Wonna Gottum

                The title is Pulaar for ‘not something’ which they interpret as ‘not the same’, and my purpose for writing is because I would like to write a bit here on some of the differences between cultures and regions. Where I have grown up and the social normalities and cultural subtleties that surrounded me for the initial part of my life are not now the ones that accompany me on my daily adventures in this environment where I presently reside.

                Prior to moving here to this West African country of Senegal I attempted to refrain from any preconceptions of what my new environment might be like. I tried to look at the situation economically. Why would I put energy into imagining something which was, in all likelihood, only sitting on the edges of possibility to accurately perceive without yet experiencing? Although try as I might some notions did creep into my mind prior to the relocation, but I remember little of them now because the solidity of the reality pushes out the preconceptions due to their misty and vague nature.

                Some interesting oddities of Pulaar are how they count money. Each increment is multiplied by 5. Buying an item that is worth 500cfca results in the shopkeeper asking for 100, and similarly 200 would be stated for an object costing 1000cfca. As one can imagine translating the numbers of a new language into their own familiar language and then multiplying and then translating back is a hassle and double so when anything purchased from a vendor that doesn’t have a permanent stand or building should be bargained over. This means that multiple numbers are being thrown around and will need to be multiplied in order to keep track of the bargain price each step of the way. The exceedingly nice thing about this region is that everything is very inexpensive. Typically the only thing I could want to buy is food and I can only really do that when at my road town 7km from my village. Most singular food items are less than 200cfca and larger quantities are still less than 800cfca. The transfer rate for fcfa and American dollar is 450cfca to 1 dollar. So I can buy a nice breakfast of a bean and egg sandwich with mayonnaise and a local tea which I enjoy, called kinkilliba, for about 80 cents American. The bigger cities have prices which run more along the lines of a modern European or American city.
               The language of Pulaar also has some interesting grammatical oddities. Articles, the a/an, for English are of 23 different varieties in Pulaar. The article for sun in Pulaar is different than the article for body. The sun = naange nge and the body is bandu ndu. The repetitive ending is often times the article but not always. Since some words do not follow the 'just use the ending' rule you actually have to know what the article is for every noun if you want to say it correctly. One specifically annoying component of the language is that almost every noun has a singular form and a plural form that is so different it is unrecognizable. This results in the necessity that one must learn almost twice as much vocabulary for Pulaar as one would for English. Here are some examples; Dog/dogs = Rawandu/dawaadi, Week/weeks = yontere/jonte, Man/men = gorko/worbe, woman/women = debbo/rowbe. Some words need only to have ji added, such as baby/babies = bobo/boboji, but mostly this applies to words derived from a foreign language; ie. bebe-bobo. 

                A rather peculiar sight in Senegal is the affectionate touching and hand holding that takes place between members of the same sex. When viewed in the light that homosexuality is illegal in this country it makes the subject quite thought provoking. Do people feel comfortable demonstrating affection because they know that anything more is forbidden so any attention is purely platonic, or did the high degree of same sex affection arise separately from the law forbidding only homosexuality? A common sight in this country is for young men to be walking down the street holding hands. Men that would, in America, be almost defiantly opposed to the slightest implication of any homosexual behavior on their behalf. Watching these events are one thing but you have to remember that I live here now and for a time, and that anything the locals do among themselves they will also perceive as perfectly acceptable to do with me. So often among children and young males they will try to hold hands with me or be otherwise very close physically and due to my American notions I often do not find these interactions comfortable. I think this is less because of the homosexual perception and more that I am unaccustomed to anyone touching me at all so it feels odd when anyone does.

