun though, I'll be leaving and headed to America soon.

Adventures in the ileum

Hello everyone. Rainy season has settled in and we’re getting showers or storms every other day. Pleasant to sit in and read or rest. Exquisite to see green things growing again. I planted my backyard with everything I want to eat in another 3 months. Including watermelons and a pineapple! All the farmers are out dragging plows behind donkeys, bulls, or an occasional horse. Seeding and weeding the foot high corn and sorghum. Watching the cotton and peanuts come up and spraying them with insecticides all willy nilly with no personal protection equipment. The work season is here. Days when there’s always something to do. The down times watching showers roll in have also been permitting me time to ponder the rapidly approaching close of this quest. Certainly a long road, and I’m very content with the experiences, Peace Corps has been an adventure.

Though adventures are fun, it’s the familiar comforts that often occupy the mind of an adventurer. For two years I’ve been sleeping under a mosquito net with no blanket because of the inescapable heat. While not my only discomforts or activities that bear no resemblance to my childhood, I’m very excited to return to my origins. I’ve been savoring the thought of sleeping in my old bed, three heavy blankets over me with comfortable sheets. No net. No probability of waking and asking a large scorpion to politely leave my room. I want to see snow and feel really cold so that the warmth from the crackling fire is all the more enjoyable. The prospect of seeing family and friends for the holidays, and for some people after a two year absence, is countering the less calming effects of living outside of one’s culture. Water on tap, microwaves and washing machines and the great porcelain bowl… don’t under appreciate your amenities. I intend to write a full section of positives to be missed and negatives a little later though.
So the ileum is the last segment of the small intestine right before the colon. The adventures within it were not my own. I am currently in the sick bay at the Peace Corps office in dakar because I have been off and on sick for the past several months. Multiple cases of giardia and odd side effects to unknown illnesses and weight loss, tiredness and lack of energy. I didn’t really put all of these things together. Volunteers latch onto the mentality that things ‘aren’t serious’ because medical procedures split things between emergency and non emergency. A good means of differentiating workloads to overworked medical staff, but we as volunteers tend to fall into the same way of thinking, ‘if it isn’t important enough to call med emergency, it isn’t important’. So all my total symptoms were spaced out enough that I didn’t think it was much of a problem. Then I had a new case of giardia a week ago, conveniently timed with an Peace Corps event which had Peace Corps transit(much better than local transit, and free), going all the way to dakar. Here is a breakdown of giardia. It begins with stomach cramps which, as another volunteer accurately described, “feels like your stomach is a wet towel being wrenched dry”. I was less than pleased to be standing up during the second half of that day. The afternoon was plagued with very sulfurous gas. Someone asked who had passed gas in pleasant company and I informed them that it was A. a burp, and B. FAR more unpleasant to release than to detect afterword. I recall coming close to vomiting from some of these, due in part to nausea. One has no appetite for most of the duration of a bout of giardia. The gas is annoyingly frequent as well, every several minutes for half a day. Then you get into the flush stage when your body decides to simply start over from scratch and evict everything. This means watery stool every ten to twenty minutes for 4 hours. Thankfully another volunteer picked up some giardia meds for me and that helped. Then the event(of which I missed half) was over and the bus was returning to dakar. I came up here and had an appointment to discover that worms had also been vacationing in my ileum. So have taken a de-wormer as well. This seems to explain the lack of energy and tiredness. Hard to do much of anything when the limited diet you have is being stolen by little critters. Should be feeling better in a few weeks though. I’m excited to get back to work and wrap everything up.

