March 9 marks one year in Senegal.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what I’ve learned and accomplished here in the last year – easy to do, with such an anniversary approaching, and with so much idle time in village to think. So here’s the culmination of that – I guess a sort of “State of my Service” address.
I remember staging, at a Holiday Inn in DC, all of us dressed in “business casual” clothes, sitting at round tables in a conference room. We sized up our new companions, soon to be close friends, and formed first opinions. We went over the rules of Peace Corps and performed short skits to illustrate them. We drew up, on butcher paper, our most pressing worries – bugs, disease, the heat, language barriers, homesickness. We signed papers and were shuttled around for mass injections, and we split into groups for the all-important “last dinner in America!” I remember eating lasagna and drinking a cold beer – I think a Sam Adams. A lot of people were nervous about leaving, but I’d had a figurative foot out the door since I turned in my application – the previous 8 months had just been me idling on the runway, waiting for the green light. In retrospect, I should have valued my own country more during that period – been a bit more mindful each time I drove my car, or drank a latte, or took a hot shower, or ate dinner with my family. Eric told me to appreciate the present. But I was too impatient.
Pre-Service Training wasn’t too bad. All 46 of us were going through the same adjustments at the same time, from the moment we stepped off the plane into the humidity of pre-dawn Dakar. We could stumble through boring training sessions, cultural faux pas, local language exams, and harassment in the streets, and talk about it over beers in the evening. We were in the same place. We complained, but were assured by more experienced PCVs that life would improve dramatically after Swear-In.
There are a few memories from the past year that haven’t faded. One of these (as it probably is for most PCVs) is the moment the Peace Corps car drove away and left me in my village. I was standing in my new hut, surrounded by my luggage. My mattress was rolled up in a corner. The two Peace Corps staff members that had installed me shook my hand, wished me good luck, and ducked out. Rachel, the next Volunteer to be installed, hugged me and followed them back outside. I heard the engine start up, then fade away. I stood there in the hut for a while, just kind of staring at the door, then walked out into my back yard. I peered over the nearest fence, and saw a horse ambling by not five feet away from me. Cows grazed in the background. That’s when it really hit me: I live here now. I live in a village. In Africa. Who does that, really? To be honest, I experience that “I live in Africa?!” moment every few weeks, triggered by something as normal as biking into village or walking down to the boutique to buy bread. It’s pretty amazing, if I do say so myself, and is worth being reminded of. But anyway. Ahem.
I wish somebody had warned me that the first few weeks, and even months, in village would be the hardest of my service. This seems to be the case with most people, as I found out later. All I’d heard before, though, was how great life after install was. So when I found myself having a really hard time, I felt like something was wrong with me – that Peace Corps was not, after all, something I could succeed in. And that, of course, made me feel even worse. Language learning was difficult, I didn’t like the food, I thought I was being pressured to do more than I felt comfortable doing, and I was just sitting around, not allowed and not capable of doing any real work. I was a useless toubab dropped off in this village for their entertainment. And let’s not forget the heat: being installed in the middle of hot season meant that most days found me lying miserably in my hut, sweating through my clothing and my three-inch foam mattress, fanning my face and hoping for a sudden civil war (or something along those lines) so that I could go home. I remember wanting so badly to call my parents, but then knowing that as soon as my mom picked up the phone, I would immediately start bawling. Which is not something I felt very proud of.
It did get better, though. Obviously; I’m still here. And this is something I’ll be sure to tell the next stage before they install: don’t tear yourself down. It will really, really suck at times. It may even suck for months on end. But 5 months in, or 6, or 7, you’ll start to get it. Senegal will become your home, not just some assignment. The things that frustrated you so much in the beginning – the harassment, being the center of attention everywhere you go, the lack of electricity or water or toilet paper or vegetables – those things will just fade into the background, still there, still frustrating at times, but a fact of life. And the things that you overlooked in the beginning while you were so focused on the bad stuff, those things will start to make an impression on you. The generosity of people here, the street food culture, the amazing colors and designs in every outfit, the eagerness of children who just want to say hello and shake your hand, their delight when they find you can speak their own language. Sure, there are teachers in Senegal who don’t care about the students… but that just makes it even better when you meet one who does, and who wants to work with you. Sure, you may get yelled at by five people on the way to the store, but you forget about that when you meet one who wants to practice English with you. It’s the little triumphs that start to add up. I would also add – and this is something that I have more recently realized – your service is your own. You will have friends that are able to integrate seamlessly into village life, speak their language fluently, and work tirelessly in the fields. That wasn’t, and will never be, me. I’m ok with that now. I no longer compare myself to my peers. My service is what I make of it, and if I am satisfied with what I am doing, then it’s all good. Everyone deals with this experience differently, and I would argue that just staying here at all is quite an achievement.
So, what exactly have I accomplished in the past 12 months? I’ve done some “real” work, yes. But my biggest successes have not been the grants I’ve written, or trainings I’ve attended, but what I have learned about how to exist in Senegal. Not just survive, but how to make this country my home, and how to preserve my spirits and sanity. In lieu of a long list of random facts like “proper appreciation of leaf sauce” and “merciless bargaining skills,” I’ll just refer back to the last paragraph. Tolerance, patience, and a dry sense of humor: those are my West African survival tools. Those, and a set of realizations. The realization that work here does not come easily, that the things we take for granted in America are often absent, and a failed project is not a failure but a lesson. The realization that although there are aspects of life here that are depressing and disturbing, obsessing over them helps no one. We must register the bad, embrace the good, and do the best we can with what we have. I was never one of those (possibly mythical) “I’m-going-to-save-the-world” Peace Corps types, but I still needed to realize my own limitations, and accept them, and give myself credit for all I’ve managed to do so far. That includes the simple act of not quitting. The projects that I’m working on now, and those in the past that I’m proud to have participated in, are just icing on the cake.
So, there you are, a bit of a brain dump. I’m not sure I succeeded in organizing my thoughts very clearly, but that’s what I’ve got right now. I’m planning on doing another post soon, highlighting projects I’m involved in at the moment and doubtless including a few more shameless pleas for monetary support, so there’s something to look forward to!
Happy Anniversary, Senegal! Here’s to the next 14 months of life lessons and bean sandwiches.