                On the note of human interactions hospitality and neighborly conduct is perceived vastly differently here than in America. Multiple times I have been asked by people I don’t know to come and eat with them while just walking down the road. You might pass this off as an unusual greeting that lacked true intent but in reality either of those times I could have accepted and walked into a random person’s compound and eaten a meal with their family. One of the five tenants of Islam is to give alms which can be done in the form of food or money for the poor. But the actions I have observed thus far have been more than the commands of their theistic ideologies. People here are willing to share everything they have with complete strangers. I’ve heard many stories of other volunteers being stranded in a strange place for a night and a simple question of ‘hey can you help me out tonight?’ led to a bed and warm meal from a stranger. I know that some families have hardly enough for themselves but walking around anywhere near mealtime means you will be bombarded by the request to come and eat "Ar nyam". The concept is odd because in America we think that if anyone tries to share then you attract individuals that would rather leech on the generous than generate anything. I often wonder what the real percentage of leeches would be if America tried this sharing mentality.

                A most interesting part about living in any part of the world that isn't America is that so many people are bilingual or more multilingual than 2 or 3. Many people here know 3 languages and parts of several others. I know my perceptions upon arriving here is that to be taught only one language almost cripples an individual. I’m trying to pick up Pulaar to use in my village and French to use in the bigger cities that speak primarily Wolof and French, but at my age the brain is less adept at ingesting a new language. Honestly it seems my brain is only programmed to work in one language while my new neighbors are more flexible. One of the most difficult things I have run into is when someone says a sentence to me and one word is in butchered English or French (of which I only know a tiny amount). My brain is working so hard to try and focus on all the Pulaar words I know that partially misspoken English words just kill my understanding of the whole sentence. After these experiences I want my kid/s to be bilingual at least, hopefully I’ll be adept enough with French eventually to teach them myself. Funny tidbit one of the gentlemen from my group has lived his whole life in France and made it into the American Peace Corps only because his mother is American and he is in possession of dual citizenship. The thing I was proud of is that he has several times complimented my accent when I attempt French within his hearing.

                I guess the last little fun differential I shall give you all for now is public transportation. If you want to go somewhere you first get to the ‘garage’ of the city you are in. To get to the garage you just wait on the side of the road for a taxi and tell it to take you to the garage, or you walk. When there you find a vehicle headed to your destination. There are tons of seven passenger cars that travel faster but are more expensive than the slower modes. These sept-places as they are called run from the departure to destination typically without stopping to pick up passengers. There are 15-24 passenger vans that depart and pick up anyone on the side of the road who flags it down before it is full and they get off whenever they want. This makes most journeys on them quite slow as you tend to stop frequently. There are also a handful of night busses that are what you would consider a standard concord coach in America and they run mostly at night but will run during the day as well. They are on the expensive side but quite comfortable in comparison to the other means of transport. If you are out in the middle of nowhere and desire transportation you must find a main road and wait for one of the busses to drive by and just flag it down and tell them your destination. Also bags that you do not intend to keep on your lap (which may be several based on how lightly you travel) you need to bargain for the price of carrying the bag on top of the vehicle or in a trunk space. This is because the driver will keep an eye on bags that have been paid for to ensure that they are not stolen. Lastly each vehicle looks as if it had set in a junkyard for 10 years before the owner decided to try and drive it. Finding a taxi with a non-broken windshield is somewhat of a rarity and all passengers are in constant peril of flat tires, engine failure, or some form of accident due to the utter lack of both road rules and any formalized driving education. Fun times though.

                Here are some random fun facts that didn’t quite require a full paragraph. People here do not use toilet paper. They keep water near the bathroom and use the left hand and water to rinse. I prefer keeping a bar of soap VERY close to my bathroom, being a literal hole in the ground. Some more fancy places actually have a porcelain ‘turkish’ toilet, basically a fancy hole in the ground that sorta flushes if water goes down it and has a place for you to stand. As the left hand is often… ‘unclean’ it is impolite to hand or accept anything to anyone with that hand. Similarly it is extremely impolite to eat with one’s left hand. People here eat with their right hand out of a large community bowl. Meals are prepared to a texture that can be scooped and formed into a ball then placed in the mouth. Typically 3-12 people sit around each bowl all eating at the same time. Greetings are also another difference. It is very impolite to refrain from greeting most people in a formal setting. Obviously this is non-applicable when walking down a crowded city street but if you walk into a shopkeepers or intend to speak with someone or pass by a person whom you see regularly they expect a small exchange of words before you depart or attempt to talk business with them.