Work. As the rains have settled in and farmers have begun farming, my goal is to get the trees we planted several months ago into the fields. If the trees make it into the fields early they should grow enough during the rainy season to live through the dry season. For reference I had about 100% die off from my first year because everything was done too late and then poorly cared for through the last rainy season. Hopefully working with new individuals who seem very motivated, will keep the trees alive. With about 35 farmers in 4 villages I’m looking to get about 1500 to 2000 trees in the ground over the next several weeks. Most cashew trees, also some mango and orange. Once that is finished I’ll be focusing on grafting classes. Some of the varieties of tree that grow best here produce small fruit, so we graft frequently. Better producing varieties don’t deal with the soil and seasons very well so we have to make zombie plants. Plant a local variety and then cut a twig from something that has higher quality fruit. Then cut the new twig into the top of the local and if it takes and begins to grow cut off the original. So you have local variety roots interacting with soil and seasons they are familiar with, but a top that produces better quality fruit. I’ll be going around teaching techniques and going through the large amount of information relevant to the process. Also trying to teach a little bit of water conservation. Farmers tend to be annoyed by water cutting through their fields but have no motivation to alter it. I constantly see fields on slightly sloped hills, and the fields are plowed so the water runs right out down the lines. If they were to rotate 90 degrees and plow in that orientation the water would sit in the lines and the plants would have access to much more water. Also deforestation is a big problem, everybody  goes out to the woods and cuts down whatever they want. There’s no forethought to next year. So as trees are removed from fields and the sun bakes the soil during the dry season, big rain storms dump water which cuts large swaths of ground from everywhere. No projects without problems I guess.

In addition to all the work I need to wrap up I have things to do in preparation of departure from Senegal. The group I entered the country with has a four day conference in September. We’ll be doing some final medical clearance, having our language skills evaluated (so we can be told if we’re allowed to write whatever language we learned on a future resume), getting some time to work resumes, and listen to some reintegration strategies. I’ll be writing a report summarizing the work I did and how effective it was, partially for records and partially for the volunteer replacing me. This means that I’ll need to review all the work I’ve done thus far and look for any trees I helped put in the ground and see if they’re still alive. The end of October is the visit trainees have halfway through training where they get a feel for the conditions awaiting them. This helps them orient themselves within the second month of training before they begin living in their communities. I should be hosting my replacement in village for several days and introducing them to important people and locations. We will have a welcoming gathering for the trainees and then I’ll only have several days in village before needing to make the last trek along the 4 mile bush path I’ve been riding so frequently for the past 2 years. Stay a few nights in the regional house packing and making sure everything is in its place and not forgotten. Then its up to dakar for 4 days of final meetings and paperwork before the plane leaves. At this point it looks as though I’ll be flying to dubai in The United Arab Emirates for a short layover and then flying to Boston. I intend to then take a bus to Portland and probably stay for a night before finishing the trip back to PI. Likely having to endure a welcome back gathering, but what can you do?
It is my intention to work on two more posts before leaving. 1 of everything bad that I won’t miss and 1 of everything that I will miss and am happy to have acquired while here. Peace ya’ll.

The Darkness before the Dawn... before the darkness.

