A year ago today I woke up for the second time in this country, befuddled, hot and suffering from a miserable head cold. Apparently my body decided to mark the occasion by having me relive the head cold part. Well, okay, it is really hot too, but I can deal with that. Head cold just makes it all that much worse.
But I'm not writing this blog to talk about head colds.
I remember having my site visit in April last year, looking at my host and all those other volunteers that were already a year in and thinking: they've got it together and they are so lucky they are half way done. Now I'm in that position - at least so far as that I have 12 months under my belt - and I do not feel at all that I have 'it together'. Perhaps they did not either, last year, but because of their ease of moving through the country and speaking to locals that I just thought they did. Impression is everything.
Will the new volunteers that come for their own visits next month think I have it all together?
I look at the year or so ahead of me (13 1/2 months to be more specific) and I wonder how I will fill it. I finally got the Malaria program put together for my health post which starts this month with murals and goes through June (one thing a month). But my plans for getting a well for the middle school are now over. A real school is actually going to be built by an NGO in the next couple months, which will include a well and latrines. So I will need to figure out some new ideas - perhaps some hygiene games on hand washing and such? - to fill up my time.
So, what will the next 400 days involve? What will I be doing? Who will I meet? How many more times will a man tell me that I need to have a husband and children or else I will dishonor my family? How many mangos will I manage to eat in one day? Will I ever win the battle against mosquitoes? Will my new computer survive the desolation of African weather? (My laptop that I brought from America has just recently given up the ghost. It is old - at 5 years - but I thought it would last a bit longer than 2 months. So now I will get a new one in California and pray to God a brand new, young thing will survive 11 months in this environment)
In the same way that I do not feel old enough to be a month shy of 26, I do not feel ready to be the '2nd year' volunteer that is supposed to help guide and aid new volunteers. But then, maybe the volunteers that are leaving now felt the same way last year when us newbies came. It is said that nothing is new under the sun; my feelings certainly are not unique on this particular subject. Perhaps there is some consolation in not being alone feeling the way I do.
Then again, there is a certain feeling of: "What? 12 months? Well, if I can do that, what's another 13 more? I'm still alive aren't I? Bring it on!" Despite all the downs in the last year, there have been quite a few ups and days of feeling like I have actually made some difference in my little village. So why not try to make one or two more differences - no matter how small - in the time I have left?
The school that is being built could provide a great opportunity for those little differences. The reason why this middle school is at last being built is because the bamboo structures that served as classrooms and the 'office' for the director burned down. To ash.
It happened a couple weeks ago and apparently ended up in the news. I was away in Dakar for my knee so I didn't know anything had happened until the Security guy for the Peace Corps came and told me about it. Afterwards there was this big to-do, where the national minister for education came to Badion.
Yeah, that's right. The big wig from Dakar who had never been south of the Gambia in his life came down in an entourage of cars to speak to my little village. There he promised to get a real school built and then talked about the importance of keeping kids in school, etc. The usual stuff. My interest in this particular event revolved around two people I met during the Minister's visit.
One was a personal adviser for the Minister who lived in America for 15 years, studied in Boston for is Bachelors and Master's degrees. He had only returned to Senegal in January and was still getting back into the swing of things. Since I'm white and I stick out like a sore thumb, he instantly approached me and asked me about my life, my work and what it is like to live in a rural community. But he also asked about the every day lives of the people in the village. What are their lives like? he asked me. What do they eat? What problems and challenges do they face? Do parents encourage their kids to go to school? Or do they keep them at home?
This man grew up in Dakar before going to America. He didn't know what it was like to live in the Senegal beyond Dakar and he loathed the fact that officials, students and everyday people in Dakar didn't have the slightest idea how the other 95% of the population lived. I've never heard anyone from Dakar talk this way so openly about the egregious disconnect between Dakar and the rest of the country so I was elated and eager to talk to him about his own impressions and goals in his new work. "Dakar is just like America," he told me. "At least in mentality and expectations. They care only about themselves and don't even think about the rest of the people who live here. I want the Minister to continue these visits. Maybe on a monthly basis. To go out all over to a few communities; to hear their concerns; see the way they live; how difficult it is to move around and get access to essential needs."
I could have hugged him.
He also mentioned the existence, at least on paper, of a national youth civil service program. Theoretically high school students from big cities - especially Dakar - would be required to spend a certain amount of time during their rainy season vacation in poor, rural communities doing volunteer work, education and trainings with younger students in the rural setting. It is a program that does not actually operate in real life but this adviser wants the Minister to resurrect it and put it into practice. "These kids in Dakar and St. Louis and other well off cities, they will go to University and will end up in charge of the country. Perhaps if they spend some time building relationships with families and communities outside of the riches of Dakar, they will remember and do something to help them once they are in a position to do so."
If only there were 1000 more of this man.
Delighted by this conversation I next ran into a man who was the director of supplies for the schools. A more opposite specimen of Senegalese than the man I just spoke to could not be found. "I am a real Senegalese," he told me in his strained English. "I'm not like these Pulaars. I only speak Wolof, French and some English." It took all my strength not to lash out and perhaps shove his pompous head into the window of his air conditioned car. "These people are better than you," I said in Pulaar, enjoying his confused look. "You don't understand?" I asked him, this time in English. He said no, of course not. "Too bad," I said with a shrug and walked away.
Even after all the grief I've been given by the people in my village, I will defend them to the last. They can be rude, obnoxious and down right mean, but they opened their homes, their lives, their faults and their dreams to me. There is little pretension or arrogance (at least that they can get away with now that know them so well). Their lives are a hardship every day and they've taught me how to live the same. We make fun of each other, play pranks and drink tea together.
'Real' Senegalese? Puh-Lease. That statement proved he wasn't really Senegalese at all. He's from Dakar. Dakar is not Senegal.
And I've lost track of my original purpose for mentioning the school. Woops.
Once the school is actually built, with the well and latrines and all, I have a pretty good in with the teachers and hope to talk about using the latrines, washing hands with soap and other hygiene subjects. It's a big problem in my village, one I'd like to address more forcefully with those that may be more open to my advice and knowledge than the adults who are so ingrained in the ways of 'It's Africa. It is how it is.'
Will also, with the help of my friend and closest fellow volunteer, Julia, be working with the middle school to do what is called the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship which provides money and supplies to one deserving middle school girl student. So that will be going on in the next three months as well.
Then to my sister's wedding!! After which I'll have less than a year to go: the much awaited moment when I can say I have less time ahead than behind and check off months as the 'last _____' of my service.
The last year has taught me a lot about life, myself and how development aid does[n't] work. It's a real eye opener. While perhaps - if given the chance and foresight - I would not have made the same decision two years ago to apply to Peace Corps, I cannot and will not say that this has been a waste of time or that it has all been a big mistake. Perspective is everything. Looking back a year I see myself as I was and how I am now and I am not the same. Being here gives me a new vision of the world and how I want to spend my life (globe hopping as a foreign service officer is now not on the table. Having to move and settle then move again every 2-3 years sucks. I'd like to have a home, not a home of the moment) as well as a new sense of my limits and capabilities.
So, here is to another 13 months. May there be more highs than lows and more work to fill my days.
Cheers!
Christine