                Well that’s some of the things that come to mind for interesting things and I know I’m forgetting a load of them but I’ll have time to communicate them later. Good evening ya’ll.

Heaping Helpings of Perspective

                Senegal is a country struggling to break its bonds of the old world and be counted among its ‘Developed’ sister countries, though, as of yet, it is still in need of some assistance in several areas. The desire to maintain roots in traditional living styles means close knit, and often extremely rural, village communities function as the domestic mode of living for many Senegalese. The drawbacks of such a lifestyle are that medicines and education are difficult to make readily available. Malaria is prevalent in Senegal and much of Africa. My village of Pidirou lost 4 individuals within the past year to Malaria and other such causes that might have been easily avoided with a small degree of medical education or access to medications. Yet for all which Senegal is still in needs, it has, for a first world foreigner such as me anyway, heaping helpings of perspective.

                The train of thought that led me into this quandary on perspective was initiated in a rather odd manner. During one of our stays with our Training Host Families two of my language learning compatriots and me began our short trek to the garden for its afternoon watering. On the walk we passed a rather uncharacteristically plump Senegalese man wearing sunglasses who had adopted a rather unusually relaxed pose leaning on a half wall with either arm resting on the wall behind him. As customary politeness dictates in this culture we greeted him as we passed and were then forced to turn around in surprise as he questioned us in our own English language in such an accent and manner as to remove from our minds any doubt that he could have had any other language from birth and so singularly distinct from that accent distinguishing all individuals from the Greatest of Britains.

                We held discourse for a time in front of the small mosque he had been waiting near perusing the common subjects of origin and purpose to being in a foreign country. He had seen us prior to this introduction moving back and forth to water our garden from his rooftop and was mildly curious what our purposes and occupations were.  Our friend walked with us to the garden and communicated that he was originally from Jamaica and had spent some 40 odd years as a truck driver visiting all manner of places within the United States. The man also enjoyed talking and we listened and interjected little for forty minutes while he hit on all manner of topics. The Trucker had spent his youth in Jamaica and decided to move to the States because he was tired of needing to sleep with guns under his pillows for safety, a similar mentality actually brought him to Senegal. We talked of exquisite foods which we are deprived of and his religious nature as well as the Senegalese and the lifestyles of children. Children of all ages run around the streets playing for hours with old tires, makeshift kites, and miscellaneous pieces of objects whose purposes have long since been forgotten.  In between the topics of delectable food and the meanderings of children Mr. Trucker spoke about how being in Senegal really put perspective on the blessings afforded to our mere luck in region of birth.

                After our parting we initiated our search for tree seeds as a sort of homework assignment and as if to cement the concepts of differential perspectives into my mind we met the nicest Senegalese gentlemen. While pulling seeds off some tree branches hanging over the wall of a half acre compound with barbed wire at the top a man approached us with an inquisitive air and several languages which we did not well comprehend. He seemed to beg us to wait a moment and as we were partially considering the possibility that we were to be chastised were less than keen to oblige him, but we waited and a minute later he returned with a key and unlocked the large compound, revealing it to be a large garden. Besides being large the garden was also very beautiful and well tended. Rows of bissap filled much of the empty space between the fruit trees of citrus, and guava. He gifted us a lime each and a small bucketful of dried bissap flowers for we three. After thanking him as best we could in a common language which was neither the first language of either group we departed.

                Such a day as this needed to be recalled so I wrote much of these events within a journal for future pondering, although they occur approximately a month prior to the writing of this document. Perspective is a concept which I expressly enjoy. What would be light without dark, joy without pain, relaxation without effort? Each thing, good or bad, would assume the baseline, or standard by which all other experiences were judged, and thus render them less valuable. To have the opportunity to see and experience all of the things that I do here in Senegal is so awesome because it functions to make all memories past and future actions dramatically more vibrant. Such perspective as I have gained and have yet to gain may seem exaggerated merely due to the fact that I am in Africa, but if I may be so ostentatious as to assume the role of advice distributor I would tell you that such alterations of perspective are available to you as well. Often people begrudge the mundane or difficult but without them how little would we enjoy the easy and exciting? I may be characterized as oft cheerful and comical, but this is because everything looks so fascinating and beneficial when you take a second to look at it. Doing the dishes every day is not a lowly chore it is a component of the differential in perspective that allows you to enjoy other things within your life. It is for this reason that most of the time I enjoy such things as many disdain. I like washing the dishes because then the movie I watch afterward is slightly better.