Hello. Sorry I haven't written in literally six months. I would leave site to come into the regional capital city and relax then leave without having worked on writing. I took some videos of a brush fire moving toward my village but my computer won't recognize the file so I can't upload it yet. In the meantime we can just review some of the other things that have been happening.
        I spent several days in Dakar while doing a short medical evaluation. Nothing wrong in terms of health but did get a cleaning done at the dentist. Ordered a fantastic goat cheese and honey pizza and ate it with rootbeer. Good pizza and rootbeer are unavailable in the part of the country I live in, and I only make it to the capital city once or twice a year. I almost cried because the food was so good. Bought some clothes too. Buying clothes has always been a 'I'll do that later after I lose a little weight', but I wait so long that I only end up wearing ratty stuff. Purchased some new stuff and actually felt presentable for once, it's a nice feeling. Saw big box jellyfish in the Gambia River, neat. Haven't been ill, also neat. Hot season has come and is now even on it's way out getting replaced soon by rainy season. It's no fun to be unable to fall asleep unless you are outside because inside is too hot. Upon returning from Dakar which is on a coastal peninsula and excellently chilly I was dehydrated for days until I realized that's what my headache meant. Then I spent a few days consuming liters of oral re-hydration salts before 11am. I don't remember much memorable happening up until the last few weeks, but I've been working and trying to get stuff done like a demon now.
       With rainy season on the approach farmers should be planting trees and letting them grow a bit before moving them to their future homes in fields during the rainy season. So I've been going around asking people if they want cashew or mango trees (because those seeds are available), and then helping them get started. Step one is to ask who wants them, then I'm telling them to gather the dirt. If I see dirt I'll give tree sacks and show them how to fill them. If they are filled upon my next visit I give seeds. This is necessary because last year many people wanted seeds to just throw in the ground after rains start, but then they're too small to survive the dry season. So I'm running around biking to a neighboring village 3km away every several days. The people there seem much more motivated than those in my own village though, not sure what the presence of a volunteer does but it seems to detract from people's motivation the more people think they have access to you.
       Been pushing the moringa still, the healthy tree. Had Scott Le and Randi Rumbold come through my site to do a demonstration and education lesson for moringa. Then only a few days ago I brought my village workpartner and three women to a training on commercialization of moringa powder. I'm hoping to do what I did last year and dispense a great quantity of moringa seed. I tried to give out a lot last year but much of it was put in places that goats and chickens and sheep just killed it. So this year I'll make sure to avoid that and some other problems.
       Worked with my new sitemate(person whose site is nearest your own) on doing a girls scholarship program. Met with teachers and nine girls from 13-16 to write short essays on the roles of women and ask questions about home and school. Hopefully when school resumes in October they will each have the ten dollar yearly school fee covered and be given ten dollars worth of notebooks, pens, school supplies, and a backpack. Girls are chosen if they have good grades and a financial need.
       My language has gotten better. I think it's because I've been in site for almost a month without leaving and coming to the city for long periods of time. I feel comfortable talking to people about most stuff and if I don't understand I can ask and follow an explanation. Feeling competent in a second language is really an amazing feeling. It has helped me greatly with work and explaining why things should be done and how. Last year I'd say we should do this or that and someone would reply 'nah I wanna do it this way', and I didn't have the depth to convince them otherwise.
        Not everything is peachy keen. I am not a loud person, or confrontational, but I yelled at someone as loud as I could for whipping her son. He'd done something to upset her and she hit him, which is acceptable, but then she called him to come over and eat lunch. This kid is 4, and she told him to sit and eat, another 20 something guy is telling him to listen or he'll hit him too. The kid sits at the bowl and just holds his hand over it. She keeps telling him to eat but he obviously can't eat cause he's crying too hard and people have just been yelling at him for the last 20 minutes. She grabs a little 2 foot stick, quite thin too, and hits him a few times. A 12yo boy that lives with us actually tries to defend him from some of the blows and says it's enough. I agree and say to no one particular that the 4yo isn't going to eat lunch. The mother tells him to get up and pulls him a few meters away and just starts hitting him as much as she can wherever he's exposed(not head though). People start shouting at her that it's enough, including myself. The 14yo girl that lives with us also gets up and takes the kid away from her and brings him to the other side of the compound. Some other people come over and all start telling her that that was too much. I've never really liked this woman, she's always rough towards kids. Once she asked for someone to bring out a complet(set