`               I think this is the first Thanksgiving I have spent away from family and my apologies to them for not being sad about it, but I find little to be upset about. I sought out the opportunity for unique experiences and have so found them. I spent this Thanksgiving with new friends making great food on the edge of the beautiful ocean and being subjected to magnificent sunsets and amazing stars. I hope lastly that a small percentage of my perspective might assist any readers in brightening up their own lives. The following pictures are some of my most favorite from these past several days on the beach. 

I think this is one of my favorite captured sights ever. 

        An ideal idea to be contemplated on, or near, Thanksgiving wouldn't you say? 

If you had my eyes.

This here is a sweet map painted on a wall in the Theis Training Center which is up near the Dakar Peninsula and where I've been doing almost all my training. After training I'm headed to Kolda in the south and I'll be living below the A and not too far from the southern border.

This is a little road we drive by each time we go to our Host Families. You can see some of the signature Boabob trees. The Senegalese use the leaves in many sauces and the fruits as well when they are ripe. Also they loosely believe that the trees hold spirits.

I liked this valley a lot. It's nice to

This is a little compound we drove by on the way to Kolda for the initial visit. Also as a stoic introduction my thoughtful buddy Scott le.

Here is some of the different countryside on the way to Kolda.

This is an excellent cow pasture/field about a kilometer southwest of my village which I very much enjoy and hope to spend many an afternoon in the grasses watching the wold go by and reading.

More of the same field.

Some rice growing near a stream a few km from my village.

One of the mornings we took a walk and saw some men harvesting millet. They step on the base to bend it over and then cut off the top and gather them into these bunches. Then pound them and eat them for dinner!

This hut to the right may be the one I'll live in for two years. Not a bad setup if ya ask me.

Glimpses of the Future

      We woke up at 5 am one the morning of the 25th of October and loaded a ~20 person Peace Corps bus with bicycles and bags necessary for the 4 day trip to visit our future site or something similar. We dropped people off along the road where they met up with a current volunteer to guide them around the region and show them what the next two years might be like. It was late afternoon when I exited the bus to find a tall guy with tape on either side of his thick glasses, who would be showing me where he had lived for the past two years and where I would live for the next two. We borrowed a bike from Tasha, the health volunteer stationed in Mampateen(the nearest town with a paved road to my site) and took off on a small dirt road, at times simply a path, through the African brush.

The gentleman who I am replacing, Tucker so called, and myself, pedaled through tall grasses and trees occasionally passing people and fields of cotton, peanut, sorghum, and corn. We stopped and took a short walk through some shorter grass and looked at a rather disorganized garden of banana trees a few tall palms and some other small trees. Tucker had selected the owner of this farm as a promising work partner for me and we had been hoping to meet him at his garden. When we failed to locate him we returned to the bikes and finished the 7km ride to the village passing more concentrated fields of the above mentioned crops as the village came into view.

Tucker had passed his two years living with the family of Dembo Balde, son of the chief of the village. We entered and began the very long process of greeting every person over the age of 16ish who we met. Each greeting consists of about 6 back and forth wordings of “how are you”- “peace only the (time of day) is without evil”. Also the day is split into six or so parts and each part has it’s own special greetings. We greeted and unloaded the bikes behind Tucker’s hut. The hut was about 2.5m diameter with a cement wall going up about 5.5 feet, the roof is thatched on top of bamboo sticks that come to a point making the building about 12 feet tall.  A bamboo bed and chair as well as a wooden desk chair combo furnish the small space. Two traveling trunks also provide storage area with a bit of protection from bugs, humidity, and likely children who may wander in.

The sun set soon after our arrival delaying the much anticipated introductions. I was informed that the village was excited to meet me. We were seated and provided with kosam(a sour milk with sugar added, hopefully,) and lecceri (pronounced lechery) which is a pounded sorghum that is cooked and often served with a watery leaf sauce. The food was good and apparently far more nutritious than the rice I had become accustomed to eating for almost every meal prior to arriving in village. Tucker and I ate by flashlight while Dembo sat with us and they made light conversation in Fulakunda. After I took a pretty sweet bucket shower in the backyard of Tucker’s hut beneath the stars and thought to myself “I could get used to this”. The remainder of the night was spent lying on a supported bamboo mat talking with Tucker about the village, it’s people, and his projects that he worked on over the past few years.  Then bed.

Woke up at 6:45 just as the sky began to grow light. Started the long process of greeting the rest of the village. Considering I couldn’t even remember the people I had met the night before I had already resigned to the fact that remembering more than two or three names would be useless. We took a break after an hour or so and walked 100m outside of the village to the East to admire the baobab grove consisting of 7 or so of the massive trees. The rest of the morning was spent greeting and talking to the important people in each of the family compounds and getting to know some of the important points such as the blacksmith’s workshop.

After a late lunch, everyone eats lunch at around 2pm, of sorghum pounded into a slightly finer consistency we took the bikes to see the farmer whose garden we had stopped at the night before. He was present this time and we chatted for a bit and he showed us the part of his garden where he wanted my help establishing a live fence to keep out animals. The three of us walked back to his village, which is between my village of Pidirou and the road town of Mampateen, where we looked at his peanut and millet crop.

Next we returned to Pidirou to check in on a project Tucker was rather displeased with involving a mildly incompetent mason and a basin and some piping. Once the sun went down we visited a man on the other side of the village, who Tucker had also selected as a very promising work partner, and we discussed his garden and made arrangements to look at it the next morning. We ate a little bit of supper with Walli’s family and then returned to our family compound… for a second supper. This was followed by some more stargazing an excellent night shower and bed.

The second morning we visited Walli’s garden and apparently made arrangements for him to extend his garden and buy and plant some vegetables so that I could take over when I returned a month later. I felt really productive that I’d have a project already half started when I arrived and some volunteers hadn’t even seen their villages yet. Once this meeting was over Tucker and I took a long walk that must have been 4 miles and began by going south into a large cow pasture that was bordered on the south by the small seasonal river that swells intensely during the rainy season. We walked along this river as it ran northeast along the village and then looped back around ending in some rice fields and meeting some men as they harvested sorghum. As we passed some other individuals harvesting sorghum a woman picked several peanut plants and gave them to me as a gift.  

I spent the afternoon writing about the recent events, taking a small nap, and doing a bit of homework that had been assigned to me. Ah yes before I forget this was also the morning that while on our way to visit Walli’s garden I thought it would be very entertaining to ride a donkey. Turns out it is very entertaining, although the word to stop the donkey only seems to slow it down in small increments and just as I repeated it enough to get the donkey to slow down the same kid who had suggested the ride whipped the donkey and effectively doubled the length of my mini morning adventure. After dinner I engaged in an excellent philosophy based discussion with Tucker (who had a bachelors and masters in the subject) while laying on one of the bamboo mats staring at the sky.

The final morning in the area was spent in mampateen visiting some people who Tucker knew and seeing another farmer who desired my assistance implementing a live fence around his mango orchard. Then we jumped on a 20 person bus that didn’t belong to the Peace Corps and began the 90km journey into the regional capital of Kolda city for the welcoming party that the volunteers who’d been in country already were throwing for us. Regrettably non PC buses stop to pick up anyone who wants to be picked up wherever they are along the road until it is full, and is much more sketchy and uncomfortable and took 4 hours to make the journey that I could probably bike in 2 hours.

We spent the afternoon hanging out in a very nice hotel’s pool for free with access to a full service poolside bar. The evening was full of a pig roast at the regional house where volunteers from the region can go to get internet access or can go to stay a night and chill while watching movies and just unwind. After the food everybody dressed in their toga, as a toga party is obviously needed, and we had a killer party. The day after we loaded the bus before sunup and were traveling until 45 min past sundown.