of clothing) for her baby and the child did exactly as asked. She then berated the kid who brought it to her verbally for no reason that I could discover, referencing the clothing and that it was incorrect. Once when a woman returned to the village for a visit I asked why this other woman had returned and she told me, while laughing, that it was because her husband beat her. That's what happens here, if a man beats his wife she returns to her family for a little while, then goes back to his place. The man who lives in the hut opposite mine within our compound is very harsh with his kids. I'm quite certain a large black eye his daughter had was given by him, although she told me she was stung by a bee. He's harsh with his son, who is really a good kid, but on more than one occasion I've seen him very fearful of his father. Not even just people that have it rough. Kids beat animals for no reason. They don't seem to understand that a smack is sufficient. I recently saw a kid take a long stick and do an overhead strike to a young dog that was lying down doing absolutely nothing. Donkey's are beaten for doing nothing at all. Someone had the brilliant idea that if you tied two of a horses legs together, front left to back left for example, that when removed the horse would run faster. All this does however is ruin the hips and kill the animal at least 5 years earlier than necessary. I watched a donkey get hit by a truck last week. Wasn't moving super fast and didn't kill the donkey but when I saw the donkey a few days later its back leg was swollen at the joint. On my way to the moringa training I saw a smooshed dog and ten km later a young dog lying on the side of the road dead. When waiting for the moringa training I saw three dogs fighting, then realized it was two dogs basically killing a monkey. A kid chased off the dogs but when I returned at midday the monkey was dead. The worst thing about any of this is that it is moving into my perception as normality, and I don't want that. Aid workers in other countries often end up so callused and indifferent it becomes hard to care.
       Then sometimes caring without being informed just makes it worse. Upon learning that female genital cutting happens in this country I was prepared to inform my community 'Stop or I leave'. But what the hell did I know about what actually was going on? Nothing. Turns out there are tons of LEVELS to female genital cutting. The demonized version is a removal of all external parts; labia, clitoris, everything, and then sometimes the hymen is sown even more shut to discourage sexual behavior prior to marriage. The thing is that this is what we westerners think ALL LEVELS actually are, so we try to do everything we can to stop it. But check this, a great woman who works for Peace Corps here and does women's empowerment training and such gave us an insight. When she was a young woman all the older women would exclude her and say 'no you aren't part of our group'. So she tried and tried and eventually the older women said 'very well how would you like to be part of our group'. She and several others were initiated with a ceremony that (PAY ATTENTION) made a small cut on the clitoris and took a drop of blood. Then she was educated briefly on sexuality and what would happen upon marriage and invited into this women's group where should could ask questions and learn about being a woman. Since the west has begun it's uninformed zealous attempt to eliminate all forms of female genital cutting many groups have simply moved all such practices to very young girls, babies. This is more dangerous for the child and also means that all the education and background information are never brought up. Without the foreknowledge and zero organized sex education young girls are quite frighteningly vulnerable. An older male invites them into a room, offers money, it is accepted and then the male asks what he may get in return. What arguments can a poorly educated 14 year old girl make to a older male, especially in a culture which puts even male children above adolescent women, making it very disrespectful to decline requests. Certainly there are bad things that happen, but we have to be careful about how we deal with them.
       I have five months left here. I don't know if I'll come out the kind and caring Dali Lama kind of person I was hoping to become, but for better or worse it's coming. I just read an exquisite book by Barbara Kingsolver called The Poisonwood Bible. HIGHLY recommend to anyone with a little free time. It's an easy to get through fiction about a family that goes to the Congo in the sixties to do missionary work. Tons of parallels to my experiences here. One of the characters simply doesn't feel that she can return home because it would all be so false and ignorant about how much of the world lives. I wonder this for myself sometimes, will I be able to reintegrate to my old lifestyle knowing what happens 'out there'. I'm sure I will because I have video games and friends that will help me to not think about it, but is that what I want, to just not think about it? I'm a pretty clever person so I don't anticipate any huge problems, but I do expect to have lingering side effects. Five months... Just do my work day by day and try to make the attempt to offer informed help. Get to know people in my village better, that kind of stuff. My most excellent work partner who does exactly what a work partner should and is the nicest guy and smart and everything, a few days back his mother passed. Was only last year that one of his wives passed. It's real though. Real isn't only what's real for you. There are other realities out here too.