As an afterword what I’ll be doing in my site is to help farmers and interested individuals implement newer agricultural practices to increase crop yields in a sustainable manner. Which can be anything from grafting mango and citrus trees, planting live fences which do not need to be replaced every few years like traditional fences, and helping diversify gardens with new crops, help keep them healthy with natural pesticides, and try to educate the village about nutrition. I’m really excited to start my work and have the free time to do random village stuff, ie ride a donkey, and read my books and practice martial arts. At this point I am very hopeful that the choice to come here will be extraordinarily well reasoned, rewarding, and provide me with mountains of personal growth. 

First Perceptions

                Fist perceptions of Africa… it’s hot. We exited the plane and headed to the terminal to pass through a security and fingerprinting station.  After collecting bags and shaking hands with the PC country director we packed onto buses for the two hour ride from Dakar to Thies. The ride was odd for several reasons, we had little sleep on the eight hour plane ride and arrived late because Air Force One had been at our departing airport, freezing all take offs for about an hour and a half. So, sleep deprived, we took in our first sights of Senegal, our home for the next two years.  The streets are lined with trash and random piles of it dot the sidewalks because there is no organized sanitation department.  The houses are constructed of cinderblocks and mortar; most look so similar it is difficult to orient oneself. There are beat up cars doing as they please in a country with no road rules. Any road straight enough and empty enough where one might build up speed has a giant speed bump every km or so to keep people from driving too fast. Thin sheep and horses drawing carts dot the city streets while cows and other animals appear sporadically throughout the suburbs and rural areas. I was surprised to find that the general odor of the air wasn’t unpleasant. The allure to this part of the country for me has been the countryside. Huge half a century old Boab trees dot the landscape otherwise dominated by short bushes. There is a fairly clear distinction between vast open areas and small cities.

                We arrived at the Theis (pronounced chi-es) training center and began lessons on culture and an array of safety concerns and other such things. During the following days we had 1 on 1 meeting to discuss language and technical skills as well as placement preference. I communicated a desire to be somewhere small and rural. The area which everyone worried about most extensively was the area we all needed to work on the most, language. So obviously they needed to digest the interview information and figure out where we should be put… meaning we didn’t find out which language we should even start to learn until we’d been here a week already. Also for reference the country is loosely split into the arid hot dry north and the jungle humid south. They also don’t tell us where we’ll be spending our two years until we’ve been in country for several months so they can observe our strengths and weaknesses.

                Well after the first 4 days or so we were informed of what language we would be learning. This was interesting because from the language you can somewhat identify what region of the country you will be placed in for two years. I am learning Fulakunnda… a dialect of Pulaar, and that means I will most likely be in the Kolda region in the center of the country below The Gambia, a jungle region with many interesting plants and animals, I am quite excited about this for your information. Well anyway we are told our language and have about 2.5 hours of language training… then they take us 20km away and drop us off with a host country family for 5 days so we can learn everything first hand. That… was an intense experience. You arrive and they take your bags and show you a room, then you sit around smiling while people talk at you and you haven’t the slightest idea what is going on. I wasn’t actually even nervous, I thought the whole thing was somewhat comical really. Well my host family is my Baaba(father) and his three wives and their kids and I think some of their kids… numbering around 25 in total… all living in a walled compound 12m squared. It’s a bit hectic but I like the kids so far and the older adults are nice to me. In Senegal eating is done from a communal bowl. As many as 10 people sit around a bowl of rice and fish or meat and eat with their right hand or occasionally a spoon. Right hand is for eating and left hand is for toilet paper so…. Yeah.  It’s also impolite to hand or take anything with the left hand. Morning prayer is at 6 and there are loudspeaker calls at 5am or so. It’s a different environment all around.  Although it can be very similar at times too.