Vacation?!

Recently the opportunity to return home and visit family and friends after my 15 month absence arose, so I reluctantly agreed. Kidding, returning home was optional and I much enjoyed the change of pace. The change of pace being altering my daily schedule from waking up at sunrise and working all day in the fields and sun to waking up at 3pm because I played computer games all night and slept on Elizan’s couch during the day. My family did get to see me for a short while, but don’t worry family because I’ll be back in 11 months!

Five months prior to returning I was reluctant to make the trip home. At that point I’d been in Senegal for around 10 months and was in a bit of a slump because all of my projects were in their baby stages and I was uncertain and felt unaccomplished. I could only think of myself sitting at the countertop in my grandmother’s house eating a toasted tuna fish and celery sandwich having light conversation with family. Then while sitting there the idea that I needed to return to my hut and continue living the way I had would enter my head make returning a dreadful experience. I wasn’t sure I wanted to return because to go home and dread coming back can all be avoided by simply not going back. That was all vague projections of how I might feel though, and as the time ebbed away I started getting things done and the dread being trapped in comfort and niceties faded.  

On December 15th at 2am I boarded a plane serving sandwiches and breakfast ham(ham… that thing you don’t get to eat in most Islamic countries). Some of the flight and the long trip from my remote village to the airport was used daydreaming about eating corndogs and fast food, bakery goods and sushi. Mentally reviewing what I wanted to do first and that sort of thing. When I did finally touchdown at my final destination my mother and grandmother were waiting all teary eyed. We greeted and exchanged some hugs before heading out to get the car. Not having driven in 15 months I naturally took the keys and proclaimed myself chauffeur. Little know that my first cultural failure awaited me. As we left the parking lot the attendant was owed $4 so I began handing the money out the window, then my Senegal training kicked in and said “CANNOT HAND PEOPLE THINGS WITH LEFT HAND!” so I awkwardly tried to twist around with my right hand, take the money from my left hand and then hand it to the attendant. That was the only noticeable thing I think I did, minus asking people how their families were.

First stop after picking up gram back at the terminal was a grocery store. I’d loved walking around grocery stores before I left for Senegal. I’d walk around and look at all the options and try to think of all the tasty things I could make with so many options, sometimes for 45 min or so while only needing to pick up several things. The pull to return as my first objective was to meander around again looking at the options but having an entirely new level of appreciation. I had fun in the produce section looking at some of the tropical fruits now being privy to how they grow, and naming them in pulaar to my mom. Picked up some eggnog, and a few snacks for the trip home then headed to SUSHI! Met up with some of my Karate instructors at the closest sushi place to my house(150 miles away) and tasted the deliciousness once again over some great conversation. Wrapped up dinner and began the 2.5 hour drive home. Was having a great amount of difficulty staying awake during the last twenty minutes of the trip but still ended up playing games on my computer for 3 hours before going to sleep.

My first week back was a raging storm of meeting all the new babies, catching up with family, and playing games with my friends until 6am. Aliyah, my new niece, is a little bundle of funny stuff, sticking that tongue out and looking like her dad. Michael, my new nephew, is so consistently happy it’s hard to not think he’s the Dalai Lama reincarnate. Ate good food here and there. Oddly I wasn’t very hungry. I would eat a meal and then be content for most of the remainder of the day. Another interesting thing was all the daydreaming I’d done about corn dogs and unhealthy food was completely negated by something new. I would look at something that I wanted mentally and have zero desire to eat it. I attributed this to a familiarity with how foods affect my body. In Senegal if you eat something and it disagrees with you it is much easier to remember what it was. So while home I ended up eating fast food one time and unhealthy stuff like chips and sweets very little. I took a 5 hour road trip to see some friends and my grandmother and every time I stopped for food picked up sandwiches and milks rather than sodas and chips or candy as had been my previous go to on car rides. If anything I’ll be thankful for the alteration in eating habits this voyage has had on me.

I asked my dad if we could go ice fishing at some point during my escapades home. We took a Sunday and drove to camp early in the morning to try and catch a few fish. Arrived and had to plow out the drive, which was a bit iced over and hard to move. Then had trouble with the gas lines because some pieces were forgotten. Ended up running the propane stove and it’s burners to heat the small building on the edge of the lake. Got out the ice auger(drill) and that didn’t want to run. So we were removing the spark plug and putting gas in the cylinder directly, trying to start it, failing, trying again, until the thing actually worked. Went out onto the ice and drilled the ten holes in the ice which was over 1 foot thick. Halfway through drilling the ten holes was when I reflected on how cold it was and that I may have made some bad choices. Double so considering I’ve been living in hot ole Senegal. Next was getting bait though. A 25 min drive north to discover our bait salesman was closed. Return to the nearby down and ask around, the new bait sellers are close to the old one… 25 min back the way we just came. So do that again. Finally return to camp and get our bait all in the water around 11 am. Then a nice reheated beef stew for lunch while watching the windows de-ice so we can see the lake and our traps. Snowing, sometimes heavier sometimes lighter, fading in and out the trees on the opposite side of the lake. Just enough flags on our traps to have a little fun but not become tired from walking in and out to them constantly. The end of the day found us with only a few crap fish and several salmon that were returned because of size limitations. At the end of the day I was very tired from lugging stuff around and trying to put up with the cold(something I hadn’t needed to do for the past 15 months), but otherwise very happy to have spent the day with my dad playing cards and driving around on crazy bait finding adventures.

During my vacation I also felt the desire to show some of the high school kids from my hometown that there were interesting options available with a life sciences oriented education. My original purpose was to talk with the biology and agricultural sciences classes about what I’d been doing to show them some options. I was also asked in to speak to some civics classes since they had recently review the Peace Corps and volunteerism. So I prepared a picture based presentation about what I did, why I chose to do it, and some interesting dynamics about living in another culture. I spoke for 2 days to 13 classes at the high school and was told after that the kids loved it because they were quiet during the presentation, and still talked about it several days after I left. The option was available for me to sleep all day, play computer games, and ignore everyone else, guess I’m a  bad misanthrop.

Before returning I’d heard stories of volunteers having mini panic attacks in malls or becoming overwhelmed by too many stimulus. There was also the slight chance that everything would simply ‘feel weird’ and not like home. I didn’t expect these to be challenges for me because I’ve always lived primarily inside of my head. I think of it like carrying your house around with you at all times. The way I’ve constructed my worldview is the right amount of ‘don’t care’ and ‘whatever’ that, to a great extent, I’m not really bothered by where I am or what’s going on around me. I also like to play games and do things requiring me to process information quickly or keep my eyes on many targets at once so being in crowds, while unfamiliar to the country bumpkin volunteer, isn’t overwhelming because I have continued it in my personal hobbies. I write most of this paragraph to enlighten the question “How does it feel being back?” Honestly I felt as though I’d been gone two weeks. I was able to slide back into what I’d been doing with great ease. I started doing the things which brought me joy 15 months ago and the transition was incredibly smooth for me. I have different experiences and I’m sure that there are differences in who I am and my reactions to things, but I felt the same. Being back didn’t even feel like ‘being back’, it felt like I hadn’t left.

Then of course the time to return to Senegal came around. I did have the desire to return, unfinished projects, good friends and adventures awaiting. The opportunity to continue practicing martial arts and reading all those philosophy books that don’t show up in all the cat videos on youtube where I keep looking for them. Went to Bangor to catch my first flight and had the last meal of Hibachi scallops. Woke up at 4:00 and started packing up the bits and pieces so we could go to the airport. Arrived to find that my first of 4 flights had been cancelled and the next one would put me where I needed to be 45 min after the flight there had left. Stayed calm though and waited in the line and once I got to the desk it turned out there was a flight to my second destination completely bypassing my first destination, also I would arrive there much sooner than intended. Then I had to get a shuttle from Laguardia to Newark and that took two hours. Interestingly if the shuttle had taken two hours on my original schedule I would have spent the remaining 15 minutes in a TSA line and missed that flight. So… good bad things? Anyway I made it to the flight over the Atlantic. Watched a movie and then slept the rest of the way. Arrived in Dakar and tried to get a taxi to the garage. Was having fun trying to speak french to the driver and was able to greet him in his language of Serer. Thought it was nice being back and happy that I’d be out of Dakar soon. Couldn’t quite figure out what it was but there’s something slower and more personal about being here. Then of course things got worse, as they do.