                I found humor to be a wonderful ally. I informed my host mother that I was 25 and she thought that was funny, then I told her I wasn’t married and she thought that was hilarious. Also foreigners are called Tubob and we hear it frequently from children. I have taken to pointing at myself and asking confusedly “me tubob? No no no, you’re a tubob, I’m Senegalese”(as best I can in my local language) and people seem to think that is hilarious. There’s tons more information but this room, despite it being like 9pm, is exceedingly hot.  So I’ll throw in a some more cool stuff and hopefully pictures eventually. Sorry for lack of communication the internet when available is quite spotty.

Sayonara States

       Well here I am in a hotel in Philadelphia. Waiting for several buses to transport us to New York so we may begin the long flight overseas. In small groups we ventured out last night in search of final comforts by means of food and what I was told was 'good beer'. I took note to savor the warm shower and large comfortable towels provided to us this morning. Last minute mementos that will hopefully help get me through the rough times of illness or particularly nasty spells of loneliness.

       I would like to communicate that one of my stresses for this trip was the constant contact with many other people who I had assumed would be far more sociable than myself, and while that is true I do not find myself in distress. Perhaps it is my own self growth that has permitted me to function easily or maybe the companions of my trip are merely as relaxed and open minded as I hope I am.

        I have met a great many interesting people in the two days since this trip has begun. People who have done ranching, and park rangers, and even a guy who ran with the bulls in Spain. Most of whom are my own age, although the elderly couple who served 30 years ago in the Philippines together (and met there) are quite cute together.

       Well that's all I have for now. Internet connections and so on may be less reliable in the future so I thought I'd throw in a few words a what I could when I could. And just so ya know... I'm not even nervous. I was nervous a few weeks ago, but right now all I sense is a tinge of excitement at the prospect of everything which lies before me. Bon voyage moi.

Mounting Difficulties

       I've yet to set foot on a plane and I'm already having troubles. Medical clearance is all due within 3 days. I have been working on it for the past six weeks. Dental work, physical examination, blood work, immunization shots and proofs. The Dental work was easy, with my relatively lax work schedule I was able to fit into canceled appointments the next day. The rest... hasn't been as smooth.

       One of my biggest problems arose from a website which is only sometimes compatible with my chosen web browser. This website has a great deal of information and 'how to's' relevant to many of the things I need to do, passport and visa application guidelines for instance. Well after a few unsuccessful tries to access this website when it was given to me three or so months ago... it fell into obscurity and I had forgotten about it until last week. While reading I discovered a single piece of paperwork that needed to accompany my passport application, as well as something I had done wrong with my visa application. Both of which had been mailed out the day before. Submitting new forms was not an option considering the 20 dollars worth of passport pictures accompanying the parcels, as well as my current, unduplicatable, passport.

       Knowing government agencies to be the giant balls of bureaucracy that they are I realized that upon finding incorrect forms they would likely hold onto them for six weeks before returning them to me, effectively ensuring that I would be unable to resubmit them prior to my scheduled departure. Never one to give up I did a little research and discovered that UPS permits changes to delivery addresses while the package is en route, there was hope. I spent a few hours figuring out how to do this only to find that the account which had printed the label alone could alter the address, and upon calling the outlet I used to ship from discovered the attendant didn't even know such a thing was possible. I looked up a step by step guide and walked her through the procedure to redirect the packages back to me. Crisis averted, although mailing the items cost 20 dollars, redirecting them cost 50, and I'll need to pay again to send them out a second time.

     Acquiring documentation of immunizations has been quite a chore as well. I was first directed to my high school records, which of course everyone working within the school system is on summer vacation and unable to help me at all. Two weeks of phone calls between a primary care provider, two hospitals, and a walk in clinic that supposedly has my records turned into a fun carousel of each directing me to the next or back to the vacant high school. When I finally did manage to get my grubby little hands on a form all it says is (Disease), which according to my Peace Corps nurse informant is insufficient. Here I managed to outwit chaos by discovering that a blood test can be done to confirm the word (Disease), basically giving me another piece of paper which I can use as proof.