Arrive at the garage, exit car with my first bag and give the driver the 2,000 cfa I thought we agreed upon. He looked disgusted and threw it on the seat like it was going to give him ebola. Apparently ‘dou mil’ had been interpreted by him as ‘dix mil’ and instead of 4 dollars he wanted 20. To put it in perspective the 14km ride to the garage he wanted me to pay the same as the next ride I’d be taking across the entire country of Senegal, about 600km. I told him I wasn’t a tourist and that was ridiculous but to get him to let go of my bag and not be such a huge asshole I did end up throwing down a few more bills up to around 9 dollars. I had thought being back would be all smooth and nice… but nope, can’t get away without a huge dick of a taxi driver in Dakar. At the garage I did fine though. Bought my ticket to Tamba and waited for the car to fill up. Then began the fun 9 hour journey cramped in the back with my legs in a horrible position as the other two guys in the back were bigger than me. Hadn’t gotten a good quality of sleep on the plane and I can’t sleep in cars well either so it was a long trip. Also didn’t get to find food until about 1pm and the last time I’d eaten was 8pm the previous day on the cross Atlantic flight.

Arrived in Tamba at 5:40 pm thinking I’d likely end up sleeping at the Tamba regional house until the next day. I asked around and a car did plan to leave  to kolda though, if it filled up. So I bought my ticket there and wiated. Eventually three guys walked over to me and one of them started talking to me in french. Then the old, “Sorry I don’t know French, talk to me in Pulaar.” So he gave me the verbal itinerary for the two guys he brought with me. I just kept agreeing and saying ok while having no idea why he was talking to me. Then one of them started talking to me in English and they apparently couldn’t understand any of the local languages but had asked for English, so the garage attendant had brought them to me for translation. It was a fun first thing to have to do, playing translator, after having not used Pulaar in three weeks. So we spent a while figuring out what they wanted and what was available. Then they both wanted to shave for some reason. So we found them a barber close by. While they were at the barber a Gendarme (like a military police guy) came up and started talking and yelling with the attendant. After a minute I was like ‘Oh crap, this guy is looking for those other two guys and they just went to get shaved so he wouldn’t recognize them!’ Then a guy comes back completely freshly shaven and is looking at the guard and me a little suspiciously. I started to get a little freaked until the guy I thought he was returns having not shaved at all and he doesn’t seem to care about the guard. Turned out the guard was yelling at the driver and stuff to buy his own ticket… Anyway after some ladies finally agreed on their baggage price we loaded up and were ready to leave. Turns out my two English speaking guys were from Nigeria and they were nice enough to buy me a dinner sandwich because I’d helped them out so much.

We made it pretty far for all the roadblocks we met. Each time the guard in the front would put  on his beret and talk to the guards at the roadblock and we’d get to keep going. Our luck ran out at midnight when the roadblock at my own road town wouldn’t let us through. So I took the key to my neighboring volunteers hut and went and slept there until 5am. Then returned to the blockade to await it’s opening. We started out at 6:30am and I got into Kolda at 8. Two days and an early morning later I was back in familiar territory and happy to be done traveling, saw some friends and felt very comfortable in my surroundings. It’s no fun to not be able to speak to the people around you.  Had a few adventures, a few challenges and all ended up good enough. But that’s why you join Peace Corps or live outside the U.S., for crazy stuff like that which you have figure out how to overcome. Here or there, challenges come up and you take em or you fail and have to try again. C’est la vie. That is life.