      I know such things are supposed to stress a person out but I find myself somewhat enjoying these shenanigans. People often complain or suffer from apparent crippling distress when anything becomes difficult, but life is supposed to be comprised of difficulty. If everything was easy we wouldn't have any reason to desire improvement. Some people think that what they desire is the victory itself, and if that's the case I suggest you repeatedly play your preferred game against a two year old. You'll likely win every time, but you don't feel the same because it didn't challenge you. What challenges us forces us to improve if we choose to work towards overcoming something.

       Here is a paragraph on perfection from something else I wrote. " Humans will never be the perfect lovers or engineers because perfection is unattainable. It is merely a concept we have constructed to describe the upward border of progress. Many times a cartoon will depict an animal chasing its preferred food tied with string to a stick attached to the animal, as the animal moves forward so does the food. Humanity is in this comical scene and perfection is tied to the string. With each step forward we never close the gap between ourselves and perfection. Yet the concept gives us something to move towards. Although we will never reach perfection it remains at the top giving us something to set our sights on, without it we would lack a clear objective, and have no motivation to move forward."

       So while I find some of these things difficult I also find joy in them, because they facilitate the transition from what I am to what I wish to eventually become, and it is this mentality that will be my secret weapon against hopelessness for all of the difficulties I will undoubtedly encounter throughout my two years of Peace Corps service.

Miscellaneous Information for Friends and Family

Presented here are some links and bits of odd information one might find interesting.

       A link to a Handbook for volunteer families. Probably applicable to friends as well though.
On the Homefront

   
        This is an overview of the country and so on that was given to me, but you might find interesting.
Senegal Welcome Book

        Here is the address I will be at during my first few months of training.

Your address during training will be:
PCT Thomas Barnes
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 299
Thiès, Senegal
West Africa

       Several proposed packing lists.
pre-arrival-packing-list
mike-toso-s-minimalist-packing-guide

       A look at possible living conditions.
MTV-Cribs-Africa

       A PC Senegal Calander
Calendar

       Pictures! Hundreds of them.
photos

       Audio clips of current volunteers.
Ourvoicesoursenegal.tumblr


       I'll probably add some quick reference numbers and additional material to this over the next few months.

Where It Began

       The name of this blog represents the mentality by which I try to live. Agnosia is from an ancient Greek word and means 'absence of knowledge' or 'ignorance'. The second word is the french word 'but'. Together I hoped they would portray me as aware of my own shortcomings, but searching for the knowledge to increase my human potential.

       These writings are to share my experiences, revelations, and hardships pertaining to Peace Corps service with anyone who might be so inclined to care, or anyone wishing to live vicariously through my actions.

       The first question I usually get in regard to my choice is 'why?' While many motivations directed me to this choice, my typical answer is that I wished to test myself. I've spent the last five years of my life improving my mind and training my body. Through the process though I had forgotten something, I'd forgotten that the reason I was progressing wasn't for the sake of progress itself, but because if I stopped now to work on myself then in the future I would be better able to help out my fellow man. This realization occurred to me about a year and a half ago, and wouldn't I be so lucky as to have a friend join the Peace Corps at the same time. 

       Such an undertaking had not crossed my mind, yet upon examination everything fit perfectly. I'd been training and working for four years but didn't really have any means of evaluating my efforts. The Peace Corps presented such a challenge, with an exquisite bonus of helping people to be the primary objective of Peace Corps service. Everything seemed to fit on the macro, and being the thorough individual that I am I started looking at the small things too. Service seemed fiscally responsible, everything is paid and loans are deferred for the duration of service. I wasn't in a relationship and had no plans to start one. I'd likely pick up a foreign language and not only see parts of the world but really live them. I'd be without the usual companions but I spend most of my time alone or in my head anyway, not much of a change really. Background reading revealed that excessive amounts of down time would be likely, perfect for reading and training in an environment lacking internet and modern distractions. What's not to love?

       A year has passed and I am two months away from departure. Paperwork, planning, and packing lists dominate my mind, Doctors visits and immunization shots occupy my time, and excitement mixed with unease seep into my demeanor. One could say to me "You'll have a tale or two to tell when you come back."